If I could write as good as Beaton, I’d write this piece.He sees both of this people exactly as I do. dlh
Glenn K. Beaton writing at his blog the Aspen Beat
Is Judge Barrett too Catholic for Pope Francis?
First, there’s economics. I wouldn’t call Pope Francis the “Commie Pope,” as some do, but it’s a fact that his admirers have included Cuban communist dictator Raul Castro and self-described American socialist Bernie Sanders who implied that the Pope is a socialist.
Understand that this former Argentine priest named Jorge Bergoglio was shaped by Argentinian economics and politics. In the early 1900’s, Argentina was wealthier on a per capita basis than Canada or Australia – it was about the tenth wealthiest country in the world.
But political instability and recurrent bouts of socialism and oppressive regulations choked off the economy. Argentina has now deteriorated to the status of an undeveloped country. Inflation runs rampant, politics are unstable and corruption is everywhere.
This is what shaped Bergoglio’s views. The form of capitalism he saw was something we would describe as, at best, “cronyism.”
As Pope, he frequently impugns capitalism, as if the cronyism he witnessed in Argentina is the same thing. He suggests that capitalism is responsible for world hunger. He thinks socialism is a better model.
Most educated people know that the reality of socialism is quite different than this Pope’s idealization of it. It is a fact, not just an opinion, that capitalism makes the economic pie bigger for everyone. Over the last 100 years, capitalism has reduced the rate of extreme poverty in the world from 60% to 20%.
Meanwhile, socialism shrinks the pie and encourages class warfare over what little remains. The winners of the socialist exercise in pie-shrinking and class-warring are the ruling elites. The poor get ground into dust.
Two popes ago was Pope John Paul II, who saw this first-hand as he grew up in communist Poland. A smart, worldly and compassionate man, he helped rid his native country of the Soviet menace to the point that the Soviets tried unsuccessfully to assassinate him through Bulgarian proxies. Finally free of socialism, Poland is now a prosperous and capitalist member of the European Union.
Like naïve high school students, Pope Francis seems stuck on the idea of socialism with no historical awareness of its repeated failure and no self-awareness of his hypocrisy in advocating it.
He embraces socialism for others, not himself. He lives as the absolute monarch of the country known as the Vatican in an ornate palace filled with magnificent art collections where visitors beg to kiss his $650,000 ring. He presides over an empire to which millions of people pledge their fealty and give their money, even as he calls money “the devil’s dung.”
In exchange for their fealty and their devil dung, the devout mostly get damned. The Pope criticizes them for trying to make money even as he expects them to gift to his empire some of it, and mocks them for “breeding like rabbits” even as he clings to prohibitions on contraception.
Seems this Pope abhors hard work and frequent sex. Is it because the joy people feel in such pursuits distracts from his command over them?
Contrast Judge Amy Coney Barrett. As a respected federal appellate judge, she’s skeptical about overreaching governmental regulations that squelch economic opportunity.
She thinks the job of judges is to judge by applying the law to the case in front of them. It’s the job of legislators accountable to the people, not judges or popes, to make those laws.
She’s doubtful that the Constitution contains a right to an abortion, for the simple but compelling reason that it’s never mentioned. If people want narrow or broad or unlimited rights to abort a fetus, they should ask their legislators to enact legislation saying so, not ask judges to invent such legislation.
She thinks people accused of crime should be entitled to due process rather than being presumed guilty by administrative kangaroo courts, even if they’re men and the crime of which they’re accused entails sex. She thinks immunity for cops should not extend to falsifying evidence.
In her personal life, Barrett and her husband have been, as I suppose the Pope would say, breeding like rabbits. She has five biological children, one of whom has Downs syndrome, plus two adopted Haitian children. The Left condemns her “colonialism” in adopting the Haitians, as if those children are hankering Haiti. The Left is also bugged that she didn’t, and still hasn’t, aborted any of the seven.
I’m guessing the Pope is annoyed that the couple slowed in shoveling devil dung his way for long enough to enjoy the God-given pleasure of conceiving, birthing and raising children.
As a judge, Barrett earns a government salary that is a fraction of the millions she could earn at big law firms after having graduated number one in her Notre Dame Law School class. She wears a wedding ring, but it’s not valued at $650,000 and she does not invite people to beg to kiss it. She lives in an ordinary house, not a palace, and is a mom to her school-age children. I don’t know this for a fact, but I doubt the house contains any Michelangelo’s.
She’s definitely a Catholic, and doesn’t just say that. (I’m not Catholic, though I have a lot of respect for that faith and most others that are sincerely felt.)
Here’s the question: Is she too Catholic for Pope Francis?
So much is upside down in today’s world. Maybe Francis would fit better as a Supreme Court justice where he could infallibly invent leftish laws without accountability to the people, and Barrett would fit better as a pope where she could lead Catholics by example.
Ah, but that won’t work. This pope who preaches equality does not allow women to be priests.
See many fine posts at his blog site
