The Pope
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The story of the Beretta investment emerged in 2012 but there seems to be some doubt about this and the original source is now thought to be fake. A press release from Fabbrica Armi Pietro Beretta (FAPB) denying that IOR (Istituto per le Opere di Religione = the Vatican Bank) has any stake in Beretta Holding or in any company controlled by the holding. The press release reaffirmed that Beretta Holding is a private company wholly owned by the Beretta family.The only verifiable link between Beretta and IOR was that by 2005-2006, UPIFRA (the holding company for Beretta) had a small stake (less than 5%) in Banca Lombarda, which was part of a consortium named Gruppo Lombardo, together with IOR and other 2 companies. At that time, the consortium had a small stake (again less than 5%) in Intesa Sanpaolo Bank. But this has nothing to do with IOR being a shareholder in any of the companies owned by the Beretta family.A bank linked with the German Catholic church was found to have investments in a company that produced contraceptive and the British arms company BAE and BAT tobacco and when it was revealed they apologised and sold their shares. I certainly don't believe the history or even the current policy of the Catholic Church is pacifist. They recently supported the Nigerian military's campaign against Boko Haram. I deliberately opened the post to be provocative. Francis supports the principle of humanitarian interventions but he is on record as making important caveats “Never war, never war,” he said at his Sunday Angelus on July 27, 2014 . “I am thinking, above all, of children who are deprived of the hope of a worthwhile life, a future. Dead children, wounded children, mutilated children, orphaned children, children whose toys are things left over from war, children who don’t know how to smile. Please stop. I ask you with all my heart, it’s time to stop. Stop, please!”But a few weeks later, he told journalists onboard the papal plane. “Where there is an unjust aggression I can only say that it is legitimate to stop the unjust aggressor,” he told reporters on the plane. “I underscore the verb ‘to stop.’ I am not saying ‘bomb’ or ‘make war,’ but ‘stop him.’ The means by which he can be stopped must be evaluated. Stopping the aggressor is legitimate.”Addressing the 28th Session of the Human Rights Council Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Religion on March 11, 2015 Tomasi laid the groundwork for endorsement of military action. “The appeal to religion in order to murder people and destroy the evidence of human creativity developed in the course of history makes the ongoing atrocities even more revulsive and damnable,” he said. “An adequate response from the International Community, that should finally put aside sectoral interests and save lives, is a moral imperative.”I am using this thread merely to highlight the hypocrisy, not of the Catholic Church, but of the "liberal", "left", "progressive" political establishment …those "lesser evils"…. by showing that the supposed reactionary medieval religionists are more radical when it comes to exposing and denouncing capitalism's social problems.But Marx long ago had this to say
Quote:As the parson has ever gone hand in hand with the landlord, so has Clerical Socialism with Feudal Socialism. Nothing is easier than to give Christian asceticism a Socialist tinge. Has not Christianity declaimed against private property, against marriage, against the State? Has it not preached in the place of these, charity and poverty, celibacy and mortification of the flesh, monastic life and Mother Church? Christian Socialism is but the holy water with which the priest consecrates the heart-burnings of the aristocrat.– Communist ManifestoI often use facts and figures from Catholic Church sources on the myth of over-population, well aware that their motive is not one shared by socialists i.e. simply to discourage the use of contraception and abortion but regardless, the information they sometimes provide helps the socialist case.
The BBC takes up the question Is the Pope a Communist?http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-33024951One issue is the article when it discusses dictatorships as an influence upon John Paul II completely writes out the era of the Generals in Argentine as an influence on Francis preferring to infer he is a creation of Peronism…which maybe true for all i know.
While the prospective leader of the "free world" plays the populist card at a rally, the Catholic Church uses terminology that would have Hillary Clinton running to the hills, although they may well be used by her rival Sanders.The Ghanaian cardinal, Peter Turkson, president of the Vatican’s Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace and a close ally of the pope said: “Much of the world remains in poverty, despite abundant resources, while a privileged global elite controls the bulk of the world’s wealth and consumes the bulk of its resources.”While the Pope himself said last year “An economic system centred on the god of money needs to plunder nature to sustain the frenetic rhythm of consumption that is inherent to it,..I think a question that we are not asking ourselves is: isn’t humanity committing suicide with this indiscriminate and tyrannical use of nature? Safeguard creation because, if we destroy it, it will destroy us. Never forget this.”Cardinal Oscar Rodríguez Maradiaga of Honduras, who coordinates the Vatican’s inner council of cardinals and is thought to reflect the pope’s political thinking . “The ideology surrounding environmental issues is too tied to a capitalism that doesn’t want to stop ruining the environment because they don’t want to give up their profits,”“Pope Francis has repeatedly stated that the environment is not only an economic or political issue, but is an anthropological and ethical matter,” said another of the pope’s advisers, Archbishop Pedro Barreto Jimeno of Peru. “It will address the issue of inequality in the distribution of resources and topics such as the wasting of food and the irresponsible exploitation of nature and the consequences for people’s life and health,” Barreto Jimeno told the Catholic News Service.The pope is “aiming at a change of heart. What will save us is not technology or science. What will save us is the ethical transformation of our society,” said Carmelite Father Eduardo Agosta Scarel, a climate scientist who teaches at the Pontifical Catholic University of Argentina in Buenos Aires.Neil Thorns, director of advocacy at the Catholic development agency, Cafod. “I expect it to challenge the way we think. The message that we cannot just treat the Earth as a tool for exploitation will be a message that many will not want to hear.”Earlier this year Stephen Moore, a Catholic economist, called the pope a “complete disaster”, saying he was part of “a radical green movement that is at its core anti-Christian, anti-people and anti-progress”. Moore was backed this month by scientists and engineers from the powerful evangelical Cornwall Alliance for the Stewardship of Creation, who have written an open letter to Francis. “Today many prominent voices call humanity a scourge on our planet, saying that man is the problem, not the solution. Such attitudes too often contaminate their assessment of man’s effects on nature,” it says.
There was another interesting quotation from the pope recently; which I think introduces another theological problem that split the early Christian church in the middle of the second century. Thus the pope comes out with the following; “We have tried so many times and over so many years to resolve our conflicts by our own powers and by the force of our arms. How many moments of hostility and darkness have we experience; how much blood has been shed; how many lives have been shattered; how many hopes have been buried. … But our efforts have been in vain. Now, Lord, come to our aid! Grant us peace, teach us peace; guide our steps in the way of peace. Open our eyes and our hearts, and give us the courage to say: ‘Never again war!’; ‘With war everything is lost.’ http://ncronline.org/blogs/francis-chronicles/pope-s-quotes-never-again-war Thus we are faced with this god who we are appealing to ‘to teach us peace and guide our steps in the way of peace’. And the other serial war criminal one in the old testament where Joshua under the instruction of god ……..utterly destroyed all that was in the city, both man and woman, young and old, and ox, and sheep, and ass, with the edge of the sword. Joshua 6;21 http://biblescripture.net/Joshua.html In this repeated bloody rampage god also instructs Joshua to break the 4th, 6th, 8thand 10thcommandments. Although all you have to do is to randomly dip into the old testament to find real crap. I think for the lazy bible student a brief read of the book of Joshua is sufficient as an old testament seminal read; just as much now as it was in AD150. This issue was bought up by Marcion in 150AD, drawing on Joshua as a theological example; ie was god a Ghandi or Genghis Khan? Marcion and the Marcionites, a major current in early Christianity that persisted into the 4thcentury, decided that the old testament rampaging war criminal god was a shit and an irreconcilable anathema to the one in the JC gospel material. Modern old testament Christians obviously want to have Joshua cake and eat the flesh of the ideology made real of the ‘blessed are the peace mongers’ JC. ( I owe that one to a Rosaquotation- on the 2ndinternational, imperialism and the first world war )
You didn't think i was not going to draw attention to the Pope's environmental declaration did youCan be read in full herehttp://w2.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/encyclicals/documents/papa-francesco_20150524_enciclica-laudato-si.htmlAlready those capitalists professing the Catholic faith are panicking and distancing themselves from the Pope's message…accusing him of over-reaching his religious authority on this issue. It is a powerful condemnation of the status quo and many Greens will welcome what he says. It is lengthy so i merely highlighted bits and pieces that struck me that we could express ourselves…Some statements we certainly cannot applaud such as this "Business is a noble vocation, directed to producing wealth and improving our world. It can be a fruitful source of prosperity for the areas in which it operates, especially if it sees the creation of jobs as an essential part of its service to the common good." "….There is also the fact that people no longer seem to believe in a happy future; they no longer have blind trust in a better tomorrow based on the present state of the world and our technical abilities. There is a growing awareness that scientific and technological progress cannot be equated with the progress of humanity and history, a growing sense that the way to a better future lies elsewhere. This is not to reject the possibilities which technology continues to offer us. But humanity has changed profoundly, and the accumulation of constant novelties exalts a superficiality which pulls us in one direction. It becomes difficult to pause and recover depth in life. If architecture reflects the spirit of an age, our megastructures and drab apartment blocks express the spirit of globalized technology, where a constant flood of new products coexists with a tedious monotony. Let us refuse to resign ourselves to this, and continue to wonder about the purpose and meaning of everything. Otherwise we would simply legitimate the present situation and need new forms of escapism to help us endure the emptiness….…Doomsday predictions can no longer be met with irony or disdain. We may well be leaving to coming generations debris, desolation and filth. The pace of consumption, waste and environmental change has so stretched the planet’s capacity that our contemporary lifestyle, unsustainable as it is, can only precipitate catastrophes, such as those which even now periodically occur in different areas of the world. The effects of the present imbalance can only be reduced by our decisive action, here and now. We need to reflect on our accountability before those who will have to endure the dire consequences….We are convinced that “man is the source, the focus and the aim of all economic and social life”… Work is a necessity, part of the meaning of life on this earth, a path to growth, human development and personal fulfilment….Nature cannot be regarded as something separate from ourselves or as a mere setting in which we live. We are part of nature, included in it and thus in constant interaction with it…Human ecology is inseparable from the notion of the common good, a central and unifying principle of social ethics. The common good is “the sum of those conditions of social life which allow social groups and their individual members relatively thorough and ready access to their own fulfilment”The earth’s resources are also being plundered because of short-sighted approaches to the economy, commerce and production…It is remarkable how weak international political responses have been. The failure of global summits on the environment make it plain that our politics are subject to technology and finance. There are too many special interests, and economic interests easily end up trumping the common good and manipulating information so that their own plans will not be affected…The alliance between the economy and technology ends up sidelining anything unrelated to its immediate interests. Consequently the most one can expect is superficial rhetoric, sporadic acts of philanthropy and perfunctory expressions of concern for the environment, whereas any genuine attempt by groups within society to introduce change is viewed as a nuisance based on romantic illusions or an obstacle to be circumvented… A simple example is the increasing use and power of air-conditioning. The markets, which immediately benefit from sales, stimulate ever greater demand. An outsider looking at our world would be amazed at such behaviour, which at times appears self-destructive. In the meantime, economic powers continue to justify the current global system where priority tends to be given to speculation and the pursuit of financial gain…….Each community can take from the bounty of the earth whatever it needs for subsistence, but it also has the duty to protect the earth and to ensure its fruitfulness for coming generations….The Christian tradition has never recognized the right to private property as absolute or inviolable, and has stressed the social purpose of all forms of private property. Saint John Paul II forcefully reaffirmed this teaching, stating that “God gave the earth to the whole human race for the sustenance of all its members, without excluding or favouring anyone” ….The natural environment is a collective good, the patrimony of all humanity and the responsibility of everyone. If we make something our own, it is only to administer it for the good of all. If we do not, we burden our consciences with the weight of having denied the existence of others….….To seek only a technical remedy to each environmental problem which comes up is to separate what is in reality interconnected and to mask the true and deepest problems of the global system. Yet we can once more broaden our vision. We have the freedom needed to limit and direct technology; we can put it at the service of another type of progress, one which is healthier, more human, more social, more integral. Liberation from the dominant technocratic paradigm does in fact happen sometimes, for example, when cooperatives of small producers adopt less polluting means of production, and opt for a non-consumerist model of life, recreation and community. Or when technology is directed primarily to resolving people’s concrete problems, truly helping them live with more dignity and less suffering…. ….It is difficult to make a general judgement about genetic modification (GM), whether vegetable or animal, medical or agricultural, since these vary greatly among themselves and call for specific considerations. The risks involved are not always due to the techniques used, but rather to their improper or excessive application. Genetic mutations, in fact, have often been, and continue to be, caused by nature itself. Nor are mutations caused by human intervention a modern phenomenon. The domestication of animals, the crossbreeding of species and other older and universally accepted practices can be mentioned as examples. We need but recall that scientific developments in GM cereals began with the observation of natural bacteria which spontaneously modified plant genomes. In nature, however, this process is slow and cannot be compared to the fast pace induced by contemporary technological advances, even when the latter build upon several centuries of scientific progress. Although no conclusive proof exists that GM cereals may be harmful to human beings, and in some regions their use has brought about economic growth which has helped to resolve problems, there remain a number of significant difficulties which should not be underestimated. In many places, following the introduction of these crops, productive land is concentrated in the hands of a few owners due to “the progressive disappearance of small producers, who, as a consequence of the loss of the exploited lands, are obliged to withdraw from direct production”. The most vulnerable of these become temporary labourers, and many rural workers end up moving to poverty-stricken urban areas. The expansion of these crops has the effect of destroying the complex network of ecosystems, diminishing the diversity of production and affecting regional economies, now and in the future. In various countries, we see an expansion of oligopolies for the production of cereals and other products needed for their cultivation. This dependency would be aggravated were the production of infertile seeds to be considered; the effect would be to force farmers to purchase them from larger producers…."I'll draw a halt there for now
Yes, and he also finds time to defend anti-abotionism, oppose anthropocentrism, and side with small farmers, still there is a neet line:
Quote:The natural environment is a collective good, the patrimony of all humanity and the responsibility of everyone. If we make something our own, it is only to administer it for the good of all. If we do not, we burden our consciences with the weight of having denied the existence of others. That is why the New Zealand bishops asked what the commandment “Thou shall not kill” means when “twenty percent of the world’s population consumes resources at a rate that robs the poor nations and future generations of what they need to survive”.Good question.
The issue of small farmers has often been raised by people like Vandana Shiva who raise the fact that it is they who produce most of the food and not the industrial scale agricultural conglomorates yet never free themselves from debt. We too have addressed this problem long ago in the SPC 'Slave of the Farm' article when we too sympathised with small farmers and offered explanations and solutions to their poverty. We could well do with updating such articles if we are to make inroads into the developing world as socialists. I recall that many members who are vocal in our materialism say that religious peiple can indeed be socialists but just not Socialist Party members and these people are free to set up their own organisation. Hopefully there will be elements unable to free themselves from the chains of religion who may well take lessons from this Pope's stance on economic equality, social justice and environmentalism and begin the journey towards socialism. He has created the atmosphere…(i almost added "and the spirit") for debate and discussion, something people such as Russel Brand not so long ago was being 'praised' for.Shouldn't we acknowledge where we agree with others but importantly highlight where we are in opposition and why that is. Only way i know is actually engaging with people and getting our case heard so it can be evaluated by people.
As i said the rich and wealthy individuals and corporations are aghast at the attack upon them by the head of the Catholic Church and they now claim to speak for the poor and are shedding crocodile tars for those in poverty (and revealing a bit of truth about capitalism in the process) Murray Energy CEO Robert Murray told FOX Business Network’s “There are 7 billion people on this planet, one half of them live in energy poverty. That means they don’t have the electricity. In India for instance, they don’t have the electricity for one light bulb in … half of the homes. This Pope, to go out on a speculative subject such as global warming, he is condemning many more of these billions of people to energy poverty … He is misguided… If you don’t have a market you can’t mine the coal, you can’t sell it. This is heart-rendering to me,” he said.”http://www.foxbusiness.com/business-leaders/2015/06/18/ceo-says-popes-epa-views-will-condemn-people-to-poverty/
In defence of the small farmerhttp://www.truth-out.org/buzzflash/commentary/industrial-agriculture-and-farming-is-a-threat-to-food-supplyI think the comment from a Dr. Kihn makes a relevant contribution
Quote:It's not "big" that is the problem with food supply or anything else. It's "who". Who controls agriculture? Who decides what's important? Who decides that animals are mistreated, that the biosphere gets polluted, that food prices are kept artificially high?The ruling rich do. In this for-profit system, private profit trumps all other considerations. So why do we keep supporting their politicians and parties? Because we don't know who we are. We are not "poor" or "middle class" or "ordinary" or "consumers" or "victims" or "Americans". We are workers and farmers; we are the vast majority in the world, and we have more power than we are ever told.Separate from them. Educate, agitate, organize independently for the good fight.Questions the Pope should be asking.
Those small farmers won't be in favour of common ownership, nor the benefits of applying technology to agriculture. They're not on our side.
So speaks the city slickerThey certainly won't be on our side if you declare collectivisation of their small-holdings when you have no intention of requisitioning every private home as common property that may have an unused spare bedroom or two.And you will gain little sympathy if you impose inappropriate technology and most of the reasons it is rejected are because of very good reasons applicable to the situation and conditions of capitalist society. The receptiveness in socialism will be very different. The fact is and its been proved over and over again…most small farmers and their communities do adopt new ways of farming and they do use technology…they are neither luddites nor are they unreceptive to innovation and i hazard a guess that the majority of the world's cooperatives are agricultural so they are experienced of organising Perhaps you foresee the landless peasant mass of Canada and the American prairies straining at the fences to seize the vast industrial farms and divide them into tiny individual plots. Perhaps we may see such actions in places where the best fertile land has been reserved for crops that feed cars rather than people. We establish socialism from where we are. I don't believe earlier generation arguments of "rural idiocy" applies these days. The development of socialist consciousness of a vastly evolved "peasantry" is no longer restricted by lack of education, literacy or mobility. I'm not so sure it is valid any longer to talk of a peasant class. For a viewpoint of the potential of small farmers from the UN's FAOhttp://permaculturenews.org/2014/09/26/un-small-farmers-agroecology-can-feed-world/
Quote:As the parson has ever gone hand in hand with the landlord, so has Clerical Socialism with Feudal Socialism. Nothing is easier than to give Christian asceticism a Socialist tinge. Has not Christianity declaimed against private property, against marriage, against the State? Has it not preached in the place of these, charity and poverty, celibacy and mortification of the flesh, monastic life and Mother Church? Christian Socialism is but the holy water with which the priest consecrates the heart-burnings of the aristocrat.as a couple of ol' gadgees once wrote.Wilfull ignorance is the chief weapon of the peasant (and rightly so, look what happens when you learn stuff). And you're right, declaring the end of private property would be met with howls in the abstract, mercifully capital is destroying the small farmer and we can take over the great estates of capitalist farming. Maybe, we can convince them as they see their small holdings being sucked into big estates, that they are better off with common ownership.
I don't share your opinion that the land-grabbing by industrial agricultural conglomorates is progressve and a step forward for humanity. It is merciless, not merciful. Some seem to believe this is the 17thC and the same conditions apply to justify enclosures and evictions. Just who is the "we" who "take over" the small-holdings and fields of the rural poor, btw? I always thought we, the majority, were working towards the free association of producers and where i live the majority are small farmers and they already cooperate at the grassroots in their efforts to achieve a livliehood. Socialism would simply increase and improve upon this. They require few lessons on survival from the "enlightened". Accepting your argument as valid that this "private property" will eventually merge into the common property of all, won't it be by gradual processes ..as we argue that the State withers away. Or are you intending to send in the Red Army Cossacks to drive those so-called kulaks off their land and appropriate the harvests. Nor are the conditions today Russia of 1917. No doubt you will apply the same logic to all those small restaurants who pride themselves on specialised cooking and select menus…they will be closed down, and the patrons ordered to eat in the far more efficient collective canteens…Fourier would be proud of this blueprint that you offer to us.
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