“The
Church’s social doctrine adopts a critical attitude towards both liberal
capitalism and Marxist collectivism.
“It is lawful for a man to hold private property [he] should
not consider his material possessions as his own, but as common to all, so as
to share them without hesitation when others are in need.”
“Both
capitalism and Marxism promised to point out the path for the creation of just
structures, and they declared that these, once established, would function by
themselves; they declared that not only would they have no need of any prior
individual morality, but that they would promote a communal morality. And this
ideological promise has been proved false.
“The
Marxist solution has failed, but the realities of marginalization and
exploitation remain in the world, especially the Third World, as does the
reality of human alienation, especially in the more advanced countries. Against
these phenomena the Church strongly raises her voice.”
“Power
becomes particularly irresistible when exercised by those who, because they
hold and control money, are able also to govern credit and determine its
allotment, for that reason supplying, so to speak, the lifeblood to the entire
economic body, and grasping, as it were, in their hands the very soul of
production, so that no one dare breathe against their will."
“Although
decisively condemning “socialism,” the church, since Leo XIII’s Rerum Novarum, has always distanced
itself from capitalistic ideology, holding it responsible for grave social
injustices.”
“Working men have been surrendered, isolated and helpless, to the
hard-heartedness of employers and the greed of unchecked competition [and] a
small number of very rich men have been able to lay upon the teeming masses of
laboring poor a yoke little better than that of slavery itself.”
ANSWERS: John Paul II, Leo XIII, Benedict XVI, John Paul II,
Pope Pius XI, John Paul II,
NONE of the above were said by Pope Francis, but all were said by his predecessors
