Global warming and the free market: The Marxist ideology of Pope Francis

From global warming to the free market economy, the Marxist ideology of Pope Francis has become a major part of Catholic theology.

Pope Francis has always possessed a strong Marxist bent to his faith, and he hasn’t been shy about making Marxism a key tenet of the Catholic faith.

For example, in an appearance before a joint session of Congress in 2015, the pontiff laid out an extensive list of priorities near and dear to the hearts of socialists and communists around the world.

Phyllis Bennis of the Marxist Institute for Policy Studies noted after his speech how “Pope Francis’ address to Congress was almost certainly not what John Boehner, Mitch McConnell, and other congressional leaders had in mind when they invited the pope to speak.”

Bennis explained her statement by pointing out “[Francis’] calls to protect the rights of immigrants and refugees, end the death penalty, preserve the planet from the ravages of climate change, and defend the poor and dispossessed.”

Pope Francis’ appearance before Congress wasn’t the first time he made mixed so-called climate change with Catholicism. In June 2015, he issued a papal encyclical blaming human selfishness and capitalism for global warming. In that letter, the pope addressed humanity’s “lost moral compass” on the environment, the “exploitation of natural resources,” the “rapid environmental collapse,” our “failure to respect nature” and the greed behind it all. He also said that “money trumps morality” and that “capitalism is killing planet Earth.”

The encyclical was only the beginning. In November 2019, Francis introduced the idea that human-caused global warming be considered an “ecological sin” to be added to the Roman Catholic Church’s official teaching:

“We must introduce — we are thinking — into the Catechism of the Catholic Church the sin against ecology, the ecological sin against the common home, because it’s a duty.”

When asked for clarification, Francis said ecological sin would be defined as an “action or omission against God, against others, the community and the environment” and he called it “a sin against future generations . . . manifested in the acts and habits of pollution and destruction of the harmony of the environment.”

Blaming free market capitalism for “killing the planet” has been used as a Marxist talking point ever since the first ever since the first Earth Day in 1970, so it’s tempting to dismiss the pontiff’s actions, but that would be a mistake.

In a recent statement addressing coronavirus hysteria, Reuters UK reported that Pope Francis renewed his Marxist attack on the free market, blaming capitalism and private property owners for the failure to end the so-called pandemic. The report reads, in part: (emphasis mine)

Pope Francis said on Sunday that the COVID-19 pandemic was the latest crisis to prove that market forces alone and “trickle-down” economic policies had failed to produce the social benefits their proponents claim.

In an encyclical on the theme of human fraternity, Francis also said private property cannot be considered an absolute right in all cases where some lived extravagantly while others had nothing.

The encyclical, which Francis signed in Assisi on Saturday, covers topics such as fraternity, immigration, the rich-poor gap, economic and social injustices, healthcare imbalances and the widening political polarisation in many countries.

The pope took direct aim at trickle-down economics, the theory favoured by conservatives that tax breaks and other incentives for big business and the wealthy eventually will benefit the rest of society through investment and job creation.

“There were those who would have had us believe that freedom of the market was sufficient to keep everything secure (after the pandemic hit),” he wrote.

The 2007-2008 financial crisis was a missed opportunity for change, instead producing “increased freedom for the truly powerful, who always find a way to escape unscathed”. Society must confront “the destructive effects of the empire of money”.

Francis repeated past calls for redistribution of wealth to help the poorest and for fairer access to natural resources by all.

“The right to private property can only be considered a secondary natural right, derived from the principle of the universal destination of created goods,” he said.

A Vatican official said the pope was referring to those with massive wealth.

The pope wrote that the belief of early Christians – “that if one person lacks what is necessary to live with dignity, it is because another person is detaining it” – was still valid.

It wasn’t a very big leap for Pope Francis to go from global warming to coronavirus as the basis for spreading his Marxist ideology.

In an April 2020 opinion piece for TheHill.com, Amanda D. Rodewald, a faculty member in the Department of Natural Resources at Cornell University and fellow at Cornell Atkinson Center for Sustainability, blamed “poor air quality” for the spread of COVID-19 in black, Hispanic, and other “under-resourced communities.”

Democratic Socialists and their Far-Left brethren have also been making the case that coronavirus hysteria could be the perfect opportunity to launch the Green New Deal.

Pope Francis’ embrace of Marxism and the belief that it provides the answers to the global warming and coronavirus questions should concern Catholics in America, but non-Catholics should be equally concerned, especially with Nationalist Conservatives working to destroy conservative values.

Like Marx, Nationalist Conservatives believe in a powerful, centralized government. Like Marx, Nationalist Conservatives believe in a “collective” approach to economics where “government should [be able to] force you” to make only government-approved economic choices. Like Marx, Nationalist Conservatives believe that “the powerful upper class and their cosmopolitan priorities” are responsible for “economic inequality.”

Pope Francis believes that capitalism and the free market is killing the planet, spreading coronavirus, and causing Catholics to sin.

Nothing that a few Our Fathers, a couple of Hail Marys, and a healthy dose of Marxism can’t fix.

 

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David Leach is the owner of the Strident Conservative. He holds people of every political stripe accountable for their failure to uphold conservative values, and he promotes those values instead of political parties.

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