In Marxist rant, Pope Francis blames global warming on free market
In a rant last week filled with Marxist ideology, Pope Francis blamed the US and the free market economy for global warming.
Speaking before the United Nations, Francis used his appearance on the global stage to single out the United States for its “irresponsible” Western lifestyle and excess carbon emissions (via TheHill.com):
Individual, household efforts are helping combat climate change, the pontiff said, but “we can state that a broad change in the irresponsible lifestyle connected with the Western model would have a significant long-term impact.”
Francis noted that per-capita, emissions in the U.S. are twice as high as China and seven times greater than poorer countries. In a speech to U.N. world leaders, Francis shamed and challenged them to slow climate change before it’s too late. (Emphasis mine)
Pope Francis has always possessed a strong Marxist bent to his faith, and he hasn’t been shy about making Marxism a key tenet of the Catholic faith.
For example, in an appearance before a joint session of Congress in 2015, the pontiff laid out an extensive list of priorities near and dear to the hearts of socialists and communists around the world. Phyllis Bennis of the Marxist Institute for Policy Studies noted at the time how “Pope Francis’ address to Congress was almost certainly not what John Boehner, Mitch McConnell, and other congressional leaders had in mind when they invited the pope to speak.”
In June 2015, Francis issued a papal encyclical blaming human selfishness and capitalism for global warming. In that letter, the pope addressed humanity’s “lost moral compass” on the environment, the “exploitation of natural resources,” the “rapid environmental collapse,” our “failure to respect nature” and the greed behind it all. He also said that “money trumps morality” and that “capitalism is killing planet Earth.”
The encyclical was only the beginning. In November 2019, Francis introduced the idea that human-caused global warming be considered an “ecological sin” to be added to the Roman Catholic Church’s official teaching:
“We must introduce — we are thinking — into the Catechism of the Catholic Church the sin against ecology, the ecological sin against the common home, because it’s a duty.”
When asked for clarification, Francis said ecological sin would be defined as an “action or omission against God, against others, the community and the environment” and he called it “a sin against future generations . . . manifested in the acts and habits of pollution and destruction of the harmony of the environment.”
Blaming free market capitalism for “killing the planet” has been used as a Marxist talking point ever since the first ever since the first Earth Day in 1970, so it’s tempting to dismiss the pontiff’s actions, but that would be a mistake.
In an October 2020 statement addressing COVID, Pope Francis launched another Marxist attack on the free market, blaming capitalism and private property owners for failing to end the so-called pandemic:
“Aside from the differing ways that various countries responded to the crisis, their inability to work together became quite evident,” Francis wrote. “Anyone who thinks that the only lesson to be learned was the need to improve what we were already doing, or to refine existing systems and regulations, is denying reality.”
He cited the grave loss of millions of jobs as a result of the virus as evidence of the need for politicians to listen to popular movements, unions and marginalized groups and to craft more just social and economic policies.
“The fragility of world systems in the face of the pandemic has demonstrated that not everything can be resolved by market freedom,” he wrote. “It is imperative to have a proactive economic policy directed at ‘promoting an economy that favours productive diversity and business creativity’ and makes it possible for jobs to be created, and not cut.”
He denounced populist politics that seek to demonize and isolate and called for a “culture of encounter” that promotes dialogue, solidarity and a sincere effort at working for the common good.
As an outgrowth of that, Francis rejected the concept of an absolute right to property for individuals, stressing instead the “social purpose” and common good that must come from sharing the Earth’s resources. He repeated his criticism of the “perverse” global economic system, which he said consistently keeps the poor on the margins while enriching the few. (Emphasis mine)
As you can clearly see, it wasn’t a very big leap for Pope Francis to go from global warming to COVID as a basis for spreading his Marxist ideology, nor is he the first to do so. Democratic Socialists and their Far-Left brethren have long been making the case that COVID hysteria created the perfect opportunity to launch the Green New Deal.
Pope Francis’ embrace of Marxism and the belief that it provides the answers to the global warming and COVID questions should concern Catholics in America, but non-Catholics should be equally concerned, especially with Nationalist Conservatives working to destroy conservative values using the same Marxist ideology.
Like Marx, Nationalist Conservatives believe in a powerful, centralized government. Like Marx, Nationalist Conservatives believe in a “collective” approach to economics where “government should [be able to] force you” to make only government-approved economic choices. Like Marx, Nationalist Conservatives believe that “the powerful upper class and their cosmopolitan priorities” are responsible for “economic inequality.”
Pope Francis’ Marxist beliefs blame capitalism and the free market for global warming, killing the planet, spreading COVID, and causing Catholics to sin.
Not to worry, though. It’s nothing that a few Our Fathers, a couple of Hail Marys, and a healthy dose of Marxism can’t fix.
David Leach is the owner of the Strident Conservative. He holds people of every political stripe accountable for their failure to uphold conservative values, and he promotes those values instead of political parties.
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