Last week Pope Francis issued the first apostolic exhortation of his papacy. Speaking in defense of the poor and working classes of the world he said: "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 naive trust in the goodness of those wielding economic power...Meanwhile, the excluded are still waiting. To sustain a lifestyle which excludes others, or to sustain enthusiasm for that selfish ideal, a globalization of indifference has developed."
In addressing society's ills, Pope Francis referenced Exodus 32: 1-35. "The worship of the ancient golden calf has returned in a new and ruthless guise in the idolatry of money and the dictatorship of an impersonal economy lacking a truly human purpose. The worldwide crisis affecting finance and the economy lays bare their imbalances and, above all, their lack of real concern for human beings...How can it be that it is not a news item when an elderly homeless person dies of exposure, but it is news when the stock market loses two points?"
what eye thynk: While Republicans had much to say about President Obama's relocating the American Embassy to the Vatican:
http://whateyethynk-politics.blogspot.com/2013/12/the-us-embassy-to-vatican-is-moving-ws.html, they were stultifyingly mute in response to the Papal slap down of their basic economic principles.
Where were prominent Catholics like John Boehner, Paul Ryan and Rick Santorum, Republican politicians who never fail to cite their Catholic faith as the foundation of their political agenda? When the Pope told the world their conservative economic policies are on the wrong side of church doctrine, unlike their usual rush to register a daily sound byte, they were remarkably silent. In fact, they had no defense whatsoever.
Instead, they let Rush Limbaugh speak for them. In a segment Mr. Limbaugh aired on Wednesday and which is now available on-line under the title It's Sad How Wrong Pope Francis Is (Unless It's a Deliberate Mistranslation By Leftists, he called the pope's message "dramatically, embarrassingly, puzzlingly wrong...This is just pure Marxism coming out of the mouth of the Pope."
The only things "dramatically" or "embarrassingly" wrong are the two disparate responses to the two big news items coming from the Vatican in recent days. The public gnashing of teeth over a non-issue like moving the Vatican Embassy and the silence over a large issue like being called out by the Pope for the basic premise of their economic agenda indicates how false is their claim to faith-based politics.
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