Do Roman Catholics Know about

Catholics and Commies?

Catholics and Communists

The Catholic Church's recent history of sympathizing with, and even supporting, Marxist progressivism is clear, sad, and indicative of a deeply irrational and antiindividual streak within the modern Church hierarchy. Catholics who care about the Church, its history, and its future -- and also about humanity, reason and freedom -must stop making excuses for their current spiritual leadership's collectivist authoritarian impulses.
Having now drawn a bull's eye on my own forehead in bold colors, I shall attempt to make my case. Let us follow the most natural path of reasoning, proceeding from particulars to universals.

South Korea recently observed the third anniversary of the North Korean artillery attack against Yeonpyeong, an inhabited island which was the staging ground for a South Korean military exercise. The attack killed four South Koreans, including two civilians, and wounded many others. The Sunday before this anniversary, a senior Catholic priest, Park Chang-shin, gave a sermon in which he went all-out Jeremiah Wright: What should North Korea do if South Korea-U.S. military exercises are being carried out near the problematic NLL [Northern Limit Line, a UN2

drawn maritime border]? North Korea needs to open fire. That was the shelling of Yeonpyeong Island. "North Korea needs to open fire"? This statement was part of a general campaign by the Catholic Priests' Association for Justice (which comprises roughly half of Korea's priesthood) against President Park Geun-hye's ruling Saenuri Party. The CPAJ, active since South Korea's pro-democracy movement picked up steam in the 1970s, is essentially a leftist anti-war group promoting Korean reunification through appeasement of the communists, as evidenced by its two main platform items: opposition to sanctions against the North, and opposition to the South's "National Security Law," which in theory outlaws communism and Marxist activism, and is therefore vehemently opposed by all organizations sympathetic to the North. In response, a member of the Saenuri Party enjoined the Catholic Church to discipline its pro-North Korean priests. Needless to say, the Church will do no such thing. "Pro-North Korean priests." Swish that one around for a moment. Korean domestic politics aside, what is one to make of an organization calling itself the Catholic Priests' Association for Justice, whose members defend North Korean attacks against civilian neighborhoods and blame the violence on the South Korean government and its defense alliance with the U.S. military? There is no nation on the planet -- indeed, in the history of the planet -- that has provided more direct, hands-on evidence regarding the full truth of communism. Korea is an extremely homogeneous nation: North and South share essentially the same geography and climate, the same race, the same cultural history and language, the same gene pool, and the same traditional diet, art, and family structure. And yet the South has risen from the ashes after decades of oppression, humiliation, and wreckage to become a vibrant economic powerhouse and a world technology leader. Meanwhile, the North continues its decay into starvation, brutality, and hopelessness. Nevertheless, a senior Korean Catholic priest is speaking at Mass, as a clergyman in good standing, in defense of the North's aggression against the South. Why? Presumably it is not because the Church advocates starvation, brutality, and hopelessness. Nor because they have a thing for chubby, amusingly-coiffed lunatics who declare themselves divine. So what could it be that allows them to continue sympathizing with the North, in spite of the stark contrast in social outcomes described in the preceding paragraph? Hmm, let's see....

The priests, as their action committee's name declares, are for "justice," which in modern Catholic parlance, of course, implies economic equality achieved through redistribution, i.e., the universal annihilation of profit, property, and prosperity. In short, they favor "democratic" slavery in the form of progressivism. I will not hold my breath waiting for expressions of surprise on this point. For generations, the global Catholic Church, at leadership levels, has been deeply invested in progressive collectivism . This has been an awkward relationship, in as much as hardcore Marxism seeks to abolish religion in favor of the deification of the State, and doctrinaire collectivism runs counter to any notion of the value of individual souls. As a result, the Church has, at times, spoken with some force against both communism and socialism. These moments of reasonableness have allowed thoughtful Catholics to defend the Church's political position as basically non-leftist: "See," they repeatedly tell themselves, "the Church is fighting the good fight against Marxism." In so far as Marxism includes atheism, the Church could hardly do otherwise. Sovietstyle Marxists openly declared religion their enemy, and persecuted believers. Obviously the Church defended itself against this direct assault. But while abhorring atheistic dialectical materialism, practical elements of Marxist theory -- "social justice," economic redistribution, the condemnation of wealth -- struck a sympathetic chord within the Church, which gradually adopted such Marxist language as its own. This baptism of the Marxist vocabulary in the waters of Christian faith has allowed generations of good men and women to deny the disturbing truth before their very eyes, and to persuade themselves that this language, when used by the clergy, is somehow legitimate Catholic moralism. Thus in almost every instance in which progressive political forces have dispensed with the anti-religious rhetoric, one may find priests and bishops standing on the side of authoritarian collectivism, and against individual freedom. From the long Catholiccommunist alliance in the African National Congress (warmly praised a few weeks ago by South Africa's Minister of Justice) to the role of the clergy in the radicalization of Central and South America -- the birthplace of Marxist liberation theology -- the pattern is monotonous. Pope Francis, though perhaps more moderate than other Catholic leaders hailing from his part of the world, is representative of the general trend. Yes, it is a general trend, not simply a matter of wayward priests preaching in isolation from the Church mainstream. (Consider that while Pope Benedict openly criticized liberation theology, his successor has invited the movement's founder to dinner.) In poor or developing nations in which Church leaders take a political stand
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of any clarity, that stand is almost invariably with progressivism. Papal encyclicals that touch upon socioeconomic issues routinely attack "capitalism" and "individualism" as inhumane and unjust forces, thus implying that less capitalism and individualism would make society more humane and just. See Paul VI's Populorum Progressio (1967), for example, which rejects the right to private property and demands that "public authorities" (i.e. governments) solve the social injustice of men holding "surplus goods" for their own private use while others lack necessities (23). As the latest example, we now have the Apostolic Exhortation, Evangelii Gaudium, of Pope Francis, which includes substantial cribbing from the collected homilies of Karl Marx: Just as the commandment "Thou shalt not kill" sets a clear limit in order to safeguard the value of human life, today we also have to say "thou shalt not" to an economy of exclusion and inequality. Such an economy kills.... Today everything comes under the laws of competition and the survival of the fittest, where the powerful feed upon the powerless. As a consequence, masses of people find themselves excluded and marginalized.... Human beings [in a free market] are themselves considered consumer goods to be used and then discarded.... (53) In this context, 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 nave 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.... The culture of prosperity deadens us; we are thrilled if the market offers us something new to purchase. In the meantime all those lives stunted for lack of opportunity seem a mere spectacle; they fail to move us. (54) (Notice that this "culture of prosperity" flies in the face of the earlier claim that "masses of people find themselves excluded and marginalized." Authoritarianism is irrational. Hence its proponents often enmesh themselves in logical contradictions, as reason gives way to emotional appeals.) Those lives supposedly "stunted," not by political oppression, but by "the market," now "fail to move us." Move us to what, one might ask? To genuine charity, the voluntary helping hand of the moral man? To dismantling the corporatist-progressive
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alliance that uses government regulation and indoctrination to "stunt" individual opportunity and limit self-empowerment? To combating the cleverness of the wealthy progressive elite who use promises of protection and entitlement to cajole their way into the frightened hearts of the poor and weak, thus guaranteeing -- as the elite require -- that the poor and weak will remain so in perpetuity, so that they may continue to throw their lot (i.e., their vote) in with those same progressive elitists? None of the above, of course. Once again, the Catholic Church's official answer to the general social question, "What is to be done?" holds no surprises: While the earnings of a minority are growing exponentially, so too is the gap separating the majority from the prosperity enjoyed by those happy few. This imbalance is the result of ideologies which defend the absolute autonomy of the marketplace and financial speculation. Consequently, they reject the right of states, charged with vigilance for the common good, to exercise any form of control. A new tyranny is thus born, invisible and often virtual, which unilaterally and relentlessly imposes its own laws and rules. (56) Notice the typical progressive maneuver in that last point. The "new tyranny," that of the pursuit of wealth, is "invisible and virtual"; and its only remedy is "state control," i.e., visible and real tyranny. Pope Francis promotes the standard false dichotomy that has propelled progressivism forward for more than a century: the "uncontrolled free market" (a Marxist straw man if ever there was one) allegedly consolidates wealth among the few, while state controls (which are supposedly lacking) would allow the disadvantaged majority to rise. This dichotomy is, and always has been, a ruse to hide the truth: progressives regulate and distort the economy to protect their power, wealth, and privilege and to limit opportunity for potential challengers, and then they seize on the stagnation they have caused to launch populist appeals for even more restrictive and redistributive economic regulations, to further entrench their untouchable preeminence. (Take a good look at who supported, funded, and led the fight for the creation of compulsory schools, central banks, progressive taxation, socialized healthcare, and all the rest of the mechanisms of benevolent "control" throughout the prosperous West. Hint: it wasn't the poor.) The Catholic Church, unfortunately, has been a fellow traveler in the global movement to regulate individual success, opportunity, and freedom out of existence for the great majority of mankind, through authoritarian control exerted under the wafer-thin guise of promoting "equality." And so it is that Pope Francis offers his all too predictable solution to the "gap between rich and poor":

Ethics -- a non-ideological ethics -- would make it possible to bring about balance and a more humane social order.... (57) A financial reform open to such ethical considerations would require a vigorous change of approach on the part of political leaders. I urge them to face this challenge with determination and an eye to the future, while not ignoring, of course, the specifics of each case. Money must serve, not rule! The Pope loves everyone, rich and poor alike, but he is obliged in the name of Christ to remind all that the rich must help, respect and promote the poor. I exhort you to generous solidarity and to the return of economics and finance to an ethical approach which favours human beings. (58) Here Francis, an intelligent man, knowingly echoes the classic Marxist slogan, "people before profits." And yet immediately I hear apologists stepping in to object to such "simplistic criticism" of the Church. After all, they say, who could object to the Catholic tenets that men must not exalt money, and that the rich must help the poor? The answer: no one. But the question is not whether mankind ought to worship money, nor whether the wealthy ought to shirk their moral responsibilities. For those are not the issues at stake in the Pope's "exhortation." Notice that he is specifically calling on political leaders and "financial experts" (57) to undertake a "vigorous change" -- fundamental transformation, anyone? -- in the direction of "balance" and a "more humane social order" which "favours human beings." In other words, he is not advocating Christian charity, which is, and must be, a private moral decision, since it is through the correct application of his God-given free will that man is to find his path to God. Rather, to state the obvious -- let us finally apply the famous "razor" of a truly great Catholic philosopher here, and dispense with sophisticated explanations of the indefensible -- Francis is advocating socialism: a political system which obviates the morality of free will, and thus violates the foundations of the Catholic faith on the most profound level. "But," defenders will say, "if he wanted socialism, why wouldn't he just say so?" The reason is simple: he cannot. The Catholic Church has officially condemned socialism, communism, and Marxism by name. Opposition to these three notions is a matter of established Catholic doctrine. Non-Catholics may not understand what this means. Catholics do, or should. No Pope will ever advocate socialism, communism, or Marxism by name. Thus, one must infer meaning from the Pope's actual arguments, and when this meaning flies in the face of the official rejection of progressivism that every Catholic is doctrinally bound to espouse, one may suppose that the inferred meaning represents the Pope's true position. So there it stands. There are pro-North Korean priests. Catholic clergymen have stood shoulder to shoulder with Marxists, socialists, or "progressives" throughout Latin
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America and Africa for generations. In the U.S., the Catholic bishops firmly and enthusiastically supported ObamaCare, the penultimate step towards completely socialized medicine, until they "discovered" -- or, I suspect, until the Catholic laity discovered -- that abortion and birth control were part of the deal. Like their leaders in Rome and their brothers throughout the Catholic world, the U.S. bishops support progressivism in principle -- the Church has declared healthcare a universal human right, an expressly socialist ploy -- but will criticize particular progressive parties or factions when matters of doctrinal import are directly in dispute. In effect, the Church's war against collectivist tyranny extends only so far as that tyranny encompasses atheism or some other specific affront to Catholic practice. (I have previously defended Rick Santorum, who caught hellfire from fellow Catholics for making this point during his presidential campaign.) In its socioeconomic position, a large proportion of today's Catholic hierarchy is unofficially progressive, socialist, even Marxist. And please do not cite Pope John Paul II in disputing this judgment. One can no more absolve the Church of its role in fostering global progressive authoritarianism by citing prominent exceptions than one can excuse the U.S. Republican Party by mentioning Ronald Reagan, or the British Tories by naming Margaret Thatcher. That there are freedom-loving rebels within a decaying progressive institution is no counterargument, but only an exception that proves the rule. Likewise, there are marginalized priests and bishops who love the individual soul, and see liberty as the only proper social condition for a Catholic life, in defiance of their progressive leaders. These men deserve your love and support: they are martyrs. All of this is immeasurably sad, and utterly inconsistent with the history of the Church. In fact, as I have explained elsewhere, the case for limited government in the name of respecting our natural moral freedom was given its first systematic defense by St. Thomas Aquinas, whose conception of natural law, justice, and the role of reason in ethics paved the way to the Enlightenment, and the development of the natural rights theory which grounded modern liberty. And as I have also discussed elsewhere, Pope Leo XIII, in Rerum Novarum, presented a theological defense of private property rooted in man's individual nature that is as impassioned and as well-reasoned as any offered by Locke. The corruptive influence of progressivism, however, was already beginning to assert itself within the Church, as throughout Europe and North America, by 1891. Thus Leo, after explaining brilliantly why property is an inviolable right, proceeds to pull away from his own reasoning and to hint, in explicitly Marxist language, at political means of ameliorating material hardships, as though such means could ever be consistent with Christianity's elevation of the individual soul and of free will. The progressive
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contradictions began to appear then, and have merely continued to grow within the Church, as everywhere else in modern civilization, ever since. The old saw that anti-Catholicism is the anti-Semitism of educated liberals is very true (or was -- anti-Semitism appears to have worked its way up the ranks these days). It is for this reason that I generally refrain from expressing my own frustration with the Church so bluntly. I suspect this same reticence has been protecting the Church from honest, harsh criticism from its friends for generations. Yes, I say its friends. I was baptized and raised Catholic. It is the Church of my mother and of most of my relatives. As an undergraduate, I developed a lifelong admiration for many of the medieval Catholic philosophers, men who sought to marry the wisdom of ancient Greece to their sincere Christian faith, and thus set the stage for the modern triumph of reason and individualism in morality and politics. I count St. Thomas among my personal heroes and teachers, and return to him frequently for insight on current and permanent questions. I have come to realize, however, that if the Church as an institution must consistently insist on allying itself with a philosophy that I regard, and that history has repeatedly shown, to be one of death, inhumanity, oppression, and the systematic demolition of any sensible understanding of human dignity (i.e., of the divine spark within the human soul), then to mute one's criticism is to offer tacit consent to the Church's radical realignment against every worthy sentiment it once represented and championed on this Earth. This has been an unpleasant article to write. But here it is. The Catholic Church is no more defensible than any other institution that continues, against all historical evidence, reason, and decency, to embrace and defend -- whether tacitly or openly -the politics of mass envy, of collectivist authoritarianism, of coercive redistribution of the fruits of men's labor, and of the practical denial of the basic right of selfdetermination that ought to be at the core of a Catholic teaching that upholds the dignity of every living soul.
By Daren Jonescu / December 13, 2013 - 11:18:05 AM CST

Communists Cheer Pope Francis

Shouldnt this trouble the Holy Father? I recently wrote here on the interesting embrace of Sister Simone Campbell and her Nuns on the Bus, the self-described social-justice lobby of crusading liberal nuns. Embraced by whom? Embraced by some curious bedfellows: Peoples World, house organ of Communist Party USA and successor to the Daily Worker. Its fascinating that after a century of denouncing, demonizing, jailing, and, in some cases, even killing nuns and other religious especially in the Roman Catholic Church communists have suddenly embraced a group of nuns. Why? Because they agree with the nuns and their agenda. Well, in that same spirit, I have an addendum, and it pains me to report this. It honestly does.

After decades of slandering, attacking, denigrating, and even trying to kill various popes in the Roman Catholic Church from Pope Pius XII to Pope John Paul II communists are suddenly embracing a pope. It is Pope Francis. Imagine my shock, as a Catholic convert drawn to the Church initially in large part because of its stalwart anti-communism across centuries, when I did my regular perusal of Peoples World and found not one but two pieces exalting the Bishop of Rome. The first, published September 27, 2013, was tellingly titled, Welcome Pope Francis, campaigner against corporate greed! It began excitedly: The campaign against corporate criminals and their gluttonous greed just added a new speaker with a very loud voice, Pope Francis I.
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The article quoted the pontiff several times. To be sure, few of us would disagree with any of the quotes. Indeed, the Peoples World correspondent, to his credit, noted that we shouldnt be surprised at the Popes strong words against galloping greed and corporate despotism. Hes repeating what has been part of official church teaching for the last 130 years or so, Catholic Social Thought. Catholic Social Thought, we should note, is very pro-worker and pro-union. Yes, it is. It is also pro-property, which communism is not. The first principles of Karl Marx, stated unequivocally in the Communist Manifesto, preached the abolition of private property. The Peoples World writer, by harkening back 130 years, was probably referring to the seminal encyclical by Pope Leo XIII, Rerum Novarum, which, for the record, insists that a just society allow as many people as possible to become property owners. Ownership and property are sacred ideals defended by the Catholic Church for millennia. It goes back to the Mosaic Law and Gods commandments, beginning with Thou shall not steal. No one should steal someone elses property. Of course, communists did just that with militant, murderous abandon.

So, Pope Francis is merely reaffirming what his predecessors preached in that regard. But that raises an interesting question: Why are communists suddenly hailing the words of the pope?
Well, it appears they prefer the words and emphasis and intentions of this particular pope. They trust him to take a stance closer to theirs. Consider the enthusiastic take of Peoples World: Pope Francis has provided a moral bully pulpit to rally the worlds workers in the ongoing crusade against corporate greed.

[READER TAKE NOTE OF THE LATEST MANIPULATION MARKETING SPIN : AMERICA has a NEW (and Improved) WAR The WAR on Corporate Greed] Workers of the world unite around the pope? A crusade by communists in concert with the Vatican?
Thats the hope of Peoples World: The presumed spiritual guide for one-seventh of the people on the planet has a certain legitimacy when he speaks, after all. If Francis words can marshal more people into the streets to stand up for ourselves and against the capitalist chieftains who rob us of our money, dignity, self-respect, right to organize and right to keep the fruits all the fruits of our labor, all the better. He might even prick the conscience of a capitalist or two. Who knows? Yeah, who knows? Who knew that communists would be on board with the Bishop of Rome?
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This is something that Pope John Paul II couldnt have imagined merely eight years after the end of a papacy that crushed the communist world and won the Cold War. But Peoples World wasnt finished with its encomiums for the new pontiff. That was clear three days later in a September 30 opinion piece, likewise tellingly titled, Pope Francis: a breath of fresh air. The launch point for this piece was Francis recent controversial interview stating that the Church cannot insist only on issues related to abortion, gay marriage and the

use of contraceptive methods. To be fair to Francis, the biggest problem with that
interview wasnt so much what he said as how it was interpreted by non-Catholics, antiCatholics, and dissenting Catholics. And this opinion piece in Peoples World, written by columnist Henry Millstein, is a perfect illustration.

From the Peoples World The piece stated: A recent interview with Pope Francis has excited Catholic and other progressives and ruffled the feathers of some Catholic conservatives with good reason. His remarks point to a new atmosphere and attitude in the leadership of the Church and an implicit rebuke to some U.S. bishops who have allied themselves with the political right. Millstein argued that the most important point the pope made concerned issues like abortion, contraception, gay marriage. Why should this matter to progressives? asked Millstein. Because Catholic (and other) right-wingers, including, lamentably, some bishops, have latched on to this narrow set of issues to promote a broader right-wing agenda. If the essence of being Catholic is to oppose abortion, gay marriage, and contraception, then faithful Catholics (and some other Christians) can easily be hoodwinked into supporting rightist candidates who line up with this agenda, disregarding flagrant violations of other aspects of Catholic teaching. Pope Francis knocked the legs out from under this ploy.
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Millstein then delved into the Gospel message of Jesus Christ, lauding Francis interpretation, especially in contrast to his two predecessors: [T]here does seem to be something new in Francis attitude. In practice, John Paul II and Benedict XVI, despite their verbal denunciation of the ravages of capitalism, seemed more concerned with enforcing doctrinal conformity, particularly on certain issues involving sexual morality, than with pursuing active solidarity with capitalisms victims; for instance, in appointing bishops they seem to have privileged rigid orthodoxy over social conscience. While it is obviously too early to discern for sure the direction Francis papacy will take, there are signs that he gives the pursuit of social justice priority over enforcement of secondary points of church doctrine. As one example, Millstein underscored the popes response to a question about gay priests. More than that, however, he recommended that progressives should take advantage of this to reinvigorate the relationship between the church and organized labor. The Peoples World writer did not stop there, noting added signs from Francis that progressives, and especially Communists, should take to heart and ponder (this included the acknowledgement of mistakes). Millstein concluded: We Communists have much to learn from Pope Francis.

In short, its no exaggeration to say that communists, like secular progressives, are excited about this new pope, and not because theyre suddenly thinking about becoming Catholic. No, they believe hes more like them. They like him because they think he agrees with them. They like him because they think he agrees with them not just on social justice and economics and the environment, but because they like what they perceive is his de-emphasis on crucial aspects of the Catholic faith that they heartily reject.
I know that some readers (faithful Catholics especially) will not like what Im reporting here. Theyll insist that this pope is doing a good thing; hes reaching out to and impacting secularists, agnostics, atheists, progressives, liberals, and even communists. He is indeed doing just that. I appreciate it. In the spirit of Saint Francis, hes bringing the Gospel to the unconverted in a rapidly secularizing world. I understand. I get it. In fact, theres no question that Pope Francis is doing some really good things. His leadership on Syria was superb, and genuinely produced much fruit. Hes preaching forgiveness, mercy, humility, redemption, helping the poor, the Gospel. He is unquestionably pro-life and has made some solid pro-life moves. He even excommunicated a dissident liberal priest who supported gay marriage and female ordination. Im on his side. Were on the same team.
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But, in all due respect and deference, this man needs to be extremely careful about what hes saying and how hes saying it, because every imprecise statement is ripe for severe misinterpretation, exploitation, and abuse by enthusiasts and activists on the left. His statement on abortion, contraception, and gay marriage was utterly butchered and completely misrepresented, most notably by the predictably awful but extremely influential New York Times. Other troubling statements, however, have not been misrepresented at all. A recent one, highlighted at The American Spectator by George Neumayr, was this remark, made to a prominent Italian atheist interviewer: Each of us has a vision of good and of evil. We have to encourage people to move towards what they think is Good. Interrupted by the amazed interviewer, Francis doubled down: And I repeat it here. Everyone has his own idea of good and evil and must choose to follow the good and fight evil as he conceives them. That would be enough to make the world a better place. That statement is a jaw-dropper. Im saddened and sorry to say that I cannot, by any stretch, defend that statement. As a Catholic convert regularly called upon to defend my faith and various papal statements, thats one I will not be able to explain away. Lets be honest: That remark is a disaster. Im stunned to hear it from a pope. It is a major, major problem. All I can do is plea for a clarification or correction, which Ive yet to hear. Again, this man needs to be extremely careful about what hes saying and how it will be received. And so, back to my original point:

One manifestation of that is this: Communists, of all people, finally believe they have a pope who agrees with them, that they like, that they can embrace, that they can encourage. I knew that Francis controversial interview on abortion, contraception, and
gay marriage had thrilled liberals, liberal Catholics, dissident Catholics, secular progressives, agnostics, atheists, and socialists. You can read their websites. They love this guy. But communists? It seems to me that this is not the kind of praise that the pope should want. Unless he takes steps to clarify and be clearer, much of the confusion will be his own fault.
by Paul Kengor/ 4 October 2013

References:
http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/../2013/12/catholics_and_communists.html http://religiousleftexposed.com/home/2013/12/communists-cheer-pope-francis.html Source: http://spectator.org/articles/56020/communists-cheer-pope-francis

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