Verily, verily, I say unto you ...

There has always been those who sought to identify the ideals of socialism with that of Christian belief . With membership of the faithful falling (but less a drop in their bank deposits despite the pay-outs in compensation to the victims of child abuse) the present incumbent of Peter’s Throne has sought to distant his church from the spawn of Satan, those darkest most foulest demons of the Corporations and Banking. A remarkable reformist movement has seemingly sprung forth from within the Roman Church with present Pontiff issuing pronouncements condemning poverty and greed. But, still, there stands that papal encyclical, Quadragesima Anno, which contains the warning: “One cannot at the same time be a good Catholic and a true Socialist.” 

To make it very clear:

 “... any legitimate economic and social order should rest on the indisputable foundation of the right to private property. The Church has always acknowledged the natural right to property ... Christian conscience cannot admit as right a social order that denies the principle or renders impossible and useless in practice the natural right to ownership of commodities and means of production.” So sayeth, the one-time Vicar of Christ, Pope Pius XII

 The Roman Catholic Church is a mighty world institution despite Stalin’s simplistic dismissal of its power with the quip “The Pope? How many divisions does he have?” To lay bare the social roots and social function of religion is to expose it for what it really is. Which is precisely what the apologists of capitalism and all its institutions seek in every way to avoid. It is hardly surprising therefore that one of the most significant gaps in definitions of religion is the omission of the fact that religion is an institution; the fact that a religion, if it plays any role in a given society, is an organised religion. One scarcely need point out a religion which remains unorganised would not perpetuate itself. The blood of the Martyrs may be the seed that impregnated Mother Church but if it had not organised, acquired property and funds, acquired endowments for its churches and schools, made collections to carry out its extensive missionary work, how would it have followed in the footsteps of Paul and Peter? The Catholic church has adjusted itself repeatedly over the years to survive. At the same day that the Pope is condemning men for fixing their eyes on earthly goods, he is busily re-arranging his own finances and getting the Papal Vatican bank in order.

The political privileges of the churches, their freedom from taxation, their right to conduct religious schools or teach religion in the public schools, religious propaganda in the armed forces and legislatures, etc, are also not the most significant revelations of the capitalist role of the churches. The fact is that formal separation of church and state, like the formal appearance of impartiality assumed by capitalist ‘democracy’, is the most efficient form under which the churches can function in the interests of capitalism. An established church is suspect even by scarcely class-conscious workers. Under the slogan of freedom from state domination, the church performs its best work for capitalism. In any crucial situation the behaviour of the Catholic Church may be more reliably predicted by reference to its concrete interests as a political organisation than by reference to its timeless dogmas. The timeless dogmas are so flexible that the church can accommodate itself to almost any political system. Religion is the most deeply rooted of the ideologies which still play a role today. Religion has always been the form in which men have expressed the consciousness that their life was dominated by superior and incomprehensible forces. In religion was expressed the idea that there is a deep unity between Man and the world, between Man and nature, and between men and other men. Changes of belief or the setting up of new churches were forms of passionate social struggle.

The rise of early Christianity took place in historical connection with the decline of Rome which broke the traditional hold upon the mind of the masses who for their part believed that the end of the world was at hand. They confidently expected the second coming of Christ. That was their slogan for the building of a new society. But even along with that expectation of Christ’s coming the early Church tried “to heal the sick, to feed the hungry, to succor the diseased, to rescue the fallen, to visit the prisoners, to forgive the erring, to teach the ignorant...” The early Church did make an effort to create the kingdom of heaven upon earth by helping the poor and the afflicted. This mass movement itself attempted to form a new society on earth. It failed as it was bound to fail.

Dare the blog to play a Daniel? First, Francis from the Pampas has been a very vocal critic of inequality and certain aspects of capitalism; he has reformed the secrecy of the Vatican bank, admitted and apologised for sex abuse by his clergy; he tried to change attitudes towards homosexuality,]; he announced that atheists and non-Catholics can go to Heaven; he is credited with being the peace-maker between Cuba and the US and he has denounced power crazy and grasping cardinals. Francis has urged people of all religions and cultures to unite to fight modern slavery and human trafficking, saying in his first mass of 2015 that everyone has a God-given right to be free. “All of us are called [by God] to be free, all are called to be sons and daughters, and each, according to his or her own responsibilities, is called to combat modern forms of enslavement. From every people, culture and religion, let us join our forces.” Who knows perhaps the next target for his condemnation will be wage slavery.

Who would have imagined that the Bishop of Rome, the Holy Father, would have to defend himself against being labelled a Marxist.

“..If I repeated some passages from the homilies of the Church Fathers, in the second or third century, about how we must treat the poor, some would accuse me of giving a Marxist homily. ‘You are not making a gift of what is yours to the poor man, but you are giving him back what is his. You have been appropriating things that are meant to be for the common use of everyone. The earth belongs to everyone, not to the rich.’ These were St. Ambrose’s words, which Pope Paul VI used to state, in Populorum Progressio, that private property does not constitute an absolute and unconditional right for anyone, and that no one is allowed to keep for their exclusive use things superfluous to their needs, when others lack basic necessities.”

The Pope conceded that globalization has helped many people rise out of poverty, but it has also "damned many others to starve to death. It is true that global wealth is growing in absolute terms, but inequalities have also grown and new poverty arisen.”

He clarified that the Gospel does not condemn the wealthy, but the idolatry of wealth, “the idolatry that makes people indifferent to the call of the poor….this system sustains itself through a culture of waste, which I have already discussed various times. There is the politics, the sociology and even the attitude of waste. When money, instead of man, is at the center of the system, when money becomes an idol, men and women are reduced to simple instruments of a social and economic system, which is characterized, better yet dominated, by profound inequalities. So we discard whatever is not useful to this logic; it is this attitude that discards children and older people, and is now affecting the young.”

The SOYMB blog cannot find fault with the Pope’s conclusion “Questa economia uccide" – “This economy kills”

The Pope, of course, was correct with his church history. The Early Church Fathers were declaring in their sermons and writings that God had given the whole Earth to be enjoyed by all humans, which was the mainstream Christian doctrine till at least the 16th century and John Locke had to begin his book justifying private property and riches by refuting such beliefs as the following.

A comedian, Lucian of Samosata in the middle of the second century (circa AD 170?), wrote of the early Christians “ added to which, their first law giver taught them that they were all brothers, as soon as they commit the collective crime of repudiating the Greek gods, worshiping that crucified sophist himself and living by his commandments. They despise all worldly goods…. and consider them common property….”

“The use of all things that are found in this world ought to be common to all men. Only the most manifest iniquity makes one say to the other, ‘This belongs to me, that to you’. Hence the origin of contention among men.” – St. Clement.

“What thing do you call ‘yours’? What thing are you able to say is yours? From whom have you received it? You speak and act like one who upon an occasion going early to the theatre, and possessing himself without obstacle of the seats destined for the remainder of the public, pretends to oppose their entrance in due time, and to prohibit them seating themselves, arrogating to his own sole use property that is really destined to common use. And it is precisely in this manner act the rich”. – St. Basil the Great.

“Therefore if one wishes to make himself the master of every wealth, to possess it and to exclude his brothers even to the third or fourth part (generation), such a wretch is no more a brother but an inhuman tyrant, a cruel barbarian, or rather a ferocious beast of which the mouth is always open to devour for his personal use the food of the other companions.” – St. Gregory. Nic.

“Nature furnishes its wealth to all men in common. God beneficently has created all things that their enjoyment be common to all living beings, and that the earth become the common possession of all. It is Nature itself that has given birth to the right of the community, whilst it is only unjust usurpation that has created the right of private poverty.” – St. Ambrose.

“The earth of which they are born is common to all, and therefore the fruit that the earth brings forth belongs without distinction to all”. – St. Gregory the Great.

“The rich man is a thief”. – St. Chrysostom.

These people beat the Digger and religious reformer Gerrard Winstanley to it by over a thousand years. The Pope, however was less than infallible and was being a little bit disingenous in suggesting that these passages are just about how to treat the poor, rather than that the Earth and its fruits should be commonly owned.