In the interview, where questions were posed in Portuguese and the responses were given by Pope Francis in Spanish, the pontiff said coveting money will bring about both human and ecological ruin:
“This is the tip of the iceberg. We see these refugees, these poor people who are escaping from war, escaping from hunger, but that’s the tip of the iceberg. But underlying that is the cause, and the cause is a socio-economic system that is bad, unjust, because within an economic system, within everything, within the world, speaking of the ecological problem, within the socio-economic society, in politics, the person always has to be the center. And today’s dominant economic system has removed the person from the center, and at the center is the god of money. It’s the fashionable god today. I mean, there are statistics. I don’t remember very well, but — this is not exact and I could be making a mistake— 17% of the population has 80% of the wealth.”Raimondo responded:
This Pope is an idiot: what about the *wars* - started by the US? That's what they're fleeing. https://t.co/41XBZupr1w
— Justin Raimondo (@JustinRaimondo) September 14, 2015
My question has always been, if the Pope believes wealth is the root of evil, why is he so focused on it? And why would the fact that "17% of the population has 80% of the wealth" be a concern to him, if he doesn't think there should be a focus on wealth?
-RW
It's hard to read in another person's mind, but I think that he simply wants to increase his popularity and that of the Catholic Church (not necessary in this order). And he is succeeding. As for the logic in his arguments, he's not exactly David Gordon but the mainstream media, which used to hate Benedict XVI, love him.
ReplyDeletecos ole stick in the mud benedict wouldn't change, even coming out against the Wars for Christs sake,
DeleteI'm more worried about the fruits of the tree of Evil.
ReplyDeleteEvil is a tree.
Love for money is one of its roots, not the root.
Love is a human emotion, and money is a creation of men.
No socio-economic system can be good or just, because all of them are created by the same corrupted creatures who love money above God. Did God created a socio-economic system? No, he gave a Law to a very specific people in a very specific time, and they were not capable of keeping that law. Now that law is no more, and that people is no more. God is clearly a libertarian.
Arrogance is also a root of the tree of Evil, which produces many fruits, and Socialism is one of them. Too bad that people who like God also like the fruits of the tree of Evil.
A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, and a bad tree cannot bear good fruit.
I like some of your thoughts.
DeleteThe Law handed down still reigns- the corruption of it is merely marring the view.
I am thankful to be raised inside the church. It taught me that peaceful interaction with all is the ideal.
The God of Money wants $18,700 for a years tuition at B.C. High.
ReplyDeleteHas this Pope criticized US foreign policy at all? I could've sworn early in his papacy that he came out against preemptive war although I may be confusing that with Pope Benedict
ReplyDeletePray for The Pope of Gold
ReplyDelete"Permit me to issue and control the money of a nation,
and I care not who makes its laws."
Mayer Amschel Rothschild (1744-1812, attributed)
"The best way to destroy the capitalist system is
to debauch the currency."
Lenin (1870-1924, attributed by Lord Keynes in
The Economic Consequences of the Peace, 1919)
"Money has to serve, not rule."
Pope Francis (May 16, 2013)
Indeed, the Holy Father might reflect on whether Madison's indictment of fiat money is not equally applicable today. After all, the Fed's goal of two percent inflation would have appeared to the Founding Fathers as simple coin clipping, a capital offense. His Holiness might ask himself whether much of what he criticizes in "unfettered" capitalism flows not so much from free markets as from bad money freed from the discipline of precious metal. And he might then conclude, as he did with respect to the environment, that the best remedy is to make a new start and to choose again money credibly linked to silver or gold, or to borrow some of Madison's words, to expiate the accumulated guilt for the pestilent effects of fiat money by sacrificing the power which has been the instrument of it.
Today that power resides in the banks and central banks, which finance governments and other spendthrifts at the expense of savers and pensioners, Wall Street in preference to Main Street, malinvestment to the detriment of the environment, and that most expensive of all government endeavors: the military-industrial complex and war. It is no accident that what Raymond Aron labeled The Century of Total War (Doubleday, 1954) coincided with the demise of the classical gold standard and the rise of central banking.
Unfortunately, as well-documented at this site and elsewhere, the monetary provisions of Constitution of the United States have been turned upside down, and the people no longer enjoy their constitutional right to the use and benefits of sound money linked to silver or gold. As a constitutional crisis, Watergate's long term impact has proved trivial compared to President Nixon's closing of the gold window in 1971, when the demands of financing the Vietnam War finally overpowered the fixed $35 per ounce gold price. Since then, and especially over the past 25 years, Western governments and their central bankers have waged an undeclared but nevertheless savage war on gold -- a war against sound money -- to preserve and extend their own powers and privileges to dominate the planet. The casualties are uncounted; advocates of honest money -- isolated and scorned as gold bugs -- comprise but a tiny fraction.
http://goldensextant.com/PopeGold.html#anchor1851
And yet, isn't the Catholic Church one of the wealthiest religions in the world? Don't they own millions of dollars in valuables, including many of the buildings inside Vatican City?
ReplyDeleteAgreed, if the pope is so against wealth, why doesn't the catholic church give most of its wealth to the poor?
DeleteNearly all of its wealth is in art and architecture. The Catholic Church is very cash poor and most cash that it gets goes immediately to its missions of running hospitals and schools and other programs for the poor.
DeleteWhat percentage of the worlds wealth does the Catholic Church own? 10% of over a billion people has to be worth something...
ReplyDeleteThe Vatican has 10x the gold as all of the rest of the world's gold stashes combined.
DeleteThe Bible isn't anti riches, or anti rich people:
ReplyDeleteProv. 10:4
Poor is he who works with a negligent hand, But the hand of the diligent makes rich.
Prov 24:4
3 By wisdom a house is built, And by understanding it is established;
4 And by knowledge the rooms are filled With all precious and pleasant riches.
The Pope wants everyone to be agrarian socialists living in mud huts and eating only our own organic crops. Of course, 99% of humanity would necessarily starve to death.
ReplyDeleteEither that or he just is clueless about economics.
God's representative on earth, my ass.
He's beyond stupid. Hopefully 'His Stupidity' will drop dead soon. What an ignoramus.
Delete