Conservative/libertarian has a conniption fit over Pope Francis's errors.

[pnwmom]

http://www.forbes.com/sites/timworstall/2013/11/26/in-which-a-good-catholic-boy-starts-shouting-at-the-pope/

Pope Francis has released his first Apostolic Exhortation, Evangelii Gaudium, which you can read in full here. And despite the fact that I was well and expensively educated by the Benedictines to be a good Catholic gentleman I’m afraid that my reaction to it is barely controlled rage, so much so that I am close to taking the name of Il Pappa in vain. For in the section on economics and development the Pontiff seems to misunderstand the very world that we live in. He claims that we are such slaves to a market driven society that we have lost touch with the travails of the poor and are allowing inequality to increase. This being the exact obverse of what is really happening out there in the universe that we actually inhabit. Global inequality is falling as more people join market based societies, global poverty has fallen in the past 30 years at the fastest rate in the history of our entire species. All of this is happening because billions of people are being freed from the demands of the more insane versions of collectivism and are able to join the greatest wealth producing machine that humans have ever created, some modicum of a free market.

Here's Pope Francis:

53. Just as the commandment “Thou shalt not kill” sets a clear limit in order to safeguard the value of human life, today we also have to say “thou shalt not” to an economy of exclusion and inequality. Such an economy kills. How can it be that it is not a news item when an elderly homeless person dies of exposure, but it is news when the stock market loses two points? This is a case of exclusion. Can we continue to stand by when food is thrown away while people are starving? This is a case of inequality. Today everything comes under the laws of competition and the survival of the fittest, where the powerful feed upon the powerless. As a consequence, masses of people find themselves excluded and marginalized: without work, without possibilities, without any means of escape.



Human beings are themselves considered consumer goods to be used and then discarded. We have created a “disposable” culture which is now spreading. It is no longer simply about exploitation and oppression, but something new. Exclusion ultimately has to do with what it means to be a part of the society in which we live; those excluded are no longer society’s underside or its fringes or its disenfranchised – they are no longer even a part of it. The excluded are not the “exploited” but the outcast, the “leftovers”.



54. In this context, some people continue to defend trickle-down theories which assume that economic growth, encouraged by a free market, will inevitably succeed in bringing about greater justice and inclusiveness in the world. This opinion, which has never been confirmed by the facts, expresses a crude and naïve trust in the goodness of those wielding economic power and in the sacralized workings of the prevailing economic system. Meanwhile, the excluded are still waiting. To sustain a lifestyle which excludes others, or to sustain enthusiasm for that selfish ideal, a globalization of indifference has developed. Almost without being aware of it, we end up being incapable of feeling compassion at the outcry of the poor, weeping for other people’s pain, and feeling a need to help them, as though all this were someone else’s responsibility and not our own. The culture of prosperity deadens us; we are thrilled if the market offers us something new to purchase; and in the meantime all those lives stunted for lack of opportunity seem a mere spectacle; they fail to move us.



55. One cause of this situation is found in our relationship with money, since we calmly accept its dominion over ourselves and our societies.

[SNIP]

[hollysmom]

1. every one is a critic n/t

[struggle4progress]

2. Hmmm. A third of the world lives on starvation-level diets, and over 7.5 million die each year

from inadequate food. One-seventh of the world's population have no real access to health care. One-seventh still practice open defecation, and one-third do not have real access to improved sanitation facilities. Half have an average daily income of $2.50

Oh, yeah, it's all roses out there

Thanks to the magic invisible hand of the free market, the wealthiest 8% share about 83% of the world's wealth, while the poorest 69% only share about 3%

[Laelth]

3. I think the author of that piece is in error, not the Pope. n/t

-Laelth