Apparently this week, FOX "News" reporter Rush Limbaugh attacked Pope Francis statement that "Unfettered capitalism" was "tyranny" and trickle down economics did not work.  Not surprisingly, Rush's love of money (hmmm... where have I heard that phrase before?) didn't allow him to stay silent.  He declared Pope Francis to be a Marxist who "doesn't know what he's talking about." 

Before going any further, I must say that I am no fan of the papacy.  No one man should have that much influence on what millions of people think about God.  Only God should have that much influence, through Scripture, mediation and the teaching and counsel of a wide variety of learned men and women ("One plants, another waters, but the Lord provides the harvest," Paul said.)  Both my wife and I were raised Catholic, and we have both since left the Catholic Church.  On the other hand, some of the most influential people in my Christian growth have been members of the Roman church, including my mom, my college roommate and our best friends for the past 25 years, Barb and Gene Bourque.  I am neither a Pope bashing fundy nor a 'what he says goes' follower of the pontiff.  So, when Rush made these statements, I didn't look into it with the notion that the Pope is always right or that Limbaugh, the pope of the right, was necessarily wrong. 

While the success of trickle down economics in the US is still an issue of debate - I remember the 1980's being a fairly prosperous time - I am convinced it is not a solution to third world poverty, where much of the destitution has more to do with intentional tribal and religious oppression than individuals' work ethic.  Nothing ever trickles down, it seems, to the Tarahumaran of Mexico, the rural Quetchua of the Andes or the Enxet of Paraguay's Chaco region.  This economy of racism would be all too familiar to the Argentinian Pope.  Rush, on the other hand, has likely not ventured into the third world very much.  Of course there was that infamous trip to the Dominican Republic where he was detained at the Santo Domingo airport for possession of a prescription of Viagra that was not his own, but my guess is he was not there to visit the dump community or the street kids living in the barrios.  Call it a hunch.

On the other hand, Pope Francis' approach seems to be a combination of pie-in-the-sky optimism and vague platitudes.  When, for example, millions of Hindus in India believe the poor are supposed to be poor based on centuries of religious tradition, how possibly will things change for them.  (Yes, the caste system is now 'illegal' in India, but ask any recent immigrant if things have changed there.)  We learned that as recently as the 1970's, Paraguay had a president who banned iodized salt because iodine aids in brain development (up to 15 IQ points, to be precise.)  It was his way of intentionally keeping the tribal people poorly educated, thus easy to control which means, in part, poor.  For the billions of people worldwide who live in this reality no amount of talk about wealth redistribution is going to help, because it won't ever happen.  Perhaps the Pope himself could help, though, by redistributing some of his church's  $422,098,000,000 annual income.  I will never forget site seeing in Quito.  We happened upon a Catholic church that charged admission to see it's ornate gold statues while an old, weathered Quetchua woman begged for pennies outdoors on the church's steps.  Ready to put your money where your mouth is and live up to the name of St. Francis, your holiness?  Then set an example to the rest of the world's wealthy and redistribute some of that.

 Perhaps the Catholic Pope and the FOX 'News' dope have more in common than it first appears.  Both are saying a lot but not doing much.  Both are concerned about prosperity.  They just disagree on how to get there. But Jesus turns the whole discussion of economics on its head (as he so often did with a variety of other topics as well) when he told a rich young ruler, "Sell all your possessions, give everything to the poor, and follow me." ( Mark 10:21.)  Another time he said,  "Do not store up treasures on earth where moths and rust can destroy them"  (Matthew 6:19.)  Similarly, John wrote, "Do not love the world or the things of this world," while Paul told us "The love of money is the root of all evil." 

Perhaps the wrong question is being asked.  Perhaps it's not so much who should be rich or how people can earn more, but, "What's life really about in the first place?"  Two families come to mind immediately when that question is asked, and I'll share their stories in an upcoming blog soon.