Well that’s a relief. The Pope assures us that the prophet Isaiah was not a communist:
“Richness and power are realities that can be good and useful for the common good, if they are put to the service of the poor and all, with justice and charity,” Francis said during his weekly general audience in the Vatican.
“But when, as happens too often, they become lived as privilege, with egoism and presumption, they are transformed into instruments of corruption and death,” the pope explained.
Francis referred at one point to the famous reproaches to the greedy in the fifth chapter of Isaiah, and then in an impromptu addition said: “And the prophet Isaiah wasn’t a communist!”
The pontiff’s lines on the exploitation of the powerless drew wide applause and highlighted not only themes that he has often addressed but also the debates over whether the pope — and Catholic teaching — lean toward some form of Marxism.
Francis’ critics among conservatives in the U.S. in particular have often accused him of being a “left-winger” or a communist.
Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders, on the other hand, has praised Francis as a “socialist” like himself.
Go here to read the rest. CS Lewis had this passage in the Screwtape Letters:
We direct the fashionable outcry of each generation against those vices of which it is least in danger and fix its approval on the virtue nearest to that vice which we are trying to make endemic. The game is to have them running about with fire extinguishers whenever there is a flood, and all crowding to that side of the boat which is already nearly gunwale under. Thus we make it fashionable to expose the dangers of enthusiasm at the very moment when they are all really becoming worldly and lukewarm; a century later, when we are really making them all Byronic and drunk with emotion, the fashionable outcry is directed against the dangers of the mere “understanding”. Cruel ages are put on their guard against Sentimentality, feckless and idle ones against Respectability, lecherous ones against Puritansm; and whenever all men are really hastening to be slaves or tyrants we make Liberalism the prime bogey.
There are many grave charges that can be lodged against the post Vatican II Church, but lack of concern for the poor is not one of them, and yet that seems to be the focus of much of the energy of the Pope. As CS Lewis noted, it is easy to preach against sins that it is fashionable to condemn, and that largely sums up the current pontificate. It is usually left to future generations to note popular sins that flourished in a past age and that few thought at the time to condemn. The Fifth Chapter of Isaiah has this warning passage:
Woe to those who call evil good
and good evil,
who put darkness for light
and light for darkness,
who put bitter for sweet
and sweet for bitter.
21 Woe to those who are wise in their own eyes
and clever in their own sight.
22 Woe to those who are heroes at drinking wine
and champions at mixing drinks,
23 who acquit the guilty for a bribe,
but deny justice to the innocent.
24 Therefore, as tongues of fire lick up straw
and as dry grass sinks down in the flames,
so their roots will decay
and their flowers blow away like dust;
for they have rejected the law of the Lord Almighty
and spurned the word of the Holy One of Israel.
25 Therefore the Lord’s anger burns against his people;
his hand is raised and he strikes them down.
The mountains shake,
and the dead bodies are like refuse in the streets.
Yet for all this, his anger is not turned away,
his hand is still upraised.
26 He lifts up a banner for the distant nations,
he whistles for those at the ends of the earth.
Here they come,
swiftly and speedily!
27 Not one of them grows tired or stumbles,
not one slumbers or sleeps;
not a belt is loosened at the waist,
not a sandal strap is broken.
28 Their arrows are sharp,
all their bows are strung;
their horses’ hooves seem like flint,
their chariot wheels like a whirlwind.
29 Their roar is like that of the lion,
they roar like young lions;
they growl as they seize their prey
and carry it off with no one to rescue.
30 In that day they will roar over it
like the roaring of the sea.
And if one looks at the land,
there is only darkness and distress;
even the sun will be darkened by clouds.
Pope Francis has been a champion of massive Islamic immigration into Europe. Perhaps God has given him the unknowing function of bringing into what used to be the heart of Christendom peoples who will serve to scourge the fallen away Christians of Europe. An extravagant interpretation? Perhaps. However, perhaps more relevant than the Pope seeking to enlist Isaiah to support dying welfare states.
Also from the O.T. Leviticus 19:15
“”‘Do not pervert justice; do not show partiality to the poor or favoritism to the great, but judge your neighbor fairly.”
God is not a communist nor a socialist. Nor is he a modern American. But he does leave to laymen the role of ordering society. Some systems, like capitalism and democracy, stink. Except for all the others.
Several clear themes from the Bible is that God does not condemn the existence of classes (neither does Catholic Social Teaching but you wouldn’t know that from the way it is taught now.) Nor does the Bible teach that the poor are necessarily good and the rich are necessarily evil. That is a modern invention. Nor does it teach that a massive welfare state is the solution to injustices (though Catholic Social Teaching does in fact teach that a welfare state that creates dependency is unjust.) It does teach that each one of us is to help our neighbors according to God’s will.
“It does teach that each one of us is to help our neighbors according to God’s will.”
Yes, but that must include awareness that with all help, there comes a tipping point, whereby the best of intentions becomes an impediment to the other’s exercising personal responsibility–that virtue which acts like yeast to one’s God-given personal dignity.
So Pope Francis declares that Isaiah is NOT a communist.
.
But YOU, Pope Francis, ARE a communist.
“Several clear themes from the Bible is that God does not condemn the existence of classes”
No where does He explicitly approve or promote them, either.