He and Obama seem to be on the same page regarding "spreading the wealth" around or, as the Pope says in this article "sharing the wealth".
“fundamental rights, including access to capital, services, educational resources, healthcare and technology”
Wait... all those things cost money. So people have a fundamental right to others’ money?
How does that fit with “do not covet or steal”?
We are supposed to help as individuals not at the point of a gun as part of a collective effort.
The opulence of the church, its real estate and its mega-Cathedrals are in stark contrast with the poverty of the world. Why doesn’t the pope practice what he preaches.
How much has the US spent on it’s war on poverty? 15 Trillion? How’s that working out???
Until the Catholic Church starts giving back the wealth it acquired through centuries of corruption and intrigue, and embraces the simplicity and humility it demands of its members, the Pope can go fly a kite.
I don't see anyone at the Vatican drinking out of paper cups.
??? The Pope doesn’t pay for the mega-salaries himself, does he?
Spiritual leader (seems to me) wants to “worry” too much about stuff not in his realm.
/”Yo, Peace (out)!” with the two fingers bumping chest.
Before the turn of the last century, Argentina was one of the 10 richest countries on earth. It was also a magnet for immigrants, many of whom joined the Catholic Church.
Today, it is firmly in the third world camp, despite being rich in resources and sparsely populated. Capitalism did not do that to Argentina, socialism did.
Pope Francis may be a fine man and a genuinely decent man. But if his prescription to inequality is really more socialism, then he's an economic idiot.
I wish he would knock it off already
Jesus never attacked the mega rich and advised that Caesar do something to redistribute out incomes.... He left it up to the individual and their conscience
by the way some of the mega rich like Gates do a pretty darn good job at making sure the poor have access to “capital” food education jobs medicine etc
Anyone ever watch “the Shoes of the Fisherman “..Anthony Quinn ??
I’m sure obama and his communist regime will find these comments quite useful.
Palin apologized to soon, I still don’t understand why she did that, unless she intends to run for office, then it was purely political.
BTW I love Sarah, but sometimes, she makes mistakes, and it should be pointed out, like the pope she is not perfect.
Any clegyman nominated for Man of the Year by Time has to have a lot of problems.
This current Pope is a product of neo-marxist “liberation” theology. At a time when Christianity need a poweful advocate for Christian moral values and a warrior against militant Islam, the College of Cardinals gave us a recycled crypto-marxist.
I really think this man IS the “Peter the Roman” of St. Malachy.
Wonder if the Pope is about to have the garage sale of all garage sales to aid the poor.
Oh, great! Now the HRC is a socialist organization....
If you read the book of Acts, the early believers sold everything they had and shared their wealth, but no one directed them to do so, only one account of (Godly)punishment was recorded because the two in question lied to the apostle and the Holy Spirit about what they had, not that they had anything or not.....
Equalizing wealth means that those who are successful are punished at the expense of those who won’t, can’t or don’t have the drive to succeed; net result is only the sharing of misery, not the sharing of wealth.
The good Pope needs to read the parables of the sowers and the vineyard workers, and the investment guys in the gospels. Ain’t no sharing being done there, from the words of Christ Himself...
Stick to the social issue, Holy Father, I humbly request. This notion of one limited pie that we all carve up is so poisonous and it is getting really old. Those who generate wealth and earn big salaries didn’t take the money from anyone. They created that wealth....they baked more pies that didn’t exist prior. With that great wealth in most cases comes jobs and opportunities for others and individual charity follows. The next natural disaster that happens will be followed up with millions of donations from the “greedy” wealthy Americans as usual.
As a Catholic, I generally like this Pope, but I would love to have a one on one conversation with him. I would like to ask him a question: “Our daughter has always attended private Catholic schools, to which we have paid tuition. She is about to attend a private Catholic high school next year, where her tuition will more than double (~$8500). Should we pull her out of Catholic school, and give that money to the poor—for whom in the big picture, the amount would not lift them out of poverty, nor would it change their lives much?”
Large numbers of Christians are being slaughtered every day in muslim countries throughout the world.
Obama is forcing America Catholics to endorse and support birth control, abortion and homosexual sex.
Christianity is under serious attack by governments in almost every western country.
Yet this Pope thinks the most immediate problem neeeding his attention is wealth redistribution?
I’m only here to read the comments of those brave / stupid enough to stick their necks out and defend the pope.
:)
The pope fails to make any genuine distinction between Western poverty (bad enough) and the poverty of the Third World (unimaginably terrible). But is it really true that absolute autonomy of markets and financial speculation are the driving reasons for poverty and inequality? People in places such as Congo, Burundi and Mozambique live under corrupt authoritarian regimes where crippling poverty has a thousand fathers none of them named capitalism. The people of Togo do not suffer in destitution because of some derivative scheme on Wall Street or the fallout from a tech IPO.
The global elite is becoming even further removed from everyone else. The solution, though, isn't easy. Global manipulation and bloated national governments are going to have to collapse first.