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Whole Democrat party rallying for it.

Republican elected leaders allowing it, while their base is frantically saying NO!

Sure doesn't paint a pretty picture for our children and grandchildren.



 

Quote from: mommydi on Wed Aug 05, 2026 - 07:41:20Whole Democrat party rallying for it.

Republican elected leaders allowing it, while their base is frantically saying NO!

Sure doesn't paint a pretty picture for our children and grandchildren.



 

   

https://www.catholicworldreport.com/2018/07/03/the-catholic-roots-of-the-new-socialism/

Quote below is from link above, emphasis is mine.

QuoteThe Catholic roots of the New Socialism

The "patron saint" of today's Democratic Socialists of America got his start with Dorothy Day's Catholic Worker Movement. But for Day, prayer and the sacraments came first, not "the revolution."

In a primary defeat that the New York Times has called "the most significant loss for a Democratic incumbent in more than a decade," ten-term Representative Joseph Crowley of New York was defeated in a Queens and Bronx district that is majority-minority by Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a 28-year-old Latina. A native of the Bronx and a former community organizer for Bernie Sanders' presidential campaign, Ocasio-Cortez, a member of the Democratic Socialists of America, declared that it was "time for generational, racial, and ideological change." She garnered more than 57 percent of the vote in the primary.

The Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) rhetoric played well in the 14th District, which is 70 percent people of color, and 50 percent immigrant. Founded in New York City by Michael Harrington, an Irish Catholic and Holy Cross College graduate, the DSA still draws upon the same rhetoric surrounding Catholic social teachings on human dignity and human flourishing that Harrington promoted in his early days of community organizing in the 1950s. In 1951, Harrington got his start in socialism at what the DSA website calls "Dorothy Day's anarchist-pacifist Catholic Worker movement." In the early days, Harrington was devoted to the Catholic movement, residing at the group's "House of Hospitality" on Chrystie Street in Manhattan's Lower East Side. "There, with other volunteers, he worked in the soup kitchen which catered to the homeless alcoholics who crowded the nearby Bowery District," according to the DSA website.

Although Harrington eventually abandoned Catholicism and joined the Young People's Socialist League, a youth affiliate of the Socialist Party, Catholic social teachings on the importance of dignity in work and human flourishing continued to shape Harrington's rhetoric and his organizing strategies. He inspired the formation of faith-based organizing that we still see today in Catholic Churches throughout the country, many of them funded through the Catholic Campaign for Human Development. Pope Leo XIII's 1891 encyclical Rerum Novarum was used in these early days to provide a guiding force in organizing workers because it gave a Catholic rationale for the worker's right to organize and secure what Harrington called "economic dignity." In 1973, Harrington broke away from the Socialist Party, creating the Democratic Socialist Organizing Committee, which merged with the leftist New American Movement in 1982. The merged organization became the Democratic Socialists of America.

Ocasio-Cortez is a direct descendant of Harrington, drawing from the same rhetoric and strategies. But, today's movement is a Democratic Socialism that has been emptied of any pretense of Catholicism. In an interview with Vogue magazine earlier this month, Ocasio-Cortez tried to explain Democratic Socialism:

"I think what it really means is just democratic participation in our economic dignity, and our economic, social, and racial dignity. It is about direct representation and people actually having power and stake over their economic and social wellness, at the end of the day. To me, what socialism means is to guarantee a basic level of dignity...to examine the historical inequities that have created much of the inequalities—both in terms of economics and social and racial justice."

For Ocasio-Cortez, and quite possibly a majority of the voters in the 14th District in New York, socialism is the only way to "guarantee a basic level of dignity. ... There is no other force, there is no other party, there is no other real ideology out there right now that is asserting the minimum elements necessary to lead a dignified American life."

Tapping into the resentment of her constituents, Ocasio-Cortez was the first New York primary candidate to call for abolishing the Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency (ICE), and for clearing the path to citizenship—claiming that "ICE operates with virtually no accountability, ripping apart families and holding our friends and neighbors indefinitely in inhumane detention centers."

Outspent by the Crowley campaign by a 10 to 1 ratio, the Ocasio-Cortez campaign received 70 percent of its contributions from individual contributions under $200. Progressive PACs including Brand New Congress and Justice Democrats, as well as MoveOn, Democracy in Action, and People for Bernie, provided valuable endorsements.

While Ocasio-Cortez's economic rhetoric draws heavily from Catholic social teachings on human dignity, it is a redefined and hollowed-out Catholicism in many respects. Human dignity for Ocasio-Cortez and the Democratic Socialists of America requires full reproductive rights. On her website, Ocasio-Cortez demands "reproductive freedom for all individuals of marginalized genders, including cisgender women and trans people...Alexandria does not accept any federal, state, or local rollbacks, cuts, or restrictions on the ability of individuals to access quality reproductive healthcare services...open access to safe legal, affordable abortion."

Notably absent from Ocasio-Cortez's supporters were the usual progressive Catholic organizations. There are not (yet) many Catholic colleges and universities with chapters of Democratic Socialists of America on campus. And, although Georgetown University is listed on the Democratic Socialists of America website as having an active chapter on campus, the chapter website is unavailable.

It is likely that others will follow the Ocasio-Cortez socialist playbook as they try to carve out a new niche in the Democratic Party. Her stand on open borders and a path to citizenship for all is appealing to many progressives. The abolition of ICE has quickly become a mantra for progressive Democrats like Kirsten Gillibrand, D-NY.

That creates a problem for progressive Catholics. In some ways it is similar to the dilemma that DSA founder Michael Harrington faced in 1952 when he departed both the Catholic Worker movement and the Church to join the Young People's Socialist League. Harrington is idolized by the DSA today—and his religious connection is part of the pseudo-sainthood he has achieved within the DSA. There has been a recent re-launch of the DSA publication Religious Socialism and although there is not yet a Catholic presence on the editorial board, there are a number of prestigious professors, including Princeton philosophy professor and honorary chair of the DSA Cornel West.

Harrington recalled in his 1973 memoir, Fragments of the Century: "All I knew of the Catholic Worker when I walked into the House of Hospitality in 1951 was that it was as far Left as you could go within the Church." When Harrington left the Church, he called it an act of "pious apostasy." Harrington, like many of today's progressive Catholics, wanted to go further left than the Church could have allowed; but unlike Harrington, many of today's Catholics are attempting to change the Church from within.

In the opening lines of The Other America, Harrington's best-selling sociological study of poverty in the United States, he credits Dorothy Day and the Catholic Worker movement with opening his eyes to the "terrible reality of involuntary poverty and the magnificent ideal of voluntary poverty." But, as Patrick Jordan recently pointed out in an essay titled "Dorothy Day, The Catholic Worker, and the Liturgy," Dorothy Day's commitment to alleviating the pain of the poor was always "a personalist and communitarian movement, inspired and maintained by sharing the poverty of the crucified Christ in the poor." Jordan recalls that Day once wrote:

"Without the sacraments of the Church, primarily the Eucharist, the Lord's Supper as it is sometime called, I certainly do not think that I could go on... Only by nourishing ourselves as we have been bidden to do by Christ, by eating His body and drinking His blood, can we become Christ and put on the new man."

For Day, faith and prayer came first. An obedient daughter of the Church, Day supported Catholic teachings on divorce, contraception, and abortion. She often spoke of the need to return to the spirit of Franciscan poverty, charity, and obedience. So obedient, it has been said that Day would have closed down the Catholic Worker movement if Rome had asked her to do that. In contrast, for Michael Harrington, the socialist revolution came first. It is difficult to predict whether progressive Catholics will follow the sacramental model promoted by Dorothy Day, or the "pious apostasy" of Michael Harrington.

The movement toward socialism in our nation has Roman Catholicism written all over it. The present Pope unquestionably leans heavily toward it, and prefers it above evil Capitalism which he routinely attacks. Certain Catholics have even boasted that China's government comes closer to the vision of Roman Catholic social justice, than any other. The Roman Catholic church is not communist though, it is not socialist or capitalist either. To the contrary, it is a unique political entity which conquers all others by entering nations under a religious guise crying for religious freedom if necessary to obtain access, then taking over from within by commanding the ever increasing number of her adherents to establish her social justice agenda through legislation. She is as determined as ever to establish what she has always believed to be her divine right, rule over all the religions and governments of this world. She used the evil capitalist United States to help her topple evil communism as a world power in the recent past, and she now sides with socialists and communists to topple the US as such as well, so that she will be the only remaining world or globalist power. Or at the very least, the one on top of the new global order she continually calls for and seeks to establish. If this isn't a ruthless attempt to put greater wealth and power into the hands of fewer people, then what is?

It is no surprise that an institution greatly supported by wealth redistribution to the tune of countless billions of dollars every year from tax paying citizens the world over with or without their consent, seeks to establish government which also redistributes the wealth of all as it sees fit. Especially since she will obviously have a good deal of influence toward that distribution as well. There is nothing Christian about such. Free will offerings alone, have any merit in God's eyes.

The above post is from the following link post number 175, which I posted several years back.

https://www.gracecentered.com/christian_forums/index.php?topic=93028.175

https://www.firstthings.com/web-exclusives/2019/11/is-china-a-model-of-the-common-good

Article below from link above. Emphasis is mine. My comments in blue.

QuoteIS CHINA A MODEL OF THE COMMON GOOD?

n 2018, Archbishop Marcelo Sanchez Sorondo, chancellor of the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences, said in an interview: "Right now, those who are best implementing the social doctrine of the Church are the Chinese."

He contrasted China with the more liberal America. "Liberal thought has dismissed the concept of the common good," he said. "It does not even want to take it into account, it states that it is an empty idea, without any benefits. On the contrary, the Chinese, no, they propose work and the common good."

Sanchez Sorondo may want to reconsider these statements. Last week, the New York Times revealed new details about the Chinese state's mass internment of Uighur Muslims in the western province of Xinjiang. Over the last three years, an estimated one million people have been detained in prison camps, where they are subjected to "reeducation" and urged to abjure Islam. Documents leaked to the Times showed that this campaign of repression was organized after President Xi Jinping urged party leaders to show "absolutely no mercy" and to employ the "organs of dictatorship."

The system by which detainees are selected combines big data with big brother. As the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists put it, "Chinese police are guided by a massive data collection and analysis system that uses artificial intelligence to select entire categories of Xinjiang residents for detention."

Of course, the existence of such camps—among many other abuses—had already been reported when Sanchez Sorondo made his statement. At the time, Bernardo Cervellera, a China expert and head of the Pontifical Institute for Foreign Missions' news service, proposed that the bishop "read the daily news tracking violence, arrests of Christians, Muslims, Buddhists."

"All the unofficial churches have been closed and at least 6 million Catholics have no meeting places," Cervellera said. "The threat of the regime that 'best implements the Churches' social doctrine' is arrest, stratospheric fines and expropriation of the buildings where the faithful gather."

How could a high-ranking Catholic, the leader of a pontifical academy, praise such a regime? It is not mere naivete. Sanchez Sorondo's statement exemplifies the way in which defenses of the "common good" sometimes slip into apologias for authoritarianism. It is important to challenge these statements, because they misunderstand the common good utterly.

In 1943, Charles de Koninck, a Thomist philosopher, wrote an essay against some of the more liberal and individualist strains in Catholic thought. De Koninck believed that certain Catholic thinkers sympathetic to liberal society had a deficient idea of the common good. He rejected their views, but he warned that rejecting liberalism in the name of the common good could never mean embracing tyranny.

"Would it suffice to exalt the primacy of the common good?" he wrote. "Not at all. Totalitarian regimes seize on the common good as a pretext for enslaving persons in the most ignoble fashion. Compared to the slavery to which they threaten to reduce us, the servitude of the beasts is liberty. Shall we commit the cowardice of conceding to totalitarians this perversion of the common good?"

De Koninck rightly worried that false invocations of the common good by totalitarian regimes would do more to discredit the notion of the common good than any argument by those who rejected it explicitly. He therefore criticized not just liberalism—the target of Sanchez Sorondo's polemics—but the oppressive regimes falsely presented as its alternative.

According to de Koninck, liberals and totalitarians shared certain errors. Both groups opposed state and individual. Liberals glorified the individual at the expense of the state; totalitarians glorified the state at the expense of the individual. By opposing the common good to the good of individual persons, they destroyed a correct understanding of each.

But the connection between liberalism and totalitarianism went even deeper. Liberals tend to think that man is freest when unbound by any law. Totalitarians seem to reject this idea, but in fact they simply embrace it on another plane. Rather than seeking to liberate the individual from all constraints, they seek to liberate the state. The totalitarian state is unbound by God's law. It need not make any reference to man's final end, his highest good. It can do what it wants, how it wants. Precisely like the liberal individual.

In such societies, de Koninck wrote, "obedience is substituted for the legal justice of the citizen subjects." Men do not participate in a shared end as citizens. They are simply forced to submit.

Across the world, liberalism is in retreat. Drawing on the World Values Survey, Roberto Foa and Yascha Mounk have found that "citizens are growing more disaffected with established political parties, representative institutions, and minority rights." For example, whereas 41 percent of older Americans believe it is "absolutely essential" that "civil rights protect people's liberty," only 32 percent of millennials agree.

As people turn away from liberalism, it is important that they do not turn to ideologies that share with liberalism a fundamental mistake. If they do, Catholics must state clearly that the common good is not a euphemism for tyranny, and oppression is not a synonym for order. Counter to what Sanchez Sorondo seems to believe, neither China nor America is a model society.

The above article properly addresses the pitfalls on either side of the common good ideology, coming to a wrong conclusion however, while defending this Roman Catholic created or adopted doctrine. Pointing out the failures of unchecked individualism or statism in connection with Roman Catholic notions of the common good in relation to her social justice agenda, is simply to declare superiority for the latter. The obvious answer suggested to the dilemma created by either unchecked individual liberty, or unchecked power of the state over the same, is control or heavy influence over both by the guiding force of the common good as interpreted by Roman Catholic social doctrine. That is to say, the Church above the individual and the state. That is to say, the reestablishment of the dark ages all over again.

The wrong conclusion of the article above was in stating that these United States of America were and are not the correct model of the ideology of a common good. Our Declaration of Independence and Constitution are exactly that. Which principles allowed for a continued evolution of liberty and justice for all individuals to be freed from political, religious, and or racial injustices as the history of our nation has demonstrated. Biblical principles of self government and equality for those willing to govern first and foremost their own lives, enabling them then to properly govern themselves together as a society built upon such freedom of responsibility. As is obvious, only the personally educated and responsible, either deserve or can maintain individual freedoms and liberties. Those who refuse to govern their own selves must therefore be governed by others.

The false narrative of this nations history being passed off as the truth today, is all about creating misinformed ignorance and a mindset of dependency prepared to be ruled over by supposed elites. Who themselves are nothing but power hungry self important people who want to control and manipulate the lives of all around them. The Roman Catholic church and her Pontiff are not the least of these individuals and or institutions who have been battling our form of government for a long time now, many fully supporting if not straight up creating the false historical narratives about our nation which are now passed off as the truth upon an increasingly ignorant people by exact design and purpose. The Church of Rome simply seeks to rise again to the pinnacle of power she once had while in bed with the kings of this earth during the dark ages, under a new guise with new political ideologies and structures on a global scale. The first couple of paragraphs of our Declaration of Independence however, reveal the true intent of our founding fathers, and the baseless deception of the false narrative of our history adopted by the true enemies of any real common good. This nation became great under God's guidance because of this true agenda of common good which encouraged people from the world over to seek refuge in our nation and still does to this very day. These people are not stupid, they want to come here for a good reason. How unfortunate that so many from within and without have been and continue to seek to destroy what is left of this nation built upon such high and lofty principles. Emphasis in the following quote is mine.

QuoteIn Congress, July 4, 1776.

The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America, When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.--Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world............

If you believe the above ideals to represent evil intentions of government, then you are simply ignorant or perhaps evil yourself. So be it.

If in fact the government established by such ideals expressed above in that establishment has become to corrupt to any longer support, then the answer does not lie in support of already proven failed systems of abuse, but rather the reestablishment of the ideals expressed above which brought this nation to the greatness it once possessed and represented. The answer most certainly does not lie within the establishment or reestablishment of historically abusive institutions of government and or religion such as communism, socialism, facism, or the likes of the Holy Roman Empire. We absolutely should not be looking to present day leaders of these kind of governing bodies to fix the corruption of our own nation, but rather to reestablish the high ideals it was founded upon as expressed in our own founding documents. Do not be deceived by those who have always warred against our most "Christian"  and biblically based form of government ever established. It is the freedoms and liberties espoused by the same, that also require us to be ever educated and on guard against the deceptions of those who would overthrow such in seeking to exalt their own power over all others. Hear the words of one of the following founders of our nation, and understand where the high ideals and principles of our government came form, and what it was fighting against.

QuoteJohn Adams - A Dissertation on the Canon and Feudal Law (On man's standing in the order of creation)

"Ignorance and inconsideration are the two great causes of the ruin of mankind." This is an observation of Dr. Tillotson, with relation to the interest of his fellow men in a future and immortal state. But it is of equal truth and importance if applied to the happiness of men in society, on this side the grave. In the earliest ages of the world, absolute monarchy seems to have been the universal form of government. Kings, and a few of their great counsellors and captains, exercised a cruel tyranny over the people, who held a rank in the scale of intelligence, in those days, but little higher than the camels and elephants that carried them and their engines to war.

By what causes it was brought to pass, that the people in the middle ages became more intelligent in general, would not, perhaps, be possible in these days to discover. But the fact is certain; and wherever a general knowledge and sensibility have prevailed among the people, arbitrary government and every kind of oppression have lessened and disappeared in proportion. Man has certainly an exalted soul; and the same principle in human nature, -- that aspiring, noble principle founded in benevolence, and cherished by knowledge; I mean the love of power, which has been so often the cause of slavery, -- has, whenever freedom has existed, been the cause of freedom. If it is this principle that has always prompted the princes and nobles of the earth, by every species of fraud and violence to shake off all the limitations of their power, it is the same that has always stimulated the common people to aspire at independency, and to endeavor at confining the power of the great within the limits of equity and reason.

The poor people, it is true, have been much less successful than the great. They have seldom found either leisure or opportunity to form a union and exert their strength; ignorant as they were of arts and letters, they have seldom been able to frame and support a regular opposition. This, however, has been known by the great to be the temper of mankind; and they have accordingly labored, in all ages, to wrest from the populace, as they are contemptuously called, the knowledge of their rights and wrongs, and the power to assert the former or redress the latter. I say RIGHTS, for such they have, undoubtedly, antecedent to all earthly government, -- Rights, that cannot be repealed or restrained by human laws -- Rights, derived from the great Legislator of the universe.

Since the promulgation of Christianity, the two greatest systems of tyranny that have sprung from this original, are the canon and the feudal law. The desire of dominion, that great principle by which we have attempted to account for so much good and so much evil, is, when properly restrained, a very useful and noble movement in the human mind. But when such restraints are taken off, it becomes an encroaching, grasping, restless, and ungovernable power. Numberless have been the systems of iniquity contrived by the great for the gratification of this passion in themselves; but in none of them were they ever more successful than in the invention and establishment of the canon and the feudal law.

By the former of these, the most refined, sublime, extensive, and astonishing constitution of policy that ever was conceived by the mind of man was framed by the Romish clergy for the aggrandisement of their own order. All the epithets I have here given to the Romish policy are just, and will be allowed to be so when it is considered, that they even persuaded mankind to believe, faithfully and undoubtingly, that God Almighty had entrusted them with the keys of heaven, whose gates they might open and close at pleasure; with a power of dispensation over all the rules and obligations of morality; with authority to license all sorts of sins and crimes; with a power of deposing princes and absolving subjects from allegiance; with a power of procuring or withholding the rain of heaven and the beams of the sun; with the management of earthquakes, pestilence, and famine; nay, with the mysterious, awful, incomprehensible power of creating out of bread and wine the flesh and blood of God himself. All these opinions they were enabled to spread and rivet among the people by reducing their minds to a state of sordid ignorance and staring timidity, and by infusing into them a religious horror of letters and knowledge. Thus was human nature chained fast for ages in a cruel, shameful, and deplorable servitude to him, and his subordinate tyrants, who, it was foretold, would exalt himself above all that was called God, and that was worshipped.

In the latter we find another system, similar in many respects to the former;1 which, although it was originally formed, perhaps, for the necessary defence of a barbarous people against the inroads and invasions of her neighboring nations, yet for the same purposes of tyranny, cruelty, and lust, which had dictated the canon law, it was soon adopted by almost all the princes of Europe, and wrought into the constitutions of their government. It was originally a code of laws for a vast army in a perpetual encampment. The general was invested with the sovereign propriety of all the lands within the territory. Of him, as his servants and vassals, the first rank of his great officers held the lands; and in the same manner the other subordinate officers held of them; and all ranks and degrees held their lands by a variety of duties and services, all tending to bind the chains the faster on every order of mankind. In this manner the common people were held together in herds and clans in a state of servile dependence on their lords, bound, even by the tenure of their lands, to follow them, whenever they commanded, to their wars, and in a state of total ignorance of every thing divine and human, excepting the use of arms and the culture of their lands.

1 Rob. Hist. ch. v. pp. 178-9, &c.
But another event still more calamitous to human liberty, was a wicked confederacy between the two systems of tyranny above described. It seems to have been even stipulated between them, that the temporal grandees should contribute every thing in their power to maintain the ascendency of the priesthood, and that the spiritual grandees in their turn, should employ their ascendency over the consciences of the people, in impressing on their minds a blind, implicit obedience to civil magistracy.
Thus, as long as this confederacy lasted, and the people were held in ignorance, liberty, and with her, knowledge and virtue too, seem to have deserted the earth, and one age of darkness succeeded another, till God in his benign providence raised up the champions who began and conducted the Reformation. From the time of the Reformation to the first settlement of America, knowledge gradually spread in Europe, but especially in England; and in proportion as that increased and spread among the people, ecclesiastical and civil tyranny, which I use as synonymous expressions for the canon and feudal laws, seem to have lost their strength and weight. The people grew more and more sensible of the wrong that was done them by these systems, more and more impatient under it, and determined at all hazards to rid themselves of it; till at last, under the execrable race of the Stuarts, the struggle between the people and the confederacy aforesaid of temporal and spiritual tyranny, became formidable, violent, and bloody.

It was this great struggle that peopled America. It was not religion alone, as is commonly supposed; but it was a love of universal liberty, and a hatred, a dread, a horror, of the infernal confederacy before described, that projected, conducted, and accomplished the settlement of America...........

Please do find and finish reading the above by John Adams. Go back and read what the founders of this nation really believed, and what the Reformers who inspired many of them believed. The Papacies non stop calls for universal religion and government on a global scale under her own guidance relating to a common good, are nothing but a ploy to reestablish the power she once had on a global scale. The lefty progressives and other globalists of today are just so many willing or unknowing minions of her own design unto the exaltation of her own vision for humanity. Which vision is nothing less than the vision of BABYLON THE GREAT, riding the final global beast or government of biblical prophecy. The tower of Babel was destroyed by God, and humanity was dispersed to prevent universal rebellion against God unto global destruction once again. The final unification of humanity as envisioned by the Church of Rome, will be the realization of this very universal rebellion against God in the building of a spiritual tower of Babel in defiance of the same. God divided us for a reason, the evil one alone desires our unity under his control through his agents unto our destruction once again. We must fight the good fight against this final deception. Christ's true church can never become one with the prince of the powers that be of this world, most of whom deny His rightful authority over them.

The above post is from the following link post number 178, which I posted several years back.

https://www.gracecentered.com/christian_forums/index.php?topic=93028.175

https://www.breitbart.com/faith/2019/07/25/jesuit-magazine-makes-catholic-case-for-communism/

QuoteJesuit Magazine Makes 'Catholic Case for Communism'

The Jesuit flagship publication in the United States, America magazine, has published an article defending Marxism and comparing the murderous, atheist ideology to Christianity.

In "The Catholic Case for Communism," America writer Dean Dettloff says that the militant atheism of Marxist politics is "understandable" because "Christianity has so often been a force allied to the ruling powers that exploit the poor."

As a number of prospective presidential candidates from the Democrat party are openly donning the mantle of socialism, America took the issue one step further, suggesting that the negative reaction to "Bernie Sanders's inspiring 2016 primary bid and the electoral success of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Rashida Tlaib" represents a "revival of socialist hysteria."

Dettloff showcases Marxist priests "like Herbert McCabe, O.P., Ernesto and Fernando Cardenal, S.J., Frei Betto, O.P., Camilo Torres" who "have been inspired by communists and in many places contributed to communist and communist-influenced movements as members," as if the corruption of Catholic clergy were grounds for supporting Marxism.

"Many of my friends in the Party for Socialism and Liberation, for example, a Marxist-Leninist party, are churchgoing Christians or folks without a grudge against their Christian upbringing," Dettloff declares, "as are lots of people in the radical wing of the Democratic Socialists of America."

The writer then describes Christianity as just another ideological "faction" alongside other factions, such as communism.

"The history of communism, whatever else it might be, will always contain a history of Christianity, and vice versa, whether members of either faction like it or not," he proposes.

Citing Marxist arguments, Dettloff makes the bizarre claim that the ownership of private property necessarily leads to slavery, since property owners come to see other people as just another form of property to be owned.

Capitalism emerged through "the privatization of what was once public, like shared land," Dettloff declares, paraphrasing Marx. "As time went on, human beings themselves would become the private property of other human beings."

Communists, on the other hand, are loving people concerned above all for the good of the poor, even if they have occasionally strayed from their pure roots, he suggests.

"Communism has provided one of the few sustainable oppositions to capitalism, a global political order responsible for the ongoing suffering of millions," Dettloff states.

"Communism in its socio-political expression has at times caused great human and ecological suffering," Dettloff concedes, but any "good communist is quick to admit as much," he adds, because "communism is an unfinished project that depends on the recognition of its real and tragic mistakes."

Mr. Dettloff evidently believes that over 100 million deaths in the 20th century can be reduced to "great human and ecological suffering" caused by the Marxist ideology being an "unfinished project."

One would be tempted to suggest that if Marxism were a "finished" project, the deaths would be many times greater.

Dettloff goes so far as to parallel Marx's The Communist Manifesto to Catholic teaching on the nature of private property.

Although the Catholic Church "officially" teaches that private property is a natural right, Dettloff writes, "this teaching also comes with the proviso that private property is always subordinate to the common good."

In what has been called the "Magna Carta" of Catholic social thought, Pope Leo XIII wrote something a trifle different in his 1891 encyclical letter Rerum Novarum.

The socialists, Leo wrote, "working on the poor man's envy of the rich, are striving to do away with private property, and contend that individual possessions should become the common property of all, to be administered by the State or by municipal bodies."

Their proposals are, however, "emphatically unjust," Leo wrote, "for they would rob the lawful possessor, distort the functions of the State, and create utter confusion in the community."

"Socialists, therefore, by endeavoring to transfer the possessions of individuals to the community at large, strike at the interests of every wage-earner, since they would deprive him of the liberty of disposing of his wages, and thereby of all hope and possibility of increasing his resources and of bettering his condition in life," Leo wrote.

The remedy to injustice proposed by the socialists is "manifestly against justice," he continued, since "every man has by nature the right to possess property as his own."

The Jesuits' decision to publish a radical article of this sort suggests that they believe public opinion is warming toward communism. America's editors have floated a weather balloon to see how Americans react to communism 2.0.

In so doing, the Jesuits have likely overplayed their hand. Even in the age of Francis, too many people remember that communism has been one of the most destructive and murderous ideologies in the history of humanity. A century of unspeakable terror, tortures, and massacres is difficult to forget.

Roman politics are of course extremely flexible, and can be and are adjusted as necessary toward their final goal, world domination.

The above post is from the following link post number 127, which I posted several years back.

https://www.gracecentered.com/christian_forums/index.php?topic=93028.105

Actual article addressed above may be viewed at the link below.

https://www.americamagazine.org/faith/2019/07/23/catholic-case-communism/

https://europeanconservative.com/articles/essay/catholicism-communism-and-the-ideal-of-universal-recognition/

Quoted article below from link above.

QuoteCatholicism, Communism, and the Ideal of Universal Recognition

One of the understudied aspects of Marxist thought is the structural similarity that obtains between communist ideology and Catholicism. A few notable Marxists have at times observed this similarity: Georges Sorel and Antonio Gramsci often noted the practical and strategic similarities between proletarian violence and the history of Catholic political action. Louis Althusser remarked in an interview that it was especially due to his Catholic roots that he became a communist in the first place, and that communism and Catholicism shared an emphasis upon the realization of "universal fraternity." Similarly, Alexandre Kojève sometimes compared the "universal and homogenous state" to the Catholic Church, and he praised the latter's contribution to European culture as something that would have to be preserved for the future of humanity. More recently, Raymond Geuss has noted the influence of his childhood faith upon his later sympathies with communist thinking, and he has asserted that the only two valid worldviews capable of bestowing unity and coherence amidst the chaos of modern liberalism are communism and Catholicism.

But few contemporary Marxists, and even fewer Catholic theologians, have taken the time to really delve deeply into these likenesses on a theoretical level, and in a manner that is directly applicable to the peculiar problems of contemporary neoliberal society. To be sure, Marxists and Catholics have had much to say in criticism of each other and each other's ideologies. To Marxists, religion has often been suspected as a form of ideology that mystifies rather than clarifies the causes of social oppression; while for Christians, Marxism itself has been perceived as a source of even worse oppression than any religious violence has produced, not to mention an atheist and anti-Christian ideology. These differences, although they certainly cannot be lightly dismissed, have often precluded any reflection upon the structural similarities between them. Thus, a cue may be taken from all of the above remarks to open up just such a reflection, albeit briefly for the purposes of this publication.

The desire for the universal which has been identified as common to communism and Catholicism, as remarked by Althusser, Kojève, Guess, and others, is evident from the very names given to the two worldviews. 'Communism' and 'Catholicism' both carry the concept of universalism in their very definitions. This concept is also borne out in the worldly or political aspirations of each in structurally similar, though not identical, ways: both claim to pertain to a level of politics that transcends the limits of the modern nation state. Catholicism aims to carry out the directive of its founder, to "baptize all nations," while communism takes aim at a system of oppression—imperialist capitalism—that is itself international and even global in scale. Catholicism locates the summit of both spiritual and temporal sovereignty in a transnational institution, the papacy, to whom all the governments of the earth are expected to pay homage (under the classical 'integralist' ideal), while communism seeks to be realized by way of what is effectively an international sovereign dictatorship: the united workers of the world. The universalism of the two worldviews thus translates in both cases to a form of political internationalism.

The universalism of communism's 'classless society' also parallels Catholicism's radical emphasis upon the equality of all in Christ. Where communism looks to the end of all oppression of one subset of humanity by another, standing for Kojève's state of "universal recognition," Catholicism aims for the dissolution of human division in the unity of Christ: "There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus." On the basis of this Christological vision of human equality, it was arguably the radical emergence of Christianity in the late Roman Empire that began the long liberation (still underway) of disadvantaged peoples from the bonds of slavery, proclaiming that the 'good life' which Aristotle reserved to 'free men' had been extended by Christ to everyone, regardless of class, race, or sex. Indeed, it is possible to argue that communism's classless society is nothing but the culmination of a long process of Christianity's secularization. They are not only structurally similar, they are also genealogically related. Kojève argues an even stronger thesis, in line with his Hegelian roots: that Christianity was a necessary stage in the inevitable process of world history, laying the foundations for the universal recognition of all human beings.

In other words, communism and Catholicism share a desire, however differently expressed, to fully recognize the humanity of all persons. A rigorous concept of human nature underlies this desire. To any who object that Marx possessed no stable concept of human nature, one must reply that, according to Marx, the process of history is but the revolutionary unveiling of this human nature from the filtered lens of ideology that have for too long concealed it. Communism itself consists in no more than the shared regulation of the process of production in a manner worthy of human nature, where capitalism had regulated this process in a manner unworthy to this nature. Thus, in chapter 48 of the third volume of Capital—one of the (surprisingly) few texts where he approaches a definition of communism—Marx writes:

QuoteFreedom in [the realm of production] can only consist in socialised man, the associated producers, rationally regulating their interchange with Nature, bringing it under their common control, instead of being ruled by it as by the blind forces of Nature; and achieving this with the least expenditure of energy and under conditions most favourable to, and worthy of, their human nature.

It is precisely in its worthiness to human nature that Marx claims communism surpasses capitalism. Capitalism falls short of human nature for the reason that Marx famously identified in the Economic Manuscripts of 1844, namely that under capitalism human beings find themselves in a condition of alienation. Marx explained how the worker under capitalism is alienated from his own "species being," reduced to a mere input in a production process, and as such can concern himself only with the fulfillment of his individual animal needs. "Estranged [or alienated] labor makes man's species-life a means to his physical existence." In other words, capitalism suffocates just that dimension of human nature that makes it specifically human: its capacity to act for more than the mere satisfaction of animal needs and desires, its ability to transcend mere physical existence, to pursue activities that are worthwhile for their own sake. (Marx names the creation of works of beauty as an example of such an activity.) Capitalism erases this capacity by reducing the activity of human labor—indeed, the whole activity of human life—to a mere means to physical existence.

Catholicism cautiously shares certain elements of this assessment of capitalism, and is no less damning in its excoriation of its dehumanizing and alienating tendency. But Catholicism recognizes that alienation extends beyond the sphere of labor and physical production, and also affects the spiritual orientation of human nature towards the divine. For this reason, Catholicism also has the advantage of recognizing more instances of this tendency than even Marxists tend to recognize. To be sure, the Marxist tradition does not limit its analysis of alienation to the figure of the worker. In a very real sense, the alienation of man from his species-being affects the wealthy as much as it affects the poor. Nonetheless, contemporary Catholicism has identified a whole class of non-laboring persons who suffer an unspeakable form of alienation under capitalism: namely, the unborn slaughtered by abortion, whose plight has gone mostly unnoticed by Marxists.

There are some exceptions. In 2011, a group of respected Italian Marxists—Pietro Barcelona, Paolo Sorbi, Mario Tronti, and Giuseppe Vacca—published a manifesto in which they explicitly announced their appreciation for the Catholic social tradition and its commitment to the respect for human life from the moment of conception. In particular, they expressed their appreciation for the magisterial teaching of the late Pope Benedict XVI, his war against moral relativism, and his emphasis upon the public dimension of religious faith. In the manifesto, they called for a new alliance between secular Leftists and the Catholic Church to combat the contemporary 'anthropological emergency,' which they characterized as the technological manipulation of life in the service of global capital. In terms drawn simultaneously from postmodern critical theory and the Catholic social tradition, they decried the dehumanizing "biopolitics" of contemporary capitalism, under which "the freedom and dignity of the human person is offended since his conception."

In a letter responding to criticisms of their manifesto, the four 'Ratzingerian Marxists' (two of whom are in fact Catholic) doubled down on the explicitly pro-life stance which they adopted, basing themselves firmly upon the ideal of universal recognition that seems to be common to both communism and Catholicism. They write:

QuoteOur letter is imbued with a single purpose: that of contributing to the affirmation of a shared humanity. What could be the 'point of union' between believers and nonbelievers in defining the value of life? It seems to us that we are able to say that an unborn life represents a value in itself from the moment of conception, because of the responsibility that it confers upon every individual of the community to welcome it, raise it, educate it, and accompany it with love and care to its end. Those who accept this framework will have no trouble in recognizing that, whether it is a matter of the zygote, of the embryo, or of a life already formed, there can be no difference of value in the manner of behaving toward it.

Indeed, if there is one class of persons to whom the ideal of universal recognition ought above all to apply, it is the millions of unborn children who are routinely murdered in the womb before they are even allowed to enjoy the life of their 'species-being'—to speak the language of Marx's 1844 Manuscripts. The aborted unborn are barely even permitted their mere physical existence. They, more than any other class, go routinely unrecognized in their humanity, hidden as they are from all compassionate eyes. Inasmuch as their life, like the life of the estranged laborer, is regarded as no more than a mere physical existence, it is all-too lightly discarded when it becomes useless to the physical existence of the working parent. After all, under capitalism, this is how capital treats labor; therefore it is no surprise that this should be how the laborer will treat his—or, more pertinently, her—unborn offspring. A society founded upon universal recognition would no longer be one in which oppression thus begets only more oppression, alienation only more alienation. Such a society would have to include the unborn among those whose previously alienated humanity is now fully recognized.

But it may well be that only Catholicism can supply this missing dimension of human recognition to communism, thereby bringing the latter closer to its ideal of universalism. After all, Catholicism possesses an especially rigorous account of the 'species being' of the human person, whose life is fully lived only beyond the strictures of physical necessity, in the pursuit of nobler goals—architectonic among them a life devoted to the worship of the Creator. From a Catholic point of view, the inhumanity of abortion, and the late capitalist system of which it is a systemic feature, consists above all in how it deprives its victims of the opportunity to live just such a life. Human life is more than its individual physical existence; and, as such, it deserves far more than to be treated as a mere means to individual physical existence. More to the point, every individual human person is owed the chance to live according to the full potential of his human nature as a child of the Almighty. Catholicism is universal if for no other reason than its dogmatic commitment to this ideal.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catholic_communism

Quotes below from link above, where article may be viewed in its entirety.

QuoteCatholic communism

Catholic communism (known in Italian as cattocomunismo) is a political and theological movement that attempts to combine or synthesise Catholic social teachings with communism and Bolshevism. Its adherents are known as Catholic communists, and the ideology has also been referred to, sometimes erroneously, by various other names, including Catholic Bolshevism, Christian Bolshevism, Left-Catholicism, and White Bolshevism.

The movement first emerged in Italy during the early 20th century, developing significantly in the 1930s among members of the Catholic Action association. Ideologically, Catholic communists view communism as the most effective means of realising Catholic social teaching. They generally accept historical materialism, but usually reject the dialectical materialism and state atheism of Marxism–Leninism.........................

https://www.catholic.com/magazine/online-edition/refuting-the-catholic-case-for-communism

The above article is a testament to the fact that a great many Catholics are firmly against Communism. As the institution does not exist apart from its political agendas, Americans should of course hope that those Catholics against such represent the majority. Nevertheless, a powerful minority can certainly prevail over majorities. Especially in the case of politics, as history has born out many times over. As we also witness in this country with an increasing number of Socialist professing politicians in office and seeking office. More than just a few of which, are Catholics. There is no question but that the Church of Rome's teachings and social justice agenda are at odds with several of the founding principles of our nation. Such as the common good, the universal destination of goods, differing views regarding private property rights, and an over emphasis and very different view of the subject of equity. Just to mention a few off the top of my head. This if course is always a major concern, as Roman Catholics are literally instructed to help bring about the church's social and political teachings and therefore agendas, from within the various nations they occupy.

I do not say this to downplay the danger from Islam in any way shape or form, as that religion basically does not believe in separation of church or religion and state either. Nevertheless, far more Catholics are now running our country than Muslims, and this tendency has only been increasing for at least a hundred years now. While Americans should certainly be aware and alert to the dangers of Islamic religio-politcal intrigues and intents of implementation, this is no good reason to ignore the Vaticans very long history of the same type of agenda regarding her own religio-politcal views. Spelled out for all in her own teachings, Encyclicals, Doctrinal Notes, and so on and so forth.