Posted on 05/26/2013 7:28:46 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
When Cardinal Bergoglio was first chosen as Pope, my immediate reaction was that, although he would probably not tamper with the Church’s views on sexual issues, he would likely move it to the left in terms of economic rhetoric. I based that to some small degree on his choice of name: Saint Francis is something of a favorite of progressives in the Church due to his vow of poverty and his love of animals. But even more important to me was the intellectual milieu out of which he came: Argentine populism, and his own public statements as a cardinal in support of those themes.
I was, of course, attacked by the Catholic left who were quick to denounce me for ignorance, (don’t I know that Francis Xavier was one of founders of the Pope’s Jesuit order), and arrogance (how dare you question the Pope’s Biblical exposition), inaccuracy (how could I, not a Spanish speaker, comment on the Cardinal’s economic homilies given in Spanish) and simple a lack of good will.
But I think subsequent events have borne out my initial impressions. The Pope has clearly identified Saint Francis as his inspiration, for example. Furthermore, I asked my friend Alejandro Chafuen, who is a native Argentinian, a theologian and an economist, to confirm my reading of the Pope’s homily about Zacchaeus. Zacchaeus is indeed referred to as a usurer and associated with foreign banking interests in the Cardinal’s homily, and used as a device to attack foreign bankers who insisted on having their loans repaid by Argentina, despite widespread public support for debt repudiation. But the actual gospel text declares Zacchaeus to be a tax collector, not a loan shark.
So the Gospel reading itself undermines any attempt to scapegoat market processes.
(Excerpt) Read more at forbes.com ...
I am a Baptist. I do not answer to the Pope or Catholic doctrine. If you wish to woo me, you must do so from Scripture, and I will gladly entertain such dialogue, and even some of the brighter lights of your own denomination would approve. But if you can only come at me with the mindless cudgel of your pet dogmas, I have better ways to spend my time.
I do know this. Every cultic operation with which I have either had contact or who has tampered with the lives of my loved one has used exactly this same argument. To question organization X, which claims divine authority for all it does, is to question the Holy Spirit, which you better not do or you can’t be forgiven. It doesn’t matter who X is or what X teaches. The pattern is always the same. Use fear and guilt to suppress criticism, even to the point of extinguishing honest private thought.
I’m past all that. But for some, fear of committing the unpardonable sin can become a full clinical neurosis/psychosis. It is extremely dangerous and irresponsible at a spiritual level to use it casually as a cheap device to lock out legitimate criticism of mortal, fallible, human authority.
But it is a free country, and I have no power to stop you from doing so. I advise against it for your own benefit, not just those unfortunates who might be unduly affected by it. It’s just friendly advise. Makes no difference to me whether to take it or not. It’s up to you.
Maybe in the simplest of terms. More accurately, we should consider where his wealth come from - loaning sharking, extortion, theft perhaps. The point is, the love of money consumed him, and he likely cared little what he had to do to acquire it.
More importantly, Zacchaeus realized his sins, repented before others, then asked and received forgiveness.
Mr. Bowyer, our Forbes "Contributor", like many, seem to have a difficult time separating wheat from tares, so to speak. His God and savior appears to be accumulation of wealth, and he seems to resent teaching that God expects us to help those less fortunate - as mentioned many times in scripture.
Jesus told his disciples, "I tell all of you with certainty, it will be hard for a rich person to get into the kingdom from heaven.
Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God."
I would even go so far as to say, until we know more about Pope Francis, Mr. Bowyer is bearing false witness; but likely true ignorance.
So much for Forbes as a reliable source for anything that requires historical context regarding the time of Christ.
Herod did the same thing the Romans did, they told those in charge of a city or province what the total they expected was and left it to the locals to come up with that amount of money or in kind tribute any way they liked. In Jerusalem, just like in Rome and almost all other provinces and cities, it was wealthy folks who bought the right to collect taxes by paying that lump sum up front then recovering their money and a profit however they liked. If someone failed to pay the tax collector, he told his superiors who were independent entrepreneurs and who had the legal authority to have their ownb armed men. If that wasn't sufficient, the person holding the right to collect taxes could petition the Roman authorities for military help or whatever the Romans thought was appropriate. Fairly often the Romans sent someone to investigate reports of unfair taxation practices and ended up taking the authority to collect taxes away from someone who was going too far and handing it over to someone else. There were also cities where the leading citizens and businessmen pooled their resources, paid the lump sum to get the right to control taxation, then put a minimum sales tax on things in their city to make it an attractive place to do business. Rome didn't care one way or another as long at they got the lump sum up front from the party who would be responsible for actually hiring tax collectors and collecting taxes. Sometimes Rome started the bidding for the collection rights at about 95% of what it thought was the right amount of taxation for an area and anyone could bid on the rights. In the more prosperous areas, several families were traditionally taking turns at having the right to collect taxes with there being no chance that anyone other than the old Roman families ever replacing them. Herod probably favored a few families or groups he wanted to win over.
Rome dictated a lump sum it wanted from a given area and it was up to the individual entrepreneurs or group of entrepreneurs how they got that money, produce, or labor, along with a profit. Zacchaeus is an extremely poor choice of examples for someone to use as a representative of a Marxist or Socialist state, or any sort of government at all in fact. Given the fact that Herod followed the Roman model and sold the right to collect taxes to individual capitalists. Zacchaeus was a shining example of Capitalism or Crony Capitalism in action, not Marxism or Socialism. He had to deliver a portion of the total the people with the right to collect taxes had paid and how much more than that he put in his own pocket was up to him.
Through the Eye of A Needle by Peter Brown (Princeton University Press, 2012) begins with a description of the minimalist system Rome used though out the Empire and other works attribute the military weakness of the later Eastern Empire to the fact that local businessmen often refused to collect taxes for the Emperor and therefore the Empire went without those revenues. When Constantinople fell, in fact, a group of the wealthy folks who survived were executed by the Muslim victor because they had refused to aid the Empire by collecting taxes for them and therefore were totally untrustworthy in the eyes of their new master.
Empire of Honour : The Art of Government in the Roman World by J. Lendon (Oxford University Press, 1997) discusses this same point regarding tax collection being a field where individual entrepreneurs often began to build their personal fortunes in greater detail. It also makes it clear just how minimalist the central government was prior to the fall of the Western portion of the Empire and how it remained hobbled in many ways by the fact it was dependent on capitalist approaches to government function right up until the fall of Constantinople.
A number of the lecture series available on-line from various universities also make this point about the :inefficient Roman tax system" in both their descriptions of the Roman Empire and in their descriptions of what various Kings were trying to reinstate in the Medieval period when they handled taxation much the same way. Their their nobles were told what they had to deliver and how they came up with that amount was left up to them.
Reading through comments about this very poorly researched article isn't glaringly obvious that the same folks who each interpret Scripture to suit their Self enjoy having history rewritten to suit their Self as well. Obviously, it never occurred to anyone to check whether the author of the article knew anything about the system of tax collection during the time in question because like the author, they didn't want facts to get in the way of yelling slanders at the Pope and Catholics. Sticking to the facts and the truth wouldn't make the point the author wanted to have as his truth, so he made up a new truth to support his version of Scripture and lots since that "truth" sells, it's the new "truth" for the Self Alone volk.
That's the way Self Alone works across the board. It infects everything, not just the interpretation of Scripture. Whatever twisting and revising of reality it takes to sell a personal interpretation of Scripture that suits your own, Most High and Holy Self, do the twisting and revising then move on to the next slander, half-truth, or lie fast as you can exactly like Martin Luther said to.
Why do there have to be these cults of personality. That seems to obscure the Father’s will quite a lot. Fine if this pope chooses to live frugally and if he loves animals. Skip the customary opulence and bless every dog and cat in Rome. But to build a whole lefty cult around him?
This sort of question begging railing of Roman Catholics at Evangelicals/Protestants, and sometimes vice versa, probably isn’t going to go away any time soon.
“Are you saying that the Holy Spirit is wrong here? That’s a sin! An unforgiveable one, to boot!!”
LOL! I’m not Christian - already damned in your eyes, I suppose.
Like I said, no dog in this fight, but my wife is Catholic and I try to follow the historical trajectory of this stuff for that reason (and the historical trajectory leaves a great deal of questionable goings-on to comment about, quite frankly).
I suppose outside objectivity has no place in such discussions - just as is obviously the case with Islam - so I’ll just offer my apologies, await my eternal damnation as you have specified, and let those of you who know better squabble it out among yourselves.
Maybe you just need A Rood Awakening. Particularly, The Jonah Code or The Great Secret of Solomon's Temple
If any regard, continue the pursuit of truth, and like Zacchaeus, maybe the Messiah will find you.
:)
RE: I never mentioned their belief in “ex cathedra”.
I was referring to this statement: “The Pope is never in error, regardless of subject matter.”
Papal infallibility (or speaking ex cathedra) does NOT mean the Pope is never in error regardless of subject matter.
Inerrancy as it refers to the Pope states that by virtue of the promise of Jesus to Peter, the Pope is preserved from the possibility of error “when, in the exercise of his office as shepherd and teacher of all Christians, in virtue of his supreme apostolic authority, he defines a doctrine concerning faith or morals to be held by the whole Church”.
A personal opinion by a Pope about economics does not apply and therefore is not necessarily infallible.
Correct. Some people get the words “infallible” and “impeccable.”
RE: which is NO admission that he had defrauded anyone,
I was not the one who used the word “defraud”, I was simply quoting the English Standard Version. Here it is:
“Behold, Lord, the half of my goods I give to the poor. And if I have defrauded anyone of anything, I restore it fourfold.”
The NASB also used the word “defraud”, so does the New Revised Standard Version, so does the RSV Catholic edition.
Here is the NIV translation:
“And if I have cheated anybody out of anything, I will pay back four times the amount”
The Living Translation also used the word “cheated”, so does the Amplified Bible.
Papal infallibility (or speaking ex cathedra) does NOT mean the Pope is never in error regardless of subject matter.
Inerrancy as it refers to the Pope states that by virtue of the promise of Jesus to Peter, the Pope is preserved from the possibility of error “when, in the exercise of his office as shepherd and teacher of all Christians, in virtue of his supreme apostolic authority, he defines a doctrine concerning faith or morals to be held by the whole Church”.
As I stated before, my statement “The Pope is never in error, regardless of subject matter” wasn't a statement about ex cathedra.
A personal opinion by a Pope about economics does not apply and therefore is not necessarily infallible.
Maybe you'd like to explain why so many Catholics are not only compelled to support his socialistic "opinion", but support that socialistic opinion on a conservative website?
Maybe you'd like to explain why so many conservatives are so at odds with living the Gospel with respect to Charity and Human Dignity, instead if just giving it lip service. No one can bluff their way into heaven.
" “When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, he will sit on his glorious throne. All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate the people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. He will put the sheep on his right and the goats on his left.
“Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.’ “Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?’
“The King will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’
“Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. For I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, I was a stranger and you did not invite me in, I needed clothes and you did not clothe me, I was sick and in prison and you did not look after me.’
“They also will answer, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or needing clothes or sick or in prison, and did not help you?’
“He will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me.’
“Then they will go away to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life.” - Matthew 25:31-46
Peace be with you
I get the impression with some that it’s okay for them to criticize their Pope, but woe to the non-Catholic Christians (A.K.A. anti-Catholics) if any of them dare to do so. It borders on hyper-defensiveness.
Maceman wrote:
Pope Francis supports tyranny and the suppression of human liberty by leftist tyrants. He thus supports those who would enslave humanity, and thereby surrenders his claim to any moral authority whatsoever.
God. Damn. Him.
Were the cardinals led by the Holy Spirit when they elected Rodrigo Borgia (Alexander VI) - the majority of whom he bribed to get their votes and to wink at his debauchery? Alexander VI was not even the worst Pope but there were several that came before and after him. Maybe it's not an issue of thinking the Holy Spirit is wrong, but that the Roman Catholic Church is.
We can't have that. If you mean that God dmans Pope Francis, I would suggest that you are wrong. Else, I would suggest that you take a long hard look in the mirror and see what the ruler of this world has wrought in his image.
Suppose that the elected Popes were SUPPOSED to be in the place that they were. That is a rather interesting supposition, is it not?
Sorry (not). What the world doesn't need now is s moral leader who actively supports the evil doctrine of central economic planning. It is wrong on so many levels, and against God's natural laws.
It is disgusting. I am not perfect by any means. but I do not advocate evil while claiming infallibility and masquerading as a force for good. What Francis advocates has nothing to do with God, and everything to do with Satan. He is a disgrace.
Central economic planning? Sonny boy, you are wrong on at least three different levels.
The Pope rightly views that the love of money is root of much evil. God is good. All other things are lesser and/or evil. The use of money as a tool in order to accomplish something is laudable and fits well within the Pope’s vision. The pursuit of money as an end in itself is a sin and abomination, to be publicly condemned,
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