Pope attacks the Christian Right, says they aren't Christians

[Kidlicious]

http://www.rawstory.com/2013/10/pope-francis-describes-ideological-christians-as-a-serious-illness-within-the-church/

So he doesn't think he believes in an ideology? He's a Leftist. The only one sick is him for his hypocrisy. Christians have political beliefs. If your doing it right you put it second to your faith. One thing that you don't do is judge others and lord over them. How long will BK be a catholic? It's always been offensive to me. And that's not a judgment against Catholics. I consider Catholics my Christian brothers and sisters as well as evangelicals.

[ricketyclik]

I like the cut of this Pope's gib.

[Ben Kenobi]

How long will BK be a catholic?

Why would I want to leave? 2 thousand years of glorious history.

peaking at daily Mass last Thursday, Pope Francis warned Christians against turning their faith into a rigid ideology.

“The faith passes, so to speak, through a distiller and becomes ideology,” he said, according to Radio Vatican. “And ideology does not beckon [people]. In ideologies there is not Jesus: in his tenderness, his love, his meekness. And ideologies are rigid, always. Of every sign: rigid.

“And when a Christian becomes a disciple of the ideology, he has lost the faith: he is no longer a disciple of Jesus, he is a disciple of this attitude of thought… For this reason Jesus said to them: ‘You have taken away the key of knowledge.’ The knowledge of Jesus is transformed into an ideological and also moralistic knowledge, because these close the door with many requirements.”

“The faith becomes ideology and ideology frightens, ideology chases away the people, distances, distances the people and distances of the Church of the people,” Francis added. “But it is a serious illness, this of ideological Christians. It is an illness, but it is not new, eh?”

He said Christian ideology was the result of a lack of true prayer.

Not sure why Kidicious took what he did from what Francis said.

FWIW, Conservatives have generally maintained a stance against ideology.

[giblets]

MRA's aren't Christian

[Hauldren Collider]

Bizarrely, I (partially) agree with Kidicious--this pope is as ideological as they come.

[Kidlicious]

Why would I want to leave? 2 thousands years of glorious history.



Not sure why Kidicious took what he did from what Francis said.

He's a hypocrite. If you want to be a catholic despite that, that's one thing. But why do you defend him if you're a Christian? He's a false teacher. The Bible says not to follow them.

[C0ckney]

seems a good place to post this.

Is the Pope a communist?

Pope Francis's critique of free-market economics has made him an icon for the Left and prompted claims that he is a communist. The leader of the world's 1.2 billion Catholics has called capitalism a source of inequality at best - and at worst a killer. Is the Pope, as his critics claim, a red radical?

On his way back from the Victory Day Parade in Moscow last month, the Cuban leader Raul Castro stopped off in Rome to thank Pope Francis for his role in Cuba's rapprochement with the United States. "If the Pope continues this way," Castro said afterwards, "I will go back to praying and go back to the church - I am not joking."

In September Francis will return the compliment with a stop-over in Cuba when he travels to the United States. And the American visit could turn out to be the most difficult overseas trip of his pontificate.

Raul Castro's endorsement is unlikely to recommend Francis to the American right, many of whom responded with visceral rage to President Obama's Cuban initiative.

There is a lot of scepticism among (US) Catholics," says Stephen Moore, the chief economist at the conservative Washington think tank the Heritage Foundation, and himself a Catholic.

"I think this is a Pope who clearly has some Marxist leanings. It's unquestionable that he has a very vocal scepticism (about) capitalism and free enterprise and… I find that to be very troubling."

Rush Limbaugh, the conservative radio host (or "shock jock", as he is sometimes called) is blunter. He dismissed Pope Francis's apostolic exhortationEvangelii Gaudium*(The Joy of the Gospels) as "pure Marxism".

The US is far and away the Western world's most Christian nation. There are nearly 80 million baptised American Catholics, and it is the country's largest religious denomination. Many of its members look upon Saint John Paul II as a hero-pope because he was such a doughty Cold Warrior - and that adds the spice of a sense of betrayal to their reaction to Francis. Although his approval ratings are high, particularly among Catholic Democrats, he will be a polarising presence, and the question "Is the pope a communist?" will really matter.

Popes John Paul and Francis came from very different worlds, and that inevitably influenced their thinking on issues like the economy and social justice.

Most of John Paul's early life was lived under totalitarian regimes - first the Nazi occupation during World War Two, then the long Stalinist and Soviet domination of Poland during the Cold War. Everything he experienced as a priest and a bishop taught him that communism was the enemy.

By contrast, Francis - or Jorge Bergoglio as he then was - came of age under the regime of the nationalist Argentine leader, Juan Peron.
Austen Ivereigh, who has written a biography of Pope Francis, and himself studied theology in Argentina, says Peronism has dominated Argentine politics ever since but is difficult to define in conventional political terms.

"It is really neither left wing nor right wing," he says. "But it comes out of a kind of nationalist revival in Argentina in the 1930s and 1940s and was very closely identified with the working class, above all, and particularly the trade unions." Ivereigh believes the young Bergoglio was profoundly influenced by Peronist ideas.

The two Popes also had a very different understanding of Liberation Theology, the controversial movement based on the conviction that the gospels enjoin the Church to put the poor first, which preoccupied and divided Latin America's Catholics for much of the 1960s, 70s, and 80s. John Paul believed it had tempted some priests and bishops into quasi-Marxist and even violent ideology, and as Pope he cracked down on some Liberation Theologians. Jorge Bergolio rejected Marxism - although he cheerfully accepts that he has many Marxist friends - but accepted many of Liberation Theology's principles, espousing what Austen Ivereigh calls "a nationalist version" of the movement, or a so-called "Theology of the People".

Nonetheless, the economic writings of both John Paul and Francis also reflect the same intellectual tradition - one known as Catholic Social Teaching. It was originally articulated in an 1881 papal document called*Rerum Novarum, in which Pope Leo XIII addressed what he called the "spirit of revolutionary change" then sweeping Europe.

Some of it is very clearly designed to be a rebuttal of the communist ideas that were part of that change, but it is also a critique of aspects of capitalism. So it is an unfamiliar mix that does not fit neatly into the left-right divide that dominated the politics of the following century.
Prof Maurice Glasman, a British economist who used to be a close confidant of Ed Miliband, studied Catholic social teaching for his PhD. He was attracted by the way it rejects the conventional ideologies of both left and right.

"It really opposes this idea that there is just the state or the market," he says. "It believes in activating society - what it calls solidarity - so that it can resist the domination by the rich of the poor, but through trade unions and vocational associations and what's called subsidiarity, which is the decentralisation of power." Glasman says it is opposed to communism because it "upholds private property" and is "anti-collectivist".

Glasman has a vivid memory of being attacked by an American economist after giving a paper at a recent Vatican conference on Catholic social teaching. "You know there's a word for what you're saying, Baron Lord Professor or whatever you are," the challenge began. "Yeah, it's called Communism. You're trying to interfere with the prerogatives of management, you're trying to interfere with capital, and you're trying to interfere with prices. And that's been tried - and that's the Soviet Union." During the subsequent discussion Glasman was delighted to find himself supported by both the Pope and the Archbishop of Munich, the appropriately named Cardinal Marx.

Francis' interpretation of Catholic social teaching certainly sounds more radical than that of his predecessors. In Argentina he insisted that his priests should see the world through the eyes of the poor, by living among them, and he brought that approach with him to Rome. Evangelii Gaudium - the document which got Rush Limbaugh so worked up - argues that inequality creates "a state of social sin that cries to Heaven". Pope Frances has also said that unemployment is "the result of a worldwide choice, of an economic system that led to this tragedy, an economic system that has at its centre a false God, a false God called money".

Philip Booth, a Catholic economist who works at the London free-market think tank the Institute for Economic Affairs, suggests Francis's views are close to those of the Guardian columnist Polly Toynbee and the left-wing French economist Thomas Piketty, whose book on inequality became an international bestseller last year.
He describes Francis as a "corporatist" who believes in a big state, and argues the Pope's statements are "dangerous" because they could "lead us to bad policy".

The answer to the question posed in the title of this piece is "No". There is lots for those on the left to admire in Pope Francis, and lots for those on the right to be scandalised by, but he is not a communist. He does, however, seem to enjoy provoking people. He will soon publish an encyclical expected to deal with climate change, and a priest who has been briefed on the contents told us "If some people think that he's a Marxist (now), wait and see what he says on the environment!"

[Ben Kenobi]

He's a hypocrite.

So are we all.

If you want to be a catholic despite that, that's one thing. But why do you defend him if you're a Christian? He's a false teacher. The Bible says not to follow them.

I'm not sure how you drew that conclusion from this article. If this constitutes a defense, I'm not sure why you're saying that either.

[Ben Kenobi]

Is this intended to be a discussion of Rerum Novarum? That's actually an interesting discussion.

[-Jrabbit]

.

[Proteus_MST]

Communism at its core (i.e. the basic idea of everything belonging to everyone in the community) sounds very christian to me

[Kidlicious]

So are we all.



I'm not sure how you drew that conclusion from this article. If this constitutes a defense, I'm not sure why you're saying that either.

You aren't even trying. You're basically saying hypocrisy is ok "because we all do it."
It's the worst sin there is. "Be not like the Pharisees."
We are all hypocritical, in a sense. He's the only one saying people aren't Christians because they believe in ideologies, and he believes in an ideology.

[Kidlicious]

Communism at its core (i.e. the basic idea of everything belonging to everyone in the community) sounds very christian to me

People like the Pope just was power and control over other people.

[Ben Kenobi]

You aren't even trying. You're basically saying hypocrisy is ok "because we all do it."

I'm happy to discuss the merits of Rerum Novarum. It's an actual encyclical of the Church. Do you want me to post a link to it?

It's the worst sin there is. "Be not like the Pharisees."

Yes. And? I'm supposed to stop being Catholic because people suck? Wow. That's, like, totally deep, man.

We are all hypocritical, in a sense. He's the only one saying people aren't Christians because they believe in ideologies, and he believes in an ideology.

Can we at least find a better source that actually says that?

[jsorense]

Just a side note here: It seems to me that we have to separate communism from what Stalin, Lenin and other nationalist did to it. Just saying.