Thoughts From A Conservative Mom

The last pope, Benedict XVI, blamed capitalism for poverty and was a staunch advocate for socialized medicine.  Apparently he didn’t see the connection between that and violations of religious liberty such as the HHS mandate.

I hope that the new pope, Francis, is more like John Paul II, who understood and fought against the evils of Communism and Socialism.

Argentina, like most of Latin America, is a hotbed of Marxist “Liberation Theology” (Obama is an adherent of the racist version, Black Liberation Theology).  But does Francis I subscribe to it?  Unfortunately, the reports are contradictory and somewhat cryptic.

The Guardian calls him “a champion of liberation theology.”

Catholic Online says “Bergoglio is an accomplished theologian who distanced himself from liberation theology early in his career.”

The International Business Times reports:

According to John L. Allen Jr. of National Catholic Reporters, the Jesuit Bergoglio has long spoken out on behalf of the world’s poor and criticized free-market economic policies.

“We live in the most unequal part of the world, which has grown the most yet reduced misery the least,” Bergoglio told an assembly of Latin American bishops in 2007.

“The unjust distribution of goods persists, creating a situation of social sin that cries out to heaven and limits the possibilities of a fuller life for so many of our brothers.”

Read more at IBT

Robert Wenzel observes at the Economic Policy Journal:

Here’s Lynch quoting from that 2011 speech delivered by, now, Pope Francis I:

Said Cardinal Bergoglio in said speech that “The economic and social crisis and the consequent increase in poverty has its causes in ways policies inspiredneoliberalism considering profits and market laws as parameters, to the detriment of the dignity of individuals and peoples. In this context, we reiterate the conviction that the loss of the sense of justice and lack of respect for others have worsened and led us to a situation of inequity. ” Later stressed the importance of “ social justice ”, the” equal opportunity “damage” transfers of capital abroad, “which should be required” distribution of wealth ”, said the damage of economic inequalities and the need to “prevent the use of financial resources is shaped by speculation,” especially in the context of the “social debt”-which in his opinion is of eminently “moral” – is to reform “economic structures” in expressed the sense before.

Again, I may have lost something in the translation, but it appears the new Pope fails to understand markets and holds the concepts of social justice, equal opportunity and distribution of wealth, as important. Concepts which, of course, generally lead to advocacy of much government intervention and much central planning. It as though the new Pope has somehow given up on the good in people, and perhaps even in God, and has decided to replace both with a central role for the coercive state.

Read more at the Economic Policy Journal

The Investors Business Daily editorial board, however, contends that Francis I is no friend to Big Government:

The change that swept Eastern Europe in the 1980s and fueled the collapse of the Soviet Union may find itself repeated by a new pope with similar disdain for the authoritarian governments of his region.

When Cardinal Karol Wojtyla stepped out on the balcony of St. Peter’s in 1978 as Pope John Paul II, Soviet communism still stood astride Eastern Europe and his native Poland.

He would be the moral force helping to lead half a continent out of the human bondage of totalitarianism.

Argentina’s 76-year-old Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio, now Pope Francis I, is no stranger to — or compromiser with — the oppression of authoritarian government.

During his tenure as Archbishop of Buenos Aires and head of Argentina’s Conference of Bishops, the new pope had a strained relationship with the governments of President Cristina Kirchner and her late husband, former President Nestor Kirchner, who once called Bergoglio “a real spokesman for the opposition.”

The cardinal who eschewed limousines to ride his bicycle or take the bus, is known as a man of the poor and of the people.

He gained admiration for living in a modest apartment instead of the palace in Buenos Aires that was adjacent to the Casa Rosada where the president resides (and where Juan and Evita Peron often harangued the Argentine people).

The new pope has fought a long battle in Argentina against leftist government, Peronist anticlericalism, the spread of evangelical Protestantism and the secular temptations of modern society.

Like Pope John Paul II, he is likely to resist calls to “modernize” the church, to make it more “popular” and “appealing.”

Like Pope John Paul II, Pope Francis is a strong opponent of what is called “liberation theology,” a bizarre mix of Marxism and Catholicism often embraced by left-leaning politicians and clerics in Argentina and elsewhere in the hemisphere.

Rosendo Fraga, a well-known Argentine political analyst, told the Miami Herald’s Andres Oppenheimer that Pope Francis “is definitely bad news for the Argentine government. His homilies, as recently as two weeks ago, were very critical of economic and social conditions, and of corruption in Argentina.”

“Francis may become a critic of governments such as those in Venezuela, Ecuador or Bolivia, in the same way that John Paul II became a critic of communism in Eastern Europe,” says Daniel Alvarez, a professor of religious studies at Florida International University.

[T]o be sure, South American governments are, with certain exceptions, nothing like the monolithic, totalitarian USSR.

Moreover, Pope Francis I is not as young as Pope John Paul II. Nor does he have a Ronald Reagan and a Margaret Thatcher to work with.

Even so, he does provide a rallying point for a region beset by authoritarianism that badly needs one.

Read more at IBD

Who knows whether this pope will stand up against the unscriptural tenets of Socialism?  I guess we’ll have to wait and see.

Bloomberg: Pope Francis’ Economic Philosophy

Everything you need to know about Pope Francis’s macroeconomic views

What can we expect from Pope Francis?

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