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Redistribution: The Unconquerable Delusion
“A Pope that mentions Dorothy Day is a pope that rocks,” tweeted Neera Tanden of the left-leaning Center for American Progress. Tanden might have wished to reel back that praise if she had known that Day, though a prominent pacifist and socialist, was also a fervent opponent of abortion, birth control, Social Security, and the sexual revolution.
It’s fitting that Pope Francis should have invoked Dorothy Day among his pantheon of great Americans – she’s a symbol of where leftists always go wrong. This Pope is going wrong in the same way. The left’s delusions of “social justice” seem indomitable – impervious to evidence.
The Pope lauded Day, for “her social activism, her passion for justice and for the cause of the oppressed [which] were inspired by the Gospel, her faith, and the example of the saints.”
Let’s assume that Dorothy Day’s motives were as pure as Pope Francis described: Does having the right motives excuse everything?
Day’s interpretation of the Gospel led her to oppose the US entry into World War II, which would arguably have led to a world dominated by Nazi Germany, fascist Italy, and Imperial Japan. How would that have worked out for the poor and the oppressed?
Though her social views were heterodox for a leftist, Day was a supporter of Fidel Castro, and found very kind things to say about North Vietnam’s Ho Chi Minh. She visited Leonid Brezhnev in the Kremlin, and lent her moral support to other communist regimes despite their persecution of Catholics and others.
Of Castro, Day said, “I am most of all interested in the religious life of the people and so must not be on the side of a regime that favors the extirpation of religion. On the other hand, when that regime is bending all its efforts to make a good life for the people … one cannot help but be in favor of the measures taken.”
According to the Black Book of Communism, between 1959 and the late 1990s, more than 100,000 (out of about 10 million) Cubans spent time in the island’s gulag. Between 15,000 and 19,000 were shot. One of the first was a young boy in Che Guevara’s unit who had stolen a little food. As for quality of life – it has declined compared with its neighbors. In 1958, Cuba had one of the highest per capita incomes in the world. Today, as the liberal New Republic describes it:
The buildings in Havana are literally crumbling, many of them held upright by two-by-fours. Even the cleanest bathrooms are fetid, as if the country’s infrastructural bowels might collectively evacuate at any minute.
Poverty in Cuba is severe in terms of access to physical commodities, especially in rural areas. Farmers struggle and many women depend on prostitution to make a living. Citizens have few material possessions and lead simpler lives with few luxuries and far more limited political freedom.
This left-leaning Pope (who failed to stand up for the Cuban dissidents who were arrested when attempting to attend a mass he was conducting), and our left-leaning president have attributed Cuba’s total failure to the US.
It’s critically important to care about the poor – but if those who claim to care for the poor and the oppressed stand with the oppressors, what are we to conclude?
Much is made of Pope Francis’s Argentine origins – the fact that the only kind of capitalism he’s experienced is of the crony variety. Maybe. But Pope Francis is a man of the world, and the whole world still struggles to shake off a delusion; namely, that leftists who preach redistribution can help the poor. Has this Pope or President Obama taken a moment to see what Hugo Chavez’s socialist/populist Venezuela has become? Chavez and his successor (like Castro, like Lenin, like Mao) promised huge redistribution from the rich to the poor. There have indeed been new programs for the poor, but the economy has been destroyed. The leader of the opposition was just thrown in jail. Meanwhile, the shops have run out of flour, oil, toilet paper, and other basics.
If you want moral credit for caring about the poor, when, oh when, do you ever have to take responsibility for what happens to the poor when leftists take over?
We know what actually lifts people out of poverty: Property rights. The rule of law. Free markets. Not only do those things deliver the fundamentals that people need to keep body and soul together, they accomplish this feat without a single arrest, persecution, or show trial.
Published in Economics, Religion & Philosophy
When the Pope goes to political centers of power and meets with the leaders he appears to be in the same boat. He could easily eschew those venues and speak at only open religious venues but he isn’t so he appears in the political arena and then is being ardently defended for really speaking ‘spiritually’… c’mon, he and the Vatican entourage aren’t ignorant of their arena’s of opportunity.
So to ‘understand’ what he means, means to remove the ‘place’ and only listen to the words? Yeah, he isn’t double-timing these messages.
He met with the dictators of Cuba and he is being absolved of any reservations for the blood on their hands because why? I guess the dead have no voices so he is only concerned with the living?
He flies in his private plane with an entourage, meets with heads of state and lives in a gilded cage? (sounds like Trump would love to hang with this guy) How many refugees is the Vatican taking?
Mother Teresa let Bill Clinton know exactly where she stood, that’s a standard to live up to… so where’s Francis standing?
Mona- thanks for expressing the frustration that all the veneration is supposed to cover up. What he does or ‘doesn’t do’ does matter, no matter how much depth of Catholic theology is read into all of this.
No, I don’t believe it does. I believe that honor lies at the feet of human nature itself and a cultural shift to placing more value on individual emotions and scientific processes, not capitalism. Non-capitalist countries can be and have been just as poor in faith.
You aren’t, Mona and others are. I responded to the image you posted but the comments underneath are not specifically directed at you.
I’m sorry, but no. That ship sailed as soon as he started using the word “politics” and publishing opinions/making speeches about the actions governments should take. I simply cannot agree with any argument that he is not a political leader.
No, I don’t think so. I do think it would be unfair and uncharitable to interpret ambiguous statements in the least favorable way possible — and that seems common in these discussions.
When the Pope makes statements that strike you as ambiguous — especially in formal documents such as encyclicals — I think it would help to take the time to study the background of prior encyclicals, Catholic doctrine, and social teaching if you really want to understand it in context.
Or if that seems like too much effort, you could just shrug and leave the ambiguity unresolved. Hence my earlier question as to why, exactly, you were so keen to know what he really means.
Is there really such a clear-cut line between morality and politics? Don’t most political questions have a moral component to them? Conversely, can a moral teacher be silent about politics?
Slavery, segregation, war, abortion, immigration — are these moral questions or political questions? I’d argue they are both, and that’s why we tend to get so passionate about them.
Fair enough, but I don’t see where Mona has made that argument either.
Mona’s argument (as far as I can tell) is that his praise for Dorothy Day betrays a Leftist political agenda.
Now, I’d never heard of Day until this thread, and katiev’s comments describing Day as a former Leftist prior to her conversion has mostly persuaded me that Mona’s core argument in the OP fails to hit the target.
However, nearly every serious critique I’ve read regarding Pope Francis has been about specific statements/actions, rather than blanket condemnations that if he’s not an “American economic conservative” (whatever that means) he’s therefore a Marxist.
I absolutely agree that many of his statements have been twisted, taken out of context, and/or mistranslated by commentators on both the Left and the Right.
However, the continued accumulation of statements/actions which have been ambiguous and open to interpretation continue to leave me skeptical.
Someone with his level of influence, it seems to me, should be extra careful to ensure that the meaning of his statements/actions are understood correctly.
I mean, he’s been Pope for over two years now, and I’ve yet to see any reduction in ambiguity.
Capitalism is not a ‘tool’. Capitalism is the system that emerges when people have the freedom to live their own lives, to pursue their own ends and not have the state or the mob decide what the purpose of their life shall be. Capitalism works better than any other system in lifting up the poor precisely because of that freedom, but the morality of capitalism would be the same even if it did not. Freedom is its own end.
It is sad that some conservatives seem to not understand that capitalism is the natural result of a system of morals, and not just a mere ‘tool’ to be discarded if it doesn’t fit the social justice flavor of the month or meet the demands of a religious leader’s call for wealth redistribution.
The Pope should restrict his comments to calling on his flock to be more charitable and to worry about the spiritual health of his followers. The minute he starts talking about economic systems and policy matters he removes his Pope hat and becomes fair game for criticism just like anyone else.
I absolutely refuse to give religious deference to someone who steps beyond religious matters and endorses ideas and policies that threaten the freedom of my child to choose his own direction in life. And in my judgement, that’s exactly what this man is doing.
Perhaps disagree with him without attacking him?
Because the Pope is not just another political leader, but rather a religious leader (so imho different rules of engagement) whose job includes commenting on and trying to guide politics.
a) Well, I never argued that he isn’t also a moral leader. I was responding to the argument that all people of good will should deny that he’s ever a political leader.
b) When he makes statements which could be interpreted by fair-minded and reasonable people as endorsing the confiscation by force of private property from one set of people so that it be redistributed to another set of people, that strikes me as arguably being a violation of the commandment prohibiting theft.
I could assume that no Bishop of Rome would ever endorse theft, therefore that possible interpretation of his remarks must be incorrect, but my skepticism prevents such an assumption.
I suppose I am simply unclear on the difference between an “expression of disagreement” and an “attack”.
This is not an accurate characterization in full of the dichotomy. Suggesting that the right “only wants equal access to the ATTEMPT to attain it” is only partially true and quite incomplete. Access or “equal opportunity” is something that the right largely stands for rather than equal outcomes but your characterization suggests that both systems, left and right, result in the equal output of goods, services and capital and the meaningful difference is between how this amount of production and capital is distributed. This is fundamentally wrong.
The right (at least I do) supports a capitalistic free market system because that system results in more production and capital at lower costs. The result is that more people have access to this wealth creation than they would under a command and control system. Total wealth is much, much greater (at all levels of socioeconomic classes) even though “inequality” may be higher.. I don’t think this is much of a debatable point if one has an even cursory understanding of global economic history.
It means roughly “someone who would agree with mainstream American conservatives on economic issues.” The qualifier “economic” is necessary because on other sets of issues (e.g. social issues) he does agree with mainstream American conservatives. The qualifier “American” is necessary because “conservative” means different things in different places. Many European countries for instance still use “liberal” to mean someone who supports free trade and free markets, whereas the term no longer has that meaning in the American context.
There are several different possible reasons one might seek to understand what he really means, including but not exclusive to:
Does “confiscation by force of private property” include things like income and payroll taxes?
That strikes me as an awfully circular definition.
Absolutely, which is why I expect their endorsement from politicians and laymen, and why I can personally tolerate them as a necessary evil, but also why I would prefer they not be promoted by clergy.
Ok… you mean you want me to explain what it is that American conservatives believe about economics? I kinda’ assumed we all knew that already.
I hate to break it to you, but I doubt you’d find any popes who would endorse the view that “taxation is theft” — not Pope Emeritus Benedict, certainly not Pope Francis, and not even Saint John Paul the Great.
Well, if the argument is that there’s an epidemic of conservative commentators who argue that any person that doesn’t subscribe to “American Conservative Economics” is automatically a Marxist, I’d like to have a little better understanding of what is meant by “American Conservative Economics” so I can decide for myself whether the dichotomy is valid or false. Maybe these (apparently hypothetical) people who believe in this dichotomy have a point! I can’t form an opinion on this question without a good understanding of the terms being debated.
a) I’m entirely comfortable limiting myself to comments on the individual who holds the position currently. He is, after all, the one making ongoing statements of great political and economic import which are the subject of this discussion.
b) I don’t ask that clergy endorse the view that taxation is theft. I do prefer that clergy not endorse the view that taxation is a religious imperative. Whether or not Pope Francis has endorsed this view seems to be, largely, the question in a nutshell. My own opinion is that his statements have been ambiguous on this point.
Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church:
She was “naive” for so long that it looks more like willful blindness. And you do Chambers an injustice. For him, Communism was a religious force; when that god failed, he underwent a conversion to Christianity and as a result felt obligated to try to mend the wrong his adherence to evil had caused. Day continued as a fellow traveler and endorser of and activist for Communist movements and causes.
A pacifist? Orwell had it right:
Pacifism is objectively pro-Fascist. This is elementary common sense. If you hamper the war effort of one side you automatically help that of the other. Nor is there any real way of remaining outside such a war as the present one. In practice, ‘he that is not with me is against me’. The idea that you can somehow remain aloof from and superior to the struggle, while living on food which British sailors have to risk their lives to bring you, is a bourgeois illusion bred of money and security.
Indeed, Christ told the faithful that they should pay their taxes.
Christ never told governments that they must impose taxes on the people.
It is not a sin to hand one’s money over to a thief.
Pope Francis, from his interview during his flight to the U.S.:
I’m unclear how these statements relate to the question of whether or not taxation is theft.
Is taxation punishment for wrongdoing?
Is it evil to even believe that taxation is theft and to prefer that clergy not promote an increase in taxation, particularly for the purpose of redistribution?
Are subjects not even permitted to express disagreement with an authority?
Again, telling someone they should obey governments is not the same thing as saying they should endorse the diktats of governments, or that they must give clergy a pass on how they advise governments.
That feels like a cop-out to me. It seems to boil down to, “if it seems like I haven’t been clear it’s the listener’s fault.”
True, however a thief has no right to your money, you do not owe him your money. Romans 13 says:
The governing authorities are “ministers of God” who have a legitimate and just claim on your money, taxes are due to them.