Lux Lucet

Woe to those who join house to house; they add field to field, till there is no place where they may dwell alone in the midst of the land!. – Isaiah 5:8

Isaiah’s thundering indictment of Judah rivets the reader’s attention right from the beginning of the book bearing his name. The accusations fall like hammer blows from the prophets pen. Everything has become twisted, everything perverted: Worship, “I cannot endure iniquity and the sacred meeting” (v13); Civil Society, “righteousness lodged in it, but now murderers” (v21); Business, “Your silver has become dross, your wine mixed with water” (v22); Civil Government, “Your princes [are] rebellious and companions of thieves” (v23); and the Judiciary, “Everyone loves bribes, and follows after rewards. They do not defend the fatherless, nor does the cause of the widow come before them” (v23).

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To see what is in front of one’s nose needs a constant struggle. ― George Orwell

Whether motivated by honest confusion, a sense of embarrassment, or a desire to misrepresent it is hard to say, but much of the public commentary on Evangelii Gaudium (EG), Pope Francis’ recent Apostolic Exhortation, is considerably wide of the mark. By Francis’ own admission, the economic statements in EG line up with the historic economic teaching of the Roman Catholic Church-State, but many commentators today, especially if they happen to be economically conservative Catholics, seem shocked and dismayed by the document’s blatantly anti-capitalist language. “The pope didn’t really mean to attack capitalism, only is abuses,” or, “the pope isn’t talking about the United States,” they are wont to say. But the history of Rome is against them. In fact, given Rome’s long-standing hatred of free markets and free men, it is safe to say that the pope without a doubt intended to attack capitalism and most certainly had in mind the United States when he made his comments. It’s simply a case of Rome being Rome. Unfortunately most Americans, and perhaps most especially most American Evangelicals, are ignorant of both Biblical economics and Rome’s longstanding war against it. And being ignorant of Rome’s doctrines on this subject, they are easy targets for propaganda campaigns designed to mislead them about the principles, history and ultimate intentions of Roman Catholic social teaching.

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Since the financial crisis began in 2008 – talk of recovery notwithstanding, we are still in the midst of this crisis; the debt situation, which spawned the crisis, is worse today than it was at the time of the original collapse – there has been no shortage articles and websites devoted to the current problems. What this author finds interesting is that despite the intense scrutiny given by many observers to organizations such as the Federal Reserve, the International Monetary Fund (IMF), Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan, almost no one in either the mainstream or alternate media seems to be interested in the activities of the what is probably the largest, the wealthiest, and certainly the most secretive organization in international finance today. I’m speaking on none other than the Roman Catholic Church- State (RCCS).

In a remarkable piece posted on the Berean Beacon website, The Financial Crisis and the Papal Economic Offensive, authors Richard Bennett and Ronald Cooper break the silence. They make the case that not only is the Western financial crisis ongoing, but that the policies of the Vatican, far from making things better, actually make the situation worse. The authors center their attack on the Roman Catholic doctrine of the Universal Destination of Goods (UDG). Although many people don’t seem to realize it, Rome has a very different view of private property than the Bible. In Scripture, private property is just that, it is private, the state has no part in regulating its use and certainly has no business in taking it to give to another. In Romanist economics, your property is yours until, well, someone else needs it. At that point, the needy individual has the right to take what is yours and use it for himself, or get the government to do the taking for him. In other words, Roman Catholic economics is socialist to the core.

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Evangelii Gaudium, the recent papal exhortation by Francis I, has been seen correctly by many as an attack on capitalism. Headlines and stories on the internet speak of the pope denouncing “unfettered capitalism” (see here and here), prompting no less a personage than Rush Limbaugh to weigh in on the matter. In his comments on the pope’s exhortation, Limbaugh stated,

“You know, the pope, Pope Francis — this is astounding — has issued an offical papal proclamation, and it’s sad. It’s actually unbelievable. The pope has written, in part, about the utter evils of capitalism. And I have to tell you, I’ve got parts of it here I can share with you. It’s sad because this pope makes it very clear he doesn’t know what he’s talking about when it comes to capitalism and socialism and so forth.”

Limbaugh’s full statement shows an admirable appreciation for capitalism and its role in producing prosperity. At the same time, he also betrays a profound naivety regarding the nature of the Roman Catholic Church-State. Limbaugh, who states in the article that he is not catholic – according to one source I found, he is a non-practicing Methodist – appears genuinely shocked that the Vatican would issue such a statement, and suggests that the harsh, anti-capitalist tone of the exhortation may be due to a mistranslation by leftists. I was unable to find the original language document for Evangelii Gaudium – I assume it is in Latin – to check it against the English version. But given the papacy’s long standing hatred of laissez-faire economics, there is no good reason to assume the pope’s translators got it wrong, and every reason to think they got it right.

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