The Pope is a Christian. The Pope is NOT a Communist. There - TopicsExpress

The Pope is a Christian. The Pope is NOT a Communist. There are undeniable communist elements in the practices of early Christians and there still are in those of some Religious Orders, both of which therefore are communist; but Communist, that is Communism, came to mean, to my Generation, atheistic Soviet Marxism, in all its forms—and this is what the Pope has been accused of, I think by some Catholics on traditional grounds and some anti-Catholics for right wing political reasons; and I realize that Blessed John Paul the Great with his Polish background and Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI with the profound traditional empathy he had for the thinking of John Paul the Great and his own learned reservations about Liberation Theology, both imposed limits to Liberation Theology’s influence due to the non-Catholic elements in its thinking. I think Pope Francis appreciates the dire poverty in Latin America and the flawed attempt Liberation Theology made to do something about it. The Pope views the world in Argentine terms, NOT in North American US terms. In this meaning of Communism and this world view, the favorable element in the Holy Father’s attitude toward Liberation Theology is no more heretical, makes him no more of a Communist than my attitude toward P. Pierre Teilhard de Chardin makes me an American Liberal (our word for Socialist, arguably a sometime abetter or fellow traveler of Soviet Communism, John Kennedy and many others excepted) Democrat. Rather Pope Francis is reiterating what Jesus Christ said, and what St Francis of Assisi said. I spent my life fighting Soviet Communism, which I have considered the work of the devil; notably nineteen months in Viet Nam supporting the fighting against an evil regime with Soviet backing aided by an anti-war movement at home. The Fall of the Soviet Union I have regarded as the Will of God, much facilitated by President Ronald Reagan, Blessed John Paul the Great, Polish President Lech Wałęsa, the Servant of God Sister Lúcia of Fatima, and Prime Minister Lady Thacker, the Baroness Thatcher LG OM PC FRS. Let it be noted I remain as I have long been religiously a traditional Vatican II Catholic, attempting to be Almighty God’s ungrateful and unworthy servant, and politically a Goldwater right wing Conservative Republican, attempting in his private political configuration to further the Kingdom of God on earth to include doing something about dire poverty on earth, say again to include doing something about dire poverty, which he views as a religious NECESSITY.