Fwd: Pope and the pop front

[John Case]

via Carl Davidson

http://www.theage.com.au/world/pope-blames-tyranny-of-capitalism-for-making-people-miserable-20130517-2jru9.html

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- Alvin Toffler

Gramsci: "...Ideologies are anything but arbitrary; they are real historical facts which must be combated and their nature as instruments of domination revealed, not for reasons of morality, etc., but for reasons of political struggle: in order to make the governed intellectually independent of the governing, in order to destroy one hegemony and create another.."

Carl Davidson

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[Norman Markowitz]

Now if the Catholic Church starts to rethink its opposition to the Bourgeois revolutions, active support European governments suppressing socialist and Communist movements, Concordats with Mussolini and Hitler, fairly open support for "moderate" anti-Semitic politial groupings before WWII,  support for the forces of the right throughout Europe and Latin America, especially after WWII, campaigns to purge advocates of Liberation Theology especially in Latin America  with the rise Pope John Paul, a this might becoming interesting, something beyond the old critique of clerical "compassionate conservatism"  that is(I am paraphrasing), "when I gave charity to the poor and hungry they called me a saint; wheh I asked they were poor and hungry and what could be done about it, they called me a Communist." 

To be fair,  There are important reformist traditions, especially in regard to social welfare and the regulation of private business,  which Catholic Social Doctrine can be and has been used to support, and of course the far-reaching liberalization of Church structure and policy which John 23rd carried forward  and which the last two previous Popes have sought to contain if not undermine.  But this clerical criticism of finance capital today, like earlier papal criticisms I would say, fits more into what Marx and Engels called "feudal socialism" in the Communist Manifesto, that is criticisms of capitalism abuses by those whose interest is in maintaining feudal and other pre capitalist forms of wealth and privilege, as against  something like a popular front.  When the Pope joins hands with Communists and Socialists in Italy  and France to fight Eurozone Austerity I will believe something like that.  But that will be as big a first as Vatican II and the shift from Latin to the vernacular

Norman Markowitz

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[Gary Hicks]

You can't understand where the Catholic Church is coming from unless you understand that........

 

1. The policy began in the late 19th century as a reaction to what the church called "modernism".... defined as vulgar materialism [ the social results of capitalism, not capitalism itself] and socialism/atheism. The 19th century encyclical Rerum Novarum is the ideological centerpiece of this.

 

2. That there was no contradiction between 1, above, and the church's tolerance of nationalist-based governments. Hence the ease of ability to slide into support of fascism. Note the linkage of fascism to militarism to Catholicism in most countries where fascism took hold. Exception which underscores the rule: Greece under the junta, 1960s-1974.

 

3. Vatican II, 1960s, led to Liberation Theology in Latin America, Kairos on the African and [Southeast]Asian continents. It was a major ideological move away from Novarum Rerum, or more accurately a social-justice based affirmation of the progressive aspects of Novarum Rerum, which despite its reactionary content is, ironically, a source of the church's ideological "preferential option for the poor".

 

4. The papacies of John Paul II, Benedict XVI, and now Francis ....... are the church's reactionary policy of restoration back to pre- Vatican II.

 

5. There are all kinds of responses from different corners of the church. One of the better sources for monitoring these things is the Kansas City based National Catholic Reporter.    

From: Norman Markowitz <markowit....@gmail.com>
To: Socialist Economics <socialist...@googlegroups.com>
Sent: Saturday, May 18, 2013 12:54 PM
Subject: Re: [socialist-econ] Fwd: Pope and the pop front

Now if the Catholic Church starts to rethink its opposition to the Bourgeois revolutions, active support European governments suppressing socialist and Communist movements, Concordats with Mussolini and Hitler, fairly open support for "moderate" anti-Semitic politial groupings before WWII,  support for the forces of the right throughout Europe and Latin America, especially after WWII, campaigns to purge advocates of Liberation Theology especially in Latin America  with the rise Pope John Paul, a this might becoming interesting, something beyond the old critique of clerical "compassionate conservatism"  that is(I am paraphrasing), "when I gave charity to the poor and hungry they called me a saint; wheh I asked they were poor and hungry and what could be done about it, they called me a Communist." 

To be fair,  There are important reformist traditions, especially in regard to social welfare and the regulation of private business,  which Catholic Social Doctrine can be and has been used to support, and of course the far-reaching liberalization of Church structure and policy which John 23rd carried forward  and which the last two previous Popes have sought to contain if not undermine.  But this clerical criticism of finance capital today, like earlier papal criticisms I would say, fits more into what Marx and Engels called "feudal socialism" in the Communist Manifesto, that is criticisms of capitalism abuses by those whose interest is in maintaining feudal and other pre capitalist forms of wealth and privilege, as against  something like a popular front.  When the Pope joins hands with Communists and Socialists in Italy  and France to fight Eurozone Austerity I will believe something like that.  But that will be as big a first as Vatican II and the shift from Latin to the vernacular

Norman Markowitz

On Fri, May 17, 2013 at 8:22 PM, John Case <jcas...@gmail.com> wrote:

via Carl Davidson

http://www.theage.com.au/world/pope-blames-tyranny-of-capitalism-for-making-people-miserable-20130517-2jru9.html

--
===============
Keep On Keepin' On

'If you don't have a strategy, you're part of someone else's strategy.'
- Alvin Toffler

Gramsci: "...Ideologies are anything but arbitrary; they are real historical facts which must be combated and their nature as instruments of domination revealed, not for reasons of morality, etc., but for reasons of political struggle: in order to make the governed intellectually independent of the governing, in order to destroy one hegemony and create another.."

Carl Davidson

Check out my Online University of the Left

Sign up for my CCDSLinks Weekly E-Letter

Follow me on Twitter

http://solidarityeconomy.net/
http://beavercountyblue.org/

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[Norman Markowitz]

Carlos et al

I am in complete agreement with Carlos.  My post was partly satirical.  I should have mentioned his support for the Argentinian dictatorship, which the propagandists for the Papacy denied, blaming  the accounts  on  the "secular left wing groups" which was pretty much what you would expect

Norman Markowitz