Pope Francis is taking a left turn for the Catholic
Church. He is attacking Capitalism as
being exclusionary and depraved. And mostly
he is right. Capitalism does pick
winners and losers … just like any other economic system. And Pope Francis,
with his huge Christian heart, is railing against the winners and gushing angst
for the losers. In a way this is his
duty as the leader of the church whose founder taught us to “love thy neighbor
as thy self.”
However, Capitalism has one thing going for it that Pope
Francis doesn’t deem to acknowledge … it is a wealth-creation engine
nonpareil. And lots of wealth creates lots
of largess. I know that the Pope’s message
dismisses “trickle-down economics” (probably a politically-inspired mistranslation),
but, in fact, a capitalistic society such as the United States defines
“poverty” at a level of possession that someone in the Sudan could only dream of
achieving. For more critical discussion
on the Pope’s teaching see:
UK Telegraph Opinion Piece. I wish I could reliably quote the original
source, but some wag once said that all other economic systems create as their
objective “trickle-up poverty.”
Although there are world problems that I would think Pope
Francis might have moved up his list of concerns … such as the wave of
Christian killings by radical Muslims … and the depravity that exists within
the walls of the Vatican … the injustices of Capitalism do need some
attention. This is particularly true
when capitalists form an unholy alliance with the secular state and winners are
not picked by the marketplace but in the White House. Christ did say, when asked about paying taxes
(and noting whose visage was on the coinage), “render unto Caesar what is
Caesar's.” But in my mind, it is often
the reverse flow of this pelf where the real corruption occurs.
