World News Korner

Andrew Sullivan responds to Rush Lumbaugh's assertion that Pope Francis is preaching "pure Marxism." Unsurprisingly he doesn't agree.

Courtesy of The Dish:

Sorry, Rush, but if you think this critique of capitalism is something dreamed up by the current Pope alone, you know nothing about Catholicism, nothing about John Paul II, and nothing about Christianity. But I guess we knew that already, even though the ditto-heads still believe, like that particularly dim bulb Paul Ryan, that Ayn Rand and Jesus Christ are somehow compatible, when they are, in fact, diametrically opposed in every single respect.

Notice, however, as I noted yesterday, that the Church in no way disputes the fact that market capitalism is by far the least worst means of raising standards of living and ending poverty and generating wealth that can be used to cure disease, feed the hungry, and protect the vulnerable. What the Church is disputing is that, beyond our daily bread, material well-being is a proper criterion for judging human morality or happiness. On a personal level, the Church teaches, as Jesus unambiguously did, that material goods beyond a certain point are actually pernicious and destructive of human flourishing. I hesitate to think, for example, what Limbaugh would have made of Saint Francis, the Pope’s namesake. Francis, after all, spurned the inheritance of his father’s flourishing business to wash the bodies of lepers, sleep in ditches, refuse all money for labor, and use begging as the only morally acceptable form of receiving any money at all. In the Church of Limbaugh, there is no greater heretic than Saint Francis. Francis even believed in the sanctity of the natural world, regarding animals as reflecting the pied beauty of a mysterious divinity. Sarah Palin, in contrast, sees them solely as dinner.

Oooh bringing Palin into it, nice touch.

Then Sullivan goes on:

Limbaugh’s only recourse when faced with actual Christianity is to conspiracy theories about translations of the Pope’s words. Perhaps it’s the commies who have perpetrated a massive lie through their control of the media. That was Sarah Palin’s response to, when confronted with, you know, Christianity for apparently the first time. But you sense that even Rush is beginning to realize there is something more to this, something that could be very destructive to his sealed, cocooned, materialist ideology of one. Hang on a minute, you almost hear him saying to himself …

Yes, Rush, hang on a minute. Christianity is one of the most powerful critiques of radical market triumphalism. And it’s now coming – more plainly and unmistakably in our lifetimes – to a church near you.

I don't think I can adequately express the glee I feel watching these conservatives and Evangelicals tripping all over themselves trying to reinterpret what the Pope is saying, or suggesting that it must be the work of Commie translators, or even claiming that the Pope does not understand economics, the Bible, or Jesus Christ.

And look I am very appreciative of the new tone put forth by this Pope, but I am still quite aware that he is not actually going to be able to change church doctrine or have any lasting impact on the future of the church.

I mean I wish that the Catholic church and the fundamentalists would start to truly embrace the teachings of Jesus Christ en masse instead of using them as excuses for misogyny and gay bashing, but I have little confidence that anything of the sort is in the offing.

And of course there is this.

Just something to keep in mind while we are all celebrating the infighting among the Right Wing and religious zealots.

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