Posted on 12/03/2013 10:13:35 AM PST by armydoc
The Catholic Church's recent history of sympathizing with, and even supporting, Marxist progressivism is clear, sad, and indicative of a deeply irrational and anti-individual streak within the modern Church hierarchy. Catholics who care about the Church, its history, and its future -- and also about humanity, reason and freedom -- must stop making excuses for their current spiritual leadership's collectivist authoritarian impulses.
(Excerpt) Read more at americanthinker.com ...
Thank you, Black Elk
It’s on the Vatican’s own web site but we shouldn’t trust its accuracy. Check.
Thank you, Mrs. Don-o
Thank you, Dr. Sivana
The emphasis on communitarian concerns is not a recent perversion of renegade "liberation theologians," (though leftwing liberation theologians certainly exploit the false connection). You see anti-laissez-faire attitudes among some of the most conservative and traditional Catholics as well, who have championed distributism, falangism, corporatism, etc. as alternatives to both Marxist socialism and capitalism. Many libertarians falsely attribute any criticism of laissez-faire to Marxist influence, when in fact some of these ideologies boil down to advocacy of a kind of social order that predated capitalism and republican government.
Since it’s private property, any individual Catholic parish can post notices that firearms are prohibited. I have never seen this, however, not even in the more liberal parishes I’ve been to. The Vatican takes no official stance, although I’m sure they would prefer people come unarmed.
Especially the current pope...I'm waiting to see if he starts passing out his robes to the cold and needy...
When it's time for a little anti-Catholic red meat, though, the editors at AT don't seem to see any reason to not use a broad brush nor do the commentors on FR seem to mind joining hands with those who claim Jesus Christ is a fraud and all Christians, not just Catholic Christians, are drooling idiots taken in by the scam of Christianity.
I guess people who have sucked down revisionist history to the point they've never even heard of the violence and murder that Pinkerton's were guilty of while in the employ of poor little non-Capitalists like Dale Carnegie or what Baldwin-Felts was up to in Logan County W Va have also sucked down the current media machine command to go after the Catholic Church every way possible for opposing King Barry and not to let little things like the truth get in their way.
At least while folks who call themselves Conservative and Christian are solidly in the Obama camp when it comes to attacking Catholics and working hand in glove with anti-Christ cultists a good many folks who call themselves Liberal and Whatever who have long been blind enough to support Barry are waking up. With more people awake we may finally end up with folks who do more than complain and encourage infighting in their own ranks pushing back against Barry.
I'm sure the Chicago fascist crowd will finish running through the propaganda they used to spread the Klan in the twenties pretty soon, though, and we will then no doubt be entertained with articles rehashing the various dark conspiracies that were spread so effectively in Europe during the thirties.
At some point, all those conspiracy theories tie the evil Jooooz to the evil Papists and I'll be interested in seeing who thinks slanders and lies about Jews is acceptable religion forum fare the same way slanders and lies about Catholics are.
Seems like the American Thinker's keyboards have a special key that just types out the whole word "Marxism." Really, it's not enough now to wildly accuse people of being socialists? They have to be whole-hog Karl Marxists nowadays?
Religions don't translate or divide directly into secular ideologies. There's alway some remainder that resists such oversimplifications.
So Catholicism or Christianity or Judaism or Hinduism or Buddhism can't be reduced to laissez-faire capitalism in a simplistic fashion. They talk about different things and deal with matters that aren't reducible to economics or politics.
Only an idiot would conclude that that makes them Marxist.
It's like articulately rebutting those who are "against any form of hydration" while all around you, everybody is chin-deep in flood water. Who, what, is he actually reacting against?
Still, I'd be careful with the inferences.
Without, as I say, analyzing the whole 48,000 word Apostolic Exhortation --- only a couple of paragraphs of which dealt with economic generalities --- I will say this: since I first started looking at this stuff decades ago, I have noticed that people infer "the state" where popes are saying "society."
For instance,
None of these words means "the State." The social order, mankind, people, even nations, indicate civil society in all its dimensions, including myriad intermediary institutions: families, parishes, professional associations, businesses, nonprofits, labor organizations; philanthropic trusts, profit-making enterprises, fraternal and charitable societies, educators, entertainers, the news media,city-township-county governments, etc. etc.
In many "social justice" documents, particularly papal ones, you get a whole different sense if you consistently read the subject of the sentence, the subject of the "ought," as "society, not the state."
The mind is inspired by wide, exciting new vistas of -- the word is "subsidiarity."
A word I'd like to hear on a 50/50 basis with "solidarity.". Especially from Pope Francis.
This is certainly true. The Catholic Church was anti-capitalist in the 18th and 19th century because laissez-faire (classical liberalism) was associated with enlightenment secularism, and because the emergence of a wealthy business class challenged the power of Crown and Church alike.
To this day, a lot of traditional Catholics reject laissez-faire in favor of ideologies that more closely mirror medieval society's guild system and old social hierarchy. Distributism and Falangism are recent examples, as is the Patron system that has dominated Latin American societies.
I think it's important (for accuracy and honesty) to distinguish between the criticisms of capitalism and classical liberalism by traditional Catholics from those who use the Catholic communitarian tradition as a facade for warmed-over Marxism.
Ditto!
Unfortunately, Americans tend to think that their ideological classifications apply all over the world. They do not.
Catholicism prefers an "organic society" such as existed in the Middle Ages. From this perspective capitalism is radical and leftist. So is individualism, for that matter. The traditional Catholic Right views not the individual, but the family, as the basic unit of society, and sees in the individualism American Protestant conservatives swear by the philosophy responsible for all our contemporary decadence.
It wasn't a leftist, but a French right winger, who said "The individual is nothing; society is everything."
JP2, B16 and yes Francis have all spoken out against liberation theology. Francis was exiled to the far reaches of Argentina as a result.
Devout Catholics pray for their Pope, they don’t constantly criticise him like protestants do.
Some Popes are better than others.
You’re exactly right and the Church has made it 2,000 years with all different personalities and abilities from these popes.
A priest serving as a lackey and footstool of Kim Il Un (Comrade Baby Pork Fat) gives a whole new level of definition to the idea of the false "gods" whom the First Commandment requires us not to have before the one true God.
Thanks for the correction.
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