Pope John XII was definitely an example of the latter. He was simultaneously the secular prince of Rome and the pope, but he acted more like the pagan Roman emperor Caligula. He was accused of turning the sacred palace into a whorehouse, fornicating with several women there, including his own niece, and then blinding his confessor.3 He put deviant liberals in Hollywood to shame.
Pope John was eventually deposed as both ruler of Rome and pope, but subsequently regained both offices, brutally mutilating prisoners captured in his victory. He is said to have died in the act of committing adultery.4
Pope Benedict IX was also accused of rape, murder, and other atrocities, while Pope Boniface VIII demolished several towns while feuding with a powerful family. The ironically named Pope Innocent IV tortured heretics, including Galileo, for the “heresy” of claiming the Earth revolved around the sun.
Were the Church not nourished by the Holy Spirit, it might never have survived some of its darker times. But it did survive, and in modern times the Church and the papacy have concerned themselves much more with saving souls than politics.
That’s not to say the pope should have no political opinions at all. Pope Pius XI, who was actually the sitting pope when the Reichskonkordat was signed, said,
When Politics come near the Altar, then Religion, the Church, the Pontiff have not only the right but the duty to give directions and indications to be followed by Catholics.5
“When politics come near the altar” means when governments infringe upon or attempt to influence the Church on spiritual matters. That’s precisely the opposite of the pope using his position as spiritual leader to influence politics, but that’s what Pope Francis has been doing. Not only has he abused the trust placed in him for political purposes, he’s sold out to the socialists who’d love to abolish all religion if they could get away with it.
Pius XII was wrongly called “Hitler’s Pope.” The charge didn’t fit the facts, as the author who wrote the book eventually admitted himself. But Pope Francis can very appropriately be called “Lenin’s pope.” Let’s consider the facts supporting that charge.
Channeling Lenin
Just eight months after taking office, Pope Francis published Evangelii Gaudium, an apostolic exhortation in which he makes the same spurious criticisms of capitalism Lenin used to lead the Bolshevik revolution. As just one example, he says,
We can no longer trust in the unseen forces and the invisible hand of the market. Growth in justice requires more than economic growth, while presupposing such growth: it requires decisions, programmes, mechanisms and processes specifically geared to a better distribution of income, the creation of sources of employment and an integral promotion of the poor which goes beyond a simple welfare mentality.6
The left always talks about the free market as if it were being run by someone and income was being distributed. That’s counterintuitive. By definition, a free market does not run according to a plan, and no one decides how income is distributed. Each individual decides whether to buy or sell, at what price, and at what quantity. They aren’t told what to do by anyone. That’s why they call it free.
The pope doesn’t believe freedom works. He wants “decisions, programmes, mechanisms and processes” to be imposed on people. He wants income redistributed, meaning forcibly taken from some people and arbitrarily handed out to others.
This is just what Lenin did after the 1917 revolution in Russia. He implemented decisions, programmes, mechanisms and processes based on Karl Marx’s maxim, “From each according to his ability; to each according to his need.”
Guess how that worked out? Things got so bad in Russia that Lenin was in danger of being deposed by 1921. The Soviet Union survived only because Lenin’s “New Economic Policy” restored some semblance of a market economy.7
The Soviets, the Vietnamese, and the Chinese all learned the hard way that communism doesn’t work. They all abandoned it on their own after suffering miserably trying to make it work.
We often refer to China as “Communist China” because the Communist Party still asserts autocratic rule over the political process. But China might be less communist economically today than the United States. In some ways, China is the most capitalist society on earth.
The United States doesn’t have a completely capitalist system. The free market has been continually altered since the progressive assault on it began over a hundred years ago. We have a mixed economy like Europe, although the United States has more capitalism than socialism in the mix, at least for now. But politicians still interfere with the peaceful exchanges of property that would occur without interference in a free market. Too often, voters choose politicians based on how much of other people’s money they are going to get or what industries are going to get subsidies or favors.
China’s system is very similar. They just don’t bother with the fraud of elections. Americans went to the polls in 2014. They voted against the leftist policies of the imposter in the White House. They said nyet to the Communist Democrat Party of America.
What was the result? The next day, the arrogant, lame-duck president laughed at us and said our votes don’t count because only a small number of people voted, meaning white people and working people. He said, “Wait until 2016 when I flood America with 20 million illegal aliens and fill the streets with Occupy Movement radicals. I’ll get them all registered and they’ll all vote. Then, you’ll see who really runs this country.” I’m paraphrasing, but that’s what he really meant.
China practices the same sort of state-directed capitalism as the United States, without the political need to appeal to voters. There are no elections. Instead, everything is done through bribery. If you want to start a business in China, make sure you bribe the right government officials.
In America, you may not have to bribe politicians directly in order to start a business, but you do have to pay for permits. If you want to build a house, there are permits for that, too. If you want your kids to go to an elite college, you might have to make a “donation” to fund a new building or an academic department. It’s bribery in all but name.
The Chinese are more honest about it. They just hand over $5,000 gift cards directly and dispense with the whitewashing. Say what you want about them. Their economy is booming while ours continues to contract, regardless of phony government statistics indicating it’s recovered.
In any case, China is not a communist state. They learned the hard way how lethal communism is. They paid an even bigger price in human life than Russia, where full communism was abandoned earlier. But every country that has tried communism has had the same results.
Even Vladimir Putin admits it was a mistake. He reminded President Obama about the horrors of communism at Davos back in 2009, in an attempt to dissuade Obama from pursuing his $800 billion disaster of a mortgage bailout.
In the 20th century, the Soviet Union made the state’s role absolute. In the long run, this made the Soviet economy totally uncompetitive. This lesson cost us dearly. I am sure nobody wants to see it repeated.8
Apparently, Pope Francis does want to see it repeated. Not only is he advocating thoroughly discredited socialist theories, he’s completely misinformed on the economic conditions he says he wants to improve. He mentions inequality eleven times in his apostolic exhortation, calling it “the root of all social ills” and saying it is “increasingly evident.” He says the “need to resolve the structural causes of poverty cannot be delayed.”
He reiterated this in a letter to the president of Panama earlier this year:
Inequality, the unfair distribution of riches and resources, is source for conflicts and violence among peoples, because it involves the progress of some to be built on the necessary sacrifice of others and, to live with dignity, they have to fight against the rest.9
There is only one problem. By every objective measure, inequality is not increasing. It’s decreasing at rates orders of magnitude greater than at any time in human history. According to the Economist
, the poverty rate worldwide has been cut in half in the past twenty years.10 Not only has poverty decreased spectacularly, but it has done so precisely because so many countries have shifted away from the kind of socialist policies Pope Francis advocates and toward the free market system he condemns.
I am not saying the pope is evil. He probably believes the things he says just as millions of leftist voters do. Why wouldn’t he? Pope Francis was born and raised in socialist South America. He was immersed in anticapitalist thinking his entire life. He probably believes in socialism as much as American businessmen believe in free enterprise. As the Economist said of an interview the pope gave in 2014:
By positing a link between capitalism and war, he seems to be taking an ultra-radical line: one that consciously or unconsciously follows Vladimir Lenin in his diagnosis of capitalism and imperialism as the main reason why world war broke out a century ago.11
As you can see, I am not alone in recognizing the influence of Lenin on the Holy See. Whether it is conscious or unconscious, it’s still socialism and terribly destructive. For a man whom billions trust to hold these views is terribly dangerous for a world in need of more freedom, not less.
This is why borders and culture are important. It is no accident that the first non-European pope in twelve hundred years would have these radical views. We believe the things we are raised to believe. If you elect a pope from a socialist country, as Argentina was for most of Pope Francis’s life there, you should expect him to have socialist views on the economy. When you allow millions of people from a socialist country to cross your border and eventually become citizens who vote, you should expect socialist representatives and eventually socialist laws.
This is all the more dangerous because the people destroying your freedom believe they’re right. It’s very hard to accept that the things you have been taught since you were a child are wrong. People living in socialist countries have been taught all their lives that free enterprise is something to be feared, rather than embraced. They have been taught that business owners exploit workers, rather than give them an opportunity to be far more productive than they could be on their own.
The Power of Religious Authority
People subscribing to bad ideas is not something to be feared in and of itself. That’s one of the rights the First Amendment is designed to protect: to believe and say very stupid things, as long as we do not do harm to others. But when you combine stupid ideas with power, it can be very dangerous. Power wielded based on stupid ideas can do harm to others. It can destroy society, the economy, even an entire nation. Just ask Vladimir Putin, when he’s in the mood to be honest, as he was at Davos in 2009.
Power can come in many forms. Certainly, our crypto-Marxist president is an example of stupid ideas combined with great power. He wields that power directly, as commander in chief of our military and executor of our laws.
Large voting blocs also wield great power, although they wield it indirectly by deciding who holds office. When you deliberately invite tens of millions of people with very bad ideas into your nation and give them a path to citizenship, you are investing them with the power to elect the people who will eventually harm you.
The pope wields a third kind of power: the power to influence ideas. Millions of honest Catholics look to the pope for guidance on how to live a good, Christian life. When he’s guiding people on how to emulate Jesus in their personal lives, he is a tremendous force for good in the world. But when he’s acting as a political operative, he’s just the opposite.
Besides, with all due respect, he doesn’t know what he’s talking about.
It’s a little like medicine. The United States has the greatest doctors in the world when it comes to diagnosing and treating acute illnesses. That’s what they’re trained to do, and no system trained them better than America’s former free market health-care industry. If you get a serious illness and the most effective treatment is medicine or surgery, there is nowhere on Earth you’re in better hands than with an American medical doctor. At least for now.
However, medical doctors are not experts in nutrition, in wellness, or in preventing you from getting sick and needing their help. This is something I know a little about. I earned a Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley, in nutritional ethnomedicine.
Medical doctors can tell you exactly what is going on with your body and can suggest medical solutions. But as far as living a healthier life when you’re not sick, they are little more than very intelligent laypeople. When they are giving you the same nutritional or fitness advice as Michelle Obama, you may want to do some research on your own.
The same goes for the pope. He doesn’t hold a degree in economics. He’s never even run a business. On economics, he’s less qualified than most Catholics, who at least work in the private sector and understand the realities of the business world. The pope has a few years’ experience as a chemical engineer, a janitor, and a bouncer in a bar. These are all honest professions, but they hardly qualify him to opine on complex economic subjects.
Unfortunately, millions of Catholics believe they have to agree with him on economics, even though he knows less about it than they do. The Church dogma of papal infallibility helps bolster this misconception. Many well-meaning Catholics believe they have to agree with the pope on everything because they’re taught he’s infallible.
Catholics, I have news for you. You don’t have to agree with the pope on economics to be a good Catholic. The Church doesn’t teach that and, in all fairness, even Pope Francis has said this:
I am only infallible if I speak ex cathedra but I shall never do that, so I am not infallible.12
The Church defines papal infallibility very narrowly. They only consider him infallible when “in the exercise of his office as shepherd and teacher of all Christians, in virtue of his supreme apostolic authority, he defines a doctrine concerning faith or morals to be held by the whole Church.”13
On other subjects, his opinion is just that—an opinion. When he tells Catholics to care about the poor and work toward a world with less poverty and suffering, he’s advancing the message of Jesus. When he opines on the best economic system to make that happen, he’s out of his depth.
He was similarly out of his depth when he supported Dear Leader Obama’s overtures toward Cuba. First, he hosted meetings between Raul Castro and President Obama at the Vatican. Then his secretary of state issued a letter applauding “the historic decision taken by the Governments of the United States of America and Cuba to establish diplomatic relations, with the aim of overcoming, in the interest of the citizens of both countries, the difficulties which have marked their recent history.”14
Now, there have been arguments made by conservative, free market proponents to establish diplomatic relations and trade with Cuba as a way of showing Cuba’s people the benefits of capitalism and eventually inspiring them to overthrow Castro and the Marxists. But that was not what Lenin’s pope had in mind. He doesn’t see the Castro regime as evil and in need of being overthrown. He considers it at least equal to the American government. He probably believed the regime would treat its people better after he stuck his nose into international relations.
Exactly the opposite happened. Immediately after Obama announced sweeping changes to U.S. policy on Cuba, the communist regime banned a free speech protest in Havana. Not only did the government arrest three dissidents before the event even started, it cut off calls to the organizer’s cell phone.15 Instead of the prison island becoming more liberated or more liberal, it has become more draconian.
Anyone who understands the inherent connection between socialism and authoritarianism would have seen this coming a mile away. But leftists don’t see the connection. They believe socialism provides more freedom, regardless of an entire century’s evidence to the contrary. Democratic politicians regularly praise communist leaders as wise and caring, even as those same leaders murder millions, stifle all dissent to their rule, and otherwise oppress their people.
Speaking in support of Obama’s Affordable Care Act at a town hall meeting in 2009, Rep. Diane Watson said, “And I want you to know, now, you can think whatever you want to about Fidel Castro, but he was one of the brightest leaders I have ever met.”16
That same year, Obama’s communications director, Anita Dunn, had this to say at a high school graduation:
“The third lesson and tip actually comes from two of my favorite political philosophers: Mao Zedong and Mother Teresa—not often coupled with each other, but the two people I turn to most to basically deliver a simple point which is: you’re going to make choices; you’re going to challenge; you’re going to say why not; you’re going to figure out how to do things that have never been done before.”17
Yes, she praised the same Mao Zedong who intentionally killed tens of millions of his own citizens in political purges and unintentionally killed at least fifteen million more trying to implement his disastrous, Marxist economic policies. Liberal politicians and media do this all the time. They correctly criticize Hitler for killing six million people, but turn a blind eye toward the killing of tens of millions by socialist dictators.
This is certainly the way Obama looks at communists like Fidel and Raul Castro and is likely the way Pope Francis sees them, too. He may not condone the oppression of the Castro regime, but he can rationalize it away as long as the regime remains committed to the “social justice” of communism.
As I’ve always said, liberalism is a mental disorder. A liberal can completely ignore crimes against humanity by a socialist dictator just because he is a socialist. And liberals will rationalize away horrific crimes committed by someone if that person shares a race or religion with others who are victims of prejudice. If a white man commits a violent crime, they want him prosecuted. If a black man commits the same crime, they want to blame white people for what the criminal did.
Government Zero : No Borders, No Language, No Culture (9781455563517) Page 18
