Pope Slams Capitalism, Inequality Between Rich and Poor In New Years Message

WarriorAngel

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Isn't it though? Here is what he said as posted earlier:

Pope's New Year's Day homily: 'From the contemplation of the face of God are born joy, security, and peace'...



Pope on New Year's Day: find inner peace in God
(Vatican Radio) Pope Benedict celebrated mass in St Peter’s Basilica on New Year’s Day, marking the feast of Mary and the Church’s World Day of Peace. In his homily the Pope urged people to look to God and to his son Jesus for true peace in a world fraught with problems, darkness and anxieties.

Listen to the report by Susy Hodges:


Below, please find the English translation of the text of Pope Benedict's homily:

Dear Brothers and Sisters,

“May God bless us and make his face to shine upon us.” We proclaimed these words from Psalm 66 after hearing in the first reading the ancient priestly blessing upon the people of the covenant. It is especially significant that at the start of every new year God sheds upon us, his people, the light of his Holy Name, the Name pronounced three times in the solemn form of biblical blessing. Nor is it less significant that to the Word of God – who “became flesh and dwelt among us” (Jn 1:14) as “the true light that enlightens every man” (1:9) – is given, as today’s Gospel tells us, the Name of Jesus eight days after his birth (cf. Lk 2:21).

It is in this Name that we are gathered here today. I cordially greet all present, beginning with the Ambassadors of the Diplomatic Corps accredited to the Holy See. I greet with affection Cardinal Bertone, my Secretary of State, and Cardinal Turkson, with all the officials of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace; I am particularly grateful to them for their effort to spread the Message for the World Day of Peace, which this year has as its theme “Blessed are the Peacemakers”.

Although the world is sadly marked by “hotbeds of tension and conflict caused by growing instances of inequality between rich and poor, by the prevalence of a selfish and individualistic mindset which also finds expression in an unregulated financial capitalism,” as well as by various forms of terrorism and crime, I am convinced that “the many different efforts at peacemaking which abound in our world testify to mankind’s innate vocation to peace. In every person the desire for peace is an essential aspiration which coincides in a certain way with the desire for a full, happy and successful human life. In other words, the desire for peace corresponds to a fundamental moral principle, namely, the duty and right to an integral social and communitarian development, which is part of God’s plan for mankind. Man is made for the peace which is God’s gift. All of this led me to draw inspiration for this Message from the words of Jesus Christ: ‘Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God’ (Mt 5:9)” (Message, 1). This beatitude “tells us that peace is both a messianic gift and the fruit of human effort … It is peace with God through a life lived according to his will. It is interior peace with oneself, and exterior peace with our neighbours and all creation” (ibid., 2, 3). Indeed, peace is the supreme good to ask as a gift from God and, at the same time, that which is to be built with our every effort.

We may ask ourselves: what is the basis, the origin, the root of peace? How can we experience that peace within ourselves, in spite of problems, darkness and anxieties? The reply is given to us by the readings of today’s liturgy. The biblical texts, especially the one just read from the Gospel of Luke, ask us to contemplate the interior peace of Mary, the Mother of Jesus. During the days in which “she gave birth to her first-born son” (Lk 2:7), many unexpected things occurred: not only the birth of the Son but, even before, the tiring journey from Nazareth to Bethlehem, not finding room at the inn, the search for a chance place to stay for the night; then the song of the angels and the unexpected visit of the shepherds. In all this, however, Mary remains even tempered, she does not get agitated, she is not overcome by events greater than herself; in silence she considers what happens, keeping it in her mind and heart, and pondering it calmly and serenely. This is the interior peace which we ought to have amid the sometimes tumultuous and confusing events of history, events whose meaning we often do not grasp and which disconcert us.

The Gospel passage finishes with a mention of the circumcision of Jesus. According to the Law of Moses, eight days after birth, baby boys were to be circumcised and then given their name. Through his messenger, God himself had said to Mary – as well as to Joseph – that the Name to be given to the child was “Jesus” (cf. Mt 1:21; Lk 1:31); and so it came to be. The Name which God had already chosen, even before the child had been conceived, is now officially conferred upon him at the moment of circumcision. This also changes Mary’s identity once and for all: she becomes “the mother of Jesus”, that is the mother of the Saviour, of Christ, of the Lord. Jesus is not a man like any other, but the Word of God, one of the Divine Persons, the Son of God: therefore the Church has given Mary the title Theotokos or Mother of God.

The first reading reminds us that peace is a gift from God and is linked to the splendour of the face of God, according to the text from the Book of Numbers, which hands down the blessing used by the priests of the People of Israel in their liturgical assemblies. This blessing repeats three times the Holy Name of God, a Name not to be spoken, and each time it is linked to two words indicating an action in favour of man: “The Lord bless you and keep you: the Lord make his face to shine upon you: the Lord lift up his countenance upon you, and give you peace” (6:24-26). So peace is the summit of these six actions of God in our favour, in which he turns towards us the splendour of his face.

For sacred Scripture, contemplating the face of God is the greatest happiness: “You gladden him with the joy of your face” (Ps 21:7). From the contemplation of the face of God are born joy, security and peace. But what does it mean concretely to contemplate the face of the Lord, as understood in the New Testament? It means knowing him directly, in so far as is possible in this life, through Jesus Christ in whom he is revealed. To rejoice in the splendour of God’s face means penetrating the mystery of his Name made known to us in Jesus, understanding something of his interior life and of his will, so that we can live according to his plan of love for humanity. In the second reading, taken from the Letter to the Galatians (4:4-7), Saint Paul says as much as he describes the Spirit who, in our inmost hearts, cries: “Abba! Father!” It is the cry that rises from the contemplation of the true face of God, from the revelation of the mystery of his Name. Jesus declares, “I have manifested thy name to men” (Jn 17:6). God’s Son made man has let us know the Father, he has let us know the hidden face of the Father through his visible human face; by the gift of the Holy Spirit poured into our hearts, he has led us to understand that, in him, we too are children of God, as Saint Paul says in the passage we have just heard: “The proof that you are sons is that God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts: the Spirit that cries, ‘Abba, Father’” (Gal 4:6).

Here, dear brothers and sisters, is the foundation of our peace: the certainty of contemplating in Jesus Christ the splendour of the face of God the Father, of being sons in the Son, and thus of having, on life’s journey, the same security that a child feels in the arms of a loving and all-powerful Father. The splendour of the face of God, shining upon us and granting us peace, is the manifestation of his fatherhood: the Lord turns his face to us, he reveals himself as our Father and grants us peace. Here is the principle of that profound peace – “peace with God” – which is firmly linked to faith and grace, as Saint Paul tells the Christians of Rome (cf. Rom 5:2). Nothing can take this peace from believers, not even the difficulties and sufferings of life.

Indeed, sufferings, trials and darkness do not undermine but build up our hope, a hope which does not deceive because “God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit which has been given to us” (5:5).

May the Virgin Mary, whom today we venerate with the title of Mother of God, help us to contemplate the face of Jesus, the Prince of Peace. May she sustain us and accompany us in this New Year: and may she obtain for us and for the whole world the gift of peace. Amen!

Pope's New Year's Day homily: 'From the contemplation of the face of God are born joy, security, and peace'...
Been said previously - by Popes - which this Pope reiterates - it is the divisiveness of socialism [and its ilk] and communism that separates and causes class warfare of the rich and poor.

No doubt if there is anyone the Pope is slamming it is the liberals who use class warfare again and again to undermine this country and cause a great divide.

What we have - is no longer pure capitalism - as in anyone can obtain a dream and succeed if they desire... what we have is envy - and greed to manipulate the societies to believe success is greed and private property should be shared in mass taxes.

No doubt in my mind - this was a slam on Obama....coming at a time when he demands more taxes which will of course fall on the backs of the middle class eventually...making the poor - more poor. And middle class - poor.
 
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Veritas

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How Catholicism Created Capitalism

The Catholic roots of Capitalism. Yay, we started it!!!

The Cistercians, who eschewed the aristocratic and sedentary ways of the Benedictines and, consequently, broke farther away from feudalism, became famous as entrepreneurs. They mastered rational cost accounting, plowed all profits back into new ventures, and moved capital around from one venue to another, cutting losses where necessary, and pursuing new opportunities when feasible. They dominated iron production in central France and wool production (for export) in England. They were cheerful and energetic. "They had," Collins writes, "the Protestant ethic without Protestantism."

In his 1991 Encyclical Letter Centesimus Annus, Pope John Paul II points out that the main cause of the wealth of nations is knowledge, science, know-how, discovery — in today’s jargon, "human capital." Literacy and study were the main engines of such medieval monasteries; human capital, moral and intellectual, was their primary economic advantage.

The pope also praises the modern corporation for developing within itself a model of relating the gifts of the individual to the common tasks of the firm. This ideal, too, we owe to the high medieval religious orders, not only the Benedictines and the Cistercians, but the Dominicans and Franciscans of the early thirteenth century.


The Catholic Church’s role helped jump-start a millennium of impressive economic progress. In ad 1000, there were barely two hundred million people in the world, most of whom were living in desperate poverty, under various tyrannies, and subject to the unchecked ravages of disease and much civic disorder. Economic development has made possible the sustenance now of more than six billion people — at a vastly higher level than one thousand years ago, and with an average lifespan almost three times as long.

All of it fueled by Capitalism! :clap:






 
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WarriorAngel

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WarriorAngel

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How Catholicism Created Capitalism

The Catholic roots of Capitalism. Yay, we started it!!!

The Cistercians, who eschewed the aristocratic and sedentary ways of the Benedictines and, consequently, broke farther away from feudalism, became famous as entrepreneurs. They mastered rational cost accounting, plowed all profits back into new ventures, and moved capital around from one venue to another, cutting losses where necessary, and pursuing new opportunities when feasible. They dominated iron production in central France and wool production (for export) in England. They were cheerful and energetic. "They had," Collins writes, "the Protestant ethic without Protestantism."

In his 1991 Encyclical Letter Centesimus Annus, Pope John Paul II points out that the main cause of the wealth of nations is knowledge, science, know-how, discovery — in today’s jargon, "human capital." Literacy and study were the main engines of such medieval monasteries; human capital, moral and intellectual, was their primary economic advantage.

The pope also praises the modern corporation for developing within itself a model of relating the gifts of the individual to the common tasks of the firm. This ideal, too, we owe to the high medieval religious orders, not only the Benedictines and the Cistercians, but the Dominicans and Franciscans of the early thirteenth century.


The Catholic Church’s role helped jump-start a millennium of impressive economic progress. In ad 1000, there were barely two hundred million people in the world, most of whom were living in desperate poverty, under various tyrannies, and subject to the unchecked ravages of disease and much civic disorder. Economic development has made possible the sustenance now of more than six billion people — at a vastly higher level than one thousand years ago, and with an average lifespan almost three times as long.

All of it fueled by Capitalism! :clap:
Catholicism was the model of republics too.
 
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Veritas

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What we have - is no longer pure capitalism - as in anyone can obtain a dream and succeed if they desire... what we have is envy - and greed to manipulate the societies to believe success is greed and private property should be shared in mass taxes.

Obama claims we can't "cut our way to prosperity", but apparently believes we can tax and spend our way there.

Obama Vows More Tax Increases | The Blog on Obama: White House Dossier



No doubt in my mind - this was a slam on Obama....coming at a time when he demands more taxes which will of course fall on the backs of the middle class eventually...making the poor - more poor. And middle class - poor

Already has.

Despite deal, taxes on most Americans will go up | Fox News

Households making between $40,000 and $50,000 will face an average tax increase of $579 in 2013, according to the Tax Policy Center's analysis. Households making between $50,000 and $75,000 will face an average tax increase of $822.


And that's just the beginning. Classic bait and switch from Obama. Said he was only going to tax the so-call rich. Who knew $40K was rich?


 
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KatherineS

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First off, the pope did not "slam" capitalism.

he sure did.

Secondly, while he is a spiritual leader for Catholics, he is not an economist and has never run a business

Now you are slamming the Pope.

From an historical perspective, capitalism has been the greatest method of poverty reduction the world has ever known. Today, we see the poorest countries n by totalitarian/communist governments or Islamic fundamentalism. China has been experiencing an economic surge only becaused it has allowed free enterprise. When you look back thousands of years prior to the founding of the United States, you see feudalism and oppression. Everybody except the ruling class and elites were poor.


The you saw the poverty of the early industrial revolution which was often worse than the Middle Ages and caused the greatest rise in prostitution in history of the world.

Then you saw the rise of Social and Christian democracy in response to the ills and evils of capitalism. Now among the most affluent nations of the world are social democracies like Luxembourg, Norway, Switzerland, Netherlands, Austria, Sweden and Finland.
 
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Veritas

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I just find it interesting how easy it is for some Catholics to totally dismiss the Pope's word on Social Justice...

It wasn't dismissed. I would also remind you he isn't the only pope we've ever had. It's unfortunate that due to his lack of economic knowledge, he appears confused. A careful reading shows that he's really blaming selfishness, corruption and greed as the real problems. Those exist under socialism, communism, totalitarianism and religious fundamentalism. Captialism itself isn't to blame.
 
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Veritas

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he sure did.



Now you are slamming the Pope.




The you saw the poverty of the early industrial revolution which was often worse than the Middle Ages and caused the greatest rise in prostitution in history of the world.

Then you saw the rise of Social and Christian democracy in response to the ills and evils of capitalism. Now among the most affluent nations of the world are social democracies like Luxembourg, Norway, Switzerland, Netherlands, Austria, Sweden and Finland.


How would union thuggery exist without capitalism?
 
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S.ilvio

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It wasn't dismissed. I would also remind you he isn't the only pope we've ever had. It's unfortunate that due to his lack of economic knowledge, he appears confused. A careful reading shows that he's really blaming selfishness, corruption and greed as the real problems. Those exist under socialism, communism, totalitarianism and religious fundamentalism. Captialism itself isn't to blame.

So the Pope is 'confused' and 'lacking in knowledge'.

Bless him he is in his 80's. What would he know about Capitalism?

******* STAFF EDIT *******

God Bless the Unions, Especially in America...
 
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MKJ

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It wasn't dismissed. I would also remind you he isn't the only pope we've ever had. It's unfortunate that due to his lack of economic knowledge, he appears confused. A careful reading shows that he's really blaming selfishness, corruption and greed as the real problems. Those exist under socialism, communism, totalitarianism and religious fundamentalism. Captialism itself isn't to blame.

All the popes who have lived in the era of capitalism have been pretty harsh on it, actually.
 
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Tallguy88

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S.ilvio said:
So the Pope is 'confused' and 'lacking in knowledge'.

Bless him he is in his 80's. What would he know about Capitalism?

******* STAFF EDIT *******

God Bless the Unions, Especially in America...

Thank you. God bless our friends in Old Eire too.
 
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I sometimes think that GK Chesterton was right that both parties are just two sides of the same corrupt coin. The business of Progressives is to go on making mistakes. The business of Conservatives is to prevent mistakes from being corrected--Chesterton

Either way you lose. In the Orthodox Divine Liturgy each Sunday we pray "put not your trust in princes in sons of men in whom there is no salvation"

I think that's good advice. Politicians are mostly doing the devil's work on either side. People should put more faith in Christ and less in these dufus congressmen and political crooks.
 
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Brooklyn Knight

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I sometimes think that GK Chesterton was right that both parties are just two sides of the same corrupt coin. The business of Progressives is to go on making mistakes. The business of Conservatives is to prevent mistakes from being corrected--Chesterton.

Similar in vain to what Lewis Black said:

A Republican will stand up in Congress and say, "I've got a really bad idea." And a Democrat will immediately jump to his feet and declare, "And I can make it (censored) [Worse]."
 
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Veritas

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All the popes who have lived in the era of capitalism have been pretty harsh on it, actually.

No, they have been harsh on the abuses of capitalism; all of which exist in every economic system. JPII spoke well of the opportunity that exists within capitalism and it's ability to foster the highest good. No such good comes from oppression.
 
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Tallguy88

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Veritas said:
No, they have been harsh on the abuses of capitalism; all of which exist in every economic system. JPII spoke well of the opportunity that exists within capitalism and it's ability to foster the highest good. No such good comes from oppression.

Socialism does not equal oppression.
 
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MKJ

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No, they have been harsh on the abuses of capitalism; all of which exist in every economic system. JPII spoke well of the opportunity that exists within capitalism and it's ability to foster the highest good. No such good comes from oppression.

I disagree. If we are considering pure, free market capitalism, it has inherent flaws which are addressed quite clearly in the social encyclicals, just as the inherent flaws of a pure socialist system are.

For example, the idea that the free market will always create a just outcome, based only on the consumption patterns of individuals - the whole invisible hand bit. These is in a very basic way incompatible with a Christian position.

Or the individualism of capitalism, or possibly even the idea of endless growth.

Socialism, by the way, isn't any more inherently linked to oppression than capitalism - in the ideal form neither are meant to be oppressive. There is good reason to think that in reality, both inevitably fall prey to oppression of the masses. That is, while neither was designed as a vehicle of oppression or has that as a goal, both seem to have an inherent flaw that creates oppression.
 
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