Pope Francis: "Unjust Social Conditions" Lead To Sin, Suicide

[highplainsdem]

Source: AP via Talking Points Memo

VATICAN CITY (AP) — Pope Francis says that "unjust" social conditions like unemployment can lead to sin, financial ruin and even suicide.

Francis discussed three types of destitution — material, moral and spiritual — in his first message for Lent, the solemn period leading up to Holy Week and Easter, that was released Tuesday.

-snip-

He noted that sometimes "unjust social conditions" like unemployment lead to this type of destitution by depriving people of the dignity of work and access to education and health care.

-snip-

The pope has frequently railed about the excesses of capitalism and income disparity, and the Lenten document echoed that message.

Read more: http://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/pope-unjust-social-conditions

[BlueInPhilly]

1. Lent doesn't start until Ash Wednesday

Which happens to be on March 5,2014.

[Baitball Blogger]

2. This man is the wisest person to come around in a long time.

Connecting the dots for those who refuse to see the obvious.

[calimary]

4. Amen!

It's SOOOOOOO wonderful to have a Pope who's crusading for THIS. Finally we have a Pope who seems interested in putting the true message of Our Lord in front of people's faces for a change. Nobody else has advocated for the poor as he has, and nobody's pointed the finger squarely at capitalism's excesses and deep-down fundamental unfairness. THIS is what a Pope should always be about. Because that's what I learned that Jesus was about all the time. All the many many many messages and stories and parables in the New Testament about the poor. And there is NOTHING in there about homosexuality or abortion or anything upon which the wrong-wingers obsess nonstop.

[Baitball Blogger]

16. +1

[Cal33]

5. For those who refuse to see the obvious, the dots will never be connected because they don't want

them to be connected. That's the way they think. These are not normal people. They are
the cause of most of the problems in the world. They always have been since the
beginning of history.

[harun]

12. Totally agree and I'm Muslim

[kysrsoze]

3. Here we go again with the socialist agenda! And I like it :D

[SHRED]

6. And in other news...

...water is wet.

It's sad that these truths are somehow "news".

[AlbertCat]

14. It's sad that these truths are somehow "news".

I know! Mr. Rogers is was deeper!

And he didn't mention the built in guilt of Christianity and its role, did he?

[jsr]

7. Damn Communist nonsense

[Ohio Joe]

8. I wonder what the hiding and protecting of pedophile priests leads to?

But hey... Yay pope!

[AtheistCrusader]

9. Typical right-wing fear mongery.

How does the data actually hold up?

From peaking at 54,500 in 2007, to bombing to 50,000 in 2011, median US household income is only a part of the story, but basically it reversed 15 years of stability or gains. For the same period, a 6 MILLION job shortfall in the labor force. Devastation that, for a 4 year period, has now been coined 'the lost decade'. A FOUR YEAR PERIOD.

Now, lets look at the data:

Violent crime per 100,000 inhabitants:

2007 484.3
2011 392.2

Murder and non-negligent manslaughter rate/100k inhabitants

2007 5.9
2011 4.8

Forcible rape rate/100k

2007 30.1
2011 26.8

Robbery total/rate 100k

2007 known offenses 421,286, rate 155.7
2011 known offenses 342,282, rate 117.1

Aggravated assault total/rate 100k

2007 known offenses 791,506, rate 292.6
2011 known offenses 711,997, rate 243.5

Property crime total/rate 100k

2007 known offenses 9,026,804, rate 3,337.0
2011 known offenses 8,553,515, rate 2,925.6

Burglary total/rate 100k

2007 known offenses 1,987,601, rate 734.8
2011 known offenses 2,055,979, rate 703.2


In all but one case the totals went down, and even in the burglary case, the increase in population showed that the rate of burglary still contracted as the population grew..


THIS POPE IS SPEWING THE SAME, TYPICAL, BE AFRAID OF YOUR POOR NEIGHBOR RIGHT WING FUCKING HATE that you can get from most right wing sources, that share his views on abortion, contraceptives, same-sex marriage and a host of other social issues.

IT IS A LIE. Being poor does not make you 'sin'. It does not make your neighbors, or you, a bad person. It does not make your neighbors so jealous of your shit they will kill you, rape you, and take your stuff. IT IS A HUGE, MANIPULATIVE, EVIL FUCKING LIE.

Even the suicide rate climb is questionable, going from 11.5/100k in 2007, to 12.0 in the most recent year with available CDC data. WELL within the mean for the last 20 years. Granted, that somewhat defies observations from economic downturns and booms in the 1900's, wherein the CDC was able to link economic pressure to suicide.

[Bok_Tukalo]

10. I am going to go out on a limb here and speculate that he wasn't limiting his comments to the US

<OPE>

[AtheistCrusader]

11. All the more important he substantiate his claim.

This announcement by the pope was little more than a marketing ploy for the RCC.

"In such cases, moral destitution can be considered impending suicide."

Moral destitution? By what world health org metric do we measure THAT?

(But thank you for pointing out, and you are correct, that my objection was overly US-centric)

[alarimer]

13. There's no such thing as "sin."

Sure, we regulate a lot of objectionable behaviors in the name of peace and tranquility, but "sin" is an antiquated, moralistic, repressive concept that has no place in a modern, free-thinking society.

And suicide is the result of mental illness, typically, which may be exacerbated by many things, including poverty or inequality, but it is not caused by them. That is scientifically untenable.

It's fine to rail against capitalism (I'm all for that), but I'd rather skip the talk about "sin". I will not be lectured on inequality by a man, whose organization has inequality (of the sexes) as a FEATURE, not a bug.

[TNLib]

15. I would say sin is bitterness towards your fellow man.

I heard that at church once and I have to say if there is sin in this world that would be it.

[saidsimplesimon]

17. Pope Francis, please consider this

http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2014/02/yanis-varoufakis-germanys-choice-authoritarianism-hegemony.html


Yanis Varoufakis: Germany’s Choice: Authoritarianism or Hegemony? (*)
Posted on February 4, 2014 by Yves Smith

http://yanisvaroufakis.eu/2014/02/03/germanys-choice-authoritarianism-or-hegemony/

....

The trouble is, however, that Germany’s attempt to preserve the rules that were the basis of the formation of the Eurozone is bound to fail. These were rules that could never hold once a financial crisis hit, and then mutated into a crisis of the real economy that put the burden of adjustment onto heavily-indebted deficit member-states. Austerity, coupled with some essential ‘bending’ of the rules by the European Central Bank, may have succeeded in keeping the lid on the boiling cauldron. But the crisis’ steam is bound to win the day, blowing the proverbial lid sky high. The principle of the greatest austerity for the nation gripped by the worst recession poisons debt dynamics in the nations that are most indebted and debases our democracies (via the machinations of mass unemployment).

So, in the end, either Germany will let the lid be blown off, and reluctantly create a Neue Deutsch Mark, from which France and the PIIGS shall be excluded (dealing a death blow to the European Union itself), or it will have to accept that the Maastricht rules are dead-in-the-water and in urgent need of a drastic revamp. But to design and implement these new rules, Germany needs to become hegemonic. And to become truly hegemonic, as the United States did after the end of WW2, German elites must grasp a simple, twofold, reality:


First, being hegemonic is diametrically opposed to being authoritarian. Secondly, at a time when a majority of Europeans are suffering from depression (economic and psychological) due to the insistence on old rules that have been overtaken by reality, the German commitment on the old rules is a de facto authoritarianism that not only damages Germany’s relationship with the rest of Europe but, worse still, undermines the viability of the Eurozone which the German elites seem keen to preserve.

In short, the Eurozone cannot survive without enlightened German leadership. An atavistic dedication to ill-conceived rules will confine the euro to history’s dustbin, leading to another German trauma involving the accusation of authoritarianism. Germany can save the euro, and claim its rightful place at Europe’s high table, only by espousing a hegemonic stance. A properly hegemonic Germany must forge new rules that reflect the abandonment of the project to turn the rest of the Eurozone into Bismarck-ian net exporting nation-states. It will understand that a deep cause of its success is that the rest of Europe is not like Germany. And that this is fine, as long as our existing institutions are reconfigured in a way that several realms are Europeanised (e.g. a degree of common debt, a proper banking union and a common aggregate investment strategy); without federalism; and without the authoritarianism that is pushing the Periphery into a 1930s-like nightmare – see here for our detailed proposal.
_____
(*) Regular readers will undoubtedly notice a recurring theme here. This is natural since the piece above was commissioned by Hungarian online daily vs.hu. Similar arguments were presented in Handelsblatt – before being updated for the purposes of the present post.