In FrontPage today I discuss how the Pope has blamed the refugee crisis on…capitalism.
Did Karl Marx become Pope on March 13, 2013?
As the leader of a Church that encompasses the globe, one might expect Pope Francis to be a bit more…spiritual. Instead, he has more than once had recourse to Marxist analysis to explain global events, appearing to see economic deprivation as the cause of all the world’s evils. He did it again in an interview published last Monday, when he opined that the root cause of the refugee crisis engulfing Europe was economic inequality:
It is the tip of an iceberg. These poor people are fleeing war, hunger, but that is the tip of the iceberg. Because underneath that is the cause; and the cause is a bad and unjust socioeconomic system, in everything, in the world – speaking of the environmental problem –, in the socioeconomic society, in politics, the person always has to be in the centre. That is the dominant economic system nowadays, it has removed the person from the centre, placing the god money in its place, the idol of fashion. There are statistics, I don’t remember precisely, (I might have this wrong), but that 17% of the world’s population has 80% of the wealth.
Let’s see. Are the Syrian refugees fleeing war and hunger? Certainly. Are they, however, fleeing an unjust economic system? Are they fleeing Syria because Bashar Assad on the one hand and the Islamic State on the other are top-hatted plutocrats puffing cigars and chuckling as they send the proletariat off to back-breaking labor? Are Assad and the Islamic State fighting one another for an increased market share? Are the Syrian refugees streaming into Europe because Syria is in love with the god money and the idol of fashion? (The Pope actually may be on to something with that idol of fashion bit: certainly women in the Islamic State holdings in Syria will get killed if they don’t bow to the Islamic State’s idol of fashion and cover everything but their hands and face.)
In reality, the refugees are leaving Syria because the Sunnis of the Islamic State and other jihad groups are waging jihad against the Alawite regime of Assad and his Shi’ite Iranian allies, and have torn the country apart in the process. But to acknowledge that would require the Pope to admit that there is such a thing as jihad violence in the first place, and he is not at all disposed to do that; back in November 2013, he proclaimed his “respect for true followers of Islam” and declared that “authentic Islam and the proper reading of the Koran are opposed to every form of violence.”
So the peaceful Koran couldn’t possibly have anything to do with this refugee crisis, could it? It must be those heartless Syrian tycoons, or more precisely the European and American ones who are presumably keeping the Syrians in a perpetual state of poverty and deprivation.
Meanwhile, the refugees are not all fleeing hardship in Syria at all. Last February, the Islamic State promised to flood Europe in the near future with as many as 500,000 refugees. And an Islamic State operative recently boasted that among the flood of refugees, 4,000 Islamic State jihadis had entered Europe. “They are going like refugees,” he said, but they were going with the plan of sowing blood and mayhem on European streets. As he told this to journalists, he smiled and said, “Just wait.” He explained: “It’s our dream that there should be a caliphate not only in Syria but in all the world, and we will have it soon, inshallah.”
And last Monday, Lebanese Education Minister Elias Bou Saab warned that Islamic jihadis make up as much as two percent of the Syrian refugees in his country alone. Since there are 1.1 million Syrians in refugee camps in Lebanon, that amounts to 20,000 jihadis. How many more are already in Europe?
Despite his Marxist analysis, in the same interview the Pope acknowledged the possibility that there could be Islamic jihadists among the refugees: “I recognize that, nowadays, border safety conditions are not what they once were. The truth is that just 400 kilometres from Sicily there is an incredibly cruel terrorist group. So there is a danger of infiltration, this is true.” He even admitted that Rome could be at risk: “Yes, nobody said Rome would be immune to this threat.”
Despite this, however, he reiterated his request that Catholic parishes take in refugees: “What I asked was that in each parish and each religious institute, every monastery, should take in one family. A family, not just one person. A family gives more guarantees of security and containment, so as to avoid infiltrations of another kind.” And he applauded Europe’s welcoming of the refugees: “I want to say that Europe has opened its eyes, and I thank it. I thank the European countries which have become opened their eyes to this.”
Yet in so many important ways his own eyes appear to remain firmly closed. Is societal suicide really a requirement of Christian charity? Must Europe allow itself to be overrun by hostile invaders in order to prove its lack of racism and willingness to extend help to the needy? These are questions that Church leaders ought to be considering, but they’re too busy with their “dialogue” sessions at the local mosque to busy themselves with such trivialities. No doubt that “dialogue” will result in calls for more redress of economic inequalities, in accord with the Pope’s own world view – and more money will be showered upon Muslim countries, enabling the purchase of more weaponry and the onset of more jihad. At least Europe, as the blade plunges into its collective throat, can congratulate itself that even unto death, it always welcomed the stranger.

Wellington says
This Pope is a disaster for Catholicism. Being the agnostic that I am, I don’t argue this proposition from a Catholic point of view or even any Christian point of view. Nonetheless, I assert that this deeply foolish man, this wretchedly and profoundly silly man, is in the process of doing more damage to the Roman Catholic Church than just about any person in history, whether Catholic or non-Catholic. Yeah, he’s this awful.
BlueHawK says
An agnostic at best myself, your words still get an “Amen!” from me. This man reeks of “Christian Guilt” – believing all the disinformation about the crusades, and thinks “fundamentalists” are the cause of everything. From *every* religion. This is going to be a train wreck on acid.
sinantara says
In Indonesia a picture of the pope kissing the quran is send around on the social media. Does it states, look, the pope respects our religion because he is a Christian whose tenets are do unto others like you would like other would do to you? No, the excitement is, the pope is a convert to Islam! Of course he can not openly declare his conversion because then he would be killed… Another story I heard is, Benedict retired because he has converted and is under threat. Hannibal ante portas! Ah, not at the gates, already inside the gates, and ah, not Hannibal but somebody else.
john spielman says
sorry, but there is NO theology for killing those who leave Christianity unlike islam. There is excommunication where one is handed over to Satan, but he/she is NOT harmed physically!
Shane says
This clown is the worst Pope in my lifetime of over 60 years. He is a Socialist, if not a Communist, and he is advocating the Christians take in Muslim invaders who will soon turn on them and bring sharia law and jihad to their country. The Pope should be looking out for the Christians who are being persecuted in many Muslim countries, and he should be encouraging Christians to take in Christian refugees.
Kepha says
Wellington and Blue Hawk:
“Christian guilt?” It seems that the stoking of guilt feelings (as opposed to the exposure of true moral guilt) is a stock-in-trade of our post-Christian chattering class.
I’m not sure that Pope Fransicus is trading on “Christian guilt” as much as he is exploiting “Western Guilt” (alive, healthy, and kicking among the worshipers of science and the state too, I’ve noticed) like a good, enterprising Third World con man from a country which, five years after Mussolini and Hitler died in ignominy, decided that Fascism was the wave of the future and followed Juan Peron.
As a Protestant and an “***UGH!*** “fundamentalist!” one at that, I assure you that there are Christian alternatives to what Francis is peddling. Yes, we recognize guilt in ourselves and others (I plead guilty!), but it is the real moral guilt of sin rather than modern psychology’s “guilt feelings” (in which many others besides Francis trade). But we may live free of that actual guilt because God himself became man and bore the curse of his own law in dying for us on the cross. Further, Jesus’ death is not that of a martyr, for he rose from the dead (the reason we observe Sunday–not because some Pope decreed it), showing himself to truly be the savior he said he is. This was done once and for all, and efficacious for as many as the Lord our God will call; not doled out in little doses by an organization.
That, in a nutshell, is the Evangelical principle vs. the Sacredotal.
You hear post-Christians in the MSM falsely witness against us that we believe people must atone for their sins. Bunk, bunk, and bunk again. Repent, yes (and the Greek _metanoia_ means a change of mind, not a change of cotton underwear for goat’s hair). But repentance accepts God’s gift to us in the work of Jesus Christ; one of the things it repents of is trying to buy off God with my works well done (our best works which are done out of gratitude for God’s gift, buy us nothing with God).
I had the half-hearted moralism of Modernist (God’s too good to damn man; man is too good to be damned; hence no need for the Gospel accounts of Christ’s work) so-called “Protestantism” that masquerades as Christianity popped during my young manhood. But I bless God daily that he allowed me to blow the dust off the Bible and kept me from exchanging one swindle for another. What I see in RC leaders like Francis is our theological modernism appropriated by Rome. Good riddance to it.
I think both of you might like a book by Rodney Stark entitled _The Victory of Reason_. He’s a professor of sociology active since the 1970’s who has had a very interesting intellectual/spiritual journey.
And again, thanks to Wellington for his numerous occasions of distinguishing Christian from Islamic theism.
Wellington says
For the record, Kepha, I mentioned nothing about “Christian guilt.” I “merely” excoriated the man——-Francis I.
Yes, there does reside in Christianity an at least latent pacifism, contra most assuredly what resides in Islam, but Christians through the centuries have managed to achieve a far better balance with their “pacifism” than Muslims have with their martial directives. Not even a close call I would argue. Which is one of many reasons (and there are a veritable plethora of them) why the world would be far, far better off were all Muslims to wake up tomorrow devout Christians rather than the other way around (ah, perish the thought respecting this latter option, no?).
And I agree with you about “Christian guilt” v. “Western guilt.” Can’t lay pc/mc at the feet of Christianity. No, no one can with accuracy. The fault, as I have mentioned before here at JW, lies with the modern Left which has lost its collective mind and the Right which has lost its collective guts. The Christian theological blueprint is not responsible for this silliness. Modernity’s blueprint is.
Hope you and family are doing well, Kepha. Take good care, my Christian ally.
Westman says
Wellington,,
I could be wrong, yet it appears to me that Germany, in some distorted way, is trying to make up for the “sins of the fathers” during WWII even though the next generation was not responsible for those atrocities. It seems to explain the elites “death wish” for their own culture; leading the way for Europe to cultural extinction. It looks like a kind of self-administered honor killing of the German culture.
Wellington says
Your comment, Westman, reminded me of what Winston Churchill said of the Germans, that being that they are either at your throat or at your feet.
spot on says
Wellington said,..”The fault, as I have mentioned before here at JW, lies with the modern Left which has lost its collective mind and the Right which has lost its collective guts. The Christian theological blueprint is not responsible for this silliness. Modernity’s blueprint is.”
I think that about nails it.
Kepha says
Best to you, Wellington. Way back in the Silly ‘Sixties,my uncle, who as a young man thought of volunteering for the Abraham Lincoln Brigade in the Spanish Civil War, declared that America’s leftist intellectuals had “gone mad”.
Come to think of it, that same Left loves to tar us Christians as bigots all.
Guess my comment was more for Blue Hawk, whose comment about this papacy probably ending up a train wreck is a view that I share.
Cecilia Ellis says
[Statement of Pope Francis]: “What I asked was that in each parish and each religious institute, every monastery, should take in one family. A family, not just one person. A family gives more guarantees of security and containment, so as to avoid infiltrations of another kind.”
Yes . . . a family of one man, four wives, and perhaps enough children to form a baseball team . . . all with peaceful versions of the Qur’an in their Western backpacks . . . in order to preclude infiltrations of another kind. That should work well . . . very well . . .
sinantara says
Taken in by a typical western family, a divorced mother and her daughter, good da’wah material. Since a family consisting a male master of the house, his wife and (two or three) children according to established PC culture is a fascist patriarchy–the state has taken over, made masters of the house redundant (they are allowed to pay alimony), pays for abortion and the care of migrants.
Angemon says
Huh, what? Tell me of a socioeconomic system that’s more individual-centric than capitalism. Communism has been tried, your Holiness, and it ended as bad as it could for hundreds of millions of people.
As far as I can remember, the rafts go one way only: Cuba to America. Not 50 to Cuba and 50 to, not 90-10, not 99-1 or even 999-1. All of them, one way. People prefer to take their families, jump on what, in some cases, amounts to a pile of garbage and cross shark-infested waters than live under communism.
Cecilia Ellis says
“the rafts go one way only”
Brilliant, Angemon! Another classic, superbly crafted statement of truth!
Kepha says
Come to think of it, cop-killer Joanne Chesimard took a plane from Mexico to Cuba.
You heard this from a guy who’s only a two cheers for capitalism sort (and a Bronx cheer for Marxism).
Cecilia Ellis says
Wow! I forgot about that stellar representative of high moral character. Thanks for the reminder.
Angemon says
I can’t take credit for it, though – I heard someone using it a while back and it stuck on me.
somehistory says
Will the family that goes to the pope’s place be carrying a backpack with a newly made clock in a briefcase with wires and the wish to “help mankind”?
I have never been Catholic. I do have friends who are or were Catholic. I have read somethings other popes have said and done and some of them seemed not quite so smart. But this pope takes the cake for foolishness. If not foolish, then something a lot more sinister.
Baucent says
Bring back Benedict. This Pope Francis is a nice bloke but completely out of his depth as leader of the Catholic church. He is a lightweight, with only a shallow understanding of the issues facing the church and the world. Add to that a superficial knowledge of Middle Eastern and European history . In contrast Benedict was a scholar. Francis grew up in a region that produced Liberation Theology, and he seems to be influenced somewhat by that.
That Francis cannot see that Islam is fundamentally evil and an “anti Christ” ideology, one that seeks to oppose the Christian church at every turn, simply confirms he is the wrong man for the job.
Truth Seeker says
It is Very Unfortunate not Only for Catholics, but for Entire Christian World to have a person of Childish approach to the Serious Danger to Christianity, as Pope. All Christians have to Pray to God to give him the Mind to Realise the Facts.
Laura says
Is this the dimmest Pope in history?
Truth Seeker says
Unlike people of other Religions, Muslims have Many Restrictions. They have Freedom only on 2 Fronts. 1. Terror Jihad, 2. Biological Jihad. Former is Meant to Reduce the Strength of Kafirs. Latter is meant for increasing the Number of Supremacists. (Thereby every family can produce as many children as possible, either in Monogamy or in Polygamy)
ben traina says
This pope is an embarrassment to ALL Christians. The Roman Catholic Catechism, explicitly, by name, condemns Socialism and Communism as a violation of the 7th Commandment (p. 642-paperback edition. It upholds private property and ownership of the means of production and distribution (p. 637). It does warn against a capitalism that abuses its worker, reducing them to the status of serfs which is NOT present in any modern 1st world economy (not even in fascist China).
BC says
How can anyone expect intelligent thought from men who have spent almost their entire lives believing
in a non existent being and that they are a conduit for such a being, and reading from a book that is no more than a mythology of a desert tribe. Which mythology was in turn borrowed from the Babylonians.
I have lot of respect for the Jews who are an admirable people. Their mythology which now dominates a large part of the world’s population only does so because it was adopted by the Roman Empire and in consequence came to dominate Western Europe for centuries. That is not in fact the fault of the Jews themselves, who never wished to force their religion on the rest of mankind. In contarst to the other main sand religion.
kinley says
Irish JESUIT priest Professor Fr. Malachi Martin was secretary to Pope John XXIII’s personal confessor. As such, he was privy to church internal politics and machinations. Earlier he taught Aramaic, paleography, Hebrew and Sacred Scripture. He left the vatican in the mid 60s, disenchanted with liberal movements within the Church. In New York during the 1970s-90s he became a famous prolific author on how liberalism within the Catholic Church had resulted in the now known and infamous priest to altar boy sex scandals, and how the Jesuits (Pope Francis’s order) had drifted from being the pope’s super-devout and dedicated men, to embracing Marxism. The head of the Jesuit’s was even called the “Black Pope.” Read Fr. Martin’s books.
Mirren10 says
What utter crap and garbage **all** of this shite is.
These scum are not refugees. They are *invaders*, looking to suck off Western benefits.
Socio-economic inequality ? Yes, they are coming from countries that have proved themselves incapable of providing a viable economy. Why ? Because of *islam*.
So, because their countries have failed to provide their citizens with a decent life, they are swarming over here, in order to batten on the rich countries of the West.
Why are these lowlifes throwing food and water away ? Why are they demanding to be let into countries with generous welfare systems ? Why are they shrieking ‘allahu ackbar’ on trains taking them to the West ? Why are police officers wearing masks to prevent these pieces of filth spitting in their faces ?
Oh, I know; because these creatures are just poor refugees fleeing from persecution, and all they want is an opportunity to assimilate, to contribute.
What utter, *insane* rubbish.
What we have here is a mass invasion of vicious scum, intent on sucking us dry, and then imposing islam/sharia.
No Western government will call this what it is.
The popeis an evil, wicked fool. As are all our so called leaders.
We are so fucked. But I truly believe, the *people* will rise. Elites throughout history have believed they were teflon; history is against them.
Kepha says
@Cecilia Ellis–nice to know there are a few others around who remember why the ‘Sixties were Silly and the ‘Seventies Sillier. Peace to you and yours. 🙂
don vito says
once all the moslem families have been taken in and settled, what then of the young single men that love death over Coca Cola? Does the holy father have a next step plan? Perhaps, we could arrange temporary marriages with this alla believing filth and our daughters( or sons? in keeping with the recent supreme court edict)! Everyone would then have a safe, warm, comfortable home, am I right?
Jerry says
This Poop seems to be arranging a three way marriage between Christianity, Islam and Marxism, to replace the Holy Trinity.
Never expected a Pope to be “batting for the other team”.
Stephen Goddard says
Thank you, Chatillon, for your excellent response to such a barrage of Catholic bashing. I had wanted to make a defense for the faith myself, but you did a better job than I could have and saved me the trouble. I am very disappointed in Robert Spencer for engaging in his bashing of our Pope. I had thought of him as a Christian on a Christian mission, but it is all too obvious to me now that he is not engaged in an act of Christian love with his work. Apparently, the Pope’s attitude is too loving towards the refugees of the war and so he must be attacked. I feel the need to point out what should be obvious: because the Pope condemns a form of Capitalism which is unrestrained by love and respect for our fellow man, does not automatically make him a Marxist. The church has condemned abusive capitalism for over a hundred years, beginning with an encyclical by Leo XIII around the turn of the 20th century. I had thought Spencer was a Christian, but he is just another egotist. The best hope for Syria now is with Russia and Putin. I predict he will eradicate ISIS form Syria, as well as the other Sunni ragtag being sponsored by the USA and Saudi Arabia, and the Christians and others will be able to return to their homeland.
Angemon says
Stephen Goddard posted:
“Apparently, the Pope’s attitude is too loving towards the refugees of the war and so he must be attacked.”
You’re grossly, if not purposely, misreading the whole thing…
“I feel the need to point out what should be obvious: because the Pope condemns a form of Capitalism which is unrestrained by love and respect for our fellow man”
I don’t see the Pope anywhere making a distinction between a “good” capitalism and a “bad” capitalism.
“does not automatically make him a Marxist.”
Robert is right on his analysis: the Pope blamed the war on Syria on “capitalism” – which is classic Marxism – rather than on the theologically based sunni-shia split that drives it.
“I had thought Spencer was a Christian, but he is just another egotist.”
Disagreeing with the Pope when he engages, and encourages others to engage, in very damaging pathological altruism is not being “egotist”.