I know I know the Catholic Church is shit and still not fixing anything (They would probably murder Francis if he tried any major reforms). But it’s just nice to see the Pope out here calling out shit.
Private property is second to people’s well being!
Free market is immoral because it exploits others!
Nations have the right to their own resources!
Liberation theology gang what’s up!
we already discussed this francis is a south american catholic which tends to be more towards the liberation theology and also a jesuit so this pretty much what i would expect
He's a Jesuit and modern era Jesuits are cool as fuck (old school Jesuits were extremely terrible)
...Unless you're talking about Latin America again, where the Jesuits preached so much Enlightenment that the Spanish crown banished them all from the Americas, despite most of them being born there, which led them to write critiques of the crown (including opposition to slavery and the oppression of the natives) that later became the ideological basis for the wars of liberation in the Spanish colonies. And without Simon Bolivar there'd be no Bolivarian Revolution in Venezuela.
also on brazil jesuits while doing evangelization WHICH NOT COOL did defend natives from slave hunters to their death in some cases like catholism in latin america is kinda of a weird unique situation
Also did you know that the pope once retconed capybaras to be fish so they could be eaten during lent because there were a lot of them on the amazon? WILD
Here's an example of a Portuguese jesuit priest that lived in Brazil and is taught about in school.
The Portuguese wikipedia page is better but I figure most people here don't understand Portuguese.
He still believes in “noble” private property rights. From my cynical POV, this is the pope being like “start pretending to help the poor otherwise your massively wealthy system is going to be threatened”
Operation Gladio illustrates the deep connections between the Vatican and western capitalists.
the human rights and rights of nations rhetoric often is used as a whip to get segments of left liberals to support imperialist projects.
I’m not opposed to liberation theology I just have doubts about the real intentions of the insanely wealthy and historically counterrevolutionary institution of the Catholic Church.
Being able to quote their own words back to them is more effective than citing Marx or "Denmark does it." The Vatican may not mean it, but we can use their words when talking to regular people.
This, the fucking pope recognizes that christianity and capitalism are inherently incompatible. His saying as much is more useful than my heretic ass saying the same thing.
In the full text he explains that “noble” private property refers to resources and businesses being owned by the countries and people that it is within. You’re correct He could never completely condone private property. But the idea that private property should be owned by as many of those who reside in the country is a good way to use catholic teachings and free market weirdos agaisnt imperialism
Private property is subordinated to the right of everyone to benefit from the earth's goods.
As far as popes go, Francis is pretty good. That said at least in the US, the church doesn't spend any political capital on any of this. All they care about is abortion. My friend was a staffer for a congressman and sat in on a meeting with a bishop. He said they talked about two things, how hot it was that day, and abortion.
Theoretically the church is for a lot of good social justice causes, but in practice they only care about abortion.
As it is unacceptable that some have fewer rights by virtue of being women
Cool, now let women be ordained into the priesthood
According to the bad ass socialist jesuit who once broke out of a Mexican prison. It’s actually closer to happening then you’d think. But they don’t want to publicize it because the tradcath backlash would be so terrible.
Just excommunicate all the TradCaths and schism the church again, worked before (probably idk)
i am surprised the american catholics have not broken apart from the catholic church yet like 60% of american catholics do not believe the communion is really eating the flesh and blood of the savior which is one of the main tenets of catholism
A key tenant of “white American Catholicism” is being undistinguishable from Calvinists while also feeling superior to Protestants. Honestly if Vatican 3 goes too far down the social teaching and progressive route (which it definitely will) I can totally see at least a small branch of tradcaths breaking off
I'm a "lapsed Catholic" which is a polite way of letting people know where I am without admitting I'm an orthodox ML who dabbles in Satanism just for fun. I also used to study the Catechism and minored in Philosophy and Theology before I dropped out of college. Not out of any desire to be a priest, I just find religion to be a fascinating thing to study.
All popes suck and Francis still has a boatload of terrible opinions but I'm not gonna look a gift horse in the mouth. If this gets more people talking about the fundamental inequity which undergirds capitalism? That's a good thing. We need to have that conversation. This text might even provoke some further questions from people, and we on the left do have those answers. We have a century and a half of scientific criticism of the mechanisms of Capitalism under our belts.
Agreed on all fronts (accept I’m a filthy dem soc) Francis ain’t perfect. He isn’t even amazing. He’s slightly better then what we are use to.
But it gets the conversation going. It gets the wealthy Catholic subarbanite to think and it gets the working class Hispanic family to feel comfortable openly speaking out.
It’s a good start to getting people towards the right path
the pope & jesus are based as fuck but their fanbases are assholes
Are you cringing at religion, Pope, or me in general? Cause I am hella cringe lol
God forbid someone looks into the Primary beliefs of the community he works With and tried to find common ground between socialism and that teaching right? Or be happy when the head of that faith push the more social equality side of that yeah?
Pfft radicalize people? If they don't come pre-packaged with my exact views, I don't want em
Ah yes who doesn’t remember that inspirational moment where Mao looked around, saw farmers not workers, and said “well shit, guess I gotta pack up since I can’t do an orthodox revolution”
I appreciate you doing this sarcastic work in multiple threads
Or be happy when the head of that faith push the more social equality side of that yeah?
the head of that faith
Lol no hierarchies or opressive structures here communism is totally compatible with religion
I visibly shook at the part where we (our marvelously radical Chapos!) said that we want to structure post revolutionary society around the papacy.
Maybe, to right the ship, if we very firmly reassert the same statements in the same manner, just as they were made nearly 200 years ago. As long as we're firm enough and logical and right enough, we can finally get enough atheists to maybe possibly pull off our grand revolution - during which there will certainly not be tons of strife and setbacks which would totally not draw our brilliant, steadfast revolutionaries towards the evil, ignorant allure of faith and myth!
I may be a steadfast atheist, but c'mon we only inherit the world. In order to change it you must be pragmatic and critical, this has to balance our own high-minded ideals for the potential of humanity. I think religion will fade more and more into the background through socialist transition, but if you think about it that transition is our myth really. The only difference is we have to actualize it, in our reality, with our conditions.
youre not fighint back against the authoritarian religious establishments unless youre willing to destroy the organized and hierarchical nature of it. This means using the state to attack their "religious rights" which means taxing and making them irrelevant with government programs etc. and trying to fix the social connections that modern capitalist opression has caused
You gotta have the power to act on the organized and hierarchical nature of it. I agree with you, but that stuff happens after, not before the revolution. It doesn't happen overnight either and the fact that the people after the revolution are not much different than before must also be confronted. Zero of the proletarian/anti-imperialist revolutions eliminated every backwards ideological component of the society from which they were birthed. Of course we should be critical, and we've seen critique as important in advancement in ideology away from Capitalist hegemony, however we should understand those whom our movement claim to represent are fallible, insecure, contingent, and historically-situated human beings, just like us
Zero of the proletarian/anti-imperialist revolutions eliminated every backwards ideological component of the society from which they were birthed
Maybe we should learn something from this
Goddamnit I wrote out a thought out response and then accidentally hit delete. Look I don't know what you understand about how people learn, think critically, and come to challenge hegemonic views (especially when we consider that we all are born into very specific class-ideological situations), but I would recommend reading Paulo Freire's Pedagogy of the Oppressed. Also Fanon. IMO they've been big in helping me understand and approach differently why and how the oppressed are subservient to the oppressors ideology and how one might actually overcome this. It is a long cooperative process, not one where the enlightened person bestows their blessed wisdom among the ignorant masses
Im not a tankie nor dumb enough to think that exterminating religion can be done with just open repression. its a clear process of undermining organized religious believes and traditions that have visible and material consecuences like circummsicion, marriage and religious "welfare and community organizing"
