Pope calls for redistribution of wealth?

[miniaturemoon219]

Another reason why American Catholics need to get out of the Democratic Party because they don't share same religious values. Just saying.

[livelyfang494]

Maybe he should show me how it's done first.

Bankers' best guesses about the Vatican's wealth put it at $10 billion to $15 billion. Of this wealth, Italian stockholdings alone run to $1.6 billion, 15% of the value of listed shares on the Italian market. The Vatican has big investments in banking, insurance, chemicals, steel, construction, real estate. Dividends help pay for Vatican expenses and charities such as assisting 1,500,000 children and providing some measure of food and clothing to 7,000,000 needy Italians. Unlike ordinary stockholders, the Vatican pays no taxes on this income, wh

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/articl...09,00.html

Vatican pays no taxes on this income

Vatican pays no taxes on this income

[The Solution]

Normal Liberal Twist on an issue.

Misquoting the Pope.

He did NOT call for 'Wealth Distribution.' He said that a growing Disparity between the Richest and the Poorest is one of the causes of the problems around the globe.

Since our Impoverished earn $15,000 per year, yet India's Impoverished only earn $144 per year, do you think that maybe he thinks there is a HUGE disparity there, and our Poor should hand over half of their entitlements to the poor in other places?

Come on, don't misquote people to get your point across.

I think the Pope would be FOR those on the lower end putting out more Effort to Improve their financial situation, before he would be before stealing from a successful person to give to someone with less drive.

[flower]

That is not redistribution of wealth. That is making incomes less inequitable between rich and poor through public policy but he is not suggesting rich people give their money away.

[aeriol7]

I think the Pontiff is asking for charity and understanding by the wealthy nations and yes good idea and as Marylin Monroe would have added ...world peace too

[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

[Xtra]

Actually closing the gap between the rich and poor and redistributing the wealth are two different things.