This Pope
intends to refocus the clergy on a doctrine of compassion making it the central
mission of the church. This is real
history and is likely to change everything.
Even fumbling in that direction is revolutionary.
In the meantime
he is showing us how to live the life as well lest anyone dream it cannot be
done no matter how hard.
Imagine
approaching a homeless man or women and offering generosity to them. Imagine buying them a modest lunch and
spending an hour with that person. Now
imagine asking them how they think that they can help your community. Get the information. Find out his parameters.
Now imagine
doing this every day. What did it cost
you? Your pride? Write about what you learned and share it.
We have largely
escaped barbarism and this last step may even be the hardest, but one billion
people demonstrating compassion utterly changes everything.
A Pope's Pointed
Message
Washington, DC -- "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. Meanwhile, the excluded are still waiting."
That passage is not from some Occupy Wall Street
manifesto. It was written by Pope Francis in a stunning new treatise on the
Catholic Church and its role in society -- and it is a powerful reminder that
however tiresome the political trench warfare in Washington may be, we have a
duty to fight on.
The full implementation of Obamacare matters.
Raising the minimum wage matters. Reforming a financial system "which
rules rather than serves," Francis noted, matters. Hearing the anguished
voices of those left hopeless by poverty matters; answering their pleas with
education, health care and employment matters even more.
Francis, the first Jesuit and first non-European in
the modern era to be named pope, clearly intends to make a real difference in
the world -- too much of a difference, it appears, for some conservatives:
Sarah Palin, a born-again Christian who attends a nondenominational church,
said recently that Francis' open-arms attitude on social issues "has taken
me aback." Would that a few more words might take her all the way aback to
the obscurity from which she came.
Francis' remarks on economics and poverty came in a
50,000-word Apostolic Exhortation, released Tuesday, that gives the
clearest vision to date of how he sees the church and how he intends to reshape
it. In its boldness, the statement suggests that just as John Paul II played a
political role in the fall of communism, so might Francis try to help shape
events by obliging the faithful to recognize, and resist, a growing pattern of
inequality throughout the world.
"To sustain a lifestyle which excludes others,
or to sustain enthusiasm for that selfish ideal, a globalization of
indifference has developed," Francis wrote. "Almost without being
aware of it, we end up being incapable of feeling compassion at the outcry of
the poor, weeping for other people's pain, and feeling a need to help them, as
though all this were someone else's responsibility and not our own. The culture of prosperity deadens us; we are
thrilled if the market offers us something new to purchase; and in the meantime
all those lives stunted for lack of opportunity seem a mere spectacle; they
fail to move us."
Francis explicitly calls for "financial
reform," though he wisely does not lay out a policy agenda. But in a
passage likely to make libertarians want to hide amid the dense thickets of Ayn
Rand's prose, where no light can penetrate, Francis writes that "the
private ownership of goods is justified by the need to protect and increase
them, so that they can better serve the common good; for this reason,
solidarity must be lived as the decision to restore to the poor what belongs to
them."
The basic positions Francis takes on economic and
social justice are not new; all recent popes have expressed a similar critique
of modern capitalist society, including John Paul II, whose views on poverty
and the need for community are often conveniently overlooked by those who would
paint him as Ronald Reagan in robes.
But no recent pope has been so forceful in
denouncing the "idolatry of money" and making the inexorable rise of
inequality one of the church's central concerns. Francis intends his message to
be heard. I hope leaders everywhere, and especially in Washington, are
listening.
Jesus commanded his apostles to give to the poor.
Yet many elected officials who claim to follow Jesus' teachings are
determined to keep the poor from receiving health care, food assistance,
housing subsidies and a host of other benefits. Inequality is celebrated as a
virtue. Life, we are told with a shrug, is sometimes unfair.
But for Christians, Francis reminds us, life is
supposed to be as fair and compassionate as we can make it. Money is a false
idol, a golden calf. Our sacred responsibility is to one another.
Amen, Your Holiness. Amen.
There is no free market. The dominant economic system throughout the world is fascism - a government/corporate duopoly that imposes massive hurdles in the way of opportunity for small businesses and the employment they could create were not armies of bureaucrats (themselves tax parasites) suppressing the creative forces of free markets. The new Pope is economically misled.
ReplyDelete