Pope's Economic Views

Pope Francis was out and about this week and made some revealing statements regarding his views on a few economic issues.  Story covered by AP here.

Here are some choice excerpts:

Pope Francis broke bread with the poor and embraced the disabled on a pilgrimage to his namesake's hometown Friday, urging the faithful to follow the example of the 13th-century St. Francis, who renounced a wealthy, dissolute lifestyle to embrace a life of poverty and service to the poor.

So we can see here that at least according to the AP, the Pope thinks that everyone of the faithful should be poor, or lack adequate "means of subsistence".... nice.

Accordingly, it looks like he had to have lunch at a local soup kitchen because that is where everyone without an adequate means of subsistence has to go to eat in Francis' economic world:

Francis had lunch with a group of poor at a soup kitchen after demanding that the faithful "strip" themselves of their worldly attachment to wealth, which he said is killing the church and its souls.

He then uses location to provide the context for his message of exhortation to the faithful to live a life of poverty.

He delivered that exhortation during the most evocative stop of the day, in the simple room where St. Francis stripped off his clothes, renounced his wealth and vowed to live a life of poverty.

He then proceeds to make in my view a very Murdochian statement to a mother of an adult son who is not able to leave home, get married and start his own household:

He showed that same sense of humor later when he told a story about a mother who lamented that her 30-year-old son still hadn't gotten married - a reference to a generation of Italian men who seem unwilling to move out: "Signora," Francis recalled telling her. "Stop ironing his shirts!"

Yes AP, they indeed seem unwilling, while we know that the way this Eurosystem deficit country is being economically administered simply cannot deliver domestic incomes adequate to result in robust new household formation.

But that's not the way the Pope sees it, its because the son is being lazy or something.

We can compare this to a statement tweeted recently by Rupert Murdoch, made in view of a recent right-center election victory in Australia:

 "Aust election public sick of public sector workers and phony (sic) welfare scroungers sucking life out of economy. Others nations to follow in time,"

We can see the congruity between the Pope's view of our current economic failures and Murdoch's which I think is very similar, they both think it is due to some form of "laziness" on the part of victims.  So the Pope is in very good company here.

I guess this young man is supposed to get married and start making babies anyway even in the face of an income which is locally inadequate to provision his future household.... Oh, I forgot, I guess he logically could just take his family to the soup kitchen to eat and house them in a shelter .... ooops.

At this point, I can't even say that this Pope is a moron, he may actually be below the moron threshold ... he is "sub-moron", a loose cannon, indeed a dangerous person due to his present stature among humans.

I cannot see where he thinks we are going with this view of his.  His view is a "dead end" of poverty and depression.

One of my favorite scriptures comes to mind:   "Stupid and blind!" (Mat 23:17)

I'll assume his epistemology is the typical mainstream Christian view that "the church" (METONYM ALERT!) is supposed to somehow take the place of Israel in all of this blah, blah, blah....  (Which for FD is not my view.)

So even if I look at it this way for a moment, where is he getting that we humans should be satisfied with poverty and depression in this era?  Where is this doctrine asserted in scripture?

What is this man doing?  I simply do not get it.  (He reminds me here of Alan Greenspan like a "Mr. Magoo" type person...)

If he thinks "the church" is Israel, then ok let's go with that hypothetically at least, the prophet John implored things for Israel to:

  "make ready the road of the Lord! Straight...be making the highways'" of Him!"  Luke 3:4

Ok, how were they supposed to do that?

"10 And the throngs inquired of him, saying "What, then, should we be doing?"  Luke 3:10

John tells them in THREE steps (this should not be hard Francis you only have to count up to 3 I'll assume you have that covered), ok, here goes... ONE:

11 Now answering, he said to them, "He who has two tunics, let him be sharing with him who has none, and let him who has food be doing likewise."

Redistribute the economic surplus justly, ok....  TWO:

12 Now tribute collectors also came to be baptized, and they said to him, "Teacher, what should we be doing?"13 Now he said to them, "Impose nothing more than has been prescribed to you."

Get the fiscal flows correct, ok..... THREE:

14 Now soldiers also inquired of him, saying, "What should we also be doing?" And he said to them, "You should be intimidating no one, neither be blackmailing, and be sufficed with your rations."

Eliminate government corruption... 1...2...3.

Francis in my view thinks "the church" is Israel and is terminally stuck in step one and can't get out of it.

He is at a "dead end" and wants many others to join him there.