I was struck by the excellent quality of the article by William Kilpatrick on Pope Francis’s Socialist Agenda. It’s a disturbing “elephant in the room”. Those with even a basic understanding of the Church’s social teaching know that Socialism and Communism are condemned because they seek to place the state in the role proper to God.
For a variety of reasons the mainstream Church has embraced socialist ideas on the global, diocesan and many parish levels. One is more apt to find agreement with the pronouncements and projects of the United Nations then they are a concern with the First Commandment or the command to evangelize.
In Canada, a letter of congratulations was went to the radically pro-abortion Liberal Prime Minister Justin Trudeau when his party was elected but the same courtesy was not done for his predecessor from the Conservative party. Go ahead, read that letter, the name of Jesus or God does not appear ONCE!
When a “catholic” Ted Kennedy or Pierre Trudeau or other public haters of Christ’s Law die they are feted and celebrated- a cardinal dressed in white presides over a grand funeral. Do you think that impacts their judgement one iota? Their ilk are given communion without a pause- is there no concern for their souls? Is it just optic or politics now?
Friends, the postmoderns, satanists, wicca, islamists, radical feminists, open border types, modernist Catholics, LGBT lobby, and socialists vote one way. Why? Some members of that group I’ve listed would kill others on the same list! What’s the common ground?
The common enemy is “The West”, Christendom and of Jesus Christ as understood as GOD. Fully God and Fully Human. (“Hippy Jesus” gets a pass apparently because he is mythical and harmless like santa or is regarded as a “prophet”.)
As Christians we care for the poor but we do not worship the poor.
We help them and one another voluntarily, not coerced or redistributed at the point of a gun figurative or literal.
You may also find these of interest:
Church Teaching On Socialism and Communism
Do “Leftys” incline Good?
Socialism and Communism
Do “Leftys” incline Good?
Being Left inclined does not make a person evil; in many cases it is precisely because they would like a better world and want increased “good”. But what “good”/Good do they seek? What is the authority of the “good”? Can we really reason that Marx and Alinsky are better examples of “good” than Jesus Christ? Really?
The Good of the Will of God is often different than the “good” that is defined by most of the world.
There are soft-core Lefties who just want a decent world for everyone (good motive, bad means) and you have hard-core Lefties who actually understand what they believe and its consequences.
So what to look at when pondering “foundational Good”?
Current Rome?: No. Our political leaders? No.
My suggestion is that we return to classic reason. Aristotle being perhaps the most accessible religiously neutral figure that pursued Good.
From there we may rediscover the best of Christianity which under-gird the whole civilization. You may no more eradicate it from the West with a good outcome than you can remove the spine from a healthy person. How do you discover the best of Christianity as it is applied and lived in the world? Through the lives and writings of the Saints.
Church Teaching On Socialism and Communism
“Christian Socialists” are frauds
“Christian socialism, are contradictory terms; no one can be at the same time a good Catholic and a true socialist.”
– Pius XI, Encyclical Quadragesimo Anno, May 15, 1931
Socialism like other sins corrupt what is good in man
“…communism, socialism, nihilism, hideous deformities of the civil society of men and almost its ruin.”
– Leo XIII, Encyclical Diuturnum, June 29, 1881
Socialists oppose the Will of the One True God
“…We speak of that sect of men who, under various and almost barbarous names, are called socialists, communists, or nihilists, and who, spread over all the world, and bound together by the closest ties in a wicked confederacy, no longer seek the shelter of secret meetings, but, openly and boldly marching forth in the light of day, strive to bring to a head what they have long been planning – the overthrow of all civil society whatsoever. Surely, these are they who, as the sacred Scriptures testify, ‘Defile the flesh, despise dominion and blaspheme majesty.’ (Jude 8).”
– Leo XIII Encyclical Quod Apostolici Muneris, December 28, 1878
Socialism is a false utopia, another fraud.
“The dream of re-shaping society will bring socialism but stranger still, alarming and saddening at the same time, are the audacity and frivolity of men who call themselves Catholics and dream of re-shaping society under such conditions, and of establishing on earth, over and beyond the pale of the Catholic Church, ‘the reign of love and justice’ … What are they going to produce? … A mere verbal and chimerical construction in which we shall see, glowing in a jumble, and in seductive confusion, the words Liberty, Justice, Fraternity, Love, Equality, and human exultation, all resting upon an ill-understood human dignity. It will be a tumultuous agitation, sterile for the end proposed, but which will benefit the less Utopian exploiters of the people.
– St. Pius X, Apostolic Letter Notre Charge Apostolique, August 25, 1910
Socialism is opposed to Christian truth
“… For Socialism, which could then be termed almost a single system and which maintained definite teachings reduced into one body of doctrine, has since then split chiefly into two sections, often opposing each other and even bitterly hostile, without either one however abandoning a position fundamentally contrary to Christian truth that was characteristic of Socialism.” -Pius XI, Encyclical Quadragesimo Anno, May 15, 1931
Socialism delivers the opposite to its stated intention.
“The State which would provide everything, absorbing everything into itself, would ultimately become a mere bureaucracy incapable of guaranteeing the very thing which the suffering person − every person − needs: namely, loving personal concern. We do not need a State which regulates and controls everything, but a State which, in accordance with the principle of subsidiarity, generously acknowledges and supports initiatives arising from the different social forces and combines spontaneity with closeness to those in need.”
-Benedict XVI, Encyclical Deus Caritas Est, December 25, 2005
The fundamental error of socialism is anthropological in nature.
“Socialism considers the individual person simply as an element, a molecule within the social organism, so that the good of the individual is completely subordinated to the functioning of the socio-economic mechanism. Socialism likewise maintains that the good of the individual can be realized without reference to his free choice, to the unique and exclusive responsibility which he exercises in the face of good or evil. Man is thus reduced to a series of social relationships, and the concept of the person as the autonomous subject of moral decision disappears, the very subject whose decisions build the social order. From this mistaken conception of the person there arise both a distortion of law, which defines the sphere of the exercise of freedom, and an opposition to private property.” – John Paul II, Encyclical Centesimus Annus, May 1, 1991