Saturday, July 11, 2015

Reuters — Unbridled capitalism is the 'dung of the devil', says Pope Francis

Quoting a fourth century bishop, he called the unfettered pursuit of money “the dung of the devil”….
Turning up the heat.

The Guardian
Unbridled capitalism is the 'dung of the devil', says Pope Francis
Reuters

Spinning it:

The Daily Caller
No, Pope Francis Didn’t Call Capitalism ‘The Dung Of The Devil’
Ivan Plis

4 comments:

Matt Franko said...

"An unfettered pursuit of money rules. The service of the common good is left behind. Once capital becomes an idol and guides people’s decisions, once greed for money presides over the entire socioeconomic system,"

He is obviously a member of the endogenous/exogenous "money" crowd... not exhibiting any understanding at all about state currency systems....

Schofield said...

"Francis admitted that he did not have any clear solutions to the crisis of idolizing money: “Don’t expect a recipe from this Pope.”

And there in a nutshell is why the Roman Catholic Church is impotent. It will not get to grips with understanding how a modern money system works and its relationship to democracy.

Matt Franko said...

Scho imo "the church" has always been in competition with the govt institution for authority...

So you'll never see the pope chastising people in govt for not doing their jobs ie imposing justice/judgement... he doesn't look at the govt institution's role that way...

That would take away "the church's" current role that it has devolved into as 1) a flesh systems maintenance and repair facility and 2) the flesh's associated material support systems maintenance and repair facility...

and turn that back over to the govt institution as it was "pre-church" ... they don't want to see that as (to them) their institution would become less relevant in the world...
ie they would become less relevant wrt worldly matters... and they are very worldly in "the church" .... soup kitchens, "marriage", 'the family', etc..

Paul didn't go all around Greece and Rome opening soup kitchens and marrying people (straight OR gay....) and offering family counseling, coercing people into behavior modification with the Hel Doctrine, etc... you don't see any of that...

rsp,

Tom Hickey said...

I would not exactly say that the pope didn't offer any solution. He is strongly implying to the point of being almost explicitly encouraging the people to take their countries back from the colonizers. It's well known that the ownership class in Latin America are the descendent of the colonizers and "the people" are descendants of the indigenous population.

The pope may not be a Marxist but he is revolutionary and the ownership class knows it. This is a huge deal. The pope is essentially embracing the Liberation Theology that it had previously condemned, supporting TPTB.

This is a monumental change in Church social doctrine that began with Rerum Novarum. Catholic social doctrine has been careful to criticize excess of capitalism without criticizing capitalism itself and distancing itself from socialism. Pope Francis is changing that. He hasn't said his last word on it yet either, and after he has gone, the precedent he is setting will continue.

Francis has basically declared neoliberalism based on economic liberalism the enemy of Catholic social teaching owing to its basis in "greed is good." for which rational utility maximization is a euphemism.

He is giving the go-ahead to take neoliberalism apart in Latin America and implicitly around the world. But the forefront of the revolution now is in Latin America.

This could not have happened before the fall of Communism. Now the Church is stepping into the vacuum. We'll see what happens.