ChangingWind.Org

First, the Roman Catholic Church has always been a Socialist organization. While the teachings of Jesus Christ address usury as a sin, and are the pinnacle points of those who deny God to try to use the teachings of Christ for socialist notions (What appears on a simple reading to be good for Bible citations with historical sources, purporting to be a blog written by a Priest, http://www.askthepriest.org/askthepriest/2005/10/never_a_borrowe.html?cid=84906588), the realities of purpose are required.

It is hard for we who were born in this last century to imagine a time (250 years ago) when people had little or no say in how they are ruled. A time when private communications took the time it takes for a person to run a mile or two, or ride a horse for 40 miles a day. Also a time when public communications were subject to those onlookers assumed of authority in the governing church or political order (or of both lines of authoritarian rule) by their intentional wearing of Noble Dress, their badge a warning to watch what you say, that one could be persecuted for carrying on freely in their speech, especially if it were to denounce the governing order of the day – grounds for a maximum immediately imposable sentence of death.

Sounds like it's out of a movie, doesn't it? Here is author Foucault's opening paragraph and summary of an officer's recording of carrying out the sentence imposed under the governing rule of the Church and their political class that gave us the Dark Ages until the Age of Enlightenment (WARNING, violent reality of centralized power and European Feudal History follows):

“On 2 March 1757 Damiens the regicide was condemned 'to make the amende honorable before the door of the Church of Paris' where he was to be 'taken and conveyed in a cart, wearing nothing but a shirt, holding a torch of burning wax weighing two pounds'; then 'in the said cart, to the Place de Greve, where, on a scaffold that will be erected there, the flesh will be torn from his breasts, arms, thighs and calves with red-hot pincers, his right hand, holding the knife with which he committed the said parricide, burnt with sulphur, and, on those places where the flesh will be torn away, poured molten lead, boiling oil, burning resin, wax and sulphur melted together and then his body drawn and quartered by four horses and his limbs and body consumed by fire, reduced to ashes and his ashes thrown to the winds'” – Emphasis, in original, http://itpedia.nyu.edu/mediawiki/images/3/3e/Foucault-Discipline_and_Punish.pdf.

This is followed in Discipline and Punish by the actual record of that officer who participated in carrying out this “punishment,” the detail of which wreaks of men playing God on one hand, while, the astute in biblical teachings will see it is all a dramatic reality meant to sear in the image of this atrocious public spectacle. All of this was far too real (long before “reality tv”), meant to unequivocally enshrine in the hearts and minds of the population – all of whom are compelled to attend to witness -- the agony that one would be subjected to by Government and Church together if they questioned these “powers that be” – Oppressive persecution, these government bodies’ definition of social justice, at that time.

Now, in further historical context of the Church, let us turn to what Pope Francis called the “tyranny of money” issue and the “social justice” link he's trying to make today to the poor. Naturally, we must look at the origins of this tyranny and those who benefited from it, such as the Catholic Church itself, per A History of Banking in all the Leading Nations, vol. 3 (France, Italy, Spain, Portugal, Canada) [1896]:

“THE business of banking and loaning money at interest has existed from the earliest forms of civilization, because it responds to an imperative need of society. It was conducted in Athens, probably in Carthage, and certainly in Rome; but, after the establishment of Christianity, it encountered serious obstacles.

“Profits derived from loaning capital—which was regarded as including money, whereas money is only a representative of capital—were regarded as illegitimate; which is virtually the position assumed by modern socialists. “Money,” it was said, “is in its very nature sterile, and not reproductive.” Profits accuring [sic, likely typo of “accruing”] from the sale of merchandise or the establishment of a productive industry were held to be just and proper; but it was not conceded that a loan of that capital, which could immediately be transformed into merchandise or instruments of production, entitled the lender to remuneration. This course of reasoning seemed to be supported by the Gospel injunction that we loan to the needy without hope of recompense. These prejudices, which have continued to our own day, cast a shade of suspicion upon all commerce in money and caused it to be carried on clandestinely and by men constituting a distinct caste, such as Jews and Lombards [Remember this is from 1896.]. Lenders at interest, or usurers, being always exposed to the hatred of their creditors and victims of the cupidity of governments, made it their constant care to keep their capital in the form most readily convertible into money and least likely to attract attention....

“Thus it is that we find the Jews, in all ages, following the pursuits of money-changer, goldsmith, dealer in precious stones, to which they have added that of lender on pawn. Community of language and of origin and exposure to the same dangers impelled them to seek one another out, to establish the closest relations among themselves, though dwelling far apart, and to invent divers [“diverse”] means of transmitting money from one to another, the earliest being the bill of exchange. We find an indubitable instance of the bill of exchange in 1246, that by means of which the Pope, Innocent IV., sent 25,000 marks of silver to the pretender, Henri Raspon, an amount which was paid to him at Frankfort by a Venetian banking house. Even earlier than this, in 1202, the Crusaders had given to Henri Dandolo, Doge of Venice, bills payable to order as security for 85,000 marks, in silver, demanded of them by the Venetians in return for vessels furnished to carry them to Syria. It was to pay this immense debt that the Crusaders aided Dandolo to recapture the city of Zara in Dalmatia....” -- Emphasis mine, http://oll.libertyfund.org/simple.php?id=2239.

This history continues, explaining the “tyranny of money” in relation to the “cupidity of governments”:

“In France, the Jews, though contemned and despised, lived in comparative security until the time of the Crusaders, trafficking in money with a fair degree of impunity. They were, indeed, persecuted from time to time, but the persecutions were never of long duration. Under Philip Augustus, their situation grew worse. In 1182, the King became convinced that the Jews were too numerous in Paris and throughout the kingdom, and that they were amassing great wealth. They were accused of having Christian servants, whom they seduced from the true faith, and of despoiling nobles and commoners of their goods under pretence of having loaned them large sums of money. To these accusations the populace added fabricated accounts of divers misdemeanors, and the King issued a decree banishing the Jews, allowing them to take their personal property with them, or to sell it, but confiscating their real estate. Philip the Fair, on the contrary, was very kindly disposed toward the Jews at the beginning of his reign. With that fiscal genius which he afterward put to such evil use, he appreciated the value of money-dealers; and while he extorted heavy taxes from them, he forbade that they be any longer subjected to imprisonment at the behest of the first monk who might demand it; this was in 1288. Rendered over-confident by the protection which Philip thus accorded them from interested motives, the Jews became less cautious than they had previously been. Their indiscretion was severely punished; for, in 1306, the King ordered the arrest of all Jews in his dominions, confiscated their goods, and ordered them to leave the kingdom under pain of death.” -- Emphasis mine, Ibid.

Now comes Obamacare to remind us of the “cupidity of governments” in the modern day. That the penalty was deemed “a tax” by the U.S. Supreme Court is only icing on the cake for a People who stood by their American system of Government to find the “Politicians of the House of D.C.” had achieved complete and utter usurpation of the Constitution for sake of the revenues of our Prince to fund their agenda as “our leader.” This Prince is none other than the entire Democratic Party imposing their will as the vision we all are to behold and become. J.J. Rousseau well explains the reality of this Prince in The Social Contract:

“[Rousseau explaining what government is...]The members of this body are called magistrates or kings, that is to say governors, and the whole body bears the name prince.*

* “Thus at Venice the College, even in the absence of the Doge, is called "Most Serene Prince."”

Apparently J.J. Rousseau was the first Tea Party member, his extremist view goes like this....

“Thus those who hold that the act, by which a people puts itself under a prince, is not a contract, are certainly right [in our case Our Ratification of Our Written Constitution]. It is simply and solely a commission, an employment, in which the rulers, mere officials of the Sovereign, exercise in their own name the power [of the Sovereign, the People] of which it makes them depositaries. This power it [the Sovereign] can limit, modify or recover at pleasure; for the alienation of such a right is incompatible with the nature of the social body, and contrary to the end of association.” -- Emphasis mine, http://www.constitution.org/jjr/socon_03.htm.

While our Constitution (at Art I, Sec 7, http://www.archives.gov/exhibits/charters/constitution_transcript.html) and the House Rules at the time of passing the Affordable Persecution Act are consistent with Rousseau's statement, the government (the body of those politicians Pope Francis refers to as well), in abuse of the power entrusted to them, has decided its need for revenues is greater than the value of this money to the people who worked for it for purposes in their own private lives. Adopted as “regular,” government revenues are used and intended to carve a hole in the space once filled by the fruits of my own labor or the returns on my own investment, or whatever other way I would choose to pursue in fending for myself to survive and achieve even greater success for myself, family, community, and whosoever I, as owner of my own property – in my rights as well – should so desire to aid in achieving their success.

God and God alone shall judge if I mistreated “the poor,” for only He knows who is truly poor, only God knows what is in their heart, versus their merely succumbing to the excuses available through government – a rhetoric adopted and routinely spouted to gain my handout – that now government is imposing upon society, an effort at forced benevolence that is merely using poverty, from government's view, as a political tool/purpose, as a cog in organizing the political means to rule over the Sovereign People with an iron fist. Until poverty is viewed as a condition to be alleviated from the body of the nation and the People by the People themselves, where government's actions aren't to align with ideologies and Churches but to align with the needs of the governed whose power is the origin of government, poverty will persist for sake of its political weight alone. As the Kings of old used the Jews to achieve an economy, one these same Kings would claim under their rule and as their wealth, so too does our government today, which it appears Pope Francis is well aware of in noting politicians as culpable, but, asserting in the most Feudal historic fashion, a claim of government to fix it and be mindful of their role in assuring benevolent purpose in line with the Church's influence. Mind you, this is exactly what gave us the atrocity of punishments prior to and including the account of 1757 at the beginning of this article, and, all of which misused the Bible to justify them.

To be clear, Socialism is repeating the past, a past long left behind by a nation formed by its People, the United States of America. The Church establishment was a significant player in that past, a source of persistent political divisiveness, great deprivation, atrocity, and every other form of oppression possible at the time that kept the diminishing of subject servitude under a Crown from occurring, for this would mean the end of the order of society for those in power at the time, including the Church. The birth of Individual Rights and Liberty in our sentient existence deriving from God may have taken place long before the Age of Enlightenment if not for the Church (a nice summary is looking at the American Pilgrim's religious persecution). America's embrace and influence in ending the Feudal Reign and Dark Ages is documented best by these words from the Declaration of Independence, “endowed by their Creator with certain [unquestionable] unalienable rights,” an absolute recognition that it is by God each individual can, and is destined to by right, think for ourselves. It is worth mentioning that books used to be chained to library shelves, where only those of privilege and noble “blue blood” were to ever see them (nor would they allow anyone else to learn to read). This oppressive history of persecution, of rule by whim, favor, and force alone, to which the Church enjoyed great influence and power, is the very past Our Founders left behind by the Declaration of Independence, done a mere 20 years after “Damiens the Regicide” was “to make the amende honorable before the door of the Church of Paris'.”

I shall Pray for Pope Francis, that he will let go of his guilt and hand it over to Christ, that he'll find his way to appreciate a history of government abuse, where that government included the Church itself in carrying on the oppression and persecution of nations and their people for the sake of the power the Church held and nothing more, that he'll recognize these atrocities that, in fact, were carried out under the erroneous pretense of being God's Will are the very epitome of “absolute power corrupts absolutely,” even in the hands of the Holy See. America let loose of all that meant God's Plan for each and every one of us was being stifled by the artifices of a few in their lust for politics and power, carrying on their subjective and self-aggrandizing use of money at every turn to influence and control the many, even in the use of the Church's wealth.

Let us hope the chants of crowds in favor of Pope Francis, seeming to endorse Socialism and overbearing government as the solution to poverty, aren't too alluring to him.