One Peter Five brings us the latest dropping from our Red Pope:
In yet another interview with Eugenio Scalfari (see our standard rebuttal to “you can’t trust Scalfari!” here), this exchange was reported to have taken place:
You told me some time ago that the precept, “Love your neighbour as thyself” had to change, given the dark times that we are going through, and become “more than thyself.” So you yearn for a society where equality dominates. This, as you know, is the programme of Marxist socialism and then of communism. Are you therefore thinking of a Marxist type of society?
“It it has been said many times and my response has always been that, if anything, it is the communists who think like Christians. Christ spoke of a society where the poor, the weak and the marginalized have the right to decide. Not demagogues, not Barabbas, but the people, the poor, whether they have faith in a transcendent God or not. It is they who must help to achieve equality and freedom”. [emphasis added]
One of the most hotly contested criticism of Pope Francis is that he is ideologically aligned with Marxists. We’ve covered some of the connections before, so I won’t rehash them here. What seems fair to say is that this is the most direct admission yet that Francis identifies his program of social justice as something compatible with Communism – itself an intrinsic evil.
Go here to read the rest. People who cannot see the evil of Communists are moral imbeciles. Fascist apologists are consigned to the ideological fever swamps of western societies. There is absolutely no moral difference between Fascists and Communists. That Pope Francis has a soft spot in his head for Communists indicates that he is, at best, a deeply confused man. That he is the leader of the Catholic Church is a disaster of epic proportions. That almost all the Cardinals, and the Pope Emeritus, do nothing and say nothing while this farce continues, is an indication that they are simply ecclesiastical careerists and nothing more.
Well, if Scalfari can’t be trusted, why does the Pope keep granting him interviews?
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Do you really Ratzinger publicly criticizing his successor is needed? I certainly sympathize with that view, but worry it may do more harm than good.
Communist think like Christians…..( ? )
The tens of millions dead at the hands of Communism… did they feel like they were being treated by Christ like individuals?
Korean dead
Vietnam dead
Russian dead
African dead
I apologize. I can’t understand why he thinks that way. His Chair I do respect. Himself, not much. As someone mentioned a week ago; “He won’t be Pope forever.”Amen.
“One death is a tragedy, one million is a statistic.” J. Stalin
In the words of Gomer Pyle…”surprise!
“…not Barabbas, but the people…”
My bible says it was the people (led astray by their shepherds) that chose Barabbas and rejected Christ.
Don L points out the utlimately flaw in Jorge Begoglio’s reasoning. The Peepul are every bit as dictatorial as any autocrat. Just ask Socrates who was made to drink hemlock because a simple majority demanded it.
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Demokracy and Kommunism are two sides of the same coin. A simple majority wins and the rights of the individual don’t mean a darn.
“….it is the Communists who think like Christians.” Really, which ones? To Phillip’s list I will add Cuban dead, Ethiopian dead, Angolan dead, Cambodian dead and Chinese dead, just to add a few million more deaths to the tally. In Russia, the Communists crucified Catholic priests. The KGB was ISIS before ISIS. As far as the cowards in the hierarchy who sit mute, or worse, sing his praises, they are equally the problem. Wolves.
I think it’s another indication, in case we needed one, that his thinking is derivative and drawn from the kultursmog of the non-commercial bourgeoisie rather then the Church’s body of thought. It’s just that he was born in 1936, so his points of reference are retro. There are post-communist parties in Latin America, but they’re consequential only in 3 or 4 countries. The real problem in Latin America is neo-Peronism, which is in a process of self-immolation at its central headquarters in Venezuela if not in its other redoubts.
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I don’t really expect the infirm late-octogenarian Pope to say much. Retirement is retirement. I do wish he were living with family rather than in apartments in the Vatican. The trouble is, other than his 92 year old (priest) brother, his nearest relations are in Australia. As for the episcopacy, they’re a big disappointment if not appalling. They weren’t saying much in 1966 either, other than Cdl. Ottaviani and Cdl. McIntyre.
What on earth is unusual about noticing that the Communists got their power from hijacking the good in Christianity?
What next, someone points out that the French Revolution sounded all great but wasn’t? Or that social justice twerps talk like they want justice, when they really just want a way to make people do what they want?
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Communism wouldn’t be nearly as horrible if it didn’t hijack good things– a lie that’s got a lot of truth in it is all the more powerful for that. From each by his ability, to each by his need? Not a bad thing. It’s not something that can be done by political means, or by any external force at all– but it’s a good description of what ideal justice would involve. It can no more be enforced than “love your neighbor” can be, and they’re both deadly to what they claim to promote.
. I think we are also seeing maybe revenge by Francis and button pushing…on former priest friends of Francis who probably debated him for years and silenced the silly ideas out of him logically but he never admitted it then and he now is still debating them …no…silencing them …by his position via the media. I say that because his quantity and rhythm of saying the annoying-sensational is hyper. I think much of what he says is hurt ego from bygone days in priest debates and he’s still in a debate with priests who may be dead by now. He can’t possibly think pivotal capitalists are reading his barbs. Ergo I think it is old clergy debaters who needled him back in Argentina…that he is really zinging every week. It’s a pathology of some sort. It reeks of the personal moment of revenge.
Heck, Sheen did an entire book on the point almost 75 years ago.
Communism and the Conscience of the West (1948)
The counter-church, “It will have all the notes and characteristics of the Church, but in reverse and emptied of its divine content.”
“Communism wouldn’t be nearly as horrible if it didn’t hijack good things– a lie that’s got a lot of truth in it is all the more powerful for that.”
Foxfier
Exactly.
The most damaging lies and manipulations have always been those with a ring of truth to them. This is true personally, professionally, socially, and politically. Want to hurt someone? Magnify the fault that they truly have.
I’m not going to subscribe to get the footnote for this, but since it’s against interest I think it will work as a citation:
[I]t [the Soviet state] is more than a system of economics: it is a
religion. But as a religion it is not heresy within Christendom, it
is the ape of Christianity; like it in all externals, but differing
in its spirit. It too has a Bible, which is “Das Kapital” of Karl
Marx: it has its original sin, which is capitalism; it has its
Messianic hope, which is the classless class and the godless race;
it has its law of sacrifice, which is class struggle; and it has
its priesthood, which is the commissariat. It is like Christianity
in all things save one; it is inspired not by the spirit of Christ
but by the spirit of the serpent
https://www.highbeam.com/doc/1G1-202518786.html
Soon he will remark that, next to the communists, the Moslems are most Christ-like.
Remember that.
What we have here is a person impersonating the Pope. He cannot be taken seriously except as a menace to all Catholic and the world at large. His very statements and silences make him a heretic. In my mind the seat is vacant since a heretic is automatically excommunicated. So…the Cardinals should declare him a heretic and call a conclave to elect a new Pope. Let us pray that this dream come true.
“So…the Cardinals should declare him a heretic and call a conclave to elect a new Pope.”
Except I suspect that what the Pope says many Cardinals believe. This is part of the struggle for the soul of the Church since from Vatican II (and likely throughout the Church’s history.) An emphasis on man and not God. A denial of, or mere lip service to, truth. Thus a turn from the transcendent to the material. Then doctrine is downplayed, fidelity minimized and social progress raised to the level of worship.
Now you have Christian Materialism. A nice figure of a possibly divine Jesus who may or may not have said the things he did but that doesn’t matter because in the end he is about Love. And this Love is always about the material good of people which in turn can be reduced to increasing marginal tax rates on the top income brackets.
Phillip. Brilliantly stated summary of what is wrong with the Catholic Church. And I agree that most Cardinals will not lift a finger to stop this Pope from leading the faithful astray. Divine intervention is needed now.
Michael Dowd I concur with both, Phillip’s concise summary and the sad state of our red hats, but then I recall that a handful of apostles spread the faith to all the corners of the world against impossible odds (okay Romans…stop the orgy and don sackcloth and ashes?). What we need is not despair (I certainly have to fight it) but as Christ constantly reminded his apostles, faith can move mountains. we need to double down, fast, pray, discern, and admonish…with charity. Either we believe that God allows this evil (confusion) within for a greater good or we don’t.
I agree with Don L. We must all do our part and let God do His.
Agree. As noted, the Church has constantly fought the temptation to reduce God to a merely human construct whether in the philosophical, theological or political domain. Let us pray, mortify and act. And let us, contrary to what Francis has advocated, learn our faith more fully.
It is ignorance of the human condition to suggest that a man will put forth his best effort for the sake of his brethren, the exception of Christ and the saints noted. We are designed by God to intrinsically desire the fruit of our labor. We can get distracted by the rewards but but this is not inself a disordered desire. Furthermore, each human has a God-given right to private property. Without this right, all other rights become meaningless. Without this right, charity itself is robbed of its power. Finally, communism doesn’t care about the poor. It is merely a charade to transfer power from one group of fallen human beings to another. To say that communism and Christianity are alike is to say that a priest and a man that wears a cassock and collar for Halloween are alike.
Proof positive that this Pontiff never had any business being ordained to the priesthood in the first place. Oh, and thank you, Cardinals, almost all of whom were appointed by John Paul II and Benedict, for putting this intellectually-challenged poor excuse of a bishop into the Pontificate. I think the German bishops don’t mind. They got their garbage exhortation which goes against Canon Law in order to keep the euros flowing in. Cardinal Wurely-bird doesn’t mind. He is set on doing to the Church in the US what he did to the Church in Pittsburgh…..close churches and sell them off, watch vocations dry up, and party hardy with the movers and shakers of secular society. The WORST thing Benedict XVI did was take Cardinal Levada’s advice and put Wuerl as Cardinal of Washington. He should have been made Archbishop of Somewhere else and left there until retirement. Now he influences Pope Communism Admirer on American episcopal appointments.
When Wm. Donohue was promoting Cdl. Wuerl as a capable steward, a traditionalist priest of my acquaintance who’d had colleagues who’d dealt with Wuerl offered the following assessments of his general disposition: institutional politician. Nothing more, nothing less. He had some details about Cdl. Wuerl’s dealings with Vatican tribunals as well. “Nasty guy”, he said.
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Fr. Paul Mankowski offered some years back that the period from 1900 to 1960 was, at least in the United States and perhaps some other occidental countries, a period of unusual vigor and dedication on the part of the clergy. The rapidity of the descent since then is most dismaying.
Foxfier “What on earth is unusual about noticing that the Communists got their power from hijacking the good in Christianity?”
The principle of separation of church and state. The person chooses his virtues, his charity, his relationship with God in concert with his gift of Faith from God. Our independence is dependent upon God. Our Life, Liberty and our pursuit of Happiness are gifts from God and dependent upon God. Government, the state, is instituted among good men to protect and guard man’s independence to practice freedom in TRUTH and JUSTICE. Communism on the other hand is a black hole that sucks in everything and everybody ad infinitum.
The good nuns taught us that they were the biggest communists in the world living in community. The difference is informed consent of the free will of the person. Nuns choose to live in community with free will and informed consent. Atheistic communism is imposed by dictators who usurp God’s power and man’s informed consent. When the state practices charity without the informed consent of its adherents it is called extortion. When the Pope imposes changes that violate what has been bound in heaven, the Pope violates the truth and the saints. The Pope cannot unbind on earth what has been bound in heaven; the truth that may not be unbound. Souls living a lie because of a first marriage cannot be rectified or unbound without repentance and a life of reformation. Mary, the untier of knots will not violate the TRUTH.
“When the state practices charity without the informed consent of its adherents it is called extortion.” It is also called taxation without representation; unconstitutional. When the Pope worships God through communism, the Pope violates the human person and betrays the TRUTH. That is when the Pope behaves like Cain, killing Abel all over again. The lack of insincerity is chilling.
Some more thoughts on Communism:
http://www.ncregister.com/daily-news/the-marxist-roots-of-the-contemporary-family-crisis
Mary-
that works as a reason that Communism is evil (not that “they’re trying to make Christianity without God” needs any help) but it doesn’t make it wrong to point out that Communism does ape Christianity, rather than letting them get away with stealing Christian principles.
Art Deco…you and I have battled on occasion, but we are in complete agreement about Cardinal Wuerl. He showed his true colors in 2004 when he approved of John Kerry receiving Holy Communion in the Pittsburgh Diocese. Kerry was there because his wife, who still owns a home in the Pittsburgh area, inherited a fortune from the late John Heinz. By the way, she has nothing to do with Heinz, which is owned by a private equity form and Berkshire Hathaway (and has been brutal to its employees).
Our Pope finds more ideological brotherhood in Barak Obama
than Donald Trump; perhaps at some time he will start the
beatification process for Mr. Obama!