Last week I published the commentary “CEO Pay Just a Reflection of America’s Economic Apartheid” (November 18), in which I sounded a clarion call for an angry populism to redress the growing gap between rich and poor.
Last month I published “Bob Woodward: Republicans Are Trying to Blackmail Obama” (October 1), in which I condemned Christian politicians for backsliding so far from the basic tenets of their faith that they would rather see people go without basic healthcare than see President Obama hailed and vindicated for championing the plight of the poor:
By forcing this government shutdown, these ‘wacko-bird’ Republicans are undermining what little credibility and influence their Party has at the federal level for a plainly unattainable goal (a classic case of rebels without a cause). Why? Because, all of their partisan talking points and political posturing aside, these are people who hate Obama(care) more than they love their country.
Not to mention what a mockery their obsessive, delusional opposition to Obamacare (yes, Obama cares) makes of the most fundamental calling of their Christian faith, which, of course, is to help the poor. (In this case, it’s clearly too inconvenient for these Bible-thumping charlatans to ask: what would Jesus do?)
But never in my wildest dream could I have imagined the pope being hailed as a revolutionary for echoing this angry populism. Not least because, as the above indicates, I have always thought championing the plight of the poor was the cardinal mission of all Christians.
Yet, reading reports on yesterday’s publication of “Evangelii Gaudium” (The Joy of the Gospel), the mission statement for his papacy, you’d think the pope were Christ himself preaching this basic tenet of his new religion 2000 years ago in a money-worshiping Roman marketplace.
Here’s just a sample of the pope’s lamentations that has everyone from political commentators to Catholic priests hailing him as a bold religious disrupter, all seemingly oblivious to the irony inherent in their awestruck reaction:
How can it be that it is not a news item when an elderly homeless person dies of exposure, but it is news when the stock market loses 2 points?…
Some people continue to defend trickle-down theories which assume that economic growth, encouraged by a free market, will inevitably succeed in bringing about greater justice and inclusiveness in the world. This opinion, which has never been confirmed by the facts, expresses a crude and naive trust in the goodness of those wielding economic power and in the sacralized workings of the prevailing economic system.
I beg the Lord to grant us more politicians who are genuinely disturbed by the state of society, the people, the lives of the poor!
(Reuters, November 26, 2013)
Again, nothing indicates how far mainstream Christians have backslidden quite like the pope’s good old-fashioned religion being hailed as revolutionary. Hell, given the way some televangelists have christened their “idolatry of money” as “prosperity gospel,” the pope and his fellow Jesuits clearly need to spend as much time spreading the word among their Christian brethren as they spend spreading it among non-Christians.
To be fair, though, here’s how the more objective London Guardian reported yesterday on the pope’s apostolic exhortation:
Francis went further than previous comments criticizing the global economic system, attacking the ‘idolatry of money’ and beseeching politicians to guarantee all citizens ‘dignified work, education and healthcare.’
He also called on rich people to share their wealth. ‘Just as the commandment ‘Thou shalt not kill’ sets a clear limit in order to safeguard the value of human life, today we also have to say ‘thou shalt not’ to an economy of exclusion and inequality. Such an economy kills,’ Francis wrote in the document issued on Tuesday.
All that’s left for me to say is, Amen!
Except that I feel obliged to note that, for all the praise being heaped on him as a revolutionary, the pope is actually reinforcing his church’s traditional edicts on such issues as women priests, homosexuality, and abortion. He’s just sensible enough to appreciate that there would be many more people in the pews if priests humbled themselves by preaching social justice/liberation theology, which addresses the suffering of the poor, instead of playing God by passing moral judgment on the personal choices (good) people make.
I suppose this is why the pope had no compunction about banishing Germany’s Bishop Franz-Peter Tebartz-van Elst (aka “Bishop Bling”) to an ascetic monastery for spending $43 million to renovate his pastoral digs, but seems ambivalent about disciplining the gay cabal that has turned Vatican City into a latter-day Sodom….
Related commentaries:
CEO pay…
Republicans trying to blackmail Obama…