Thursday, March 28, AD 2024 10:54am

Succinct Explanation of the Current Pontificate

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Commenter Phillip gives the best description of Pope Francis and his papacy that I have seen anywhere:

“Humanitarian leftism is his engine…”

I agree. As is with many clerics, I believe Francis to be, what I call, a Christian materialist. All efforts are directed at the perfection of this world (which of course means a socialist – even neo-Marxist world.) All is directed to material well-being with no effort directed towards the redemption of souls or consideration of our eternal end. For those somewhat spiritually minded, there is the hope for the “just society” they create leading to a morally good people. But most don’t even pay lip service to this. For them, only material goods matter.

As for Jesus, he may be the Son of God for some. Or maybe a good human that has been elevated to the Divine by his “social justice.” Or perhaps he is merely some preacher of Roman Palestine who gives us one example among many of how to act justly. No matter however, there is almost never the desire to bring others to a relationship with him, acknowledge him as savior of the World through his atoning sacrifice (they in fact deny that) nor any recognition that his words mean more than a drive to social equality. In the end, he merely provides a veneer for their materialism.

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Father of seven
Father of seven
Friday, December 4, AD 2015 6:36am

I could always tell you what the pope was not. It was much harder to say what he was. This is the best explanation I’ve seen. Unlike Christ, the pope’s kingdom is of this world, and only this world.

T. Shaw
T. Shaw
Friday, December 4, AD 2015 7:02am

God bless you, Father of seven.
.
As my father-in-law (RIP) would say, “Now I see said the blind man as he picked up his tools and walked away.”
.
Apparently, the Pope missed in his a lot of his econ 101 course: Socialism, etc. only work if the definition of “preferential choice for the poor” consists of creating more poor and making them more miserable. Central planning, command economies, etc. schemes always fail the poor.

Don L
Don L
Friday, December 4, AD 2015 7:28am

One has to wonder why he is often quoted as loathing the present structural economic and social processes, but completely open to those economic structures that have failed and been condemned by previous popes?
It’s not economic structures that have failed, as much as it is the Church’s failure to alter free people’s behavior under those structures. Perhaps the worldly centered “Social Justice” agenda cares not about much more than altering those worldly economic and social structures and less about altering the condition of men’s souls?

Ernst Schreiber
Ernst Schreiber
Friday, December 4, AD 2015 7:37am

The second paragraph doesn’t really describe Francis.
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It seems to me.

MikeS
MikeS
Friday, December 4, AD 2015 10:10am

Regarding the “Christian Materialism” and the work done under government contracts by Christian organizations where they serve the poor but can not preach religion:

“It is not right that we should give up preaching the word of God to serve tables.” Acts 6:2 RSV

Yes, care for the poor needs to be done, but care for their (and our) souls is most important.

Tom
Tom
Friday, December 4, AD 2015 11:16am

Exactly. This materialism also is behind the Catholic Left’s rejection of capital punishment and just war. Cf, Bishop Barron’s recent shameful suggestion that peaceful non violence is the appropriate response to militant Islam.

When the here and now is all, death is the worst thing that can possibly happen. For the traditional Christian, there are things worse than death.

Greg Mockeridge
Greg Mockeridge
Friday, December 4, AD 2015 11:23am

In my opinion the best explanation of this pontificate is; Ideolgy runneth over my theology.

The Bear
Friday, December 4, AD 2015 11:31am

Or, as the Bear put it yesterday in the first paragraph of his article on whether the Pope was Catholic, “By now, there is little doubt that the Pope’s engine is leftist humanitarianism, not Catholicism.” When you stop viewing him as a religious leader, and see him as a secular leftist who somehow gained high religious office, it all makes sense.

William P. Walsh
William P. Walsh
Friday, December 4, AD 2015 11:37am

“Peaceful non-violence is the appropriate response to Militant Islam”. That is an absurd statement. How about, Peaceful non-violence is the appropriate response to Nazi aggression? God created us with a natural defensive response to existential threats. We have a duty to defend others as we would have others defend us. How anyone can think it moral to watch and do nothing as thousands are being murdered is beyond comprehension.

The Bear
Friday, December 4, AD 2015 11:49am

(P.S. lest anyone suppose I am suggesting anything untoward, my quote was properly acknowledged by Phillip in his comment.) He’s Pope Bono. In a way, his non-supernatural orientation may direct his waning energies toward areas less harmful to the Church like global warming, eliminating world hunger, and arms dealers. Phillip’s “Christian Materialism” oxymoron is another good way of looking at Pope Francis, although I am not sure I would be the one to suggest he doesn’t believe anything at all supernatural, which Christian Materialist could imply. With all due modesty, I still prefer “leftist humanitarian” because he exhibits the characteristics of leftists such as a need to be seen as compassionate and tolerant, a penchant for class warfare, and gullibility in matters such as global warming. Indeed, Pope Francis’ Papacy is consistent with that of a religious reformer, so he might very well believe in God — but in that leftist way where the Deity is invoked to get things done on earth.

Phillip
Phillip
Friday, December 4, AD 2015 1:48pm

“…although I am not sure I would be the one to suggest he doesn’t believe anything at all supernatural, which Christian Materialist could imply.”

For me, stating one is a Christian Materialists isn’t to imply that the Pope does not believe in the supernatural. In fact, the vast majority of those I would apply the term to do believe in the supernatural – at least of a sort. They just approach the world as if only the conversion of the material was important. Conversion of sinners, bringing others to the Faith etc., all with the goal of bringing souls to eternal beatitude in Christ is not talked about, doubted or downplayed (i.e. “proselytism is solemn nonsense.”) It is the conversion of social structures, equality of outcome, ending all material poverty (without addressing spiritual poverty) that matters.
It is not as if God or the supernatural does not exist to them but rather living as if the eternal, and the possibility of losing it, does not exist.

Lucius Quinctilius Cincinnatus
Lucius Quinctilius Cincinnatus
Friday, December 4, AD 2015 2:17pm

There is NOTHING authentically humanitarian about leftism. That is why Pope after Pope before this Occupier of the See of Peter condemned socialism and communism.

William P. Walsh
William P. Walsh
Friday, December 4, AD 2015 4:40pm

Verily speaketh Lucius Quinctilius Cincinnatus: Lenin, the Russian socialist, spoke of the need to crack eggs to make an omelet. His omelet was a socialist utopia, and the eggs were the heads of many human beings. There is nothing truly humanitarian about it. Socialism is contrary to human nature. Moreover, it has failed time and again. It amazes me to see how long it takes such a moribund polity to die.

Penguins Fan
Penguins Fan
Friday, December 4, AD 2015 8:54pm

We know the routine by now. This Pontiff doesn’t have any idea what the hell is going on in the world. He thinks he does, but he doesn’t.

The Cardinals who put him there need to go just as much as he needs to go.

I have been incensed over the mass murders committed by Muslims and this pathetic government’s failure to do anything about it except blame gun owners and yap about nonexitent global warming. This Pontiff, with his putrid “encyclical” about global warming while Christians are being killed by Muslims, is as guilty as the horse’s ass in the White House. He blames “arms dealers” and the like for wars, when the West and Islam has been at war since the seventh century and the current Pontiff is too dumb to realize it.

Can’t go back on that Second Vatican Council document claiming Muslims and Christians worship the same God. Nope, can’t do it no matter how many saints battled against Islam over the centuries.

The current pacifists in the Church hierarchy can go pound sand. All of them.

“Veni, vidi, Deus vicit.” Ask most of the Church hierarchy what this means. Betcha get a blank stare. The Pontiff might blow his gaskets if someone asked him this.

Michael Dowd
Michael Dowd
Saturday, December 5, AD 2015 6:13am

“Humanitarian leftism is his engine…” Very good definition Bear and Phillip.
This reminds me of what a former Dominican priest and Yale PhD friend of mine, now 81 years old, said when I asked him what he now believed since he left the Church.

“Maybe the divine Jesus is only a beautiful myth, but so what. Both religion and morality must spring from love and in the end belief is secondary to love inspired action. One of the lasting insights of the defunct liberation theology is the primacy of “orthopraxis” over ‘orthodoxy”. When asked if I am a Catholic, the answer is “practicing but not believing”. For now that’s the best this religious schizophrenic can do.”

Maybe Pope Francis is a “religious schizophrenic” too. Let us pray for the mental healing of Pope Francis.

Ernst Schreiber
Ernst Schreiber
Saturday, December 5, AD 2015 2:39pm

Best definition of a humanitarian I ever heard was, “somebody who loves humanity and hates people.”
.

Micha Elyi
Micha Elyi
Sunday, December 6, AD 2015 5:05pm

“[A]ttacking the structural causes of inequality”–Harrison Bergeron, here we come!

And where does “the absolute autonomy of markets” exist other than in an Ayn Rand novel? The papal statement quoted in the picture appears to be a nullity.

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