I know we're supposed to hate on the Pope and Actions are Louder than Words

[Ocean Seal]

but isn't he hitting the nail on the head with a lot of these things, and pushing the charitarian reactionaries out of the inner recesses of the church. Doesn't this kind of piss on the whole we're (church) the good guys because we give to charity.

https://scontent-b-lga.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-frc3/1503316_683546815019513_172070511_n.png

I think we should appreciate it as more than a media ploy honestly. It's giving the reactionaries one less place to hide.

[Broviet Union]

Strikes me as not much different than when U.S. Democrats talk about fighting inequality or something along those lines.

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

So he comes across as a fairly decent person, relative to some of the reactionaries who have occupied his position previously.

Doesn't really change anything politically though, does it?

[Brotto Rühle]

The pope is a social democrat who understands the notion of PR, yay for him.

[Os Cangaceiros]

*shrug* leftists are never going to be satisfied by anything he says or does, because he's the Pope, and as such heads one of the world's foremost institutions of reaction, the Catholic Church. It's power is on the wane, though, as is the power of organized religion in general, I think, especially if we take a very long-term view of people's views on religion. The power of the Church in the modern era is still considerable, though, to say the least.

[Broviet Union]

I do think it would probably be hilarious to go onto a Traditionalist Catholic blog right now. They are probably rending their garments and declaring the Apocalypse.

[Sinister Cultural Marxist]

You can like the Pope as much as you like, but you should obviously be critical of the social institution which he leads. It's nice to have a Pope who talks about Atheists going to heaven and the need for equitable distribution, but as Pope he is also going to end up endorsing positions we should oppose, like regulating a woman's right to chose.

On some level though he probably is familiar with some of the Marxist critiques of the economy especially as a Latin American priest, and while materialism is unacceptable by Church doctrine, Marxist analysis of class can still be contingently adopted. Hence we get movements like Liberation Theology. The Pope may not be a theologian of liberation per se but he does seem sympathetic to some of their criticisms, and they did have a big presence among the Jesuits.

[Venas Abiertas]

They have different approaches to dealing with him.

One is to insist that he doesn't really mean those things about social justice: he's just simply misunderstood or mistranslated by the liberal media.

Another is that he is a "man of the cloth" and not an economist so he really doesn't understand these matters and should stick to spiritual issues.

Others suggest that as a Latin American he's not really fit to be Pope because of his upbringing under "socialist regimes". (These idiots are convinced that Latin America is full of socialist countries, that's why it's so poor.) They believe that Latin Americans are genetically predisposed to be lazy and criminal and that's why we naturally favor socialism.

Check out this thread from a conservative Catholic fórum for examples of all three:

Is anyone else irked by the phrase "social justice"?

http://forums.catholic.com/showthread.php?t=836247

Even the title of the thread is ignorant and annoying!

This isn't the first time a Pope has been accused of preaching "Marxism":

In 1967 Pope Paul VI was accused of "souped-up Marxism"

http://forums.catholic.com/showthread.php?t=846363

Conservativism is itself a religión, with its dogmatic beliefs, sacred literature, saints, apostles, and commandments. To a Catholic Republican, not even the Pope's words take precedence over the holy doctrines of free-market capitalism!

[Queen Mab]

Err, have you even looked at the image you posted? It says "raise the minimum wage". That's about the limit of the Pope's radicalism.

Capitalism wasn't defeated or even seriously damaged when the reactionary Catholic Church degenerated in the past 50 years. So I have no idea his opposition (supposed) to the reactionary Catholic Church establishment is a good thing. Reactionaries are irrelevent to us and society at large. It's liberals, mainstream conservatives and reformist social democrats that we should concern ourselves with.

[Rurkel]

The Pope may not be a theologian of liberation per se but he does seem sympathetic to some of their criticisms, and they did have a big presence among the Jesuits.
Yeah, but is the point of his criticism that the workers should be rebellious, or that the capitalists should be more compassionate?


Capitalism wasn't defeated or even seriously damaged when the reactionary Catholic Church degenerated in the past 50 years.
Capitalism wasn't defeated when reformist social democrats were defeated, either.

[La Guaneña]

The very-conservative catholic right here is totally raging at this dude, especially after he said "I'm no marxist, but I know some marxists who are good people". Like, he actually considered marxists as people, as GOOD people.

I don't really trust him, but it just feels goooooooood to see the catholics doing rage backflips...

[Mark V.]

Actions speak louder than words indeed: http://www.catholicherald.co.uk/news/2013/09/27/pope-francis-excommunicates-australian-priest/

The guy does do some decent things but remember who he was chosen by: The College of Cardinals. At best this seems to be a cynical attempt to improve the standing of the Catholic Church by hiding behind the one man in the running who seemed "somewhat decent".

[Dennis the 'Bloody Peasant']

My wife's nanna is a pretty devout catholic and she has voiced some unease about his more 'liberal' stances and ideas of reform. I know soc dems who go all gooey and excited about how 'progressive' he is blah blah.
He's still the head of a global religious institution whose past (and no doubt future) crimes go unpunished due to deference to tradition, dogma, faith and other tools of reaction / means of halting our progress as a species.
He's the nicest viper in the nest, that's all.

[La Guaneña]

I think he's the one that is bringing the Church back to the XX Century, after John Paul II and Bento XVI taking it back to the Middle Ages. I do not think, though, that he is the one leading the Church to the XXI century.

[Dave B]

Sounds more like a regression to the late 4th century stuff of the proto Kautskyist John Chrysostom as laid out by Kautsky himself as in;

Foundations of Christianity
Book Four: The Beginnings of Christianity

I. The Primitive Christian Community
The Proletarian Character of the Community


Saint John, called Chrysostom (Golden Mouth) because of his fiery eloquence, a fearless critic of his time (347 to 407), attached to the above description of primitive Christian communism a discussion of its advantages which sounds very realistically economic and not at all ecstatic and ascetic. This is in his eleventh homily (sermon) on the Acts of the Apostles. There he said:


“Grace was among them, since nobody suffered want, that is, since they gave so willingly that no one remained poor. For they did not give a part, keeping another part for themselves; they gave everything in their possession. They did away………

http://www.marxists.org/archive/kautsky/1908/christ/ch09.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Chrysostom



Although as an ultra leftist I am no fan of the late crypto reformist Kautsky with his imaginary gold money and credit card socialism.

[Comrade Jacob]

He still isn't left enough for me but he is the most left-leaning pope to date.
He's anti-capitalist but still the head of a feudalist organisation. Meh.

[Sinister Intents]

Despite the 'good' things he may say, he seems no different than a liberal. Fuck the Pope, fuck the Catholic church.

[Sea]

He still isn't left enough for me but he is the most left-leaning pope to date.
He's anti-capitalist but still the head of a feudalist organisation. Meh.Actually this anti-capitalist is the head of a capitalist organization (tee-hee that sounds familiar) called the Vatican too. And the catholic church itself isn't feudalistic anymore that it is primitive-communist.
this is stupidthis is the pope, what did you expect?
but isn't he hitting the nail on the head with a lot of these things, and pushing the charitarian reactionaries out of the inner recesses of the church. Doesn't this kind of piss on the whole we're (church) the good guys because we give to charity.

I think we should appreciate it as more than a media ploy honestly. It's giving the reactionaries one less place to hide.How is he hitting the nail on the head by (literally) preaching reformism? And the only reason he's pushing out reactionaries that don't agree with him is so he can replace them with reactionaries that agree with him.

[IBleedRed]

This is what I think: we're not trying to win over the Pope or the authorities of the Catholic Church. We're trying to win over working-class people, and many of them are Catholics. So, while the Pope might be doing this for PR or whatever, this criticism of capitalism might open the door for us in connecting with more people, and if it does that, then it's a welcome change.

[human strike]

Clearly what this represents is a successful project of autonomist entryism.

"The ideology of Marxism is wrong. But I have met many Marxists in my life who are good people, so I don't feel offended."

I think this quote says a lot more about certain Marxists than it does the Pope.

Anyway, fuck the Vatican's recuperating bollocks. Down with the Toad of Nazareth and his slimy Papal spawn!

[Islam Muslim Muhammad]

Fuck the Pope. His Church has killed millions of Muslim women and children.

[Redistribute the Rep]

This is what I think: we're not trying to win over the Pope or the authorities of the Catholic Church. We're trying to win over working-class people, and many of them are Catholics. So, while the Pope might be doing this for PR or whatever, this criticism of capitalism might open the door for us in connecting with more people, and if it does that, then it's a welcome change.

Agreed. The fact that his approval rating is so high among Catholics is exciting to me, even if he's not nearly as progressive as we want him to be. This could be a sign that people's opinions on matters like wealth inequality are starting to change.


(CNN) – As Pope Francis prepares to celebrate his first Christmas at the Vatican, Americans' opinions of the pontiff appear to be as high as the dome on St. Peter's Basilica, according to a new survey.

A CNN/ORC International poll released Tuesday found that 88% of American Catholics approve of how Francis is handling his role as head of the 1.2 billion-member church.

[Jimmie Higgins]

I think we should appreciate it as more than a media ploy honestly. It's giving the reactionaries one less place to hide.

Welll... Or providing them cover.

I'm really not one to look a gift horse in the mouth and if some working class Catholics interpret his words as more confidence in the idea that it is not wrong to want to change the balance of things right now, if the words make some people more willing to talk about these ideas and organize with others, then good.

But more specifically, what the pope is saying is a traditional aspect of Modern Catholicism. Wealth (outside the Vatican - ha!) is not a virtue in catholic thought, they are against materialism (in the common sense) and so rich people in the abstract are automatically suspect... Unless the give a lot back to common people.... And maybe through some organization of men in collars who administer programs and facilities to the poor - ha! But seriously, they do not see "unbridled capitalism" as a good thing. In the us Catholics generally are part of working class or immigrant communities in the past and the church officials on the ground have tended to support union, civil rights, and anti-war organizing in part because of who their audience is and the need to be somewhat responsive. Urban churches are going to tend to emphasize pro-immigrant (regardless of documentation) stances. Churches where a lot of people are union, might support them and will probably speak out against greed or violence by bosses (of course also speak against any violent confrontations by workers too).

Globally, the church is growing in Africa and losing some ground in South America and certainly (going by to my more cynical impressions) doesn't want to be seen as aligned with the European capitalists or the emerging and hated capitalists in parts of Africa. And "greed" and the markets aren't popular in Europe or the u.s. As much these days.

So I do think it's some p.r.... The pope is inherently p.r. So just like the royals, anything they do or say is part of the church's public outreach efforts.

[Alexios]

Fuck the Pope. His Church has killed millions of Muslim women and children.

When did this last happen? Like 800 years ago? Using such dumb logic you could just as well denounce Islam for killing Christian women and children.

[Criminalize Heterosexuality]

"Attacking the structural causes of inequality" is so purposefully vague it is compatible with almost every shade of political opinion, from American right-"libertarianism" (the structural cause being the gummint, no doubt) to Nazism (the structural cause being the Jews, sorry, Jewish finance capitalism), to milquetoast social-democracy (the structural cause being insufficient market regulation). It does not imply a Marxist analysis of society; that is wishful thinking at best. And even if it did, what, are we going to ignore the murderous misogyny, homophobia, transphobia and racism that the Church preaches?


This is what I think: we're not trying to win over the Pope or the authorities of the Catholic Church. We're trying to win over working-class people, and many of them are Catholics. So, while the Pope might be doing this for PR or whatever, this criticism of capitalism might open the door for us in connecting with more people, and if it does that, then it's a welcome change.

But we aren't selling Marxism. We don't want to con people into saying nominally Marxist things and buying the Party newspaper because they think we're saying the same things as the bloody Pope. If we haven't induced the Catholic worker to break with the Pope, we haven't accomplished anything.

[Sea]

Fuck the Pope. His Church has killed millions of Muslim women and children.Yep, gotta protect those weak, frail women. :rolleyes: Take your chivalry and shove it up your ************************

[Marshal of the People]

I think the pope is an Illuminati infiltrator tasked with the destruction of christianity itself.:lol:

[Marshal of the People]

Fuck the Pope. His Church has killed millions of Muslim women and children.

Are you a troll? (<- serious question)

[DasFapital]

Bill O Reilly also supports raising the minimum wage and that guy is revolutionary as fuck.

[ChrisK]

It doesn't matter to me what the pope actually believes. What matters to me is that his p.r. campaign is indicative of what potential Catholics care about; inequality. Further, he reinforces the idea that inequality is wrong. Even if he is advocating reformism that's 1.2 billion followers who have to listen to media call him a Marxist, which is bound to make Marxism sound less like a bad word. That's also 1.2 billion people hearing that he is meeting with Liberation Theologians and that puts certain Marxist ideas back in the news.

Ultimately, none of this is revolutionary. None of this is going to start a revolution. It will, however, get the conversation started and that can only be good.

[reb]

Move over Kautsky, we have a new pope of marxism.