Dr. Samuel Gregg at Catholic World Report has an intriguing article about possible Peronist influences on the Pope:
After being elected president in 1946, Perón was initially elusive about his precise political beliefs. In 1948, he stated that Perónism “is not learned, nor just talked about: one either feels it or else disagrees. Perónism is a question of the heart rather than the head.” In an April 1949 speech to the National Congress of Philosophy, however, Perón outlined a political model called justicialismo. Its goal was what Perón called an “organized community”: one which sought to balance classes and interest-groups so that each exercises “its functions for the good of all.” Achieving this equilibrium, Perón maintained, required what he called a conductor: someone who, like a military officer, can exercise tactical flexibility in pursuing a strategic goal.
As one of Perón’s biographers Joseph Page observes, justicialismo essentially sought to rationalize the alliance which propelled Perón to power: the working-class, the lower middle-class, trade unionists, and farm-workers. This was accompanied by increasing authoritarianism on Perón’s part, the parodying and demonizing of opponents, and constant appeals to “the people” against real and invented adversaries. In short, Perón’s economic policies went hand-in-hand with increasing restrictions on freedom.
There was, however, another side to Perón’s politics. This had less to do with content than with style. Perón’s emphasis on el conductor’s need to be flexible involved him, Page states, “not only cultivating vagueness but also glorifying it as a virtue.” This in turn produced “flights of nonsensical obscurantism.” In 1950, for instance, Perón claimed that Perónism “is an ideological position that is in the center, on the left, or on the right, according to circumstances. We obey circumstances.”
Yet there was a method to this apparent madness. And that was a refusal to be limited by principles or the inner logic of ideas. On many occasions, Perón expressed impatience with intellectual abstraction. What mattered was movement and adaptation to existing conditions.
A Perónist pope?
Some of this will remind readers of expressions used by Pope Francis. Take, for example, Francis’s often-repeated statement: “Realities are greater than ideas.” Precisely what this means is unclear. After all, an idea is a reality. Moreover, the claim that “realties are greater than ideas” is an idea, just as Perón’s assertion that we must adapt to circumstances is a theory about how we should act.
Go here to read the rest. Whatever the Pope’s allegiance to Peronist political goals, it is hard to deny that he has applied some of Peron’s methods which, crudely put, come down to this maxim:
If you can’t blind them with brilliance, then baffle them with bulldroppings! An example:
No to a financial system which rules rather than serves
57. Behind this attitude lurks a rejection of ethics and a rejection of God. Ethics has come to be viewed with a certain scornful derision. It is seen as counterproductive, too human, because it makes money and power relative. It is felt to be a threat, since it condemns the manipulation and debasement of the person. In effect, ethics leads to a God who calls for a committed response which is outside the categories of the marketplace. When these latter are absolutized, God can only be seen as uncontrollable, unmanageable, even dangerous, since he calls human beings to their full realization and to freedom from all forms of enslavement. Ethics – a non-ideological ethics – would make it possible to bring about balance and a more humane social order. With this in mind, I encourage financial experts and political leaders to ponder the words of one of the sages of antiquity: “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”.[55]
58. A financial reform open to such ethical considerations would require a vigorous change of approach on the part of political leaders. I urge them to face this challenge with determination and an eye to the future, while not ignoring, of course, the specifics of each case. Money must serve, not rule! The Pope loves everyone, rich and poor alike, but he is obliged in the name of Christ to remind all that the rich must help, respect and promote the poor. I exhort you to generous solidarity and to the return of economics and finance to an ethical approach which favours human beings.
The Pope is the King of glittering generalities and vague, gaseous formulations. He rarely deviates from the consensus of the global elites, and when he does no action follows. Peron would be proud!
“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”.
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Horse manure. Give everyone the same opportunity in the free market and let each receive according to what he acheives.
Take, for example, Francis’s often-repeated statement: “Realities are greater than ideas.” Precisely what this means is unclear. After all, an idea is a reality.
Huh?
No, an idea is not ‘a’ reality, and there’s only one ‘reality’ unless we’re getting into metaphors.
Rephrase it: “facts are greater than theories.”
As my mom tells the kids when we’re crossing the road: in theory, you’ve got the right of way. In reality, make sure they’re stopping, because you’d die.
Now, flipping it around and it would fit the thumbnail of Peron he mentions– “ideas are greater than realities.” That’s happy-clappy nonsense, although you can hammer it into something deep. (Most nonsense can be hammered into being deep; Chesterton was great for making seeming nonsense that described what you’d just read, so it didn’t need hammering.)
The Pope and President Trump should get along swimmingly.
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