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From: sjprash...@gmail.com
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POPE FRANCIS ISS NOT LIBERAL, BUT RADICAL (= GROUNDED BY CHRISTIAN ROOTS)  July 
21, 2015 Pope Francis Is Making Christianity Radical Again The pope is calling 
out a status quo that global elites benefit from at the expense of the poor.
by John Gehring
  

 POPE FRANCIS IS MAKING CHRISTIANITY RADICAL AGAIN 9/8/2015 

THE POPE IS CALLING OUT A STATUS QUO THAT ELITES BENEFIT FROM AT THE EXPENSE OF 
THE POOR
During his recent whirlwind trip to three of the poorest countries in South 
America, Pope Francis was a man on fire. He played the role of thunderous Old 
Testament prophet, community organizer, and even a revolutionary rallying the 
downtrodden to stand up to injustice. In a speech in Bolivia widely viewed as 
one of the most important and far-reaching of his papacy, the pope brought an 
urgent message that should make global elites nervous.
The first pope from Latin America will visit the United States in three months 
and become the first pontiff to address Congress. If his South American tour is 
any indication, the powers that be here in the world’s financial, media, and 
military epicenter should buckle up.
“Let us not be afraid to say it: we want change, real change, structural 
change,” Francis told representatives from indigenous communities, workers, and 
activists fighting for social reforms. The pope highlighted what he called “the 
three Ls” (labor, lodging, and land) as central to human dignity. He warned 
time was “running out” to address ecological destruction and climate change. He 
railed against a “new colonialism” that includes fiscal austerity measures and 
“certain free trade agreements.” The profit-first (greed ALSO 
INCLUDED)mentality of global capitalism, Francis argues, is morally 
indefensible.
“Let us say ‘no’ to an economy of exclusion and inequality, where money rules 
rather than serves,” the pope said in what has now become a defining theme of 
his papacy. “That economy kills. That economy excludes. That economy destroys 
Mother Earth.”
A pope who is radical, not liberalIt’s tempting to squeeze this maverick pope 
into secular political categories. Some media coverage has reflected this 
instinct by describing the pope as a leftist. In many ways, this is 
understandable. The pope’s searing critique of the socioeconomic status quo — 
what he calls “an idolatrous system which excludes, debases, and kills” — is 
left of the Democratic party. Hillary Clinton might agonize over how far to go 
in challenging the titans on Wall Street, but the pope has, well let’s just 
say, fewer political calculations to consider.
The pope also uses language that would be familiar to Occupy Wall Street 
activists, who in 2011 made Zuccotti Park a magnet for those challenging the 
presumptions of unbridled market fundamentalism, or leaders who mobilized 
massive protests in Seattle against the World Trade Organization in 1999.
In fact, while some in the liberal establishment turned up a collective nose at 
Occupy, Cardinal Peter Turkson of Ghana, who leads the Vatican’s justice and 
peace council and wrote the first draft of the pope’s recent encyclical, said 
at the time that the “basic sentiment” behind Occupy Wall Street aligned with 
traditional principles of Catholic social teaching on the economy.
While Pope Francis’ populist rhetoric warms the hearts of many liberals — 
including those who wish the church would pipe down on issues of sexuality and 
marriage — it’s a mistake to pigeonhole him with conventional secular terms. 
His source of inspiration is the radical message at the heart of the Gospels. 
In the shadow of the Roman Empire, Jesus put the poor and those on the 
peripheries at the center of his ministry.
He rattled the righteous defenders of the religious law, scandalized many, and 
fulfilled the message of the prophet Isaiah: “The Spirit of the Lord is on me 
because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to 
proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight to the blind, to set 
the oppressed free . . . ”
In Bolivia, Pope Francis specifically anchored his denunciation of a corporate 
globalization that has lifted some boats but has done little for those 
languishing in the villas miseries of Buenos Aires and the favelas of Rio in 
this context. “This system runs counter to the plan of Jesus,” the pope said 
bluntly. “Working for a just distribution of the fruits of the earth and human 
labor is not mere philanthropy. It is a moral obligation. For Christians, the 
responsibility is even greater: it is a commandment.”
In Ecuador, the pope made it plain: “Our faith is always revolutionary.” 
A pope who upholds Catholic social teachingIf you have a problem with what Pope 
Francis is saying, your real problem is with the Hebrew prophets, Jesus of 
Nazareth, and a century of Catholic social teaching about the common good.
Some conservatives determined to paint Pope Francis as naïve and marginalize 
him as a Marxist have clear political motivations. “This pope grew up in a 
third world country that, frankly, is an example of what happens when you don’t 
have capitalism and democracy,” scoffed former ambassador Otto Reich, the 
assistant secretary of state for Western Hemisphere affairs in the George W. 
Bush administration.
Rep. Paul Ryan, a Catholic who has mistakenly argued his budget proposals are 
consonant with his faith’s teachings, also strikes a condescending tone. “The 
guy is from Argentina,” Ryan told the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel in 2013. “They 
have crony capitalism in Argentina. They don’t have a true free enterprise 
system.” Leaving aside the stunning arrogance and myopia in those statements — 
Wall Street greed and criminal behavior get a free pass — these critiques are 
part of a larger effort to delegitimize the pope when it comes to economic 
justice.
Ryan and Co. conveniently ignore the fact that the Catechism of the Catholic 
Church refers to “sinful inequalities” that are “in open contradiction to the 
Gospel.” The Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church, published by the 
Vatican under Pope John Paul II, states that “wealth exists to be shared” and 
that “evil is seen in the immoderate attachment to riches and the desire to 
hoard.”
This doesn’t make Pope Francis or the Catholic Church anti-market or 
anti-capitalist. Catholic teaching is clear that the economy should exist to 
serve human beings, not the other way around. Ever since Pope Leo XIII issued 
the church’s first social encyclical in 1891, at a time when the savage 
inequalities of the Industrial Revolution left workers with little protection 
against the whims of rapacious owners, the church has advocated for living 
wages, the need for unions, and prudent oversight of markets to ensure human 
dignity is not sacrificed on what Pope Francis has called “the altar of money.”
Pope John Paul II spoke about the “priority of labor over capital.” Pope 
Benedict XVI challenged the “scandal of glaring inequalities.” Francis is 
building on themes addressed by his predecessors, while clearly putting more 
institutional muscle behind inequality and social exclusion.
It’s true that Pope Francis is shaped by his experiences in Argentina, and his 
unique vision as the first non-European pontiff in over a millennium. This is 
an asset. As Archbishop of Buenos Aires, then-Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio 
earned a reputation for being the “Bishop of the Slums” for the considerable 
time he spent in the toughest sectors of town. During the 2002 Argentine debt 
crisis, along with other Catholic bishops, Bergoglio spoke out against fiscal 
austerity measures and pointed to “social exclusion, a growing gap between rich 
and poor, and . . . the negative consequences of globalization and the tyranny 
of markets.”
A pope who brings a perspective from the peripheries and aligns with the 
powerless knows his harshest critics are waiting for him in the United States. 
Expect the backlash to Pope Francis’ urgent pleas for action on climate change 
and inequality to heat up in the lead up to his visit. The most influential 
moral leader in the world today is calling out a status quo that political and 
financial elites benefit from at the expense of the poor. Those who prefer 
religion safe and sanitized — or relegated to issues of sexual morality — are 
on the defensive for good reason.
“Artists are here to disturb the peace,” the American writer James Baldwin once 
wrote. The same might apply to a pope bringing radical Christianity back to 
center stage.
Image courtesy of Shutterstock. 

  Written byJohn Gehring   
                                          





                                          




                                          

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