Monday, June 30, 2014

Marx 'Did Not Invent Anything' says Pope Francis

Pope Francis has accused communism of stealing its ideas from Christianity, and said its founding thinker Karl Marx "did not invent anything," reports AFP News.

Commenting on suggestions that his world view is not dissimilar to communist ideology, the Pope responded that it was the church that got there first.

"The communists have stolen our flag. The flag of the poor is Christian. The poor are at the heart of the Gospel," he said in an interview published on Sunday.

He cited the Beatitudes, the opening verses of the Sermon on the Mount, as an example of where Christianity had influenced communism.

"The communists say that all this is communism. Yeah, right, twenty centuries later. So one can say to them: 'but then you are Christian,'" the Pope said while laughing, according to the interview in Rome daily Il Messaggero.

The biggest problem here is that the Pope still sees an important connection between communism and Christianity, when there isn't one, regardless of who came first with the central planning ideas. That said, the Pope also has his facts wrong about which came first.



7 comments:

  1. There is some truth in it, but it's not what His Holiness thinks. See what the great Murray Rothbard wrote about Marxism and Christianity:

    http://mises.org/daily/3769

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  2. This pope is a complete moron. I'm so glad I left the catholic church over a decade ago.

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  3. The pope doesn't seen to understand the difference between voluntary action (Christianity) and coercion (communism).

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  4. It is scary how proud he is that Marxist communism copied [his idea of] Christianity. This Pope is pure evil.

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  5. Mises thought there was a connection between Communism and (contemporary) Christianity--so did Nietszche and Mencken to an extent as does the entire critique of Pagan/Far Right thought--that is, Christianity promotes egalitarianism (which is, as Rothbard put it, a revolt against a nature.) Modern Church "Christianity" is in line with the goals of the state, save some harmless sects, but of course there is a timeless form which is the point of religion.

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