Pope Francis Appreciation Thread

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You are definitely not one to ask that question 😂 😂 😂 😂 😂 😂 😂 😂 😂 😂 😂 😂
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It was a legitimate question. Pope Leo XIII in his 1891 encyclical RERUM NOVARUM (ON CAPITAL AND LABOR) goes into fine detail about what constitutes the errors of socialism and then the Christian understanding and requirement to the ‘common good’.

33. There is another and deeper consideration which must not be lost sight of. As regards the State, the interests of all, whether high or low, are equal. The members of the working classes are citizens by nature and by the same right as the rich; they are real parts, living the life which makes up, through the family, the body of the commonwealth; and it need hardly be said that they are in every city very largely in the majority. It would be irrational to neglect one portion of the citizens and favor another, and therefore the public administration must duly and solicitously provide for the welfare and the comfort of the working classes; otherwise, that law of justice will be violated which ordains that each man shall have his due. To cite the wise words of St. Thomas Aquinas: “As the part and the whole are in a certain sense identical, so that which belongs to the whole in a sense belongs to the part.”(27) Among the many and grave duties of rulers who would do their best for the people, the first and chief is to act with strict justice - with that justice which is called distributive - toward each and every class alike.
 
Ha, I wasn’t even thinking about your post. I don’t consider one post stating an opinion to be hijacking. 10 posts by one person going off-thread is hijacking. However, the fact that you automatically assumed it was you might be something to reflect upon.

Anyway, on the off-chance this thread can be salvaged from being CAF thread #9,473 on socialism and get back on-topic, I will refrain from further comment.
 
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I am the OP.
My background is a country that was under communist rule for 30 years.
Communist rule had it’s negatives of course but it also had positives.

Pope Francis though was not stating in support of communism in this article. This is a misinterpretation:)
 
All I read here is about distributing justice equally to all classes. So a person from a lower class is not earning a slaves wage(like they do currently in Communist countries). Not about redistributing income from those who earn it legitimately through their hard work and skills. In fact, that’s injustice to steal from others.
 
I come from people who left Czechoslavokia before Communism took over. I’m glad they did. Other than murdering millions of people for the conscientious objections, Communism destroyed religious practice in that country. They are majority atheist today.
 
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The Church does not limit the idea of universal destination to personal charity, quite the opposite. I realize that is what you believe, but we should be clear to delineate personal opinion from Church teaching.
 
The aphorisms “from each according to his abilities” and “to each according to his needs” are taken from Scripture. St. Peter himself founded a community in which everyone gave up there individual wealth.
 
I like his lack of pretention in his choice of automobiles, dress, and lifestyle. There are a lot of other things, but this is what first struck me about the choice of him as Pope.

As far as anything negative, unlike others here, I can read and honor the thread title and intention.

I like Laudato Si, as well as what I have read of Fratelli Tutti. I realize now I gat side-tracked and did not finish that one.
 
I enjoyed Laudato Si quite a bit, even though I feel a little bad about AC now.
 
I actually like a lot about Pope Francis (though I think he has made some bizarre, and quite frankly, unorthodox statements), but, the fact that you started the thread with the National Catholic Reporter does not instill confidence that I will be welcome here.
ALL ARE WELCOME, ALL ARE WELCOME, IN THIS PLACE
I’ll pass.
 
H.H. Pope Francis has been very prolific, not including the very large number of homilies, speeches, and messages there are the following number of documents:
209 Letters
36 Moto Proprios
9 Apostolic Letters
5 Apostolic Exhortations
4 Apostolic Constitutions
4 Encyclicals
2 Laws
1 Bull
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See: Documents and Speeches by Pope Francis
 
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Wampa said:
New user with strong political opinions hijacks thread: gee, there’s a shocker.
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Probably not all that “new” as it seems like many CAF “graves” have been opened and the suspended users have been walking the earth lately. Just to get one last hurrah in before the party winds down.
 
To (name removed by moderator), you quote encyclicals nicely. Can you quote something from Quadragesimo Anno about the ability of the state to intervene in the economy, or perhaps from Laborem Exercens about the justice of socializing some means of production?
 
I have my share of critiques of Pope Francis, but I admired his efforts to encourage his flock during the pandemic lockdown earlier this year.

I found the Pope’s video prayer for the end of the coronavirus, as well as the Stations of the Cross done in St. Peter’s Square, and some of the Masses, to be very moving and pastoral. Pope Francis gets a gold star from me for his visible leadership during that scary and depressing time.
 
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I appreciate that Pope Francis is not afraid to speak plainly about sin and about things like devils, which too many modern people think no longer exist or have tried (with sin) to make the criteria for mortal sin to seem impossible, and have tried (with devils) to turn them into figures of comedy and thus, imaginary). Pope Francis knows better on both counts. He also makes sure to address sin on ‘both sides of the aisle’ so to speak, which is an excellent corrective in keeping either side from feeling as though it is the only ‘right’ one. And I have the deepest sympathy for what he deals with in regard to the media and to his daily interactions. It seems as if he is being attacked or extolled and it must be incredibly hard for someone as pastoral as he is to be in a kind of ‘untouchable’ position where even with his fellow cardinals or with secular friends there is always that feeling of distance because “He’s the Pope’. He must get incredibly lonely.
 
Tis_Bearself said:
not all that “new” as it seems like many CAF “graves” have been opened and the suspended users have been walking the earth lately. Just to get one last hurrah in before the party winds down
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More zombie apocalypse than Easter, unfortunately.
 
  1. Property, that is, “capital,” has undoubtedly long been able to appropriate too much to itself. Whatever was produced, whatever returns accrued, capital claimed for itself, hardly leaving to the worker enough to restore and renew his strength. For the doctrine was preached that all accumulation of capital falls by an absolutely insuperable economic law to the rich, and that by the same law the workers are given over and bound to perpetual want, to the scantiest of livelihoods. It is true, indeed, that things have not always and everywhere corresponded with this sort of teaching of the so-called Manchesterian Liberals; yet it cannot be denied that economic social institutions have moved steadily in that direction. That these false ideas, these erroneous suppositions, have been vigorously assailed, and not by those alone who through them were being deprived of their innate right to obtain better conditions, will surprise no one.
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  1. But not every distribution among human beings of property and wealth is of a character to attain either completely or to a satisfactory degree of perfection the end which God intends. Therefore, the riches that economic-social developments constantly increase ought to be so distributed among individual persons and classes that the common advantage of all, which Leo XIII had praised, will be safeguarded; in other words, that the common good of all society will be kept inviolate. By this law of social justice, one class is forbidden to exclude the other from sharing in the benefits. Hence the class of the wealthy violates this law no less, when, as if free from care on account of its wealth, it thinks it the right order of things for it to get everything and the worker nothing, than does the non-owning working class when, angered deeply at outraged justice and too ready to assert wrongly the one right it is conscious of, it demands for itself everything as if produced by its own hands, and attacks and seeks to abolish, therefore, all property and returns or incomes, of whatever kind they are or whatever the function they perform in human society, that have not been obtained by labor, and for no other reason save that they are of such a nature. And in this connection We must not pass over the unwarranted and unmerited appeal made by some to the Apostle when he said: “If any man will not work neither let him eat.”[41] For the Apostle is passing judgment on those who are unwilling to work, although they can and ought to, and he admonishes us that we ought diligently to use our time and energies of body, and mind and not be a burden to others when we can provide for ourselves. But the Apostle in no wise teaches that labor is the sole title to a living or an income.[42]
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I can quote more if you like.
 
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