Go here to read Part I and here to read Part II.
101.Rehash of the Good Samaritan story.
102.Thinks that people would be less likely to behave like the Good Samaritan today because of our separation into groups. (Of course it was rare at the time of Christ which is why He thought up the parable.)
103.Pope wants education in fraternity. (The Pope has infinite trust in the malleability of human beings.)
104.A conscious cultivation of fraternity is required. (See?)
105.Radical individualism is a virus. (The Pope has a genius for seeing phantom threats while resolutely ignoring real ones.)
106.“the mere fact that some people are born in places with fewer resources or less development does not justify the fact that they are living with less dignity”. (Faith that Caesar can remedy the disparities is the implicit predicate of that statement.)
107.Every human being has the right to live with dignity and to develop integrally; this fundamental right cannot be denied by any country.
108.What we need in fact are states and civil institutions that are present and active, that look beyond the free and efficient working of certain economic, political or ideological systems, and are primarily concerned with individuals and the common good. (The Pope really, really hates free market states.)
109.If a society is governed primarily by the criteria of market freedom and efficiency, there is no place for such persons, and fraternity will remain just another vague ideal. (Of course what the Pope ignores is that the type of State he seems to desire will quickly produce a Nomenklatura which will make sure that their New Class enjoys the best and everyone else is reduced to a subsistence level.)
- Indeed, “to claim economic freedom while real conditions bar many people from actual access to it, and while possibilities for employment continue to shrink, is to practise doublespeak”.[83] Words like freedom, democracy or fraternity prove meaningless, for the fact is that “only when our economic and social system no longer produces even a single victim, a single person cast aside, will we be able to celebrate the feast of universal fraternity”. (Utopia courtesy of Caesar. This time they will get it right.)
111. Unless the rights of each individual are harmoniously ordered to the greater good, those rights will end up being considered limitless and consequently will become a source of conflicts and violence”. (Our Pope is going to save us from the dangers of individual rights.)
112. implies helping individuals and societies to mature in the moral values that foster integral human development. (Caesar as preacher.)
113.Every society needs to ensure that values are passed on; otherwise, what is handed down are selfishness, violence, corruption in its various forms, indifference and, ultimately, a life closed to transcendence and entrenched in individual interests. (The Pope of course ignores the manifest fact that it is exceedingly likely that modern states would wish to enforce values directly antithetical to Christianity.)
114.Solidarity as a moral value. Families and teachers are important in transmitting values.
115.Service is never ideological, for we do not serve ideas, we serve people. (Sheer sophistry.)
116.Confronting the destructive impact of the empire of money. (Vatican finances would be a good place to start Holiness.)
117.Care for our common planet.
118.Differences of colour, religion, talent, place of birth or residence, and so many others, cannot be used to justify the privileges of some over the rights of all. (Parts of this read as if written by a 20 year old Occupy Wallstreet minion from a few years ago,)
- Saint John Chrysostom summarizes it in this way: “Not to share our wealth with the poor is to rob them and take away their livelihood. The riches we possess are not our own, but theirs as well”. (Clerics when writing on economics usually demonstrate that they subsist on donations of people who work for a living, and don’t have the foggiest idea about how economies work.)
120.For my part, I would observe that “the Christian tradition has never recognized the right to private property as absolute or inviolable, and has stressed the social purpose of all forms of private property”. (Theft as a Christian virtue.)
121.As it is unacceptable that some have fewer rights by virtue of being women, it is likewise unacceptable that the mere place of one’s birth or residence should result in his or her possessing fewer opportunities for a developed and dignified life. (Send the bills to the Pope.)
122.More free enterprise bashing.
123.The right to private property is always accompanied by the primary and prior principle of the subordination of all private property to the universal destination of the earth’s goods, and thus the right of all to their use. (Just in case we didn’t get the message the first few times he said it.)
124.Seen from the standpoint not only of the legitimacy of private property and the rights of its citizens, but also of the first principle of the common destination of goods, we can then say that each country also belongs to the foreigner, inasmuch as a territory’s goods must not be denied to a needy person coming from elsewhere. (How convenient for nations like Argentina which have handled their financial affairs along Marxian lines: Karl and/or the Marx Brothers.)
125.If every human being possesses an inalienable dignity, if all people are my brothers and sisters, and if the world truly belongs to everyone, then it matters little whether my neighbour was born in my country or elsewhere. (Your citizenship means nothing. Paul of Tarsus, a citizen of the Empire, looks shocked.)
126.Bye, bye debt owed by foreign nations.
127.Certainly, all this calls for an alternative way of thinking. Without an attempt to enter into that way of thinking, what I am saying here will sound wildly unrealistic. (Agreed Holy Father as to the wildly unrealistic part.)
Chapter Four: A Heart Open to the Whole World
128.We must see things in a new light.
129.Pope calls, at least for the time being, for a right of unlimited immigration.
130.Welfare state for immigrants must be established, and their transportation to countries they wish to go to facilitated.
131.Full citizenship must be granted to these immigrants.
132.Global governance must be developed to facilitate all this. (The Pope seems hell bent to living up to anti-Catholic stereotypes about the Church seeking to bring about a one world government.)
133.Migrants are a source of strength.
134.Blending of different cultures will prevent societal sclerosis. (Thus sayeth the man who heads a state with perhaps the most restrictive naturalization laws of all.)
135.Latino culture can enrich the United States just as the Italians have enriched Argentina. (PopeWatch will be laughing his hind end off if close to a majority of Hispanics next month vote for Trump.)
136.Muslim and Christian relations viewed through rose tinted glasses.
137.Mutual assistance between nations.
138.Global government in many spheres a must.
139.We should not welcome migrants simply because they can benefit us.
140.Calls for fraternal gratuitousness.
141. The true worth of the different countries of our world is measured by their ability to think not simply as a country but also as part of the larger human family.
142.Calls for globalization and localization.
143.The common good likewise requires that we protect and love our native land. Otherwise, the consequences of a disaster in one country will end up affecting the entire planet. All this brings out the positive meaning of the right to property: I care for and cultivate something that I possess, in such a way that it can contribute to the good of all.
144.Universal does not necessarily mean bland, uniform and standardized, based on a single prevailing cultural model, for this will ultimately lead to the loss of a rich palette of shades and colours, and result in utter monotony.
145.Tensions between universalism and localism.
- There is a kind of “local” narcissism unrelated to a healthy love of one’s own people and culture. It is born of a certain insecurity and fear of the other that leads to rejection and the desire to erect walls for self-defence.
147.Our local experience needs to develop “in contrast to” and “in harmony with” the experiences of others living in diverse cultural contexts.
148.A living culture, enriched by elements from other places, does not import a mere carbon copy of those new elements, but integrates them in its own unique way. The result is a new synthesis that is ultimately beneficial to all, since the original culture itself ends up being nourished. (In parts of this the Pope sounds a bit like someone in favor of open borders because of all the great new foreign restaurants opening up as a result.)
149.The brotherhood of man.
150.no one people, culture or individual can achieve everything on its own
More on Monday.
Thanks Donald. Great job. My quick overview of FRATELLI TUTTI: No one in their right mind could write such insane and inane nonsense, pretending it was what Christ intended, unless it was inspired by the devil himself. In order for Bergoglio’s vision (hallucination) to become viable original sin would first have to be abrogated. But the fact that the plan is absurd on its face will not mean that, for a time, it could cause great damage.
This is so because Progressives both in and out of the Church will use it as a further excuse to implement a global socialist totalitarian government. And even worse, most folks in our Godless world will find it alluring as they see personal benefit without effort. We are in for a very difficult time whether Trump wins or not.
Wait, there is still more to come? Yikes! I think you’ve earned a few years off Purgatory with this one, Don.
It does stretch on quite a bit.
105.Radical individualism is a virus.
I think there might be some truth in this one. There’s nothing more radically individual than to assert biological realities are malleable social constructs subject to sheer willfulness. Furthermore, there are anecdotal accounts of transgenderism spending through social circles like a virus. Although that might turn out to be moral panic.
Just a thought.
I truly think that the Holy Spirit chose Pope Francis to remind us of the limitations of the pope.
Another thought:
“(Clerics when writing on economics usually demonstrate that they subsist on donations of people who work for a living, and don’t have the foggiest idea about how economies work.)”
I’d cut Chrysostom a bit of slack here, since in his day the economy was based on extracting the agricultural surplus by means that often bordered on robbery.
I wouldn’t blame the Holy Spirit for Francis anymore than I’d credit the Holy Spirit for John Paul II or Benedict XVI.
I would say the electors at some conclaves do a better job of discerning the Holy Spirit than at others.
“(Clerics when writing on economics usually demonstrate that they subsist on donations of people who work for a living, and don’t have the foggiest idea about how economies work.)”
You can see that problem with the social encyclicals, which (AFAICT) assume a social organization of economic life which was less than universal at the time of Rerum Novarum and rare today. Not many people have journeymen and apprentices billeted in their attic and eating at their table.