Thursday, March 28, AD 2024 7:59pm

PopeWatch: Off the Cuff

If you want to know what this Pope thinks, always focus on his impromptu remarks:

Pope Francis on Saturday received a delegation of students, teachers and parents of San Carlo Institute, a high school in Milan, Italy, on the occasion of its 150th anniversary. The Pope engaged in a Q&A session, responding to their queries off the cuff.

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The fact that there are so many children hungry in the world today, is not something created by God but by an “unjust economic system where every day people become poorer with nothing.” 

This, the Pope said is not Communism, but the teaching of Jesus who will thank and tell us, “I was hungry and you gave me to eat.”   And to those of this system who starve children and people to death, he will say: “no, you go, because I was hungry you didn’t look at me.”   

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The Pope said that all seek peace, yet are there are wars in many countries such as in Yemen, Syria and Afghanistan.  The Pope said, “If they didn’t have the weapons, they wouldn’t wage wars.”  They wage wars “because we, the rich, Europe and America, sell weapons to kill children and people.”  “It’s us who make create differences.” 

Go here to read the rest.  None of this is new.  The Pope hates capitalism and believes that arm merchants cause wars.  The amazing thing about the Pope is how fact free his core beliefs are and his adamant refusal to learn otherwise.  The Pope ignores that capitalism has lifted more people out of poverty than any other economic system, or that almost all the poor of the planet are materially richer as a whole than 50 years ago.  He also ignores that those parts of the planet on which western style capitalism is unable to operate are precisely those places that tend to have the most extreme poverty.  The Pope’s reluctance to comment on Venezuela speaks volumes about his reaction to the calamities that occur when his anti-capitalist views are put to a field test by others.

In regard to the conflicts in Yemen, Afghanistan and Syria, the Pope completely ignores the local conditions that have led to the conflicts and blames them on the countries that have been trying to stop the conflicts.  These conflicts would of course be raging if the West did not exist.  In the eyes of the Pope, all misery in the Third World is caused by the West, and he is completely impervious to any contrary evidence.  John Adams once famously observed that facts are stubborn things.  Alas so is ignorance, and, as this Pope demonstrates each day, an ignorant man in a position of power, especially one who refuses to learn, is a calamity indeed.

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Philip Nachazel
Philip Nachazel
Monday, April 8, AD 2019 4:08am

His remarks recall to mind the woman who was trapped in her house due to an ever rising flood. She prayed to God for help. As the flood continued to fill her house she heard a boat. She looked out and waved the two rescue personnel away. God will help me, she thought, I don’t need them.

Moments later she had to crawl out of an upstairs window and perched herself on the roof. Suddenly a helicopter appeared and hovered overhead. She smiled and waved the team away. “Go away”…she yelled, “I’ve prayed to God that He will help me and I know He will.” They flew away without her. As the woman was swept away in the turbulent waters she cursed God…..”why didn’t you come to help me?”

Pope Francis isn’t considering the millions of poor who wouldn’t of been fed or clothed, if not for the generosity of the “rescue personnel” who were able to share their treasures because of capitalism. Again…thank God he wasn’t Pope in the twentieth century. So many of the poor might of been swept away because the leadership of the Church didn’t recognize God working in the midst of the United States of America.

Off the cuff……..retire already. Socialist do not contribute to the welfare of others.
unless early death and misery are accounted as noteworthy contributions.

David WS
David WS
Monday, April 8, AD 2019 4:25am

Maybe it’s not: “is the pope catholic?”, but “can he reason?”

father of seven
father of seven
Monday, April 8, AD 2019 5:11am

His arrogance is so blinding that he must believe he’s convincing someone with his obviously false narrative. Any thinking Catholic can now see him for who he is. The poor are only a prop to this man. Woe to those who call good evil, and evil good.

Ranger01
Ranger01
Monday, April 8, AD 2019 5:58am

Francis is not worth the ‘paper and ink’ to write about him.
He is a very dangerous man. He is not a shepherd in any sense.
Let’s stop kidding ourselves that Francis and his lieutenants despise all that traditional American Catholics embrace and hold as good and true about our Faith and our Republic.

OrdinaryCatholic
OrdinaryCatholic
Monday, April 8, AD 2019 6:20am

So many in this world, especially those in the third world and mostly because of the lack of education and their constant struggle for life’s necessities, must wonder at all this rhetoric from some one like a pope, whom they see as authoritative, caring and merciful talking about the evils of capitalism and how it is a selfish and greedy system that needs to be changed globally. Is it any wonder that the poor and uneducated look at the West with suspicion/envy because they believe, with the help of such talk from a pope that the very hand that feeds their poor countries in times of distress actually made their wealth at the poors expense? I’ve said it before, I don’t know what the motivation is for speaking as he does, ignorance, bad advisors etc…but it has to stop. Now.

Michael Dowd
Michael Dowd
Monday, April 8, AD 2019 7:41am

How is it Pope that there are more rich and fewer poor people in Capitalist countries than in Socialist?.

Greg Mockeridge
Greg Mockeridge
Monday, April 8, AD 2019 12:24pm

The pope is reflecting decades of hatred for capitalism on the part of the Church hierarchy. It was only a matter of time before one of them got elected to the Chair of Peter.

OrdinaryCatholic
OrdinaryCatholic
Monday, April 8, AD 2019 12:56pm

It really pains me but I think I may have to rethink my giving after this coming Easter. We normally have 2 collections per week in my parish. One is for the parish at large, mortgage, utilities and such which I support to no end since I wish my parish to survive and continue to celebrate Masses, but the second is not necessarily always for our parish such as Peters Pence, USCCB, and certain missions. I will begin to reserve a part of my tithing, and yes, I do tithe because I am able to and not because I am better than anybody that doesn’t. We all have our responsiblilities and know what we can or cannot give. But…I’m have much difficulty giving and not knowing where my money is going and for what. I cannot give if my money goes to contraception, abortion or…climate change through various Catholic Agencies.

Lucius Quinctius Cincinnatus
Monday, April 8, AD 2019 1:00pm

If the Pope thinks capitalism is evil, then the Pope should not benefit from capitalism. I pray daily that he be deposed and anathematized.

OrdinaryCatholic
OrdinaryCatholic
Monday, April 8, AD 2019 1:08pm

LQC I don’t. I pray that he be enlightened and realize that what he thinks of capitalism is wrong and that without it the world would be in greater calamity than it already is. I have to give him leniency considering his upbringing. I don’t like it and I totally understand why you and others don’t. But I prefer to pray for him that he sees his error in thinking when it comes to capitalism.

Art Deco
Art Deco
Monday, April 8, AD 2019 2:53pm

It doesn’t seem to occur to him that it isn’t ‘an unjust economic system’ which accounts for malnutrition. Insufficient production of food crops accounts for malnutrition, and that’s a deficiency of technology, infrastructure, and land tenure systems.

He doesn’t notice that life expectancy at birth the world over is 72 years, a level it did not reach in the United States until 1974. The metric for Latin America stands at 75.5, not achieved in the United States until 1991. That metric for South Asia stands at 68.7, a level not achieved in the U.S. until the year my parents were married (1952). That for Tropical and Southern Africa (60.4) is a tad higher than it was in this country the year my mother was born (1930). The man is just pig ignorant.

Art Deco
Art Deco
Monday, April 8, AD 2019 2:58pm

Per the World Bank, 20 years have been added to life expectancy at birth in Tropical and Southern Africa since 1960. What have the Peronist mafias accomplished in that time?

Art Deco
Art Deco
Monday, April 8, AD 2019 3:09pm

https://www.firstthings.com/article/1993/05/004-the-skimpole-syndrome-childhood-unlimited

It’s a reasonable inference that Francis has only the foggiest idea that bread is derived from wheat is derived from the labor of cultivators. He thinks bread comes from the bread delivery truck.

Steve Phoenix
Steve Phoenix
Monday, April 8, AD 2019 11:55pm

This pope really came out of his rat hole when he blatantly alleged, “We, the rich,America and Europe, sell weapons to kill children…”

The reference was to regional wars in Yemen, Syria and Afghanistan.

Yet if the pope did just a little bit of research, he would find that the overwhelming number of weapons supplied in those conflicts originate from Iran (whose leadership he glowingly welcomed to the Vatican 3 years ago), China, Russia and North Korea—-Just also as DEA agents will tell you that nearly all of the Mexican drug-cartel weaponry and ammunition comes from China and North Korea. The standard lethal heavy machine guns that are used to attack our military from mountain heights on their peacekeeping duty in Afghanistan are lethal 12.7 mm DShK “DShK” with a 2000m effective range, manufactured by the Tula Russian armaments complex in Tula Oblast, and estimated revenues are well over $10 million net annually. Just for one example. I could come up with dozens.

But, without any regard to objective facts, this imposter in the once-holy See of Peter, like a cheap wind-up toy, attacks Europe, America and capitalism.

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