Pope Francis’s Socialist Agenda, by William Kilpatrick

Rhode Island House Passes Bill Legalizing Abortion Up to Birth, Funding Free Abortions, by Micaiah Bilger
March 11, 2019
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VATICAN CITY, VATICAN - APRIL 15: U.S. Democratic presidential canditate Bernie Sanders arrives during 'Centesimus Annus 25 Years Later Symposiumon' at the Casina Pio IV April 15, 2016 in Vatican City, Vatican. Candidate Bernie Sanders came to Rome to attend a conference sponsored by the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences marking the 25th anniversary of Pope St. John Paul II's social encyclical 'Centesimus Annus.' (Photo by Franco Origlia/Getty Images)

By William Kilpatrick, Crisis Magazine, March 11, 2019

Watching Bernie Sanders’s speech announcing his candidacy for president, it struck me that—except for the part about a woman’s right to choose—Pope Francis would have found himself in agreement with just about every item on the aging socialist warrior’s agenda.

This reminded me for the umpteenth time that the pope has far more radical ideas than most people realize. Like Bernie Sanders, the pope is a socialist. He has had many unkind words about capitalism (“the dung of the devil”), but no corresponding criticism of socialism. Like Sanders, his ideas about economics were shaped by Marxist thinkers and activists. And just as Sanders and other socialist Democrats are moving the Democratic Party leftward, so also Pope Francis is attempting to move the Church in the same direction.

Although the field of candidates for the 2016 presidential election was a very large one, only one candidate received an invitation to speak at the Vatican. Bishop Marcelo Sanchez Sorondo, the Chancellor of the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences, invited Bernie Sanders to speak because, said Sorondo, his views “are very analogous to that of the pope.” Sanders, who confessed to being a big fan of the pope, saw the invitation in the same light:

Look, I believe that the reason for which I was invited to participate in this conference is that many of the issues which the pope tackles are similar to mine.

Bishop Sorondo, by the way, is the same prelate who, after returning from his first trip to China, proclaimed that the Chinese are “the best implementers of the Church’s social doctrine.” Of course, if the Chinese communists really are the best practitioners of Catholic social doctrine, then there should be no problem in letting them select Catholic bishops. Unsurprisingly, not long after Bishop Sorondo returned from China, the Vatican concluded a deal with the Chinese government whereby the communist regime was given the power to appoint bishops…..Read entire article, go to: crisismagazine.com/2019/pope-franciss-socialist-agenda