Lux Lucet

“Building a future of freedom requires love of the common good and cooperation in a spirit of subsidiarity and solidarity.” – Pope Francis I

Pope Francis addresses a joint meeting of Congress on Capitol Hill in Washington, Thursday, Sept. 24, 2015, making history as the first pontiff to do so. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)

Antichrist continued his assault on our nation’s capital, breaking new ground as pope Francis became the first pontiff to address a joint session of Congress. The reaction from the members of the House and Senate was as expected, enthusiastic. The same with the press. The headline on Fox News was “Pope Francis delivers message of ‘hope and healing’ in address to Congress.” The New York Times proclaimed “Pope Francis Challenges Congress to Heal World’s ‘Open Wounds.’ ” The truth be known, the pope’s speech was a chock full of the standard collectivist claptrap we have come to expect from the Vatican.

One could spend a great deal of time unpacking all the economic, political, and theological errors in the pope’s address, ideas that are incompatible with the constitutional and capitalist foundation of the United States. But to keep this discussion brief, I shall mention only three: the common good, solidarity and subsidiarity.

The term “common good” is a buzzword in the social teaching the Roman Catholic Church-State invoked as a call for socialism. By my count, the pope used this term six times in his speech before Congress. In Roman Catholic social teaching, the common good is not merely used as justification for Rome to interfere in the economies of individual nations, but it is the basis for Rome’s long standing call for world government. John Robbins explains it this way,

The “common good” is the great fiction used by the Roman Church-State to justify government control of society and economy. It is also useful in arguing for a world government, as many popes have done. The Catechism of the Catholic Church points out that “Human interdependence is increasing and gradually spreading throughout the world.” The unity of the human family, embracing people who enjoy equal natural dignity, implies a universal common good. This good calls for an organization of the community of nations able to “provide for the different needs of men…food, hygiene, education…” (Ecclesiastical Megalomania, 187, 188).

Yes, the common good sounds so wonderful, Who could possibly be against it? But how many understand that behind such silken language lies the call for world government?

Solidarity is another such term often bandied about by the popes. From his review of the tem as used by the popes, John Robbins stated,

This idea [solidarity] seems to be a vague assertion of ethical and economic collectivism. At least it has something to do with virtue, it is a “requirement of the moral order,” and it is “sharing” involving material goods. Such vague collectivist notions are very useful to the Roman Church-State in building its arguments for domestic interventionism and world government (Ecclesiastical Megalomania, 151, 152).

Francis used this word four times in his address Thursday. Of course the distinction between sharing and stealing, as Robbins pointed out elsewhere in Ecclesiastical Megalomania,

is…drawn only by the consent of the property owner. If the property owner does not consent, if he is coerced by criminals, by the state, or by the Church-State, the action is not sharing, but stealing. That is precisely what the Roman Church-State advocates; legalized theft. It is theft of property from its owners under color of law. The Roman Church-State calls such legalized theft “sharing” (Ecclesiastical Megalomania, 90).

When you hear a pope or some other Catholic prelate use the language of solidarity, substitute “theft” and you will have successfully decoded the meaning.

Subsidiarity, according to Rome is,

a fundamental principle of social philosophy, unshaken and unchangeable….The state should leave to these smaller groups the settlement of business of minor importance. It will thus carry out with greater freedom, power, and success the tasks belonging to it, because it alone can effectively accomplish these, directing, watching, stimulating, and restraining…. (Pius XI, Quadragesimo Anno in Ecclesiastical Megalomania, 152).

Certain Catholic politicians attempt to liken subsidiarity to the Biblical and constitutional idea of federalism, the notion that there are multiple and independent levels of governmental authority. But this is not the case. In subsidiarity, the higher order controls the lower orders and is the sole authority in deciding how much “directing, watching, stimulating and restraining” is required of the smaller groups. Subsidiarity is not a limit on the power of the state, it is a program for tyranny.

Some conservative supporters of the Roman Catholic Church-State have been dismayed by Francis’ leftist sounding pronouncements, supposing that his collectivist rhetoric is somehow a departure from the norm. The reality is quite different. The papacy never has favored limited government and economic freedom. If at times it has appeared to do so, it has been in the service of some ulterior motive, not because it has suddenly discovered the virtues of limited government and laissez faire capitalism. When the pope speaks the language of economic collectivism and political tyranny, he speaks, as it were, from his own resources. His is the voice of Antichrist.