Friday, December 27, 2013

Novak: Conservatives Overreact to Pope on Economy



Novak: Conservatives Overreact to Pope on Economy
Thursday, 26 Dec 2013 06:44 PM
The political right is overreacting in its criticism of Pope Francis, said a prominent Catholic theologian who predicted the pontiff's economic views would become more friendly toward capitalism.

"I’m very enthusiastic" about the Pope, author Michael Novak said on Bloomberg Television’s "Political Capital with Al Hunt," airing this weekend. "He’s concentrated on the basics. Love, care for the poor, humility, kindness. And those are what matter, really. The rest is housekeeping."

Novak, whose latest book is called "Writing from Left to Right: My Journey from Liberal to Conservative," questioned some conservatives' criticism that has been directed at Pope Francis. Radio commentator Rush Limbaugh, who isn't Catholic, called the Pope's comments about economic inequality and the need for regulation "just pure Marxism."

"Rush doesn’t understand the Catholic part of it and he’s taking it seriously," Novak said. "Give the guy a chance to get his feet on the ground, get his arms around the questions of globalization, get his arms around the fact that capitalism is mostly ideas."

While reiterating church teaching on social issues like abortion, Pope Francis has elevated economic issues to prominence since succeeding Pope Benedict XVI in March. In November, he urged governments to stand up to the wealthy and criticized the theory that policies favoring the rich will eventually "trickle down" to help the poor.

"Today everything comes under the laws of competition and the survival of the fittest, where the powerful feed upon the powerless," Francis said Nov. 26. "Such an economy kills."

President Barack Obama invoked Pope Francis in his Dec. 4 speech, calling economic inequality the "defining challenge of our time."

Novak said he didn’t agree with all of the Pope’s economic pronouncements and said that he wished the Pope wouldn’t say "some of the too simple things he says" in his speeches. "Priests, bishops are not trained to do economic analysis," Novak said.

He suggested that Pope Francis’s views were shaped by his upbringing in Latin America, where social mobility isn’t as fluid as it is in the U.S. The pope was born in Argentina.

"I think he will begin to see the different economies of the world in a different light," Novak said.

Novak also broke with others from his side of the political spectrum in calling on Congress to pass an immigration bill that addresses the status of an estimated 11 million undocumented immigrants now in the U.S.

House Speaker John Boehner, an Ohio Republican, won’t allow his chamber to vote on a Senate-passed bipartisan measure that offers a path to citizenship along with stronger border control measures.

"My family got here as immigrants, the wretched refuse of the Earth," Novak said. "And so I’m grateful for that."

Decades ago, Novak worked for such prominent Democrats as Robert F. Kennedy and Sargent Shriver. By the 1980s, he was backing Republicans Ronald Reagan and Newt Gingrich.

Novak said his ideological shift, as chronicled in his book, was influenced by his view that government programs intended to help the poor turned out to be largely counterproductive.

"What I’ve come to think is that poverty programs ironically fed the wrong incentives," Novak said. "And for the first time in our history, we have a body of people who are generations on welfare."

Roman Catholic Church
Soros-Funded Catholic Group Denounces Rush Limbaugh's Disagreement with Pope (Past Research)

Note: Pope Francis I is the pope for the Roman Catholic Church.
Benedict XVI (Joseph Ratzinger) is the pope emeritus for the Roman Catholic Church, and George Weigel’s associate.
Was Pope Benedict XVI (Joseph Ratzinger) A Nazi? Why Join the Hitler Youth?
By Austin Cline
The question of Joseph Ratzinger’s involvement with Nazi Germany and the Hitler Youth is important: there is reason to think that Ratzinger has been less than fully candid about his past.
George Weigel is an associate of Benedict XVI (Joseph Ratzinger), and a senior fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center.
Michael Novak is a policy advisory board member for the Ethics and Public Policy Center.
Mary Ann Glendon is a policy advisory board member for the Ethics and Public Policy Center, and was a U.S. ambassador for the Holy See.
Kenneth F. Hackett is the U.S. ambassador for the Holy See, and was the president for the Catholic Relief Services.
Open Society Foundations was a funder for the Catholic Relief Services, the Human Rights Watch, and the Atlantic Council of the United States (think tank).
George Soros is the founder & chairman for the Open Society Foundations, and was a benefactor for the Human Rights Watch.
John J. Studzinski is a director at the Human Rights Watch, a director at the Atlantic Council of the United States (think tank), and a papal knighthood knight.
papal knighthood is an honor conferred by pope from the Roman Catholic Church.
K. Rupert Murdoch is a papal knighthood knight, and the title of his biography is “The Man Who Owns the News”.
HITLER'S LEGACY
The power of the press can be used to deliberately lead people astray, and to make them believe whatever propagandists want them to believe. In honor of the first man to use them I call modern propaganda and information-management techniques "Hitler's Legacy".
When Adolph Hitler took power in Germany he also took over the media, and he used it to shape a modern, civilized country to his ends. With full control of the national press his propaganda minister Paul Josef Goebbels developed sophisticated and very effective tools of propaganda to control public opinion in Germany, and even in other countries.
He proved that if you repeat a lie often enough in mass media, most people will accept it as the truth.
Richard R. Burt was a U.S. ambassador for Germany, and is a director at the Atlantic Council of the United States (think tank).
Rozanne L. Ridgway was a U.S. ambassador for Germany, and a director at the Atlantic Council of the United States (think tank).



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