Pope Francis’ forthcoming clash with global capitalism
Opinion: Pope Francis’s anticapitalist revolution launches on Thursday
By PAUL B. FARRELLCOLUMNIST, MarketWatch
[dropcap]M[/dropcap]ark your calendar: June 18. That’s launch day for Pope Francis’s historic anticapitalist revolution, a multitargeted global revolution against out-of-control free-market capitalism driven by consumerism, against destruction of the planet’s environment, climate and natural resources for personal profits and against the greediest science deniers.
Translated bluntly, stripped of all the euphemisms and his charm, that will be the loud-and-clear message of Pope Francis’ historic encyclical coming on June 18. Pope Francis has a grand mission here on Earth, and he gives no quarter, hammering home a very simple message with no wiggle room for compromise of his principles: ‘If we destroy God’s Creation, it will destroy us,” our human civilization here on Planet Earth.
Yes, he’s blunt, tough, he is a revolutionary. And on June 18 Pope Francis’s call-to-arms will be broadcast loud, clear and worldwide. Not just to 1.2 billion Catholics, but heard by seven billion humans all across the planet. And, yes, many will oppose him, be enraged to hear the message, because it is a call-to-arms, like Paul Revere’s ride, inspiring billions to join a people’s revolution.
The fact is the pontiff is already building an army of billions, in the same spirit as Gandhi, King and Marx. These are revolutionary times. Deny it all you want, but the global zeitgeist has thrust the pope in front of a global movement, focusing, inspiring, leading billions. Future historians will call Pope Francis the “Great 21st Century Revolutionary.”
Yes, our upbeat, ever-smiling Pope Francis. As a former boxer, he loves a good match. And he’s going to get one. He is encouraging rebellion against super-rich capitalists, against fossil-fuel power-players, conservative politicians and the 67 billionaires who already own more than half the assets of the planet.
That’s the biggest reason Pope Francis is scaring the hell out of the GOP, Big Oil, the Koch Empire, Massey Coal, every other fossil-fuel billionaire and more than a hundred million climate-denying capitalists and conservatives. Their biggest fear: They’re deeply afraid the pope has started the ball rolling and they can’t stop it.
They had hoped the pope would just go away. But he is not going away. And after June 18 his power will only accelerate, as his revolutionary encyclical will challenge everything on the GOP’s free-market capitalist agenda, exposing every one of the anti-environment, antipoor, antiscience, obstructionist policies in the conservative agenda. [Not openly opposed by Democratic politicians, but supported behind closed doors, Obama-style.—Eds)
Just watch the conservative media explode with intense anger after June 18, screaming bloody murder, viciously attacking the pope on moral, scientific, economic and political grounds, anything. But most of all, remember, under all their anger, the pope’s opponents really are living in fear of what’s coming next. What’s dead ahead.
If the Pope’s hostility to capitalism—and his denunciations thereof—are regarded as serious, the propagandists will be quickly mobilized en bloc to assassinate his character. Prominent among these, wittingly or unwittingly, and certainly tragically, will be many gays and feminists, since the Pope continues to uphold retrograde views in those areas.—Editor.
Here are eight of the pope’s key warning punches edited in the Catholic Climate Covenant, from his “Apostolic Exhortation,” and in London’s Guardian and other news sources, warnings on the dangerous acceleration of global-warming risks to our civilization and the environment, along with our responsibility to “safeguard Creation, for we are the custodians of Creation. If we destroy Creation, Creation will destroy us.”
For Pope Francis, there’s no room for compromise, and his enemies know it. Listen for his warnings to be expanded in his encyclical on June 18:
1. Capitalism is threatening the survival of human civilization
A “threat to peace arises from the greedy exploitation of environmental resources. Monopolizing of lands, deforestation, the appropriation of water, inadequate agro-toxics are some of the evils that tear man from the land of his birth. Climate change, the loss of biodiversity and deforestation are already showing their devastating effects in the great cataclysms we witness.”
2. Capitalism is destroying nonrenewable resources for personal gain
“Genesis tells us that God created man and woman entrusting them with the task of filling the earth and subduing it, which does not mean exploiting it, but nurturing and protecting it, caring for it through their work.”
3. Capitalism has lost its ethical code, has no moral compass
“We are experiencing a moment of crisis; we see it in the environment, but mostly we see it in man. The human being is at stake: here is the urgency of human ecology! And the danger is serious because the cause of the problem is not superficial, but profound: it’s not just a matter of economics, but of ethics.”
4. Capitalists worship the golden calf of a money god
“We have created new idols. The worship of the ancient golden calf has returned in a new and ruthless guise in the idolatry of money” … Francis warns that “trickle-down economics is a failed theory” … the “invisible hand” of capitalism cannot be trusted … “excessive consumerism is killing our culture, values and ethics” … and “the conservative ideal of individualism is undermining the common good.”
5. Capitalists pursuit of personal wealth destroys the common good
Without a moral code, “it is no longer man who commands, but money. Cash commands. Greed is the motivation … An economic system centered on the god of money needs to plunder nature to sustain the frenetic rhythm of consumption that is inherent to it.” Instead, the pope calls for a “radical new financial and economic system to avoid human inequality and ecological devastation.”
6. Capitalism has no respect for Earth’s natural environment
“This task entrusted to us by God the Creator requires us to grasp the rhythm and logic of Creation. But we are often driven by pride of domination, of possessions, manipulation, of exploitation; we do not care for Creation, we do not respect it.”
7. Capitalists only see the working class as consumers and machine tools
“Nurturing and cherishing Creation is a command God gives not only at the beginning of history, but to each of us. It is part of his plan; it means causing the world to grow responsibly, transforming it so that it may be a garden, a habitable place for everyone.” Everyone.
8. Capitalism is killing our planet, our civilization and the people
Pope Francis warns that capitalism is the “root cause” of all the world’s problems: “As long as the problems of the poor are not radically resolved by rejecting the absolute autonomy of markets and financial speculation and by attacking the structural causes of inequality, no solution will be found for the world’s problems or, for that matter, to any problems,” as environmental damage does trickle down most on the world’s poor.
Pope Francis’ historic anti-capitalism revolution is divinely inspired
Imagine Pope Francis addressing a hostile GOP controlled joint session of the U.S. Congress in September. There’s no chance of changing the minds of those hard-right politicians, all heavily dependent on fossil-fuel special-interest donations. But he’s clearly laying the groundwork for a global revolution, and his enemies know it.
And watch the ripple effect, how his historic “Climate Change Encyclical” adds fuel to the revolution after Pope Francis addresses the UN General Assembly … how the revolution picks up steam after the UN’s Paris Climate Change Conference announces a new international treaty approved by the leaders of America, China and two hundred nations worldwide … how the revolution kicks into high-gear after the pope’s message has been translated into more than a thousand languages … and broadcast to seven billion worldwide, billions who are already directly experiencing the climate change “evils that tear man from the land of his birth.”
Bottom line: Given the global reach of his encyclical, Pope Francis’ revolution will accelerate. So the GOP’s 169 climate deniers, Big Oil, the Koch Empire and all hard-right conservatives better be prepared for a powerful backlash to their resistance.
Pope Francis’s 2015 war cry is to lead a global anticapitalist revolution, a revolution leading billions to take back their planet from a fossil-fuel industry that’s lost its moral compass to the “golden calf” and is destroying its own civilization on Planet Earth.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
[box] Paul Farrell writes the column on behavioral economics. He’s the author of nine books on personal finance, economics and psychology, including “The Millionaire Code,” “The Winning Portfolio,” “The Lazy Person’s Guide to Investing.” Farrell was an investment banker with Morgan Stanley; executive vice president of the Financial News Network; executive vice president of Mercury Entertainment Corp; and associate editor of the Los Angeles Herald Examiner. [/box]
ADDENDA
[dropcap]P[/dropcap]ope Francis’ highly anticipated encyclical on the environment will be released Thursday, and in the U.S. — the world’s fourth-largest Catholic nation, with almost 80 million baptized people — it will reach a public sharply divided on climate change. The pontiff’s attempt to shift public discussion on the need for urgent climate action, in what may become one of the signature issues of his papacy, will not only have to persuade skeptics among the Catholic faithful but will also face the challenge of swaying a church hierarchy largely resistant to his progressive message.
As one of the most anticipated encyclicals ever, Francis’ “Laudato Sii” (“Praise Be to You”) will get a lot of attention from the church faithful, but it might not necessarily herald a massive shift in Catholic public opinion about climate change, according to Bill Portier, a professor of Catholic theology at the University of Dayton. “Whatever culture war side you’re on in this argument is going to have a whole lot to do with how you receive what the encyclical teaches,” he said.
Based on an unofficial draft of the document leaked Tuesday, the 191-page encyclical is expected to attribute climate change to human activity, while calling on Catholics and non-Catholics alike to take urgent action to address what it calls one of the most important moral issues facing society. “Numerous scientific studies indicate that the greater part of the global warming in recent decades is due to the great concentration of greenhouse gases … given off above all because of human activity,” read an excerpt of the draft, according to a translation by the Guardian.
Pope Francis is indeed attacking the “climate deniers” and the paucity of real measures to stop the scandalous rape of the planet, but his criticism is also very much centered on capitalism as the malignant engine behind these crimes, and that is being played down in this article and many others. Keep an eye open for this kind of media sleight-of-hand.—Eds.
This message might not resonate with a broad swath of Catholics in the U.S., where skepticism toward the idea of climate change as a man-made phenomenon remains high. Reflecting a broader divide among the American public at large, Catholics are also largely split on the causes of climate change, according to a Pew survey released Tuesday in anticipation of the encyclical’s unveiling.
While about 71 percent of U.S. Catholics agree that the planet is getting warmer, just under half (47 percent) attribute the change to human causes. A similar share (48 percent) characterize the issue as a serious problem. The divide between Catholics on the issue falls largely on partisan lines, with 62 percent of Catholic Democrats saying they believed that the earth’s warming is caused by human activity, compared with 24 percent of Catholic Republicans.
The impact of Francis’ encyclical on U.S. Catholic opinion is difficult to predict, said Jessica Martinez, a research associate at the Pew Research Center and one of the study’s authors. However, the broad support across partisan lines for Francis — the pontiff has a net favorability rating of 89 percent and 90 percent among Democrats and Republicans, respectively — raises the question of how his personal popularity could shift opinions on the issue. “It’s something we’ll have to keep an eye on as people become more familiar with what’s in the encyclical,” Martinez said.
The pope’s emphasis on the issue will undoubtedly prompt soul-searching for some traditional Catholics. “People who have long grown accustomed to calling themselves good Catholics are going to be discomfited by this encyclical,” said the Rev. James Bretzke, a professor of moral theology at Boston College. “It shows that to be ‘a good Catholic’ is more complex than being against same-sex marriage and abortion.”
It’s already clear that the encyclical is proving uncomfortable for some prominent U.S. Catholic conservatives. Most notable among these figures is Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum, the former Pennsylvania senator who objected to the pope’s engagement with the issue in the first place. “The church has gotten it wrong a few times on science, and I think we probably are better off leaving science to the scientists and focusing on what we’re good at, which is theology and morality,” Santorum told a Philadelphia radio station earlier this month. The majority of Republicans in Congress reject the idea of man-made climate change and have politically opposed measures to cut greenhouse gas emissions.
Santorum: a worshipper of capitalism, like his fellow Repubs.
Despite the public heel-digging by figures like Santorum, there is some precedent to suggest that the pope’s encyclical could help catalyze a shift in Catholic opinions on the issue, according to Portier, who pointed to John Paul II’s encyclical about capital punishment. The 1995 letter, known as “Evangelium Vitae” (“Gospel of Life”) can be traced as a source of the significant drop in U.S. Catholic support for the death penalty from 70 percent or more in the 1990s to just 53 percent in 2015.
However, even if the encyclical is successful in swaying public opinion about climate change, there will likely still be a significant gap between the Catholic flock’s take on the issue and that of the church’s hierarchy. “American bishops are going to have to play catch-up,” said Bretzke. “There’s going to be a disconnect between some of the leadership of the church and the people in the pews.”
Where culture wars around abortion, artificial contraception and same-sex marriage once dominated the church’s social agenda, Francis has chosen to instead emphasize climate change and broader issues of poverty and inequality — a move that has been met with some resistance from the traditionally conservative church leadership. Most current American Catholic bishops were appointed and influenced by Francis’ predecessors, Benedict XVI and John Paul II, both of whom took far more conservative approaches — in public — to social issues than the current pontiff.
The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops has been slow to adopt Francis’ social agenda, highlighted most recently by last week’s conference of the body in St. Louis, when only 40 out of 250 bishops at the meeting attended a workshop on the climate change encyclical. “Climate change isn’t the sort of thing [bishops] would have learned in the seminary or through their course of study or basic administration,” said Bretzke. “If only 40 found it worth their time to attend, that does say something.”
The conference also unveiled its priorities for 2017 to 2020, a list that the New York Times called“essentially a replay of its pre-Francis agenda,” with its focus on opposition to same-sex marriage, abortion and euthanasia. However, some bishops openly voiced their objections to the agenda, arguing that poverty needed to be a top priority. Archbishop Joseph W. Tobin of Indianapolis said that the list failed to reflect “the newness” and “dynamism” promoted by Francis, urging that the priorities be reworked “so it’s clear that we take him seriously and we’re accepting his pastoral guidance,” the Times reported.
This response is an encouraging one, said Bretzke, who argued that the release of the encyclical will only embolden such voices and give them greater credibility. “This is the Francis effect, because before they never would have said this publicly.”
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