Is the Pope Catholic? No, I Don’t Think So, By Peter West
Andrea Widburg, my very favourite writer at American thinker, takes the old joke, and treats it seriously, "Is the Pope Catholic?" The answer is one that I have been giving at the Alor.org bog for some time; namely, no he is not. The case is clear from his public stance on issues such as climate change, Islamic immigration, and sexual ethics, specifically the homosexuality and transgender issue, where he takes a liberal position. Widburg rightly sees this as cultural Marxism influencing the Pope. However, there may be, she speculates, a deeper influence coming from the Pope's South American background, liberation theology.
Liberation theology is Marxism intertwined with Catholicism.This doctrine arose in the 1960s and 1970s with theologians in South America, and became highly influential. Its core idea was the same as Marxism, that there is a poor oppressed class, and a class of oppressors, and the role of a good Catholic was to fight this social injustice, to deliver justice to the poor. That was the primary task of a Catholic, not spiritual enlightenment. Thus, a core Marxist idea got woven into the traditional Catholic narrative. It is speculated that this may have influence the Pope as a young priest, but there are no explicit writings in English available from his early days, nailing this.
While that is interesting, no doubt this Leftist background made it very easy for the Pope to go even beyond liberation theology, which did not have much explicitly to say on issues like transgenders. In the present woke environment, the Pope can be safe going along with the elites on sexuality issues and climate change, rather than taking a righteous stand against this. The Pope is thus a woke globalist, not a defender of the conservative Catholic tradition.
"Pope Francis represents the Catholic Church, its doctrine, and its storied almost two-thousand-year history. However, Pope Francis has consistently derided Catholic teachings on climate change and sexuality. In both cases, he speaks like a social Marxist, not the head of the Catholic Church—and he's apparently at it again with his upcoming interview on 60 Minutes.
The Church's strength, always, has been two-fold: Its fealty to its core religious doctrines and the glacial slowness with which it changes. Its teachings are meant to be primary and eternal, rather than to move with the fads of the moment. Changing those teachings is an enormously consequential act because each change raises doubts about the church's prior infallibility. You're not a spiritual or cultural bulwark if you change policies according to the polls and the whims of the crowd.
However, there's long been a movement within the church itself to force a fundamental change upon it. That movement is "Liberation Theology," which tacks Marxism onto Catholicism. Liberation Theology was profoundly influential in Latin America beginning in the 1950s and 1960s, just when Pope Francis was coming of age religiously in Argentina.
Reading how leftist Wikipedia describes the doctrine will help you understand that it's the fulfillment of Marxism, as you can see through the terms I emphasized (hyperlinks and footnotes omitted):
Liberation theology is a theological approach emphasizing the "liberation of the oppressed". It engages in socio-economic analyses, with social concern for the poor and political liberation for oppressed peoples and addresses other forms of perceived inequality.
Liberation theology was influential in Latin America, especially within Catholicism in the 1960s after the Second Vatican Council, where it became the political praxis of theologians such as Frei Betto, Gustavo Gutiérrez, Leonardo Boff, and Jesuits Juan Luis Segundo and Jon Sobrino, who popularized the phrase "preferential option for the poor".
The option for the poor is simply the idea that, as reflected in canon law, "The Christian faithful are also obliged to promote social justice and, mindful of the precept of the Lord, to assist the poor." It indicates an obligation, on the part of those who would call themselves Christian, first and foremost to care for the poor and vulnerable.
As you can see, Liberation Theology has nothing to do with the church as a spiritual caretaker. This is pure Marxism, trading on oppressor and oppressed as seen through the Marxist economic lens. By the 1980s, the Latin American Church was starting to dive into the whole racial oppression issue, which the Vatican explicitly rejected along with Liberation Theology's focus on Marxist precepts over spiritual guidance.
Also in the 1960s, while the Latin American church was obsessed with incorporating Marxism's economic and racial ideology, the church in Western Europe, which was then a racially homogenous and affluent area, was already working to bring homosexuality and pedophilia into Catholic doctrine
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