Being reported on MSNBC right now, along with the banner “Pope doesn’t but into trickle down economics”.
Some people won’t like my lack of an stance here, but I know a good topic for argument when I see it. Argue whatever part of this you want, religion, politics, media, or the unholy triad they form.
The pope is generally despised by the left, so I can’t see why his approval of something would mean anything w/o the context of why he’s approving of it. This is nothing more than “appeal to authority”, since he is no expert on economics.
As for what the right will think… well, they’ll dismiss it like they do whenever they disagree with il papa (Iraq war, death penalty, etc.).
I wouldn’t characterize Occupy so completely as ‘left’ right now. Though heavily leaning that way. OTOH, the Tea movement had some broad spectrum support initially before ending up clearly associated with the ‘right’. There are times where both left and right have associated themselves with religion, as you mention, when convenient. But this movement has global aspects, and the RC church is trying to regain influence in Europe, after decades of decline there. This has political ramifications for the tenuous relationship between Catholics and the American Protestant pro-life movement, which is a major part of the Republican base. Splitting the Catholics from the pro-lifers could affect the political direction of heavily Catholic regions, New Jersey and Chris Christie’s Catholic based positions being a good example.
I can’t hold my nose enough to watch Fox News anymore. I’m dying to see how Steve Douchey is going to call the Pope a terrorist for this.
The Catholic Church has always been big into a concept called “distributive justice”, that the state and the society have the moral duty to make sure benefits and duties are shared throughout the society; that it’s morally wrong to have a society where some people starve if there’s enough food, or some can’t afford health care when it’s available to others, or some people don’t have homes while others live in mansions.
That’s a fundamental of Catholic social justice teaching, so this isn’t a particularly surprising stance for them.
This is a link to a Catholic health care network, so it focuses its principles in relation to health care, but it’s a good list of fundamental Catholic social justice principles.
You should not judge “the left” by the likes of Der Trihs. There are plenty of leftist Catholics (and, indeed, plenty of other devoutly religious people who are leftists).
No, the Pope is no economic expert, but to so some people (not me) he is an expert on ethical matters, and the relevant issues, certainly from the protesters’ point of view, have more to do with ethics than the technicalities of economics. (Also, in respect of economic expertise, the Pope is more like the President and other politicians: they usually are not economic experts themselves, but, because of their power, they have ready access to expert advice.)
That said, I doubt whether this announcement will have very much effect on anyone, because Catholic leftists probably already assumed (and not without good reason) that this would pretty much be the Pope’s position. It is not inconsistent with stuff that he and other recent Popes have said before.
The Tea Party is very American-centric, filled with people concerned only about American problems. Ones that are, to this day, still not very coherent or compelling.
“We want to take back our country” only speaks to people who feel that the country fundamentally changed when Obama was elected. It definitely doesn’t speak to people who are not even in the country.
Hate them all you want, but the Occupy folks have not come across as provincial. They may actually be just as provincial, but they have done things in such a way as to avoid looking like it.
Are you kidding? But for the abortion and gay issues, the pope lines up pretty well with the radical wing of the Democratic party.
This pope is generally despised by the left. I should have been more clear. Do you dispute that?
I would dispute that. You were right before in addressing it as a point by point matter. Never mind, rereading your original post you only applied that to the right. I don’t think the left is all that different.
The idea of Christian politics being synonymous with with the right wing is a modern, US, invention.
Traditionally (and unsurprisingly given the number of times the bible refers to looking after the poor, vs how many times it refers to Homosexuality or any of the other “hot button” issues we think of when whenever religion and politics comes up) the Evangelical Christian movement was associated with progressive politics.
For example the guy who PROSECUTED the Scopes Monkey Trial was more famous for his progressive politics of the sort that you would associated “Occupy” movement.
I probably should have done this earlier, but I’m going to challenge the OP to flesh out his thesis more. I searched MSNBC’s web site, and wasn’t able to find any articles on this subject, so how does one arrive at the conclusion that the pope prefers The Occupiers to the Tea Partiers? Obviously, there are areas of agreement and disagreement with both sides. And I don’t accept that Tea Party = Trickle Down Economics. Also, I would discount this analysis coming from MSNBC, as they are clearly, as a whole, more in line with the OWS movement than the TPers.
So, if we presented the pope with 2 choices: an America in the image of the TPers or one in the image of the Occupiers, which one would he choose? Assuming for the sake of this argument that Occupiers are pro-choice and TPers are pro-life. Is it worth 1 million abortions a year in order to have more economic equality?
I’m not sure what his answer would be, but I don’t think it is at all clear he would go with the Occupiers.
I can’t find anything on the MSNBC site either, but they don’t do much updating over the weekend, and this appeared on TV just before they went off the air for today. I’ll check this tomorrow and add links.
I don’t recall this or other Popes making calls on that basis. There’s been pro-life support at the same time as support for liberal economic issues before. And I don’t think that Occupy or Tea Party makes abortion a major part of their platforms. Both of them think are centered around economic issues.
It’s probably the two speeches listed in these stories, the first to the Centesimus Annus Pro Pontifice foundation, and the second in honor of World Food Day:
http://www.uscatholic.org/news/2011/10/freedom-hunger-essential-part-right-life-pope-says
Here’s the first address in full:
http://www.zenit.org/article-33682?l=english
And the content of the second letter:
Yeah, I’d like to see some exact quotes, too.
And this wouldn’t have much effect on Catholics who already lean left, but it might cause some of those on the right to rethink their views.
Actually, the thing MSNBC is probably talking about is the encyclical the pope looks like he’ll release on Monday, which is supposed to be an indictment of the world financial situation
The last two read like something written 300 years ago. Not the ideas, but the language. I couldn’t make sense of what they were supposed to be saying other than Family = Good.
so the Pope has forgotten Catholic social teaching principles like subsidiarity and has come out in favor of a gang of Soros-sponsored promoters of confiscatory taxation and totalitarian State take-over of society? Does he have some advanced rank in freemasonry, by any chance?
Really? I didn’t find them particularly hard to read, although they both referred back to other documents.
The first one, which is an annual conference dealing with the encyclical Centesimus Annus, he’s talking about the family, and this year’s conference theme, which is “the relationship between family and work”. He’s saying, first, the family is the Church in microcosm, and it’s the family where we first learn how to relate to other people, and that relationship, and as well as the relationship we have towards each other in the larger world, “must be guided by caritas, in the logic of gratitude, of solidarity and of responsibility for one another.” We have to have “a sense of responsibility on the part of everyone with regard to everyone, and it cannot therefore be merely delegated to the State.”, and that “While in the past it was possible to argue that justice had to come first and gratuitousness could follow afterwards, as a complement, today it is clear that without gratuitousness, there can be no justice in the first place. (…) Charity in truth, in this case, requires that shape and structure be given to those types of economic initiative which, without rejecting profit, aim at a higher goal than the mere logic of the exchange of equivalents, of profit as an end in itself”
The second is talking about the world food crisis and he’s saying that the food crisis goes beyond just not enough food. The cause of the food crisis is in our attitudes; in the gap between those who have more than enough and those who have nothing, in a globalization that made the world smaller but hasn’t led us to see each other as brothers, and that food is just another marketable commodity, and not a basic right. And he’s saying that the FAO needs to continue its work in making sure food is available, and the Catholic Church will do the same.
People before profit?
Well, he’s simply wrong here. The worst of the food crisis is 100% politically caused, and has nothing to do with how much food is produced. The 1st world could easily feed the famine areas of the 3rd world if the local political authorities would allow that to happen.
That’s what he’s saying. He’s saying that the food crisis isn’t due to there not being enough food, but due to the fact that people with food don’t give a damn if people without food starve.