But Leo XIII and Pius XI, Rerum Novarum and Quadragesimo Anno were clearer on not being Communist.
- JOL
- The Catholic Church (along with most Mainline Protestant Churches) have long challenged the morality of American style laizźe faire capitalism. But for those Catholics and other Christians who actively support the MAGA movement that kind of capitalism is a major plank of their worldview.
- DC
- Communism worked so well at feeding poor people. The only thing it does is guarantee everyone is equally compelled by gun point to starve to death.
- HGL
- DC Logic?
"I'm against unbridled Capitalism"
"Oh, you are for Communism?"
It's like the dialogue:
"I'm against Islam"
"Oh, you are an Atheist?"
Islam and Atheism aren't the sole two religious systems. Even if some Muslims like to think so. And Communism and Capitalism aren't the sole two Economic systems. Heard of Fascism? Peronism is a form of Fascism (at least in the opinion of the Swedish Fascist Per Engdahl), and Bergoglio was pretty obviously a Peronist, even his opponents in the Catholic Church have noted that. Peronism and Communism are not the same. Perón's Argentina supported Franco's Spain economically, at a certain point, when Spanish harvests were low after the Civil War, which Communism would never have done.
Somewhere between Islam and Atheism, you might also find a third option, like Christianity, ever heard of it?
- DC
- HGL, yes, I am orthodox. We suffered quite a few million martyrs from atheistic socialist communism's manifest blessings. We are also quite familiar with living under the benevolence of Islam. We suggest you do not get chummy with either. They love martyring Christians. You certainly will find out wether your Christianity is real or not. Christianity is a relationship of union and communion with Christ that transforms you. It is not an govt/ economic model of redistribution of wealth.
The thing about Islam and communism is your usually invited to join at gunpoint and that gunpoint is never very far away to help remind you their paradise doesn't like people leaving it. Christ on the other hand always honors your free will choice to leave Him. When Jihadi's have to fatwa your heinie and commies shoot you crossing their iron curtains ,your paradise on earth isn't working very well. Let's try to not assume that Christian's need to think remotely like yourself about your politics, economical and worldview to still be right with Christ.
- HGL
- "It is not an govt/ economic model of redistribution of wealth."
It is also not a a fitness régime but it still involves fasting which is a kind of fitness régime.
So, it could involve some limits on government and economy and therefore promote some things too.
First, Our Lord did not only tell His Apostles to convert souls, He told them to convert nations, and that typically means societies and governments.
Second, given that Christian government are, if not the main at least one purpose, anxillary but not totally beside the point, one can discuss what Christianity has to say to Christian governments.
Third, this should obviously involve banning abortions, it can however also involve banning class warfare, whether it be the proletarian agressor, as in BLM protests, or the Capitalist agressor, as in sweating and underpaying workers, and as in disloyal means of outcompeting the smaller and healthier competition.
A Christian may miss this and be in a state of grace, but this is usually the result of ignorance.
- JCE
- DC Jesus turned over the tables. He did not see the value of clinging to wealth. He called for love of neighbors… and no, not just your relatives or close friends. Helping the needy. And welcoming the stranger. (You know, like those from a different place… rather than sending them to jail…). If he stood in front of you today, dark skinned, challenging us all to share with each other, how long would it take you to put him on a cross? Not long, I imagine.
You might also remember that he challenged the men ready to kill a woman who made decisions they criticized… to throw the first stone… if they never made a mistake.
He also turned to the women who recognized him. They did much of the early leading and were trusted by him. Yet, as his supposed followers became an organization, they fell into old habits, making their own rules and repetitive requirements, putting women in a lesser category. Making beautiful buildings. Reinterpreting Jesus teachings — and then making “their” rules, not his teachings, the requirement for proving their faith. Not actually faith by following his teachings, but their own interpretations.
- DC
- JCE, I suggest you read the Bible again in a thematic manner. Look with the idea that Christ came to earth with the mission to undo the works of the devil brought about by the introduction of sin and death that separated God from Man. That Jesus restored man so that man may return to Paradise and be atoned or restored to being AT ONE with God as it was before the fall. That these books or testaments are testimony to God's work towards that goal. Preparing by prophesy, law and rites to bring you in preparation to Christ working in history.
What He brings is salvation/ restoration to God. Christ became man so that man can become like God. His Church is the Place He created to be the vehicle that serves you in this journey( WAY) to salvation in Christ. It is not a social welfare organization. It is not a governmental power to create "good" as defined by the morals of the day. And the devil offered all earthly governmental power to Jesus if He for go his death and simply worship the devil. Satan offers full belly's and equality and safety for all, Simply surrender to Him.
Jesus offers humility and obedience, the devil offers you outrage, anger, Restoration of wrongs, injustices and equality of outcomes. Quite sure the walls of hell will be grafittied with the quotes of Marx, Mao, the Beatles, Gloria Steinum, and the muzak in the elevators will play Imagine by the Beatles, I did it my way by Sinatra and all the sloppy feminist empowerment music from such notable as Beyonce and Cardi B.
WAP, now there's a message that empowers women. Study the word of God so that might transform YOU. You're in no condition to judge what state of righteousness is in others who you might foolishly presume is contrary to God's intentions.
- JCE
- DC Excuse me. I’m a retired ordained minister with a Master’s of Divinity. Graduated top of my class. I know the Bible. (And I’d gone to church through my childhood and read completely through the Bible when I was about 13.) I learned about the research on the times of Jesus and why there are biblical stories which seem contradictory. And the changes in it over centuries. So… I’m not just picking and choosing what some particular churches try to pound into my head, to go along with their views. I’m not just “trained”. I’m educated. The misuse of the Bible really hurts.
- HGL
- DC "Christ came to earth with the mission to undo the works of the devil"
Like the sins that cry to Heaven for vengeance. These being:
- murder
- sin against nature
- oppressing widows and orphans
- withholding justly earned wages
Or like dishonesty, one species thereof being taking of interest.
Have you read St. John Chrysostom? His work was highly influential on Monsignor Ignaz Seipel's Wirtschaftsethische Lehre der Kirchenväter.
Also, manmade starvation is murder. Within less than one century there were three of them in Europe.
- Capitalism with Protestant prejudice created one in Ireland
- Russian Magnates' admiration for Industrial Capitalism created one in the Volga valley, and Lenin rubbed his hands for the Revolutionary Potential
- Communists taking over the Volga Valley only averted a second starvation there by displacing it to Kuban and Ukraine, which had decent crops.
Usually, when you hear of manmade starvations, you only hear of the third and don't hear all of the story.
- DC
- HGL, yes, quite familiar with St. John Chrysostrum, we say his liturgy every Sunday.
If your familiar with orthodox thought you would realize that to combat sin you start with yourself, Not others. To many people prefer to destroy the choices of others rather than control their own sinful habits that contribute to sin. Siezing my means of production has never fed your poor, it just simply ended my means to survive. Jailing me in a gulag or Shooting my counter revolutionary ass for pointing out the obvious 100% failure rate of socialist communism is a very large sin against me. I think killing man to " save" a man compounded by millions of men killed who refused your program is a colossal failure and imminently the epitome of demonic sin.
- JOL
- HGL Please forgive, DC, HG. He is suffering from a bad infection of Communnitis, a mental illness whose primary symptom is that everthing to the left of him is perceived by him as an expression of Marxist-Lenninism.
- HGL
- DC "to combat sin you start with yourself"
Well, I unintentionally came to possess money gotten from interest. I paid it back to the poor via an intermediary.
However, politics exist. In a Monarchy, those starting with themselves who deal with this kind of thing are basically Monarchs. But in a Republic, it's voters. Which makes it a bit more commonplace to think about it.
"Siezing my means of production has never fed your poor,"
If you didn't get the memo the first time, I'm a Fascist, not a Communist. In 1920 to 1922, bands of Communists went from farm to farm and small factory to small factory (Fiat was safer for some reason) trying to seize the means of Production.
Meanwhile, Blackshirts went from small business owner to small business owner and told him "we'll defend your property, if you give the workers decent wages and decent working hours" ... many small business owners took that.
And when Mussolini became Il Duce (more prosaically Prime Minister in the Kingdom of Italy), the idea of seizing other people's property suddenly was way less popular. But so was the idea of underpaying or overworking employees.
- HGL
- DC "100% failure rate of socialist communism is a very large sin against me"
I wish the economically Fascist Marxisms of Nordic countries and the economically Distributist Marxism of Tito had failed as well, nearly. Nope. No 1990 to end those Marxisms. In the case of Yugoslavia, it ended but through Nationalist War. In the case of Sweden, Denmark, Norway, still way too Marxist, because the economic model is Fascism and didn't fail.
As a consequence, it was way after 1990 that Norwegian Child Protective Services targetted the Bodnariu family for being too Christian. If I didn't walk in protests before the Norwegian Embassy in Paris, it's because I supported the protests from my blog instead.
But when it came to feeding the population, the failure of Holodomor was worst and as said has parallels outside Communism.
- HGL
- JOL Did you say "mental illness"?
Matthew 5:22 ...
- HGL
- JCE "men ready to kill a woman who made decisions they criticized"
He criticised her decision too, "Go and sin no more" ...
As for killing, Judah had already lost sovereignty, which in Genesis 49 couldn't happen before Jesus came. Herod had forfeited the right to execute justice within his confines by that child massacre. It was not a Mosaic execution, but an Anti-Roman lynching (with no new Maccabee rising to match it).
Plus, where was the man she had sinned with?
