Jesus was a Communist, right? Christians should support the wealth redistribution programs of Socialism, Communism, and Marxism - S.C.A.M. - right? If so, why did Pope, now also Saint, John Paul II speak so strongly against the evils of S.C.A.M.?
Christianity is opposed to SCAM and always has been. Yes, some early Christian communities practiced sharing of wealth in the Book of Acts, as do the monasteries and religious orders to this day. These are all voluntary practices, though. Government-coerced charity is not charity.
Christianity has always opposed SCAM as a system of government. Why?
Free will! Christianity has also opposed SCAM because it violates human dignity. Historically, SCAM governments have brutally opposed several principles necessary for the protection of human dignity: religious freedom, private property, the dignity of work and the rights of workers, and subsidiarity, the principle that government should be as decentralized and as local as possible.
This article is from a book that I just published The MAGA Guide to S.C.A.M.: Socialism, Communism, and Marxism:
St. Pope John Paul II: A Witness to S.C.A.M. (Socialism, Communism, and Marxism)
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| Polish priest Feliks Nowacki upon arrival at Auschwitz concentration camp - Source: Auschwitz Memorial |
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| Pope John Paul II, born Karol Wojtyla, as young priest in Poland |
SCAM
vs. The Holy Spirit: St. Pope John Paul II, Dominum et Vivificantem
… [T]he resistance to the Holy Spirit which St. Paul emphasizes in the interior and subjective dimension as tension, struggle and rebellion taking place in the human heart, finds in every period of history and especially in the modern era its external dimension, which takes concrete form as the content of culture and civilization, as a philosophical system, an ideology, a program for action and for the shaping of human behavior.
It reaches its clearest expression in materialism, both in its theoretical form: as a system of thought, and in its practical form: as a method of interpreting and evaluating facts, and likewise as a program of corresponding conduct.
The system which has developed most and carried to its extreme practical consequences this form of thought, ideology and praxis is dialectical and historical materialism, which is still recognized as the essential core of Marxism.
Materialism tell us that only the material world exists. There is only matter, no spirit, and certainly no Holy Spirit. There is no immortal soul, much less the Creator of our souls.
Therefore, the primary lie of SCAM’s historical materialism, according to John Paul II, is its outright opposition to God, Atheism:
In principle and in fact, materialism radically excludes the presence and action of God, who is spirit, in the world and above all in man. Fundamentally this is because it does not accept God’s existence, being a system that is essentially and systematically atheistic.
… [I]t is certain that a true and proper materialism, understood as a theory which explains reality and accepted as the key-principle of personal and social action, is characteristically atheistic. The order of values and the aims of action which it describes are strictly bound to a reading of the whole of reality as “matter.” Though it sometimes also speaks of the “spirit” and of “questions of the spirit,” as for example in the fields of culture or morality, it does so only insofar as it considers certain facts as derived from matter (epiphenomena), since according to this system matter is the one and only form of being.
It follows, according to this interpretation, that religion can only be understood as a kind of “idealistic illusion,” to be fought with the most suitable means and methods according to circumstances of time and place, in order to eliminate it from society and from man’s very heart.
John Paul’s words pierce straight
down to the bones of the SCAM. A materialist view of history is opposed not
only to God, but to the freedom of religion. SCAM’s true motives are to fight
religion “with the most suitable means”. SCAM desires to “eliminate” religion
from man’s heart” and to eradicate religion from society by force.
John Paul does not speak of SCAM’s
violence against God and religion in theoretical terms. He witnessed SCAM
firsthand, as Poland was occupied first by the Nazi Socialists and later by the
Russian Communists.
But that’s not all.
Not only does the SCAM oppose
religion. Those of us who believe in God, religion, or, at bare minimum, the
human to religion – we must oppose SCAM:
It can be said therefore that materialism is the systematic and logical development of that resistance and opposition condemned by St. Paul with the words: “The desires of the flesh are against the Spirit.” But, as St. Paul emphasizes in the second part of his aphorism, this antagonism is mutual: “The desires of the Spirit are against the flesh.” Those who wish to live by the Spirit, accepting and corresponding to his salvific activity, cannot but reject the internal and external tendencies and claims of the “flesh,” also in its ideological and historical expression as anti-religious “materialism.”
John Paul, therefore, is calling us to battle against SCAM.
This is not merely a battle between St. Paul’s “Spirit” and the “flesh,” John Paul continues, but between “life” and “death.”
It must be added that on the horizon of contemporary civilization – especially in the form that is most developed in the technical and scientific sense – the signs and symptoms of death have become particularly present and frequent. One has only to think of the arms race and of its inherent danger of nuclear self-destruction. Moreover, everyone has become more and more aware of the grave situation of vast areas of our planet marked by death-dealing poverty and famine. It is a question of problems that are not only economic but also and above all ethical.
But on the horizon of our era there are gathering ever darker “signs of death”: a custom has become widely established – in some places it threatens to become almost an institution – of taking the lives of human beings even before they are born, or before they reach the natural point of death.
Furthermore, despite many noble efforts for peace, new wars have broken out and are taking place, wars which destroy the lives or the health of hundreds of thousands of people. And how can one fail to mention the attacks against human life by terrorism, organized even on an international scale?
Ever the good pastor, John Paul
never leaves us without hope. He next reminds us that SCAM is picking a fight
with the biggest kid on the block. SCAM materialism opposes not just the
spirit, but God, the Holy Spirit.
John Paul asks us “Does there not rise up” a mighty power?[3]
Does there not rise up a new and more or less conscious plea to the life-giving Spirit from the dark shades of materialistic civilization, and especially from those increasing signs of death in the sociological and historical picture in which that civilization has been constructed.
At any rate, even independently of the measure of human hopes or despairs, and of the illusions or deceptions deriving from the development of materialistic systems of thought and life, there remains the Christian certainty that the Spirit blows where he wills and that we possess "the first fruits of the Spirit," and that therefore even though we may be subjected to the sufferings of time that passes away, “we groan inwardly as we wait for...the redemption of our bodies,” or of all our human essence, which is bodily and spiritual. Yes, we groan, but in an expectation filled with unflagging hope, because it is precisely this human being that God has drawn near to, God who is Spirit.
God the Father, “sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh” (Romans 8:3). At the culmination of the Paschal Mystery, the Son of God, made man and crucified for the sins of the world, appeared in the midst of his Apostles after the Resurrection, breathed on them and said, “Receive the Holy Spirit.” This “breath” continues forever, for “the Spirit helps us in our weakness” (Romans 8:26).
Materialism is a SCAM with a cure. The Holy Spirit, through whom hope is eternal.
SCAM’s Attack on the Dignity and Rights of the Worker
St. Pope John Paul II and Centesimus Annus ("The Hundredth Year") - Pope Leo XIII and Rerum Novarum
This is not the only time Pope
John Paul II wrote about SCAM. And he’s definitely not the first pope to do so.
Pope Leo XIII dropped a bombshell on SCAM in 1891 in the encyclical Rerum
Novarum, “New Things” (on Capital and Labor).
The impact of this “immortal
document”
has been felt now for decades and decades. In fact, one hundred years later,
Pope John Paul wrote Centesimus Annus, “The Hundredth Year”.
John Paul II first describes the historical background and need for the writing of Rerum Novarum in 1891:[5]
Towards the end of the last century the Church found herself facing an historical process which had already been taking place for some time, but which was by then reaching a critical point. The determining factor in this process was a combination of radical changes which had taken place in the political, economic and social fields, and in the areas of science and technology, to say nothing of the wide influence of the prevailing ideologies.
In the sphere of politics, the result of these changes was a new conception of society and of the State, and consequently of authority itself. A traditional society was passing away and another was beginning to be formed — one which brought the hope of new freedoms but also the threat of new forms of injustice and servitude.
… The result of this transformation was a society “divided into two classes, separated by a deep chasm.” This situation was linked to the marked change taking place in the political order already mentioned. Thus, the prevailing political theory of the time sought to promote total economic freedom by appropriate laws, or, conversely, by a deliberate lack of any intervention. At the same time, another conception of property and economic life was beginning to appear in an organized and often violent form, one which implied a new political and social structure.
The popes are describing here the oncoming clash of Capitalism and S.C.A.M. (Socialism, Communism, and Marxism) that would dominate the 20th century.
At the height of this clash,
people finally, fully realized the grave injustices and dangerous revolutions spawned
by SCAM ideals. Pope Leo XIII intervened first by writing on the “condition of
the workers”. He called attention to the essential bond between human freedom
and truth. Freedom which refused to be bound to the truth falls into
arbitrariness and eventually submits itself to vile passions and self-destruction.
Indeed, Rerum Novarum diagnosed the essential lie of SCAM and the origin of all its evils. SCAM offers not freedom, but a freedom scam.
The SCAM version of freedom, in the areas of economic and social activity, denies the truth about man and the dignity of work:
With the intention of shedding light on the conflict which had arisen between capital and labor, Pope Leo XIII affirmed the fundamental rights of workers. Indeed, the key to reading the Encyclical is the dignity of the worker as such, and, for the same reason, the dignity of work, which is defined as follows: “to exert oneself for the sake of procuring what is necessary for the various purposes of life, and first of all for self-preservation.”[7]
The Pope describes work as “personal, inasmuch as the energy expended is bound up with the personality and is the exclusive property of him who acts, and, furthermore, was given to him for his advantage.”
Work thus belongs to the vocation of every person; indeed, man expresses and fulfills himself by working. At the same time, work has a “social” dimension through its intimate relationship not only to the family, but also to the common good, since “it may truly be said that it is only by the labor of working-men that States grow rich.”[8]
There’s no room for dignity in the materialistic worldview of SCAM. Because there is no true source of dignity – God is replaced with the State. SCAM also undermines the object of work, the individual and the family, again in favor of the State.
The freedom SCAM lies, not just about man and work, but as a result, the importance of private property:
Another important principle is undoubtedly that of the right to “private property.” The amount of space devoted to this subject in the Encyclical shows the importance attached to it. [Pope Leo XIII] is well aware that private property is not an absolute value, nor does he fail to proclaim the necessary complementary principles, such as the universal destination of the earth’s goods.
Pope John Paul II & The
Polish Solidarity Movement: Defeating SCAM with Human Dignity and Unions
… In close connection with the right to private property, Pope Leo XIII's Encyclical also affirms other rights as inalienable and proper to the human person. Prominent among these, because of the space which the Pope devotes to it and the importance which he attaches to it, is the “natural human right” to form private associations. This means above all the right to establish professional associations of employers and workers, or of workers alone.[10]
Here we find the reason for the Church’s defense and approval of the establishment of what are commonly called trade unions: certainly not because of ideological prejudices or in order to surrender to a class mentality, but because the right of association is a natural right of the human being, which therefore precedes his or her incorporation into political society.
Indeed, the formation of unions “cannot ... be prohibited by the State”, because “the State is bound to protect natural rights, not to destroy them; and if it forbids its citizens to form associations, it contradicts the very principle of its own existence.”[11]
Perhaps taking a cue from Pope Leo XIII, Pope John Paul II went to war with Soviet SCAM using trade unions.
On October 16, 1978, the Bishop of
Kraków, Poland, Karol Wojtyła, became Pope John Paul II.
A year later, the new pope returned to his homeland on his first papal pilgrimage. Try as they might, the Soviet SCAM artists could not prevent the pope’s visit. Nor could they stop so many of the pope’s countrymen. John Paul II’s masses were attended by millions of his countrymen.
Pope John Paul called for
religious freedom, advocated for human rights, and denounced the violence
committed by the Soviet SCAM. The pope awakened the Polish people from the deep
slumber of Soviet repression. His actions taught Poland that a force existed
that was far stronger than brute force of SCAM. He taught them that spiritual
force was more powerful than material.
Here is a quick video from the documentary Liberating a Continent: John Paul II and the Fall of Communism:
Pope John Paul’s continuing
support of the Polish people, especially the Polish worker, would prove
essential to what would come. His actions triggered an avalanche.
It was the beginning of the end of
the entire Soviet SCAM. The pope’s message was soon carried to the Polish
shipyards by Lech Walesa, the leader of a Polish worker’s union called
Solidarity.
On August 14, 1980, Polish shipyard workers began a strike in Gdańsk, organized by the Free Trade Unions of the Coast and led by electrician Lech Walesa, a former shipyard worker who had been dismissed in 1976.
The strikers demanded the rehiring of Walesa. respect for the workers’ rights, raising of a monument to the shipyard workers killed in 1970, and for legalization of independent trade unions.
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| Lech Walesa speaking atop a bulldozer - the iconic image of the birth of the Polish Solidarity movement |
The SCAM government of Poland responded with censorship and severing all phone connections between Gdańsk and the rest of Poland. Nevertheless, news of the worker’s movement soon spread into spread across the rest of the Soviet empire. The shipyard workers were soon joined by other strike committees.
On August 17, a priest, Henryk
Jankowski, performed a mass outside the shipyard’s gate, at which the strikers’
demands were put forward. The demands called for new, independent trade unions,
ending the censorship, a right to strike, new rights for the Church, and freeing
of political prisoners.
More and more workers joined
forces. A tidal wave of strikes swept the coast of Poland. The strikers closed
ports and brought the economy to a screeching halt. In days, the strike
included workers from 200 factories and would soon spread to the rest of
Poland, including the Silesian mines.
By the end of August, the strikers
and the government had signed the Gdańsk agreement ratifying many of the
workers’ demands. Democratic changes soon swept the Communist political
structure and began dismantling the SCAM Party’s monopoly of power.
The Pope and the Solidarity
movement had dealt mortal blows to the Soviet SCAM. They would continue to work
together. Though the Iron Curtain would not fall until 1989, the Soviet SCAM
was now dead man walking.
Pope John Paul II visited Poland again in 1983, and later that same year, Lech Walesa was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.
The Soviet SCAM artists responded the only way they understood how to respond, with violence. Officers of the Security Service murdered Father Jerzy Popiełuszko, a Roman Catholic priest and opposition activist. They only succeeded in creating another martyr. Popiełuszko’s murderers were arrested and imprisoned.
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| 30-year anniversary mural depicting Father Jerzy Popiełuszko, a priest who was murdered for publicly supporting the Solidarity movement |
Pope John Paul II visited Poland for the third time in 1987. A few years later, Lech Walesa was elected President of Poland. The message of Poland had rippled across all of eastern Europe. The Soviet SCAM had collapsed along with the Iron Curtain.
Pope John Paul II was giving the
world a master class on how to defeat SCAM. The pope faced down a government
already controlled by SCAM. The evils of SCAM were plain for everybody to see.
The question becomes how do we
defeat SCAM before it rears its ugly face? Once the SCAM artists have their
boot on our necks, defining good and evil is a simple job. But how do you
defeat SCAM when it is still attractive and seductive, offering government
giveaways and relief from suffering and, the most seductive of all, power?
The answer is simple. All people
must be accorded dignity, even the scammers. If power is not shared equitably,
power will be usurped violently. More on this in the next sections.
The Popes & Marxism: More
Rights of the Worker
Pope John Paul II continues listing more human rights belonging to the worker in his 1991 encyclical, Centesimus Annus, written one year after the fall of the Soviet SCAM and the free election of Lech Walesa as the president of a free Poland:[14]
The Pope explicitly acknowledges as belonging to workers, or, using his own language, to “the working class” … the right to legitimate rest and the right of children and women to be treated differently with regard to the type and duration of work.
… [W]e can appreciate the Pope’s severe statement: “It is neither just nor human so to grind men down with excessive labor as to stupefy their minds and wear out their bodies”. And referring to the “contract” aimed at putting into effect “labor relations” of this sort, he affirms with greater precision, that “in all agreements between employers and workers there is always the condition expressed or understood” that proper rest be allowed, proportionate to “the wear and tear of one’s strength”. He then concludes: To agree in any other sense would be against what is right and just.”[15]
The Pope immediately adds another right which the worker has as a person. This is the right to a “just wage” … “It necessarily follows”, the Pope concludes, “that every individual has a natural right to procure what is required to live; and the poor can procure that in no other way than by what they can earn through their work.”
A workman's wages should be sufficient to enable him to support himself, his wife and his children. “If through necessity or fear of a worse evil the workman accepts harder conditions because an employer or contractor will afford no better, he is made the victim of force and injustice”.
It is extremely unfortunate that
the radical left’s SCAM artists have hijacked the push for a “just wage” or a
“living wage”. They have even taken this as far as “universal basic income.”
SCAM’s Attack on the Freedom of Religion
SCAM vs. Sunday and the 7-Day Week
To these rights Pope Leo XIII adds another right regarding the condition of the working class, one which I wish to mention because of its importance: namely, the right to discharge freely one’s religious duties.The Pope … affirms the need for Sunday rest so that people may turn their thoughts to heavenly things and to the worship which they owe to Al-mighty God. No one can take away this human right, which is based on a commandment; in the words of the Pope: “no man may with impunity vio-late that human dignity which God himself treats with great reverence”, and consequently, the State must guarantee to the worker the exercise of this freedom.
Pope John Paul II and Pope Leo XIII's Predictions
Pope Leo foresaw the negative consequences – political, social, and economic – of the social order proposed by “socialism”, which at that time was still only a social philosophy and not yet a fully structured movement. It may seem surprising that “socialism” appeared at the beginning of the Pope’s critique of solutions to the “question of the working class” at a time when “socialism” was not yet in the form of a strong and powerful State, with all the resources which that implies, as was later to happen.However, he correctly judged the danger posed to the masses by the attractive presentation of this simple and radical solution to the “question of the working class” of the time – all the more so when one considers the terrible situation of injustice in which the working classes of the recently industrialized nations found themselves.Two things must be emphasized here: first, the great clarity in perceiving, in all its harshness, the actual condition of the working class – men, women and children; secondly, equal clarity in recognizing the evil of a solution which, by appearing to reverse the positions of the poor and the rich, was in reality detrimental to the very people whom it was meant to help. The remedy would prove worse than the sickness. By defining the nature of the socialism of his day as the suppression of private property, Leo XIII arrived at the crux of the problem.[Pope Leo’s] words deserve to be re-read attentively: “To remedy these wrongs (the unjust distribution of wealth and the poverty of the workers), the Socialists encourage the poor man’s envy of the rich and strive to do away with private property, contending that individual possessions should become the common property of all … but their contentions are so clearly powerless to end the controversy that, were they carried into effect, the working man himself would be among the first to suffer. They are moreover emphatically unjust, for they would rob the lawful possessor, distort the functions of the State, and create utter confusion in the community.” The evils caused by the setting up of this type of socialism as a State system – what would later be called “Real Socialism” – could not be better expressed.
The inherent vice of capitalism is the unequal sharing of blessings. The inherent virtue of Socialism is the equal sharing of miseries.
[17] Natasha Frost, “For 11 Years, the Soviet Union Had No Weekends”, History.com, August 30, 2018
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