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A Counterblast to Rush Limbaugh on Evangelii Gaudium 54: Pope Francis Derangement Syndrome Vol. IV

A Counterblast to Rush Limbaugh on Evangelii Gaudium 54: Pope Francis Derangement Syndrome Vol. IV

Last updated on: March 10, 2017 at 12:13 am by Scott Eric Alt

A Counterblast to Rush Limbaugh on Evangelii Gaudium 54: Pope Francis Derangement Syndrome Vol. IV 2017-03-10T00:13:07-04:00 Scott Eric Alt

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So there I was, folks, minding my own business, checking my Facebook on the Wednesday before Thanksgiving. And I see a status update from Mark Shea to the effect that Rush Limbaugh has attacked a single section of Evangelii Gaudium (here) and called Pope Francis a Marxist.

All this is dropped on Catholics right before a long holiday weekend. All this is dropped on Catholics before most of us have had a chance to read and digest all of what the pope has written. It is a long text, you know. Perhaps the hope is that enough time will have gone by before we can respond intelligently, and thus the accusation will have been fixed in the Publick Mind: The pope is a Marxist. Rush Limbaugh has joined the drive-bys.

I actually had the intention of reading the full text of the pope’s words over Thanksgiving so that I could write about themes larger than these silly side-arguments about Marxism. And I will do that; but now, thanks to Mr. Limbaugh and his drive-by tendencies, there’s a mess to be cleaned up first. But we will get through this, folks. Hang with me. I’ll be back after the obscene profit break.

YOU SCREAM FROM BEHIND YOUR GOLDEN EIB MICROPHONE

Okay, folks, we’re back. Now, what Mr. Limbaugh had to say was long, so I’m going to be taking out the key parts of it and giving my own running response. But as you will see, it’s sad—because he makes it very clear that he does not grasp Catholic social teaching. Nor (apparently) did he read the pope’s words in their original context. In fact, he does not seem to have read them at all. At the bottom of the transcript, he cites a single article from The Washington Post. So this was all very thorough show prep on Mr. Limbaugh’s part. His stack of stuff has grown small.

Here’s how he began.

You know, the pope, Pope Francis—this is astounding—has issued an official papal proclamation, and it’s sad. It’s actually unbelievable. The pope has written, in part, about the utter evils of capitalism.

STOP THE QUOTE!

Actually, if you turn to the passage in question, the Holy Father does not use the word “capitalism” once. Not once. (Check me out, if you like. It’s called a keyword search. You can go to the link above and search the whole text. I looked for it; can’t find it.) Here is what the pope does say.

[S]ome people continue to defend trickle-down theories which assume that economic growth, encouraged by a free market, will inevitably succeed in bringing about greater justice and inclusiveness in the world. (§54)

So Francis is talking about trickle-down specifically, not capitalism more broadly understood. Before I am accused of splitting hairs here, it is worth pointing out that trickle-down is a relatively recent subset of capitalist theory, dating to the 1980s. All it has to do with is the idea that tax cuts for businesses and the rich will create a larger flow of private capital that will, in the end, benefit the poor. Dr. Thomas Sowell, in a publication for the Hoover Institute, says that higher taxes reduces the profit motive, and thereby impedes the flow of money in a private enterprise economy. That is to say, trickle-down is not itself capitalism, but instead a political theory about the benefit of tax cuts, within the context of an economy that is already capitalist.

To return to Mr. Limbaugh.

Up until this, I have to tell you, I was admiring the man. I thought he was going a little overboard with the common-man touch, and I thought there might have been a little bit of PR involved there. But nevertheless I was willing to cut him some slack.

STOP THE QUOTE!!

Really, folks, I wonder whether Mr. Limbaugh understands what a pope is. First of all, the “common-man touch” is not PR but personality. More importantly—and the reason I point this out—the pope is not a politician. He is the spiritual leader of Catholics. But so much of what is said about Francis is an attempt to interpret his words within the political context of liberal vs. conservative. That is not the context in which they should be understood. Catholicism transcends political debates, and you will not understand it until you forgo the habit of talking about it politically.

If it weren’t for capitalism, I don’t know where the Catholic Church would be.

STOP THE QUOTE!!!

Folks, the historical ignorance in this remark is stunning. Capitalism has been around for only ten, maybe fifteen, percent the length of time the Catholic Church has. The word capitalism was not coined, even, until the mid-nineteenth century, according to the Oxford English Dictionary. The Catholic Church has been around, by contrast, for two thousand years. As I recall, it got by quite well under feudalism.

I gotta be very careful. I have been numerous times to the Vatican. It wouldn’t exist without tons of money.

STOP THE QUOTE!!!!

Where does this idea come from, that the money with which to build grand places can only exist in a capitalist economy? Where does this idea come from, that without a capitalist economy all the money will dry up and people will have to barter in cows or something?

This is just pure Marxism coming out of the mouth of the pope. Unfettered capitalism? That doesn’t exist anywhere. Unfettered capitalism is a liberal socialist phrase to describe the United States.

STOP THE QUOTE!!!!!

Yes, but the pope does not use that phrase at all. Not one time. Check it out; it’s called a keyword search. I looked for it; can’t find it. “Unfettered capitalism” is the (false) paraphrase of Francis found in the drive-by media. Mr. Limbaugh, who seems to have become a drive-by, will now read only the drive-bys. That’s what drive-bys do: They read each other, and make a mess of truth.

The pope’s words were “trickle-down theories which [some believe] will inevitably succeed.” Now, there has been a lot of debate in the blogosphere over whether the better translation is “inevitably” or “by themselves.” But I have not found that debate very productive. The near-feverish attempt to cry “But the pope was mistranslated!” only accepts the premise that the pope was attacking capitalism in the first place. Mr. Limbaugh really should learn not to accept the premise.

YOU CLING TO THE THINGS THEY SOLD YOU

But the pope attacked no such thing. Rather—and this is very clear if you read ahead a mere one section—he attacked the idolatry of money.

One cause of this situation is found in our relationship with money, since we calmly accept its dominion over ourselves and our societies. The current financial crisis can make us overlook the fact that it originated in a profound human crisis: the denial of the primacy of the human person! We have created new idols. The worship of the ancient golden calf (cf. Ex. 32:1-35) has returned in a new and ruthless guise in the idolatry of money and the dictatorship of an impersonal economy lacking a truly human purpose. The worldwide crisis affecting finance and the economy lays bare their imbalances and, above all, their lack of real concern for human beings. Man is reduced to one of his needs alone: consumption.

For Catholics, a papal attack on the idolatry of money is far from new; popes have been attacking the idolatry of money since there have been popes. Benedict XVI did the same in Caritatis in Veritate.

On his show, Mr. Limbaugh expressed his high admiration for John Paul II, the pope who helped to defeat communism. But while John Paul II was defeating communism, he was also promulgating the 1994 Catechism, which says this.

A theory that makes profit the exclusive norm and ultimate end of economic activity is morally unacceptable. The disordered desire for money cannot but produce perverse effects. It is one of the causes of the many conflicts which disturb the social order. A system that “subordinates the basic rights of individuals and of groups to the collective organization of production” is contrary to human dignity. Every practice that reduces persons to nothing more than a means of profit enslaves man, leads to idolizing money, and contributes to the spread of atheism. “You cannot serve God and mammon.” (CCC 2424)

And having said that, the Catechism goes on in its very next paragraph to attack Marxism.

The Church has rejected the totalitarian and atheistic ideologies associated in modern times with “communism” or “socialism.” She has likewise refused to accept, in the practice of “capitalism,” individualism and the absolute primacy of the law of the marketplace over human labor. (CCC 2425)

In other words, an attack on “absolute” capitalism is not the same thing as a defense of Marxism. The Church rejects both. Here is John Paul II again, in Centisimus Annus.

Can it perhaps be said that, after the failure of Communism, capitalism is the victorious social system, and capitalism should be the goal of the countries now making efforts to rebuild their economy and society? If by capitalism is meant an economic system, which recognizes the fundamental and positive role of business, the market, [and] private property … then the answer is certainly in the affirmative. … But, if by “capitalism” is meant a system in which freedom in the economic sector is not circumscribed within a strong juridicial framework … the core of which is ethical and religious, then the reply is certainly negative. (CA 42)

So, while accepting the positive role of business, John Paul II also attacks any capitalism which does not operate within ethical boundaries. And though he attacks the idolatry of money, Pope Francis also praises the positive role of business.

Business is a vocation, and a noble vocation, provided that those engaged in it see themselves challenged by a greater meaning in life. This will enable them truly to serve the common good by striving to increase the goods of this world and to make them accessible to all. (EG 203)

The point is this—this is important to understand: The pope’s words about the “idolatry of money” cannot be understood within an ideological or dualistic politics of Capitalism vs. Marxism. Instead, they must be understood within the framework of the teaching of the Church about ethics and our responsibility to the poor. The pope says what the Church has always said.

Mr. Limbaugh is at pains to point out that he is not Catholic but that he admires it and has often wanted to learn more about it. He should. If he did, he would know that the pope’s words about the economy are not political. He would know that they are consistent with the Church’s social doctrine on the modern economy, dating at least as far back as Leo XIII’s 1891 encyclical Rerum Novarum. If Mr. Limbaugh had read Evangelii Gaudium itself, rather than a single drive-by article about it, he would also know that Pope Francis went out of his way to say that he was not recommending a particular economic system to countries. Rather, he was describing obstacles to evangelization, as well as the ethical principles to which all economic systems are bound.

Far from being Marxist, in fact, Pope Francis says that Marxism “paralyzes man [and] is an opiate that makes him a conformist [but] does not allow him to progress.” He attacks both Marxism and trickle-down.

THE RICH DECLARE THEMSELVES POOR

In this article on the Catholic League Web site, Bill Donohue takes to task a phony Catholic group, funded by George Soros, that attacked Mr. Limbaugh for his comments about the pope. Mr. Donohue was right to do so. If it was wrong of Mr. Limbaugh to describe the pope as Marxist, it is equally wrong for “Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good” to defend Francis for the wrong reasons. Mr. Limbaugh is wrong, not because Marxism is a good thing, but because the pope is not a Marxist. Any defense of the pope, and any criticism, is wrong if it is meant in the context of liberal vs. conservative. Catholicism transcends such categories; its teachings—which the pope is consistent with—are premised on ethical categories, not political ones.

That is the reason this series on Pope Francis Derangement Syndrome exists. It is important for Catholics to defend the pope, but for the right reasons. Pope Francis Derangement Syndrome is a phenomenon of both conservatives who fear that the pope is liberal and liberals who dream in vain that the pope is one of them.

He is not. He is Catholic. To attempt to interpret the pope’s words politically, if in praise or if in blame, is an abuse of the Vicar of Christ.

***

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