Evangelii Gaudium:

Is the Pope a Communist?

The Apostolic Exhortation started out as a beautiful directive on Catholic Evangelism, but then turned to grand social planning and central control on a global scale. 

Vic Biorseth, OWM; Wednesday, December 04, 2013
https://www.catholicamericanthinker.com

I vaguely remember Rush Limbaugh commenting on this, almost in passing.   At the time, I dismissed it; I didn't think it was any big deal, and I'll tell you why.   On at least two previous occasions Pope Francis made some "controversial" comments in interviews or off-the-cuff conversations and they were jumped on, miss-quoted, de-contextualized and propagandized by our disgusting SLIMC¹ in their never-ending "ends-justify-the-means" behind-the-scenes dual mission to oppose our religion and our country, and to promote a new world government.

You can look at the Mainstream Media pages to see why none of us should ever trust anything "Journalism" reports at face value.  In both previous examples, the media had lied again.  The Pope was not about to bless homosexuality or change any doctrines.  So this time, when Rush spoke of this Papal letter, which he called "pure Marxism" he also also left the door open to the possibility that what had been presented had been massaged by our Leftist media.  I just assumed the media had done what the media always does, and I didn't look into it any farther.  I should have, but I didn't.  So shoot me. 

Then I published the Catholic Evangelism page, and very quickly had to respond to the thought provoking and challenging comments of John from Wyoming PA, and I had to look into basic evangelism and Church teaching, and - You just put in a few related words into your favorite search engine, and Rush's remarks regarding Evangelii Gaudium are all over the place.  There's more out there on Rush than there is on the Pope.  Most of it is Leftist "See, I told you!" and "Now we've got him!" and "Finally, Global Government has a chance!" kind of stuff.  A media celebration. 

What was even more of a surprise to me was that the letter was even about evangelism, a subject of great interest to me, so much so that if I had known what it was about I would have read it already.  So, after responding to John, I downloaded it and read it.  No small task; it's a 224 page PDF file.  But I love Francis' writing style; it's an easy read. 

Evangelii Gaudium begins as a beautiful and eloquent treatment of the call to evangelism.  There is quite a concentration on the joy of being Catholic, and passing that joy on through evangelizing efforts.  To "draw" the person into the joy of the Church.  He stressed the "mission" of going forth, out to and beyond the boundaries of parish and diocese, to concentrate as much on the non-Catholic as the fallen away, and to emphasize the joy and "mission" rather than " ... ecclesial structures which can hamper efforts at evangeliszation, ... " at which point my concern light began to blink. 

He dreamed of a renewal of the organization of the Church, top down, to make pastoral activity more "inclusive and open" to inspire pastoral workers to elicit a positive response from whomever they would come into contact. 

He discussed this at the parish level, the diocesan level and finally the papal level.  Here, he sought an increase in "collegiality", and on the need for the Church to "elaborate" on the issue of doctrinal authority more in the spirit of collegiality, saying that "Excessive centralization, rather than proving helpful, complicates the Church's life and her missionary outreach."  At which point my concern light began a steady glow. 

The successor of Peter, who holds the keys, is supposed to confirm his brothers and hold the reigns of the Church Militant, as shown in the Lord's special prayer for Peter.  The pure bureaucracy of the ruling Roman Catholic hierarchy is the most perfect organization possible for the Church.  Indeed, it may be the only bureaucracy that exists for good in the world.  We quoted Ludwig Von Mises' Bureaucracy in which he indicated that the perfect Roman Catholic bureaucracy was the model early Marxists most sought to emulate in their creation of their imagined perfect world order. 

The problem with that was and remains that the Roman Catholic Church is the only massive, pure bureaucracy that can succeed on anywhere near that large a scale, and reason for that is all tied up in mission.  The mission of the Marxist Revolutionary is to rule, whether it be a nation or the world.  The mission of the Church, besides preaching the Gospel to all nations, is to protect an immutable, unchanging, sacred Creed, forever, or until He comes again.  For that reason, Mises pointed out, the Church tends to raise only the most conservative members to the purple, and they in turn tend to elect the most conservative Popes. 

The proof is in the pudding.  The Roman Catholic Papacy is the oldest, uninterrupted, continuously existing human institution on earth today, by a huge margin. 

From there on, until about paragraph 53, it seemed to be softening of evangelical approach and message, but not necessarily action.  It seemed to me to be a turning from the "shake the dust" instruction of our Lord to His Apostles (Matt 10:14, Mark 6:11, Luke 9:5), saying, rather, let's smile and try again. 

And I had a bad feeling in my stomach as this reminded me of the infamous Cardinal Bernardin and his "seamless garment" approach to vice, in which abortion was a sin, yes, but so was the existence of a hungry person somewhere in the world, and both were equally evil.  A social blending of all sin into one big box and treating them all the same, under the theme of promoting the new Marxist theme of "Social Justice." 

And then it got worse. 

His Holiness spoke of an "economy of exclusion and inequality," saying that such an economy "kills."  He lamented that a homeless person dieing of exposure not being a newsworthy item, but the stock market changing two points was newsworthy.  But, where are these people being "excluded," and by whom?  Another way to ask the same question is, what nations and under what forms of government are these excluded homeless people all dieing in the streets?  Did a free market do this to them, or did a centrally planned economy do it, or a greedy dictatorship, or a corrupt government? 

The automatic assumption seems to be Capitalism, which is not even a system, but a synonym for a free market, with participants at liberty to prosper from the work of their own hands.  He attacks those who "defend trickle-down theories" as defending theories that have never been proven, and that is just false.  They have indeed been proven, again and again. 

Just look at the story of Hong Kong, at the beginning of the Population Problem page.  Read the historically accurate story of American Colonial Communism to see how under the previous "collective" economic approach, everyone was dieing due to trickle-down redistributionism starvation, and how all that changed and everyone was prospering under a free market, i.e., natural Capitalism.  Study the underlying philosophy of the Little Red Hen story to see how collectivism and redistributionism produces only poverty. 

We are already seeing how collectivism kills right here in America with the bare beginnings of Obamacare, which is a government controlled redistribution of both health care itself and health care insurance.  In all likelihood people have already died, and many, many more will die, due to the critically ill

• losing their doctors,
  
• losing their health care facilities,
  
• being required to start treatment procedures all over again,
  
• not being able to,
  
• and losing their insurance coverage.  

That's trickle-down collectivism, redistributionism, central planning and government control of things government is not even properly qualified to address.  It kills.  And it kills massively.  But with the best of intentions. 

His Holiness then quoted St. John Chrysostom, as follows:

With my poor research skills, I have been unable to find the original source of this quote, whether from a homily, letter or whatever, and so the surrounding context is lost to me.  (If you know the context, I hope you will enlighten me.)  Taking it just as it says - again with no surrounding context - this idea is so blatantly, obviously and glaringly wrong as to be stupid. 

If I save a penny and my neighbor does not save one, and I do not share my penny with my neighbor, how on earth does that equate with stealing from him?  When was it ever his?  When did he ever earn it, or possess it? 

Pope Francis has fallen victim to the century-and-a-half old systematic Marxist demonization of wealth = profit = expendable income = remaining revenue after expenses = money not needed for survival = a penny saved = private property. 

Marxism, you will recall, stupidly envisions wealth as a "fixed pie" in need of being equally divided up, when in truth it is a dynamic rather than static ever changing phenomenon.  The alluring false ideology of Marxism is that it seeks to help the poor and feed the hungry.  In point of fact, this ideology is fatally flawed, for it will kill the goose that lays the golden eggs.  But it's a false ideology to begin with, treacherously designed to recruit Useful Idiots to the cause.  The real but hidden goal of Marxism is and always was the seizure of political power, pure and simple. 

When has Marxism ever fed anyone? 

His Holiness then says "No to the inequality which spawns violence," saying, and probably actually believing, that it is the poor, not the Marxist Revolutionaries, not the Moslem Zealots, and not anyone else with any ulterior motive, who are just naturally aroused to violence, and they are aroused to violence solely by social "exclusion" and "inequality" in possessions, and in lacking "equal opportunity" to accumulate possessions. 

Is it inequality which spawns violence, or is it Marxist Revolution and Islamic Revolution that are spawning violence all over the world today?  Evangelii Gaudium says it is inequality, but not as we think of inequality in Constitutional America.  What we mean is equality of all men before the law.  What His Holiness means is equality of stuff; equality of wealth; a form of equality that is impossible and unachievable as a simple matter of practical fact. 

In paragraph 190 he states that

Wrong. 

Again, I refer you back to the story of Hong Kong in the Population Problem page.  They had less natural resources than anyone anywhere, including Bangladesh.  It was not resources that made Hong Kong quite suddenly prosperous and an economic lion, and it is not the lack of resources that keeps Bangladesh in poverty.  It is the simple difference between a liberated people living in a free market, and an overly-governed people living in a more centrally controlled market.  Note well that Hong Kong had (and has) a higher population density than Bangladesh, and less natural resources than Bangladesh.  Natural resources and industrialization have nothing whatsoever to do with it. 

He goes on to point out the "scandal" that there is enough food for everyone and hunger is the result of poor distribution of goods and income.  

No it isn't. 

Food and income are not created to be distributed; they are created to be consumed, or saved, which is how new wealth is created.  Hunger is the result of not creating your food, if you're a farmer or rancher.  Lack of income is the result of not earning income, if you're a worker.  Widespread, as in national or regional hunger and poverty is almost certainly the result of over governed or corruptly governed people, and nothing else.  If the people were free to make wealth, they would create it.  Out of virtually nothing, as the people of Hong Kong did.  Only people make wealth, when they are at liberty to do it.  Governments don't really distribute wealth, and they certainly don't create it; governments only take wealth from the people and then consume it. 

He then talks about the need to resolve the "structural causes of poverty" which he clearly sees as Capitalism, or the existence of a free market.  What it appears that he fails to see is that Capitalism is not a system of man, but a phenomenon of liberty.  It just comes into being where men are free.  It is a purely economic thing, not something that can be planned or controlled or even gotten rid of, short of enslaving people. 

He prays for politicians, financiers and giant programs aimed at equal "distribution" of income, dignified jobs, health care, education, and every other thing that Marxism has always falsely promised will come with the institution of the great International Communist Utopia - worldly perfection; a man-made heaven on earth. 

Marxism promotes the most successful, seductive lies ever told. 

Or at least since the Garden of Eden. 

When his exhortion turns to relations with Islam, he again shows that he is miss-informed or dis-informed about the true nature of Islam, when he says:

No they are not. 

All the Koran's violent verses instructing disciples to either convert us all to the religion of Islam, subjugate us all under Islamic law, or kill us all, were the later verses, after the flight to Medina, abrogating and replacing all the earlier more peaceful verses written at Mecca.  Ask an Imam.  Violent jihad is preached in virtually every Mosque on earth; all good Moslems will, at the very least, give moral support and not oppose terrorist acts done in the name of jihad.  That's just the way it is. 

I did find a lot of really good stuff in this document.  I especially appreciated the "Person to Person" treatment beginning around paragraph 127, because that is my favorite area of evangelism.  I like dialogue; even when the discussion is one in which I might be "preaching to the choir" often others hear and join in, and when not, then two of us have our own faith reinforced a little.  Probably 90% of Evangelii Gaudium was good evangelism, maybe 60% to 70% of great value to us laymen, all of it good for clerics. 

But then there was that remaining 10% or so dedicated to the opposition to liberty, free markets, private property and the call to demolish a man-made system that simply doesn't exist, which would be, Marx's demonized Capitalism.   I'm sorry, but for me, that 10% completely overpowered the rest of the message. 

(If you want to see a good model of natural Capitalism at work, read the "I, Pencil" page.)

So where does that leave us?  There has been no doctrinal change, and there will not be one, regarding the ordering of socioeconomic, political and governmental orders, because that is an area completely outside of the Sacred Deposit of Faith.  A call to support Marxism would be invalid, because it would be a new doctrine, and not even the Pope can create a new doctrine. 

Note well that in the section titled "The Church's teaching on social questions", in paragraph 184, he stated this:

I said as much in The Pope on Globalism, in which I vehemently disagreed with Benedict XVI on his call for a movement toward a new global government.  But we American Catholics have to recognize that we have a real problem here in the Catholic hierarchy, and this latest Papal Exhortation highlights the fact that the problem is not just with a majority of American Bishops.  It goes to Rome. 

In one of the recent Michael Voris videos he stated that some 80 American Bishops had issued statements or signed letters opposing the unconstitutional, anti-Catholic and anti-American programs of President Obama.  But there are some 320 American Bishops; where were the other 220 or so?  Why did they not all sign on?  In the same video, he said one unnamed Bishop was confident that more than half of America's Bishops actually voted for Obama. 

If that's true, it shows in the laity numbers, because some 53% of American Catholics voted for Obama. 

We have multiple Bishops and a Cardinal pushing to actually canonize the Catholic Communizer Dorothy Day, and make her a saint.  We have virtually the whole U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops pushing the Saul-Alinsky - invented Catholic Campaign for Human Development, as you can see in the Lucifer and the CCHD page.  It helped Obama to get elected. 

So you see, we've got more of a problem than just with the Marxocrat and Republicrat Parties.  Princes of the Church have bought into all the false "global problems" needing "global solutions" and "sustainable development" and "Social Justice" and all the crap that is coming out of the steady advance of Scientism and the advance of the Eco-Nazi Movement.   

As far as the Papacy is concerned, I feel less threat from there than I do from the USCCB.  We have had all sorts of bad Popes.  Alexander VI, spoken of in the slavery page,  is probably the Pope we Catholics are least proud of, to put it mildly.  He was certainly the most scandalous Pope; but, like all the others, he never taught error on faith and morals, in his official capacity as Pope.  Nor did he ever institute any new binding teaching from outside the original Revelation.  It will be the same here. The Pope is protected from that kind of error, by the Holy Ghost Himself. 

Remember this: infallible does not mean impeccable. 

I'm afraid it is true - Pope Francis is a Marxist. 

George Soros is probably celebrating.  So is Bill Ayers, Francis Fox Piven, and especially, Comrade President Obama, peace be upon him. 

We will get through this, and we will be stronger for it. 

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Sarcastic Acronym Hover-Link Footnotes: For the convenience of those readers using devices that lack a mouse, these footnotes are provided for all webpages, in case any webpage contains any hover-links. (If you don't have a mouse, you can't "hover" it over a link without clicking just to see the simple acronym interpretation. Click any footnote link to see the acronym and a detailed explanation; "Hover" the mouse over it just to see the simple interpretation.)

SLIMC¹ Secularist Liberal Intellectual Media Complex
GESGOEAEOT² Gradually, Ever So Gradually, Over Eons And Eons Of Time
PEWAG³ Punctuated Equilibrium's Wild-Assed Guess
TTRSTF⁴ Them There Real Scientifical-Type Fellers
TTRSPTF⁵ Them There Real Smart Perfesser-Type Fellers
TTRSJTF⁶ Them There Real Smart Journalistical-Type Fellers
SNRTACBT⁷ Surely No Right Thinking Adult Could Believe Today
STNSEACPB⁸ Surely Today No Serious Educated Adult Could Possibly Believe
WDN⁹ We Don't Know
BMDFP¹⁰ Baboons, Mongrel Dogs, Filthy Pigs and ...
HBAACOTE¹¹ Human Beings Are A Cancer On The Earth
ACLU¹² Anti-Christian Litigation Union
FLORMPORIF¹³ Flagrant Liar, Or, Mindless Parrot, Or, Innocent Fool
MEJTML¹⁴ Marxist Ends-Justify-The-Means Liar
IEJTML¹⁵ Islamic Ends-Ends-Justify-The-Means Liar
MPAV¹⁶ Marxist Principles And Values
WBESSWG¹⁷ Wise, Benign, Elite, Super-Scientific World Governance
TRMITM¹⁸ The Reason Man's In This Mess
IYI¹⁹ Intellectual Yet Idiotic
TTRSCBTF²⁰ Them There Real Smart Catholic Bishop Type Fellers
IACMPVND²¹ Illegal-Alien-Criminal Marxocrat-Party-Voting Nation-Destroyers
PEJTML²² Palestinian Ends-Justify-The-Means Liar
PSYOP²³ "Psychological Operation" Mind Trick
CDC²⁴ Covid Developmentally Challenged
LGBTQ+ Every Letter Represents A Serious Psychotic sexual Identity Disorder
HEJTML²⁶ Hedonist Ends-Justify-The-Means Liar
SEJTML²⁷ Scientistic Ends-Justify-The-Means Liar

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Date:  Fri Dec 06 07:47:21 2013
From:  JJ
Email:   
Location:  
Comment: 

You claim to be Christian, but you are denying Christian charity.  The rich young man was told to sell everything and give to the poor, which is a directive to commit yourself to a life of charity.  You oppose that Christian teaching.  Also, the early Christians held all things in common, which is a denial of private property.  They lived in the very sort of  "collective" you demonize as communism.  Now you attack the pope for his charity and his call to communal living for all. 

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Date:  Fri Dec 06 08:43:41 2013
From:  Vic Biorseth
Comment:  

JJ:

Ho hum, heavy sigh and here we go again.  I have previously responded to these same two fallacies wherever they were presented by multiple commenters, on multiple webpages, scattered all over this website.  Please pardon my exasperation, but it does get tiresome after about a hundred times. 

First, the Rich Young Man, written about in Matt 19:16-30, Mark 10:17-31 and Luke 18:18-30, did not represent a call to modify all of society; it was a call to the priesthood.  It followed the familiar "follow me" pattern Jesus used to call the Fishermen, the Tax Collector, and all of His Apostles.  Note that he was calling them all out of the larger secular society, and into His inner circle. 

Second, re the denial of private property, written about in Acts 2:44-47 and Acts 4:32-26, again, represented this same inner circle, not all of society.  Everywhere the Apostles went, they established "Churches," which were, in essence, communities of believers with a core of preachers at the center, who no longer lived normal lives, but lived for the Gospel.  Just as Jesus had called the Apostles to give up everything follow Him, the Apostles called priests and deacons to give up everything and follow Jesus.  Those who responded to the call gave up everything, and "held everything in common." 

These communities lived off of the largess of the larger believing community, which was not any sort of collective or commune.  It was people who still went about the normal business of earning a living in various ways. 

Think about it, JJ.  Once a group of people separate themselves from the world and hold everything in common, what happens when all the goods they all hold in common run out?  Everybody still needs to eat every day.  The whole underlying lie of the infamous Ponzi-Scheme is that people who contribute to the scheme are paid only by other new people coming in and contributing to the scheme.  It thus requires an endless procession of people coming in and contributing to the scheme.  When there are no more new contributors, the scheme collapses, and everyone finally recognizes that they have been fooled. 

The early Christian communities that held all in common were supported by tithes and by charity from the larger outside Christian community that still lived normal lives.  That means contributors of tithes and charity who still created wealth = a penny saved, out of which they could afford to be charitable. 

The fatal flaw in the thinking of Pope Francis, and all philosophical Communists, is that taxing for the purpose of redistribution equals charity.  It does not.  Charity is given freely, not forcefully taken by someone to give to someone else.  That is called stealing. 

Look around at where the homeless and the poor are cared for and sheltered and fed here in America, and you will see Christian organizations and individuals doing it, not godless Communists.  St. Vincent De Paul, the Salvation Army, various soup ktchens and food pantries are not run by any government groups.  They are run by groups that are opposed by the sitting government, and by the Marxocrat Party, in their larger opposition to all expressions of Christian faith in general. 

Regards,

Vic

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Date:  Fri Dec 06 08:23:11 2013
From:  James Stamulis
Email:   1spirlman@gmail.com
Location:  fort myers, Fl.
Comment: 

Great article. This new Pope is a big disappointment and seems to want to be loved by all rather than speak up for what is right. He says how great true Islam is but skips all the bad parts like butchering of Christians throughout the middle-east and the fact that women have little or no rights and that gays are sentenced to death in most Muslim countries. He ignores Marxist Obama's policies of attacking Christians in the military and all over the USA while bending over backwards for Islam and his support for the Muslim Brotherhood and Al Qaeda in Libya and Syria. Very sad.

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Date:  Sat Dec 14 09:18:53 2013
From:  Vic Biorseth
Comment:  

Everyone:

I just changed and punched-up wording here and there to emphasize the seductive nature of the Marxist lies re human society "evolving" into social perfection.  The people these lies are aimed at, and who may often be the most susceptible to them, are often the very best among us.  The most charitable, the most humble, the most caring. 

I simply don't want to leave the impression that Pope Francis is evil, or has evil intent. 

Any one of us can be deceived by a false or impossible and impractical ideal; and often the ones most easily deceived first are the very best among us. 

Perfection is not of this world, but the next. 

Regards,

Vic

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Date:  Tue Dec 17 06:21:19 2013
From:  Mark D. Brewer
Email:   
Location:  
Comment: 

What is your reaction to Francis' response to Rush:

"Marxist ideology is wrong. But I have met many Marxists in my life who are good people, so I don’t feel offended ... there is nothing in the exhortation that cannot be found in the social doctrine of the church." (From the Huffington Post)

Is he backpedaling or not?  Is the social doctrine of the Church really Marxist? 

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Date:  Tue Dec 17 07:14:51 2013
From:  Vic Biorseth
Comment:  

Mark:

Very puzzling.  If he is not Marxist, he has a very funny way of showing it. 

Go to the pull-quotes in this webpage.  Go to the original Evangelii Gaudium for the full context.  This is unmistakable Marxism.  It's right down the Communist Party line. 

Who might these unnamed Marxist "good people" be?  Che Guevara, perhaps? 

If, as he says, "Marxist ideology is wrong" then why does he claim that the Marxist ideology in his exhortation agrees with the social doctrine of the Church? 

This is me, being puzzled. 

Regards,

Vic

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Date:  Tue Dec 17 19:31:07 2013
From:  Vic Biorseth
Comment:  

(This is in response to a Priest and friend who stated that he would rather I not publish his submission on this webpage.  So I will try to briefly summarize what he said here and then respond to it as best I can.)

In summary:

1. I may be a little over the top on my accusations.  While I may be right in identifying certain points of contact between Apostolic Exhortation and Marxist economic theory, I should not label the Pope a "Communist" and a "Marxist." 
2. He denies being a Marxist, which faithful Catholics cannot ignore. 
3. This is close to labeling the Pope a heretic because true Marxists are heretics.
4. What we are called to do in the face of ambiguous Papal statements is to consider them "in the hermeneutic of continuity" as the Pope has done in his response to Rush.  We continuously correct ambiguities explaining the only legitimate interpretations, as understood in harmony with Magisterial teaching.  
   
5. Have I seen Pope Benedict's defense of Francis on Markets and Ethics at
   http://ethikapolitika.org/2013/12/16/benedict-defends-francis-markets-ethics/
6. We have to stay Catholic, resist the temptation to break with the Pope, or to make statements that could lead in that direction.  If we have legitimate criticisms based on doctrine and argued with documentation, we should operate strictly within the confines of the Church (not in the media or blogosphere.)  We can do this prudently and effectively, entering into communication with the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, and sending our concerns in carbon copy to trusted authorities (i. e., Cardinal Burke, for instance, and other solid theologians.)
   
7. The internal dialogue of the Church is where unity will be recovered. If we air our “dirty laundry” publicly (exposing doctrinal errors of higher ups), the enemies of the Church in the media take advantage, and the possibility of correction recedes even further. What we need to do is to be tenacious, but work within the Church, discreetly.

I think I got it all in there; I made the important points into a numbered list so that I could respond point by point.  Now, let me try to do that. 

1. If I should not label the Pope a Communist or a Marxist, then, what should I label him?  Certainly not a free market Capitalist, which would be the opposite.  The two labels should be (but are not) seen as near synonyms - Karl Marx, after all, authored the Communist Manifesto.  Communism is Marxism; Marxism is Communism.  The whole of Marxist theory involves opposition to private property and thus opposition to a free market.  It is collectivism, of everything, including, eventually, people.  
2. His Holiiness denies being a Marxist; just about every Marxist who is not in power in some Marxist dictatorship denies being a Marxist.  No American Marxist admits to being a Marxist.  The whole Democrat Party, and the whole of our mainstream media, deny being Marxist, but Marxist is what they overwhelmingly are. 
   
   Just to confuse the issue even more, as I have said in numerous places in this website, most "philosophical Communists" do not even know that they are Communists.  They have been fooled.  They have been subverted by a pie-in-the-sky promise of a better world where there is no hunger or poverty, but they have been indoctrinated or propagandized or whatever into a lie.  Their intentions are good, but their "world philosophy" is absolutely and completely impossible and completely impractical.  
3. It is not my intention to call the Pope any sort of heretic.  I doubt in the utmost that he is any sort of Revolutionary sort of Marxist, such as a Marx or a Lenin or an Obama.  What I believe is that he is a decent, soft-hearted, very kind and charitable man, whose heart weeps for the poor.  Perfect soil for planting the impossible "equality in all things" seeds.  He sows these seeds for equality, but the seeds will produce only envy, animosity, class warfare and eventual revolution, all unbeknownst to him.  
4. Re the hermeneutics of continuity, I haven't really seen any added on teaching from the Pope on this, other than the claim that he is not a Marxist, followed by the statement that his clearly Marxist statements were in accordance with the social doctrine of the Church.  At least one of these two contradictory statements has to be untrue; I'm still waiting for further explanation for this hermeneutic of continuity.  
5. Re Pope Benedict's defense of Pope Francis, I haven't studied the whole of the article in the link yet; I will go over it in detail.  Have you read my Opposing the Pope on Globalism in which I took issue with Pope Benedict's statements regarding turning the UN into a world governing organization?  
6. I will always stay Catholic and I have no intention of breaking with the Pope; but as far as going through the proper channels and keeping it within the confines of the Church - what can I say? 
   
   Been there; done that.  
   
   See the Refuting Perverted Catholicism pages, particularly all of the Cafeteria Catholic pages therein.  I complained to the Archbishop in question, who openly defended downright heretical teaching being done in his teaching institution in his name.  My complaints to the Congregation for the Doctrine and Faith (headed at that time by Cardinal Ratzinger) were not responded to at all.  For any layman, like me, keeping it within the confines of the Church is like beating a dead horse.  
   
   Also, I just heard that Pope Francis fired Cardinal Burke.  
7. As for "working within the Church discreetly," maybe you can do that, but no ordinary layman can do it and get anywhere, or even get so much as a response.  

Statements made in public should be expected to be responded to in public.  Any Apostolic Letter, Exhortation or Encyclical should always be expected to be discussed in public.  It's a public document.  It's important; it should be discussed. 

While I do not believe that the Holy Father is evil, anyone with eyes to see and ears to hear can recognize his strong Marxist leanings in his published, public words.  Go over the document yourself and see if this is not true.  The wording contains every overused Marxist cliche and hackneyed term demonizing wealth = profit = a penny saved = private property, and even attributing the wealth of wealthier nations to being lucky enough or blessed enough to have natural resources, and to have higher development, and so forth. 

Like, wealth is just something that happens, but that needs to be gathered and fairly divided up, equally, to everyone in the world. 

Pope Francis may be a towering expert on theology and doctrine, I don't know about that.  But his real-world, practical view of social orders, economics and politics is childish, and almost infantile. 

Which does not disqualify him as Pope. 

Regards,

Vic

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Friday, December 20, 2013.

On Bishop Conley's Article on Evangelii Gaudium:

This webpage has drawn a huge boatload of submissions from people who do not want to be identified and who do not want their comments to be published here in the normal way.  Let me remind everyone that you do not have to use your real name and you do not need to identify yourself in any way when you submit comments for publication here. 

Some of these comments refer to the letter of Bishop Conley of Denver in National Review Online, and I will try to respond here.  In an effort to keep things organized and not get drawn into multiple scatter-shot dialogues again (as happened before I eliminated the choice between private and public comments in favor of comments at the bottom of every webpage) I will address your other comments in three new future webpages, addressing:

1. Unfettered Capitalism (which His Holiness never mentioned.)
2. Trickle-Down economic theory.
3. Social Justice.

As each of these new webpages are completed I will come back here and turn the related above numbered items into hyperlinks to them.  For future comments here, again if you don't want to be identified, please just use a pseudo-name and don't supply your email or location.   If I get another one that says "please don't publish this" I just may delete it outright. 

Now, regarding Bishop Conley's article -

If I may quote from it,

This seems to be applying ecclesial terminology to economic entities.  Economists talk less about "justice" and "inclusiveness" than about the creation, destruction and distribution of wealth.  In a perfect world, there should not be anyone "wielding economic power," most especially, governments.  Of course, we don't live in a perfect world.  But I am not aware of anyone who views any economic system to be sacramental, or "sacralized." 

It might be important to note that a free market - i.e., Capitalism - is not a "system" constructed or controlled by anyone.  It is a natural phenomenon that comes about as a byproduct of human liberty.  It is not Capitalism, but the opposite of Capitalism, which is Socialism, in which an artificial or unnatural economic system is created and controlled by man. 

Note that the quoted paragraph above begins using the term "unregulated free markets."  This is a nonsensical term.  If you regulate a market, it is not free.  The more a market is regulated, the less of a free market it is, until it is totally regulated, and then it is Socialism, the exact opposite of an "unregulated" free market. 

The very following paragraph:

I submit that the " ... limited government regulation, even in mostly free markets, ... " should be government regulation of citizen criminal behavior, not of the larger economy or the free market.  Government regulation - civil law - should be developed and enforced to

1. Prevent and punish criminal behavior.
2. Support, lift and promote the Judeo-Christian Ethos and the high morality that springs from it.   That means, government encouragement of Judeo-Christian religion. 
   

A good people will live within the law, if it is representative law.  It is people who defraud, monopolize, lobby government for special economic favor, restrict competition, etc., all of which is (or should be) against civil law.  There should never be a need for government to fix prices, wages, profits, transport-costs, storage-costs, or any part of the free market.  Each of these areas, when "regulated," moves the free market toward Socialism. 

Of course, there will always be exceptions, because there will always be sinners.  If there were no sinners there would be no need for the Church. 

The next paragraph:

Referring to the free market as being a "dictatorship of an impersonal economy lacking in a truly human purpose" comes pretty close to rejecting a market theory.

Evangelli Gaudium referred to the idolatry of money, and criticized the " ... dictatorship of an impersonal economy lacking a truly human purpose."  Well, I'm sorry, but the free market has no "truly human purpose" as a whole, but only in so much as it affects each person in however he participates in the free market.  Again, it is not a "system" that can be controlled.  To the degree that is is controlled, to that same degree does it cease to be a free market, and to that same degree does it move toward and into Socialism, and Socialism, as an economic system, is fatally flawed, and it must and will ultimately fail. 

Between a free market and a Socialist economy, which raised the most people out of poverty, produced the most wealth, fed the most people, came to the aid of "the other" in time of need, produced the most charity, contributed the most to religion (especially to the Catholic Church), and produced the highest standard of living for all citizens?   History proves the success of the free market and the disaster of Socialism, again and again.  It isn't even close. 

All that Socialism produces is eventual mass poverty.  All of Marx's promises are false. 

Quoting again:

"But Pope Francis is not calling for an advent of socialist economic policy or radical income redistribution." 

Begging the Bishop's pardon, but, yes he is.  Evangelii Gaudium called for equal distribution of income, jobs, health care and education, all of which were listed by Marx in his Communist Manifesto. 

What can I say?  It is what it is. 

Regards,

Vic

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Date:  Sun Dec 22 10:58:11 2013
From:  Noname
Email:   
Location:  
Comment: 

Exactly where in the Communist Manifesto may I find any reference to equal distribution of income, jobs, health care or education? 

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Date:  Sun Dec 22 13:30:03 2013
From:  Vic Biorseth
Comment:  

Noname:

They are all touched on in Marx's Communist Manifesto, except for Health Care, which was addressed later by Lenin.  My mistake.  It was Lenin, not Marx, who declared Socialized Medicine to be "the keystone to the arch of the Socialist State."  The first act of the Bolshevik State after the Revolution was to nationalize health care, not out of any sense of mercy or kindness, but solely so as to centralize power over people and over doctors, who tended to be free thinkers.  Everything else is touched on in the manifesto. 

Note well the simple practical fact that, before something - anything at all - may be equally distributed, it must first be confiscated from whomever owns it.  There is no getting around this practical fact.  If you want to distribute something in equal measures to everyone on earth, first, you must gather it all, every bit of it, by force. 

Let's look at what Marx's Communist Manifesto says in part on these items the Holy Father wants to be equally redistributed:

"Equal income" is to be achieved by Item 2 above, "A heavy progressive or graduated income tax."  

"Equal jobs" are to be achieved by Item 8 above, "Equal obligation of all to work. Establishment of industrial armies, especially for agriculture" and by Item 9 above, "Combination of agriculture with manufacturing industries; gradual abolition of all the distinction between town and country by a more equable distribution of the populace over the country." 

"Equal education" is to be achieved by Item 10 above, "Free education for all children in public schools. Abolition of children's factory labor in its present form. Combination of education with industrial production, etc."

Of course, all of this is just the tip of an enormous iceberg here.  The whole overarching goal of the Manifesto is to create, in the minds of otherwise good men, the false bogeyman of the hated and despised Bourgeois "class" of men, who do not and did not even exist.  

The whole point of this revolutionary polemic it to promote a false history of the world, conjuring up an image of a secret, tight-knit, Bourgeoisie cabal of Capitalist Exploiters bent on enslaving the Proletariate, or "working class" and keeping them subservient, powerless and impoverished.  Enslaved, in other words.  The whole thing is false, but millions have been fooled by it, and it looks like the Holy Father is one of them. 

Regards,

Vic

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Date:  Wed Dec 25 13:50:11 SS 2013
From:  Vic Biorseth
Comment:  

Just for the record, Cardinal Wuerl is Pope Francis' replacement for Cardinal Burke, who was demoted from the Congregation for Bishops.  This is a very important post in that it is where the determinations are made regarding the selection of new Bishops.  Apparently, public sponsorship and political promotion of open abortion is not a dis-qualifier for receiving the Most Blessed Sacrament, either in the eyes of Wuerl or in the eyes of the Papal Nuncio.  Kerry, Sanger, Mengele - what's the difference?  All are God's children, are they not? 

This photo makes me wonder if that's why my complaints about the Cincinnati Archdiocese LPMP courses, years ago, were never so much as responded to. 

Merry Christmas. 

Regards

Vic

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Date:  Sat Mar 01 09:53:17 2014
From:  NoName
Email:   
Location:  
Comment: 

When the pope wrote "Not to share one's wealth with the poor is to steal from them and to take away their livelihood.  It is not our own goods which we hold, but theirs" he was quoting St. John Chrisostom, and you called them both stupid.  Then you said "I'm afraid it's true - Pope Francis is a Marxist" which is a term you have equated with the term Communist.  So you are calling a saint and a pope stupid Communists.  Doesn't that mean the religion of Catholicism is stupid and Communist? 

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Date:  Sat Mar 01 12:03:56 2014
From:  Vic Biorseth
Comment:  

NoName:

Of course not.  Lots of people say stupid things.  The quote, standing on its own, is stupid.  The fact that a saint might have said it does not change the fact that the quote is stupid.  The fact that a Pope might have quoted it does not change the fact that the quote is stupid.  No matter who says it or writes it or quotes it, it is still stupid.  If you are arguing that the quote is not stupid, then, let us put it to the test. 

Explain, if you can, how a person somewhere in Texas with a dollar in his pocket, in and of itself, caused another person somewhere in Argentina to not have a dollar in his pocket. 

When you provide a good, concise and logical argument proving that particular cause and effect, I will concede that the quote is not stupid. 

Re Marxism and Communism, even Engels admitted that all the words written in the Communist Manifesto were authored by Karl Marx himself.  Everything Marx wrote - everything - was aimed at Communist Revolution.  To be a Marxist is to be a Communist. 

Marxism, like Evangelii Gaudium, seeks to encourage the twin vices of sloth and envy.  To make men covet what others have, and to make those who have more feel guilty about having more.  To establish a new class of "Entitle-istas" convinced of their "right" to what they did not earn.  And, to encourage government(s) to legally enforce programs of wealth redistribution, to supplant old fashioned charity, but all under the false mask of charity. 

But the real Machiavellian goal of Marxism is dictatorship, pure and simple. 

Regards,

Vic

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Date:  Sat Mar 01 21:22:11 2014
From:  JJ
Email:   
Location:  
Comment: 

After Francis proves you wrong and feeds the poor from the plenty of the church they will begin to call him Francis the Great. 

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Date:  Sun Mar 02 07:46:19 2014
From:  Vic Biorseth
Comment:  

JJ:

We'll see. 

If he sold all that the Church has today and tried to feed the poor with the proceeds, the very next day, he would be faced with the exact same number of hungry mouths to feed, but then the Church, too, would be impoverished. 

Regards,

Vic

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Date:  Thu Mar 20 07:38:42 2014
From:  JJ
Email:   
Location:  
Comment: 

Vic, these are things you should address directly to the pope or to the Vatican rather than just putting it all out there in public.  When you attack the pope you make the whole church look bad.  That is not the way to advance Catholicism.  You should take this page down. 

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Date:  Thu Mar 20 2014
From:  Vic Biorseth
Comment:  

JJ:

First, I am not attacking the Pope.  I am taking issue with his political leanings and his recommendations for civil politics, not his Catholic teaching.  Second, any missive of mine would stand the chance of a snowball in hell of actually getting through and being read by the Pope or anyone highly placed in the Vatican. 

I am publicly commenting on a published public document authored by the Pope, whom I absolutely recognize to be the Vicar of Christ on earth.  That does not mean that he is somehow not a fellow human being with the same strengths and weaknesses as the rest of us.  So long as I am free to speak the truth in public, I am going to do it.  When I see error, I go after it.  That is what I do. 

His Holiness may be the victim of one or more of the lies elaborated on in the Beautiful Lies page.  There, among others, I quoted one of our Protestant national founding fathers, as saying: 

That non-Catholic quote, among many others like it in that webpage, is, in my opinion, a whole lot more "Catholic" than the government redistribution recommended in Evangelii Gaudium.

See also The Equality Stupidity. 

Regards,

Vic

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Date:   Wed Aug 20 2014
From:  Vic Biorseth
Comment:  

Changes pursuant to changing the website URL and name from 
Thinking Catholic Strategic Center to
Catholic American Thinker.

Pulled the trigger on the 301 MOVE IT option June 1, 2014. Working my way through all the webpages.  . 

Regards,

Vic

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