Pope calls for redistribution of wealth?

[Andy F]

I agree with the Pope on this issue, yes.

He's hardly the first Pope to express alarm about the grotesque inequality and injustice of modern capitalist market society, BTW.

Pope Leo XIII, back in 1891, first addressed this issue in a famous encyclical called "Rerum Novarum," concerning the gross inequalities & violent social conflicts of that time between capital & labor.

This doesn't mean that Leo XIII was "socialist" in 1891, or that the current Pontiff is "socialist" now.

But these guys have been smart and morally sensitive enough to see that gross inequalities between rich and poor are

(a) contrary to many of the teachings of Jesus in the Bible
(b) destructive to the social stability of capitalist society, and
© of enormous political concern to many Catholics, both among the poor and the upper classes, and thus a potential source of conflict within the Catholic Church.

That's why the Vatican keeps addressing this problem, I think.

Of course, the Popes are probably also are trying to avoid losing members to more secular leftwing movements, including Marxist socialism & leftwing anarchism.

-- democratic socialist