The recent comments about capitalism and socialism by Pope Francis – although he never used the terms – probably excited more interest than the many other topics of his lengthy Apostolic Exhortation, Evangelii Gaudium. A new pope, especially history’s first from south of the Equator and from the Western hemisphere, will have theologians and the laity alike looking for tea leaves to read.
A religious leader’s predictable censure of materialism and the love of money were heightened by sharp condemnation of secularism and relativism in today’s world. But he went steps further, with several and specific denunciations of capitalism, free-market finances, and even “trickle-down” economics by name. Some commentators and apologists (that is, those who advance Christian apologetics) have claimed that selected passages were taken out of context, that the Pope condemned socialism and collectivism elsewhere with equal reproach.
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