For those of you who think that Pope Francis’s recent remarks reveal that he is a crypto-Marxist, this post by Robert Barron should place Francis’s comments in some context for you:
Fr. Robert Sirico, Michael Novak, Arthur Brooks, and many others are therefore right in suggesting that Catholic Social Teaching does not represent a tertium quid beyond capitalism and socialism; rather, it clearly aligns itself against socialistic arrangements and clearly for the market economy. John Paul II appreciated the free-market as the economic concomitant of a democratic polity, since both rest upon the dignity of the individual and his right to self-determination.
But this valorization of the market by no means implies that the Church advocates an unfettered capitalism. The modern popes have consistently taught that the market functions properly only when it is circumscribed both politically and morally — and it is precisely in this context that Pope Francis’s remarks should be understood.
Read the whole thing if you’re interested in the question. The pope is not trying to put his thumb on the scales on the side of communism in a horserace between communists and capitalists and, even less, between Democrats and Republicans.
To place this question in some personal context every week without fail I read one thing or another claiming that Democrats are Marxists, something I find absurd on its face. The only thing I would find more absurd is the claim that Republicans are capitalists.
The leadership of both parties are crony capitalists, as anyone who’s been paying attention should know by now.
Christianity provides a poor resource for transformational politics, and Leftism is notably anti-Christian in most of its expressions. Christianity developed within the framework of pre-modern states and lacked a common vision for society, as opposed to a vision of personal attainment. That personal vision is one that values charity, assumes the poor will always be with us, and attributes virtue to voluntary poverty. The model of the Disciples and some of the communities in the Early Church living in communes was distinguished by Marx and Engels as different than “scientific socialism,” which aspired to move beyond pre-capitalistic economies and form organizational principles beyond religious separatists. Mostly Christianity has been seen by Leftists as hostile in efforts to mobilize a class struggle since it retains the privilege of the rich to be blessed by voluntary acts of generosity.
(I am using Leftism as distinct from Liberalism, and as a Marxist or Marxist-inspired movement, something the U.S. really has not experienced, but certainly has been influential in Europe and Latin America, where it has often been associated with anti-clericalism.)