In Praise of Welfare Queens

Are conservatives born hypocrites, or do they study to become so? Consider the frequent outrage visited upon those individuals who accept government welfare via the food stamp, WIC, or similar government programs. From whence comes this outrage? Are not the people who scream about welfare also the same people who burble with praise at the new highs the stock market has reached? And therein lies the hypocrisy.

What has the Bush-Obama "Quantitative Easing" (tm) nonsense accomplished? That money was not sent in checks to taxpayers. It was ladled out to banks and corporations, who promptly used it to inflate stocks and real estate prices. Given the economy, do you really think the endless rise of the stock market to repeated new highs since 2009 actually has anything to do with the underlying fundamentals? Seriously?



All that money had to go somewhere. It went into bidding up the price of existing assets - this is called asset inflation.  How is the rise in my stock portfolio NOT the result of government welfare? How is it NOT government money poured directly into my 501K in one of the most enormous contribution matching programs in the history of the country? Anyone who has a home loan at under 5% is receiving government welfare. The federal government does, after all, set the interest rates.

Same goes for Social Security. I will take out more than I ever put in, as my parents did before me. It was always and will always be a Ponzi scheme. It is accepting a government welfare check. But who turns it down?

Do you think Con Agra, Shell Oil, or any other large corporation got where they are by refusing to take government subsidies? How many colleges - many of whom employ professors preaching against welfare - have fattened their coffers and continuously raised the price of their tuition at rates far exceeding inflation? How do you think they managed that? That's right: it is due solely and only to the government welfare checks they receive in the form of government education grants and loans.

Everyone takes government welfare, but the high and mighty launder the money. They look down their noses at those who receive it via a direct government check. The rich much prefer that their welfare checks first be laundered through their stock market picks or corporate subsidies. That way, they can pretend they actually had something to do with the rise in the value of their chosen asset. It makes them feel important, smart. But it is government welfare, all the same.

How to Earn Your Welfare Check
200 years ago, if my only skill was knocking a small white ball into a hole in the ground, I would have starved. Today, I would be paid millions for my golf game. If it was a large orange ball that went through a hoop, it would be millions for basketball. There is no rhyme or reason to why these skills pay millions today apart from the fact that people perversely enjoy watching someone else do it.

But there are all kinds of skills that are worth money. Perhaps you're good at filling out paperwork. That might win you a lot of college scholarships. You might make a profession out of it as a grant writer. Or that skill might win you a lot of welfare checks. As long as you didn't lie when you filled out the forms, where's the moral problem here? It's a skill. It brings joy to thousands of mid-level government bureaucrats. Those lovely men and women feel like they are doing a very nice thing by getting you your welfare check after you successfully pass their vetting. In fact, without you they wouldn't have jobs. They need you in the same way that the people who run a scholarship trust need college applicants. The same way that grant-funding organizations need grant writers.

If Keanu Reeves can earn millions for acting (which I still don't understand how that's possible - Reeves must play to a very niche audience), then why can't a welfare queen earn millions for pleasing a different niche audience, government officials?

I hate Keanu Reeves acting, you hate the welfare queen's paperwork skills, but somebody somewhere really likes both of them, which is how they earn their money. As long as no one is lying, there is nothing wrong with that. It's like winning a scholarship for left-handed red-heads. Luck of the genes, but you still get the money, right?

And why shouldn't you? You're red-headed and you're left-handed. The money was set aside for anyone like you who had the sense to fill out the form.

Whose Money?
But consider further. Once Keanu or I actually get that money for our respective skills, who are you to tell either one of us how to spend it? We earned it, him by acting, me by filling out the forms. It may have been your money once, but it was given to us and now it is ours. When you hand out Christmas presents, do you make the recipients urinate in a little cup first? They pass drug tests for you before they get birthday presents, do they? When you give Keanu Reeves your money at the theatre, do you tell him he's not allowed to buy mansions with it?  Do you follow your friends around to make sure you approve of the way they spend the money they got from you?

Because that's part of the job that comes with filling out the forms for government money. Government uses welfare as a form of control. Government is happy to get outraged at the idea that a small business might put restrictions on purchasing birth control through the business health plan, but government is quite happy to tell welfare recipients exactly where they can live (HUD), what they can eat (WIC), it puts a thousand restrictions on how welfare recipients can spend their money. When churches give money to the poor, they don't put restrictions on it - they just hand out the cash. But government uses it as a means of social control. It becomes a way for bureaucrats to manage every aspect of someone else's life.

And we conservatives get upset if the welfare queens figure out how to get around that level of micromanagement? Seriously?

The welfare queen deserves her check just as much as I deserve my stock portfolio. In fact, she probably worked harder to get her check than I did to get my stock increase.

I don't want to hear another word about the horror of welfare queens.
As long as they didn't lie, they earned their money and it is their money.
Quit telling them how to spend it.

If the reception of welfare really upsets you, then mind your own business so well that not even the smallest aspect is government subsidized. By the time you manage that, you'll be living in a cave somewhere in the Rockies, too busy growing your own food to be outraged at anything.

Inconceivable!

Children Exposed To Religion Have Difficulty Distinguishing Fact From Fiction, Study Finds

I think what the Huffington Post meant to say is that religious people have rich imaginations while atheists have none. Think Miracle on 34th Street, with Maureen O'Hara. That was a very sad child, who couldn't even imagine or embrace Santa Claus.

I especially like this quote:

"religious teaching, especially exposure to miracle stories, leads children to a more generic receptivity toward the impossible, that is, a more wide-ranging acceptance that the impossible can happen in defiance of ordinary causal relations.” 

Religious people went to the moon, because it was impossible. Now that we know it's possible, we don't go anywhere at all. As Humpty-Dumpty might say, "That's cause and effect for you.!"

Atheism has to be wrong if only because it's so boring.

Stirring the Pot

Fr. John Zhulsdorf is a man with a mission. Unfortunately, his mission has very little to do with Catholic Faith. Like Father John Corapi before him, Fr. Z has discovered the secret to making money - get people angry. If they are angry, they will give you money and treats, they will beg you to keep feeding them things that will keep them angry.

When you are angry, you feel powerful, important. You feel like the world should shake at your company, because you shake. We like it when people make us angry, especially if we can be made to think we feel righteous anger. So, Fr. Zuhlsdorf highlights things like this. Then he questions what is happening, as if he has the right to question. And when you see a priest question this, you think you have the right to question it as well.

But you don't have that right. Neither does Rev. John Zuhlsdorf. The Church is not a democracy. As long as the parish boundaries aren't changed, bishop and priest have the right to do whatever they want in a parish. The Church is not a democracy.

There are certain areas where you simply have no rights. Liturgy is one of those areas. Your voice is not only not important, it can be positively scandalous (in the mortal sin sense of the word).

It. Does. Not. Matter. if you like communion on the tongue versus on the hand or if you prefer Raphael to Dali. Liturgy comes from Rome, not from lay people, not from priests, not even from bishops. If Rome approves something, then I have no further right to complain. Period. End of sentence.

This is why I can still kneel and receive in a church that has no altar railings. This is why, technically, a Catholic can demand communion in the hand at a Tridentine Mass. It is permitted. I don't care if you like it. I don't care if I personally hate it. You and I don't have a voice. It is not our business. The Church is not a democracy. The conversation is done.

Bishop does what bishop wants in his own diocese. As long as he is not infringing on anyone's canonical rights, he has complete authority to do whatever he wants. Parishioners do not have a right to decide what they think constitutes a beautiful church (as if you could ever get parishoiners to agree if you were so foolish as to allow them their opinion). That right belongs to the bishop and the bishop alone. He delegates some of this to his pastors, but even there pastors generally have to get all major church changes approved by the bishop's diocesan liturgical committee.

If pastors deign to listen to your opinion, count yourself unusually blessed. They are under no requirement to do so. This is bishop's church, not yours.

Now I am the person who designed every poster at BestCatholicPosters.com and www.zazzle.com/bestcatholicposters. I have very definite ideas about what kind of art I like. But my opinion is my opinion, and no bishop is under a canonical requirement to listen to me or even to allow me to speak publicly on the matter. I can make known (privately) my thoughts to the pastors, but he is not required to seriously entertain anything I have to say.

As long as no canonical rights are infringed, I have no business yelling about what a pastor is doing in his own church. Rev. Z has the habit of getting outraged about things that are really none of his business. That's why I stopped reading him years ago. All he does is foment dissension. Catholics need to recognize boundaries. Traditionalist Catholics don't like boundaries, they like anger. Rev. John Zuhlsdorf is in the business of stoking anger. Rev. John Zuhlsdorf keeps throwing his opinion around like somebody should care. No one should care. His opinion on church art and fifty cents won't buy you coffee at Starbucks.

But, speaking of coffee, coffee pretty much seems to be the purpose of his blog.

As far as I can tell, his blog exists solely in order to encourage lay people to pay for his bird feed, coffee, sweets, and favorite books. Because most of what he says is not really Catholic, it's just stirring the pot.

He is part of the reason that trads have a reputation of being angry and mean. Trads read him and like him. Trads get angry and yell at or about or around the bishop. Bishop decides he can be treated like this by the secular press - why encourage Catholics who do the same? And thus trads are ignored, relegated to the back burner and treated like red-headed stepchildren. Because all trads do is throw tantrums. They like standing around the pot as it is stirred. And then they cry when it is ladled out to them.

Suffer the Children

I don't understand why Americans are opposed to importing other countries' children. Caucasians aren't having babies anymore. They currently make up 70% of the population, but have less than 50% of the babies and we've been in this situation since 2011. It won't change. By 2050, this will be a majority "minority" country even if all immigration stopped today. And the only people who have children are first-generation immigrants. Second-generation has the same birth dearth that the native population has - by the second generation, the American Borg have assimilated them.

The situation is brutally simple: we aren't having enough babies to sustain economic growth. We *HAVE* TO steal other countries' children if we want to maintain the economy we are used to.

That's why no one is really going to stop immigration, ever. The only shocking thing is that we're actually going straight for the kids this time, instead of importing parents and waiting for them to have children, which is what we always used to do.

Screw the countries that are losing the kids. Human beings are the greatest resource any country can have, and we're stripping Central and South American countries of that resource just as quickly as we can. George Will recognizes this, which is why he's four-score FOR the immigration.

What is rather more shocking is that the USCCB hasn't addressed this issue at all. A strong argument can be made that we are actually violating Catholic teaching by importing other countries' children, directly stripping these other countries of their future. Sure, the argument FOR immigration, that we're re-uniting families, is undoubtedly more powerful, but the argument against is not exactly weak.

The more children we take from any country, the more completely destroyed it will be within a generation. Why do you think Russia has outlawed adoptions abroad? They already have a birth dearth that will essentially destroy them in a century. They don't need to hemorrhage any more children. China is in a similar situation. Inside of 50 years, every country in the world will be in this situation.

By stealing children, we are buying time. Sure, the country won't look the same as it did, won't have the same values as it did, but it doesn't look the same now as it did in the 1930s, nor did the 1930s look like the 1870s, and none of these decades looked like 1789. We've had one Constitution but several Americas over the course of the last 200 years. This immigration policy merely assures that we will have at least one America more before the Baby Bust destroys everything.

Creative Minority Fears

Creative Minority Reports has is apparently running scared. Patrick apparently fears the accuracy of what I have to say to him, he deeply fears public chastisement and correction. He told me as much in a private communication to me.

Why?

Well, because he's acting like a Protestant. Protestants proof-text Scripture. He proof-texts the Magisterium, choosing papal quotes without benefit of the context in which they were presented or the audiences to which they were addressed. 

Just as Freemasons try to subtly undermine Church authority, so he attempts the same by pretending that one Pope can be set against another. 

The sedevacantists (i.e., Protestants) LOVE what he is doing. Yes, there is a lesson in this. He is drifting away from the Church and taking a lot of ambivalent Catholics with him. 

The Seal of the Confessional

After reading this article concerning the Louisiana Supreme Court's attempt to jail a priest for refusing to break the seal of the confessional, it occurred to me that people only associate this seal with priests - they fail to associate with lay people. And that is a serious mistake.

Note two pieces of information:

Fr. Bayhi is not accused of any physical or sexual wrongdoing himself, but refuses to confirm whether the girl, who was 12 at the time of the alleged abuse, did confess to him, and what the contents of the alleged confessions were...
In an unusual move, Fr. Bayhi’s diocese — which typically has a policy against commenting on legal cases — released a statement in opposition to the ruling.

“A priest is compelled never to break that seal [of confession],” it says. “Neither is a priest allowed to admit that someone went to confession to him. If necessary, the priest would have to suffer a finding of contempt in a civil court and suffer imprisonment rather than violate his sacred duty…. A priest/confessor who violates the seal of confession incurs an automatic excommunication.”

Note the two elements of the seal of the confessional. A priest not only cannot indicate what sins were confessed, he is not even permitted to indicate that someone went to confession with him.

And lay people are under the same seal. Let us assume, for instance, that through some quirk of remarkably bad luck, I were to hear part or all of someone's confession. I would violate the seal if I were to reveal what I had heard. But I would also violate the seal if I were to indicate that I knew this person had gone to confession at all. And in both cases, I would be subject to the same penalty a priest would be subject to for having broken the seal - automatic excommunication.

Now, let us say I saw Joe Smith in the confessional line. Could I remark on that to someone else? Yes, because I don't necessarily know why he was in line.  Perhaps he only appeared to be in line, but was actually waiting for some event to start. Perhaps he was standing in line to hold a place for someone else. Even if I saw him enter the confessional, I would not necessarily know that he did so in order to confess and receive absolution. Perhaps he and Father had a pre-arranged agreement whereby he was able to receive five minutes of spiritual direction this way, without confession or absolution, because he had no other time in which to arrange it. I don't know.

But insofar as I do know that Joe Smith confessed his sins and received absolution, I am no more permitted to remark on it publicly than any priest would be.  And no priest is permitted to remark on it at all.

Indeed, even speaking in a way that implied I had such knowledge when, in fact, I did not would be a gross violation of Joe's rights as a Catholic. This is between him and Jesus. I am not part of his conversation with God, nor may I pretend that I was.

I cannot say that someone is in a state of grace or not, I cannot publicly imply knowledge of a penitent's reception of absolution. These things are not known by me and I violate the penitent's dignity and the very Truth to pretend that I know either one.

So, let us imagine a hypothetical situation in which a parish staff member was given to understand in some way that someone had gone to confession. Insofar as that parish staff member was given that understanding by a priest, the priest has violated the seal of the confessional. Insofar as that staff member made public his/her understanding, whether actual or implied, of the penitent's reception of absolution, that staff member may well also have violated the seal of the confessional. Insofar as that understanding was made public, both the staff member and the priest responsible for that staff member bear responsibility before the bishop and before God.

Now, we all condemn the sin of child rape. But a priest who commits such a sin is not excommunicated by the very act. True, he is in a state of mortal sin by having knowingly and willfully committed the act, but he is not automatically excommunicated. But breaking the seal of the confessional is a much more heinous sin than even the rape of a child.

Just as a parishioner would be duty-bound to report to the bishop the possibility of impropriety between an ordained man and a child, so much more is a parishioner duty-bound to report the possibility of impropriety concerning the confessional seal.

If I have in any way misunderstood the seal, I would be gladdened to be corrected in the comments. But this is the understanding I was given in my graduate theology training, and this is the understanding every priest I have ever met has communicated to me.

Pray for priests, especially the priests of Louisiana, but also the priests throughout the nation, that they may successfully avoid this most grievous sin. And insofar as any of us laity become aware of the possibility that this sin may have been committed, pray for the laity, that we have the courage to say what needs to be said to the bishop whose responsibility it is to guard the seal of the confessional. For if we stand silent while the confessional seal is being violated, it is worse than if we stood silent while a child was being violated.

Of Fornication and Murder

Traditionalists are at it again. This time they are going crazy because a bishop corrected a priest who compared fornication to murder.

Let's be blunt.
The bishop followed the teaching of Aquinas, the priest did not.

Recall that simple fornication is a sin in significant part because it is opposed to the good of the child that might be born:

Summa Theologiae II-II, 154, 2 

Reply to Objection 4. Simple fornication is contrary to the love of our neighbor, because it is opposed to the good of the child to be born, as we have shown, since it is an act of generation accomplished in a manner disadvantageous to the future child

But, of course, comparing fornication to murder in such a way as to make fornication a sin equal to or greater than murder is explicitly rejected by Thomas himself:

Summa Theologiae II-II, 154, 3

Whether fornication is the most grievous of sins?

On the contrary, Gregory says (Moral. xxxiii, 12) that the sins of the flesh are less grievous than spiritual sins.
I answer that, The gravity of a sin may be measured in two ways, first with regard to the sin in itself, secondly with regard to some accident. The gravity of a sin is measured with regard to the sin itself, by reason of its species, which is determined according to the good to which that sin is opposed. Now fornication is contrary to the good of the child to be born. Wherefore it is a graver sin, as to its species, than those sins which are contrary to external goods, such as theft and the like; while it is less grievous than those which are directly against God, and sins that are injurious to the life of one already born, such as murder. (emphasis added)

This was a commonplace among medieval Christians. This is why Dante places adulterers and fornicators, and all those bound by natural lusts, in the second circle of hell while placing murderers much deeper, in the seventh circle of hell.

If traditionalists had a clue, they would applaud the bishop for following traditional nuances and for correcting a priest who was trying to twist Catholic teaching to suit his own agenda. But, once again, traditionalists seem not to have read done the reading.

So, once again, we have to wonder what is so "traditional" about so many of our celebrated "traditionalists"?

Vocations: Charismatics vs. Traditionalists

Two very small towns in Michigan have produced dozens of Catholics religious and priests. Each town has produced 22 priests (44 priests between them), and have together produced over 80 religious:

Westphalia (population 938) has produced 37 Catholic nuns over the decades, according to diocesan data, while Fowler claims 43. Marita Wohlfert, who is 20, is in the running to make it 44

What accounts for this success? Well, Most Holy Trinity Parish, in Fowler, MI (population 1,224) celebrated the following in its Activities and News for June 19, 2014:

• The Daughters of God series is starting up again. Classes will be held the second Monday of each month. More information is available in the flyer.
•  
• John Lehman was on EWTN's The Choices We Face with Peter Herbeck.
•  
• A great video of the trip to Steubenville is available for viewing on YouTube!

Meanwhile, St. Mary Church in Westphalia, MI has an entire page devoted to the Steubenville Youth Conference. 

Two "Catholic ghettoes"... towns full to overflowing with charismatic Catholics who sure do seem to create a lot of vocations. Can any traditionalist parish boast this kind of religious vocation response? Anyone? Anyone? Bueller? Anyone? 

UPDATE
I made this remark below in response to a reader's comment, but it deserves to be in the main body of the article:

I know many, many traditionalists who bear a striking distaste for the charismatic movement, accusing it of all manner of schism and heresy. The FSSP has had a quarter century to produce the kind of tight-knit communities described in this article, and - if it truly represented the traditions of the Catholic Faith - it would be building on the vast substrate of traditions that existed for two millennia, a substrate that suffered only a 25-year interregnum after VCII.

One would think the FSSP, were it truly as organic an outgrowth of the Catholic Faith as it claims to be, would be much, much more successful than the charismatic renewal in producing this kind of vocation boom. Yet quite the opposite seems to be the case.

Satanic Sermons

As a follow-up to my comparison between the FSSP and the Charismatic Renewal, we have the Pentecost sermon. It beautifully illustrates my point. Keep in mind that the parish pastor celebrated the Mass, while the parochial vicar delivered the sermon, so the pastor knew and approved of the sermon ahead of time.

So, because today was the birthday of the Church, being Pentecost, the solemn liturgical celebration of the descent of the Holy Spirit, the giving of the gift of tongues to the apostles and the other disciples, the conversion of 3000 to Christ, a day of joy, thanksgiving and happiness, the FSSP priest decided - as any right-thinking priest would - to give us an extended meditation on hell and the various ways to get there.

Hmmm... What's that?
What did you ask?
Well, in his defense, what else would you EXPECT him to preach about on Pentecost? Indeed, what else would you expect him to preach about EVER?  No matter WHAT the Sunday? But I digress.

He began with this quote from Pope Leo XIII's Humanum Genus:

The race of man, after its miserable fall from God, the Creator and the Giver of heavenly gifts, "through the envy of the devil," separated into two diverse and opposite parts, of which the one steadfastly contends for truth and virtue, the other of those things which are contrary to virtue and to truth. The one is the kingdom of God on earth, namely, the true Church of Jesus Christ; and those who desire from their heart to be united with it, so as to gain salvation, must of necessity serve God and His only-begotten Son with their whole mind and with an entire will. The other is the kingdom of Satan, in whose possession and control are all whosoever follow the fatal example of their leader and of our first parents, those who refuse to obey the divine and eternal law, and who have many aims of their own in contempt of God, and many aims also against God.

Now, I will pass by in total silence (too late!) the fact that Adam and Eve are, according to the traditional calendar, celebrated as saints of the Church on December 24. For if I were to dwell on this point at all, I would have to mention how this fact of our first parents' liturgical feast, when combined with Pope Leo's words, would demonstrate how cautiously we must tread whenever we read Church documents.

"But," as the beloved FSSP priest functionally replied, "to hell with caution!" He took Leo's passage as the jump-point to illustrate that, while 3000 Jews DID respond to Peter's exhortation, thousands of Jews did NOT respond to Peter's call. And they are therefore all part of the Kingdom of Satan! Yes, all of them!

He did allow as how the Jews who responded positively, being all travelers from foreign parts and new to town,  certainly had nothing to do with the Crucifixion.

Incidentally, how does he know this? Isn't it possible that some of the travelers DID join in and participate in Christ's crucifixion with gusto but, stung by Peter's interpretation of Scripture, actually turned and repented? "Balderdash and PSHAW!" bellows the reply! This fine parochial vicar not only treated such a possibility with complete silence, he implicitly rejected it as an outrageous claim.

So, the rest of the Jews, the ones who rejected Peter's call, these Jews HAD ONCE BEEN (emphasis in the original. Repeated emphasis in the original, in fact) members of the Chosen People but they were now members of the Kingdom of Satan (cue dark organ music - this is a traditional liturgy, after all. No guitars allowed.)!

Now, at this point some Novus Ordo heretic is likely to point out that the Church specifically teaches that this idea is theological insanity.

Thus the Church of Christ acknowledges that, according to God's saving design, the beginnings of her faith and her election are found already among the Patriarchs, Moses and the prophets...  Nor can she forget that she draws sustenance from the root of that well-cultivated olive tree onto which have been grafted the wild shoots, the Gentiles.(7) Indeed, the Church believes that by His cross Christ, Our Peace, reconciled Jews and Gentiles, making both one in Himself.(8)

The Church keeps ever in mind the words of the Apostle about his kinsmen: "theirs is the sonship and the glory and the covenants and the law and the worship and the promises; theirs are the fathers and from them is the Christ according to the flesh" (Rom. 9:4-5), the Son of the Virgin Mary. She also recalls that the Apostles, the Church's main-stay and pillars, as well as most of the early disciples who proclaimed Christ's Gospel to the world, sprang from the Jewish people.

As Holy Scripture testifies, Jerusalem did not recognize the time of her visitation,(9) nor did the Jews in large number, accept the Gospel; indeed not a few opposed its spreading.(10) Nevertheless, God holds the Jews most dear for the sake of their Fathers; He does not repent of the gifts He makes or of the calls He issues-such is the witness of the Apostle.(11) In company with the Prophets and the same Apostle, the Church awaits that day, known to God alone, on which all peoples will address the Lord in a single voice and "serve him shoulder to shoulder" (Soph. 3:9 cf. Cf. Is. 66:23; Ps. 65:4; Rom. 11:11-32 .

Our FSSP priest made no attempt to reconcile his interpretation with Nostra Aetate, because... Vatican II! He did not try to show how the Old and the New Covenants are, like the Persons of the Trinity Himself, covenants that can be distinguished but never separated. He didn't point out that the New Covenant contains the power of salvation that was only prophesied by the Old, so that, like the Old and the New Testament, both still apply. Absurd even to propose such a possibility. No, this dear FSSP priest throws all the Jews who failed to accept Christ into the Kingdom of Satan! No one can be saved outside the Church!

And thus we admix truth (no one can be saved outside the Church) with error (the perfidious Jews!). 

Now, he did admit the possibility of blood baptism and baptism of desire (but seemed to apply the last primarily to catechumens without much mention of anyone else having a shot at it), so he at least isn't a Feeneyite. But he spent zero time emphasizing the fact that God holds individuals accountable only for what they know, and not for what they don't.He didn't mention the words of the Holy Spirit via Paul, that every man has the possibility of being saved by the natural law written on their hearts (Romans 2:15).  Instead, he spent quite a lot of time emphasizing that invincible ignorance does not save you, since it is not a sacrament and provides no sanctifying grace. Apparently, we can't trust St. Paul, because he was (did we mention this?) also a Jew.

When Jew-bashing is the order of the day, certain nuances must be omitted for reasons of length. Why waste time on the fruitless hope St. Paul raises when the Gospel so clearly preaches the message "Be Afraid! Be VERY Afraid!"

Instead, then, he then spent a few quiet moments emphasizing the possibility of hellfire to the teens in the audience, indeed, even explicitly addressing them. If you leave your parents' house and then follow up by dallying outside of the Church, you are destined for HELL! 

There. That will keep those teens Catholic! Teens respond well to threats of punishment. In fact, you should always threaten and punish someone most severely just when you are about to have the least amount of input on how they live. Father Pastor knows this about teens because he's raised so many of them. He understands their psychology, you see.

Epilogue
(I Am NOT Making This Up. It Really Happened This Way.)
So, later, I walked out of the parish hall, into the bright sunshine and was met by a white van carrying Catholics looking for a Mass. Only now as I type this does it occur to me how well this maps into the sermon about the out-of-town Jews. God is spooky sometimes.

Anyway, these Catholics, traveling the country in their white van, were concerned. This was the conversation, as close to verbatim as I can render it.

Them: "Are you a member of this parish?"

Me: "Hmmm... I attend Mass here sometimes."

Them: "We're from out of town, traveling, looking for a Mass and didn't realize this was a traditional Latin Mass until we got into the parking lot here."

Me: "Well, yes, it is." I shrug my shoulders

Them: "We're concerned. About what people will say about how we are dressed."

Me: "You're travelers, right? (They nod.) Then it makes no difference - you'll never see these people again, so who cares what they think?" (They laugh, as I hoped they would.)

Me, getting out of the car to show them: "As you can see, I have just slacks and a short-sleeve shirt. I'm sure you're fine."

Them: "Well, do the women have to wear mantillas?"

Me: "My niece just left Mass and wasn't wearing one. There's no requirement to do so."

Them: "Well, we're concerned that they may look at us kind of funny. Some of us are wearing shorts."

Me: "If they look at you funny, look back at them funny." (I made a face - they laughed).

Them: "Well, we don't want to be a scandal or distraction."

Me: "Just sit in the back. You'll be fine. Look, Jesus is here. If some of the congregation doesn't act like Jesus, that's kind of par for the course, right?" We all laugh. He drives off.

I didn't look to see if he parked, as I was also driving off in the other direction. I hope he did. But that's between him and God. To be honest, I was so scandalized by the conversation that I was too preoccupied to watch what he did.

He had concerns about the traditional Catholic congregation sitting in judgement of him. The saddest thing is this: his concerns were well-founded. I am positive that the minute he and his family walked in, this congregation was scandalized. 

Because, you and I both know Jesus HATES people who wear shorts. 
God just HATES them. 
As the Scriptures say:

And the Lord said to Samuel: Look not on his countenance, nor on the height of his stature: because I have rejected him, nor do I judge according to the look of man: for man seeth those things that appear, but the Lord beholdeth the heart. (1 Samuel 16:7)

Judge not according to the appearance, but judge with just judgment. (John 7:24)

Well, no, ignore those Scriptures. The point is, if they didn't dress right, then God hates them. Because that is TOTALLY how God operates.

Here are these people who just want to go to Mass and receive Jesus. That's all they want. But instead of being able to prepare themselves for Mass, they have to spend time worrying about the community sinning by taking scandal. They have to worry about a bunch of gossipy old women and flinty-eyed old men whispering to their children, warning them to avert their eyes. 

They have to deal with a congregation of liturgy police rolling their eyes, heaving great sighs, pointedly turning away from them after Mass because - well isn't it obvious that these travelers didn't bother to take the time to dress for Mass?  I mean, when *I* travel, I always take the time, but these people just couldn't be bothered! This Novus Ordo mentality is the death of the Church! Why didn't they just come in wearing bikinis and flip-flops, with sand on their feet! Disgusting!

And what if they DID come in so dressed, and sat in the back praying "Lord, have mercy on me a sinner!"? Well, at least they would be in back, where they belong, so that those of us sitting in the front pew would be justified and right to pray to God without distraction, saying, "Thank you God, that you did not make me like these sinners! I wear ties to Mass, both with the dark suit and the tan!"

Amen, amen I say to you, the people in this van showed more love and concern for both God and neighbor than many of the righteous who celebrated in the traditional Latin Mass congregation today.

Why is traditionalism stuck on STUPID?
Why will they NEVER make any serious converts among the pagans in the Aereopagus?

I give you this Pentecost.
And I rest my case.

The FSSP vs the Charismatic Renewal

A well-meaning ex-Protestant has expressed concern about the charismatic renewal within the Catholic Church. The writer falsely assumes that the modern charismatic renewal is something Protestant in origin, and therefore somehow less than fully worthy of Catholic Faith and practice.

This attitude is as mistaken as the attitudes of the Jews and the Muslims towards Sacred Scripture. After all, Jews and Muslims reject Catholic Scripture in part because they insist that God would never speak to man in a non-Hebrew or non-Arabic language. Indeed, this attitude overlooks the fact that some of our Faith, including the very words of Scripture, find their origin in paganism.    

Consider Acts 17:28: "'For in him we live and move and have our being.' As some of your own poets have said, 'We are his offspring.'" The quotes in this passage are from Epimenides' poem Cretica, as is Titus' famous assertion that "All Cretans are liars." If we were to reject these passages as not worthy of Scripture because of their pagan origin, we would lose part of our connection with God. 

God established the Church, but He does not bind Himself to move only within the Church. He may well have chosen to send the modern charismatic renewal to the Protestants first precisely to facilitate a reunion between the shards of the Church our sins helped fragment into pieces. Baptized Christians, no matter their profession of Faith, are - by the fact of their baptism - our brothers in Christ, separated by their misunderstanding and our sinful example, but no less deserving of the gifts of the Spirit's grace than are we ourselves.

As for the utility of the charismatic renewal versus, say, "traditional" Catholicism, let us study the evidence. After all, how often have we heard "traditional" Catholics attack the last ecumenical council based on the paucity of fruits from that Council? So, if we are to compare spiritual movements by the standard the traditionalists love so well, the standard of fruits, then how would the charismatics match up with a traditional order like the F.S.S.P.? 

Converts
 The diocese with the largest concentration of charismatics in the nation is, to my knowledge, Steubenville diocese, with Franciscan University of Steubenville as the hot-bed of charismatics, and HQ for the Catholic Charismatic Conference. The diocese of Steubenville was number one in the nation for new converts, bringing in twice as many converts per Catholic as any other diocese in the nation.

	Diocese	Catholics	Converts	Catholics per convert
1	Steubenville, Ohio	36,030	1,826	20
2	Tulsa, Okla.	59,278	1,274	47
2	Owensboro, Ky.	46,308	983	47
2	Birmingham, Ala.	90,727	1,924	47
5	Jackson, Miss.	47,724	990	48
6	Pensacola-Tallahassee, Fla.	64,400	1,280	50
7	Oklahoma City	113,857	2,172	52
8	Nashville	78,700	1,498	53
9	Mobile, Ala.	67,488	1,216	56
10	Lexington, Ky.	45,514	784	58
10	Memphis	61,210	1,053	58
10	Knoxville	61,793	1,058	58

Source: Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate at Georgetown University 

In the United States, no diocese has more than three FSSP parishes. The dioceses of Phoenix, Seattle, Kansas City and Venice each have three parishes with F.S.S.P. priests. Notice none of them are even in the top 10 for converts, much less challenging Steubenville for the top spot. Notice the diocese of Lincoln, which has the F.S.S.P. seminary, is not listed in the top ten either.

Origins
The article laments the fact that the Catholic Charismatic Renewal has its modern origin in the Protestant Asuza Street revival. But where did the F.S.S.P. come from?

The F.S.S.P. was established on July 18, 1988 at the Abbey of Hauterive, Switzerland by twelve priests and a score of seminarians, led by Father Josef Bisig, all of whom had formerly belonged to Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre's Society of St. Pius X. They were unwilling to follow that movement into what the Congregation for Bishops and Pope John Paul II defined to be a schismatic act and grounds for excommunication latæ sententiæ due to Lefebvre's consecration of four bishops without a papal mandate. In short, the spirituality of the F.S.S.P. finds its origin in the spirituality of Archbishop Lefebvre. 

If we were to examine ultimate origins, we would find that the F.S.S.P. is a breakaway group of priests who were all originally part of the S.S.P.X.  These priests were all essentially fine with Archbishop Lefebvre's disobedience between 1976 and 1988, but even they were unable to stomach his decision to consecrate four bishops without papal permission. Thus, the founding of the F.S.S.P.

To date, the Confraternity of Saint Peter, the lay group which unite themselves to the work of the F.S.S.P., claims a total worldwide membership of 4135 (French speakers,  643; German speakers, 565; and English speakers, 2927). 

The Catholic charismatic renewal movement began following a retreat held from 17 to 19 February 1967 by several faculty members and students from Duquesne University, a Catholic university in Pittsburgh operated by the Congregation of the Holy Spirit (a Catholic religious order founded in France in 1703). As of 2003, the Catholic Charismatic Renewal exists in over 230 countries in the world, with over 119 million members. Indeed, the author of the wrong-headed article even admits "the charismatic parish down the road from us gives out more seminarians every year than all the other parishes in the Diocese combined."

Both laity and religious orders within the Church are constantly in need of renewal, as we witness through such orders as the Franciscans Friars of the Renewal. To say that recognition of this fact is somehow "heresy" betrays a Protestant misunderstanding of how God works in the world and in His Church. Clearly, God sent the Catholic Church the charismatic renewal precisely in order to renew His people, else we would not have such rich fruits from the movement. Indeed, it has to date been a much richer source of renewal than any of the "traditionalist" movements, which all got their start in the spiritual action and under the spiritual direction of a formally schismatic archbishop, Lefebvre. 

If we are to take note of origins, surely Lefebvre's conscious break with the Church he knew full well was both One and True stands a little farther down the scale of legitimate spirituality than the Asuza Street Protestants' desire to seek the will of Jesus Christ in their lives?

So, how can we choose between them?
We could choose by their fruits.

But somehow, I suspect the cup with which the traditionalists are wont to measure the effects of Vatican II will almost certainly not be the cup with which they wish to measure their own spiritual accomplishments.

FSSP vs. Women Priests

Many traditionalists are heartened by the "rapid growth" of the FSSP. After all, they have 244 priests now!

Juxtapose this with the fact that those who advocate women priests are similarly heartened. After all, they have almost 200 "priests" in 10 countries now!

So, we are supposed to consider the first a growing, soon-to-be mainstream group, while we know that the second is merely a fringe group of nuts.

And the second really is a fringe group of nuts - there's no question of that.
So, my question is this: if the FSSP represents the real hope of victory on the part of Catholic Faith, then what are we saying about the Catholic Faith?

Whatever it is, it certainly sounds the opposite of heartening. Which is why I find it increasingly hard to believe "traditionalism" can really be the interpretive key to the Catholic Faith. Sacred Tradition certainly is the key, but "traditionalism" ... not so much.

Hollywood Blood Bath

The recent massacred by the son of one of the directors of the Hunger Games points to the need to reign in Hollywood violence. The killer attacked his victims with knives, guns and a BMW. Clearly, the tools are irrelevant to how the man committed his foul deeds.

The fact is, he was encouraged in his attack by the pervasive culture of Hollywood violence.

I propose that we tax violent movies at 20% of gross ticket sales and use the profits to pay for mental health treatments. We should also impose a 20% surcharge tax on the salaries of anyone associated with the production or distribution of such movies. Such a tax would not just provide a windfall for treatment of mental health issues in the general population, it would also go far to redress the income inequality problem that so many of the Hollywood elite express concern about.

Just as with the cigarette tax, wherein tobacco producers are forced to pay for the health of their customers, so too Hollywood should be forced to pay for the violence it promotes. I look forward to a widespread embrace of this initiative by everyone who works in the film industry.

Envisioning Mary

Alright, here is a conundrum. The traditionalists sphere is going nuts over this image of the Virgin Mary.

It has been called blasphemous, irreverent, sacrilegious. I've defended the work. My defense brought this response:

Steve, you're always arguing against the way in which most Catholics are arguing. I think you like to do it for the sake of trying to tell others they are wrong. No disrespect to you, but what if someone displayed "art" that depicted one of your loved ones with breasts exposed and their skull showing through their head? Would you feel offended? This statue is offensive. The crucifixion is different as it shows Our Lord's saving act.

The answer to this is longer than fits in a combox, so I'm putting the answer here to make clear what's going through my head.

Trusting Emotions

First, a little background. My visceral emotional reactions to things are all over the board. For years, I was fine with communion in the hand. Now I'm not. As of right now, I have a gut reaction that is opposed to lots of things -  communion in the hand, organ music, female altar servers are but three examples. I've never liked the organ (apart from Camille St. Saen's Symphony #3), and I've learned not to like the other two examples I've given. Heck, when I was an atheist, I used to have a strong visceral distaste for all things Catholic. Now I don't.

So, one of the things I've learned from the Church is that I can't trust my gut reactions. One of the reasons I returned to Catholic Faith is that I discovered the Church is better at logic than I am. Some of the things I used to think were prudent I've since discovered aren't. And vice versa.

Nowadays, I don't trust me very much on things the Church has ruled on. The Church is more prudent than I am, She is wiser than I am. *I* may not be able to think of a prudent reason for communion in the hand, but the Church disagrees, so I need to shut up about not liking it. My opinion is dirt, Her's is gold. Same with female altar servers. Same with organ music. If the Church explicitly permits it or endorses it and I don't like it, then I have to suck it up and get over myself.

In short, I have discovered that some of my emotional reactions can be backed up with rational objections, drawn from Church documents, but sometimes my emotional reactions are literally just stupid emotions, completely uninformed and totally wrong.

And even if I think I can back up my prudence with Church documents, it doesn't mean I really can. If the Church explicitly permits something I think Church documents forbid, then I can be sure of only one thing: I did not interpret those Church documents correctly. I need to go back and re-think my position. Until I can figure out how to explain the Church's position correctly, I need to keep my mouth shut. This isn't about what *I* think is right. This is about what the Church says is acceptable.

Ok. That's my history and how I try to think about things. I don't always succeed, but the above explanation lays out the goal as clearly as I can lay it out.

Spiritual Stupidity

When I first saw this work, my gut was very clear: I recoiled. I found it ugly, off-putting. I didn't want to look at it. I wanted to call it heretical, blasphemous, sacrilegious, evil and wrong. But, as I said, I've learned to question my emotional reactions to things. So, what, exactly, did I find wrong about this sculpture? How could I logically explain to someone else the basis for my revulsion?

Now, the fact that I even have to ask this question shows how stupid I am. Aquinas gives the example of two men, each encountering a murder. The first, an unlettered farmer, recoils from it in his very being. He immediately senses the offense against God and turns away from the sight. The college professor, however, can explain, step-by-step, the logical chain which leads him to intellectually reject the vision of violence presented to him. Which is the superior spiritual being: the farmer or the professor?

According to Aquinas, the answer is obvious. The farmer is spiritually superior because he immediately recognizes the distortion of good, he recoils from the evil, he turns from it. The college professor suffers from spiritual ignorance. He can climb out of his ignorance only by using the step-by-step logic of his intellect before he can fully recognize the evil and finally recoil from it.

The Church teaches that murder is evil. The farmer - being already spiritually united to the heights of the Church's moral teaching - instinctively and immediately recognizes the truth that the Church teaches. The college professor must use the ladder of logic to climb from his pit of ignorance into the necessary understanding of that same truth.

Notice this very clear distinction, however. The farmer isn't correct because he feels or emotes, rather, he is correct because his emotional reaction agrees with the Church's logic. After all, we cannot forget that Aquinas also teaches that intellect must rule over will, reason must rule over emotion. God is pure rationality, not pure emotion. We don't "feel the Force", we answer God's call to "come now and reason together."

The farmer is correct because, even though he lacks his own logic, his emotion is in complete agreement with the Mind of the Church. He already feels what the Church has always known. Because of his spiritual union with Christ, the Church's Mind informed his emotional reaction even though he doesn't necessarily know know to articulate the mind of the Church in an explicit intellectual way.

Meanwhile, the professor initially has neither the mind of the Church nor an emotional reaction informed by the mind of the Church. He is lacking both. He has to painfully climb to the heights of the intellect so that his emotions can finally respond properly to the situation.

Intellect has to rule emotion. If I find something emotionally repulsive, I must be able to find something in the Church's teaching which warrants my emotional response. If I can't find it, that doesn't necessarily mean I'm wrong. I might still be right to have that response, but I cannot be absolutely certain my emotional response is correct until I can justify it using the eternal rules of logic and the Church's reasons. The reasons provide the substance, the rules of logic show me how to build the reasons into an unassailable structure.

Identifying the Problem

So, as I said, I initially recoiled from this work and immediately began to search for reasons, given by the Church in her doctrines and dogma, by which I could logically condemn it. And that's where the trouble began.

I couldn't find any reasons.

I can't take issue with the nudity, because the Church has never had trouble with nudity in artwork per se. The Sistine Chapel is the easy example, but there are thousands, probably tens of thousands, of art works that involve nudity which the Church has commissioned and to this day proudly displays.

Similarly, I cannot take issue with the anatomical rendition of the human body, because the Church, again, has no problem with anatomical renditions of the human body. Indeed, during the Middle Ages, She not only commissioned anatomical drawings and sketches of the human body, Rome even set aside executed bodies each year for anatomical research.

And if the two aspects of art are fine by themselves, then what, precisely can be wrong with combining them? I couldn't think of anything. Again, these kind of split views are common in anatomical books, a genre of literature the Church helped invent.

Sigh. Ok, but the subject is MARY! Certainly I could come up with something on that ground! But what? I couldn't think what it would be.

The exposed breast(s) of the Virgin Lactans is quite a common theme in medieval artwork, meant to invoke and parallel the Eucharistic relationship between God and man. Heck, Bernard of Clairveaux, Doctor of the Church, had a famous vision in which Mary squirts her breast milk into his mouth and eye, and this work was rather popular in medieval and Renaissance art precisely because of its Eucharistic connection (one example of the genre is below):

And the more I studied this particular piece of artwork, trying to find something I could criticize, the more I realized this work could be interpreted in an entirely orthodox way. Mary was a human being, this is what a human body looks like underneath. It is a radically clear statement about the dogma of Mary's full humanity, no divinity.

The Crucifixion was not aesthetically pleasing. Christ had his skin flayed from His back. Mary is said to share in the Crucifixion, so this both portrays the Incarnation and foreshadows Mary's participation in the Crucifixion. In that sense, it's brilliant and beautiful. And the more I contemplated my emotional revulsion, the more I realized how brilliant this piece really was.

When we see a crucifixion in the 21st century, we are drawn to the crucified corpus in a way no first-century viewer could be. In the first century, the cross was revolting, disgusting, emotionally laden with negative connections. Just a reference to crucifixion was stomach-wrenching, it was enough to make the viewer vomit even to recall the scenes of the Crucifixion. Christ on the cross was a folly to the Gentiles and a stumbling block to the Jews because its negative emotional message was so powerfully embedded into the culture.

After 20 centuries without any crucifixion before us except Christ's, we no longer understand, appreciate or even feel the kind of repulsion the Crucifixion originally had.  We can kind of imagine the revolting feeling on an intellectual level, but we can't feel it anymore.

Interpreting the Art

But looking at this image of Mary? Oh, the revulsion is right there. It slaps us across the face, we can barely stand to look at her. And then I remember her participation in Christ's cross, the fact that she nearly died at the foot of the Cross as she shared the suffering of her Son. And I see the Incarnation, I see her Son right through her flesh. The veil to the Temple is torn wide open. And I see the Crucifixion, in the very fact that her skin is flayed away and the Temple curtain is torn open so that I can see the presence of God within. I see her skull, the very image of the death we are baptized into and through which we all must pass.

Indeed, the presence of the skull in light of baptismal imagery is arguably a visual demonstration of the Immaculate Conception, the fact that Mary received at her conception all the graces of baptism. Incarnation, Passion, Crucifixion, Death, Tomb, baptism, new life: all in a single image, and the image is Mary - the mirror of Christ.

And suddenly the Cross pummels me in a way it never has, but in a way that any first-century Christian, devoted to Christ and the Blessed Virgin, would have been intimately familiar with.

And now, what can I do?

If this image is sacrilegious, now I need a reason that overshadows the doctrines about Mary and Christ that my mind has discovered within the image. And I can think of such a reason to reject it even less now than I could before, because the simultaneous attraction and repulsion of the Cross both so strongly beat across my rationality and my emotions.

So, here is the question for you who feel the same or probably even more emotional revulsion than I felt and still feel upon looking at this image. Can you give me a clear doctrine/dogma, stated in a Church document or in Her historical treatment of artwork, that can help me rationalize opposition to the image? Because I honestly can't come up with one.

Addendum
I should answer the last question from the responder above, namely:

...what if someone displayed "art" that depicted one of your loved ones with breasts exposed and their skull showing through their head? Would you feel offended?

You have to realize that I was trained as a medical lab tech. I've seen a lot of breasts exposed, and bones poking through flesh. It doesn't offend me, because that's just life (or death) sometimes. If someone showed me or one of my family members this way, I would not feel at all offended. That's what we are, isn't it? Flesh and blood? At the Resurrection, we even get our bodies, our flesh, bone and blood, back to use in heaven.

What is there about the fact that me and mine are "fearfully and wonderfully made" that I am supposed to find offensive? But it took several years of medical training and practice before I gained this perspective. If you haven't had that experience, yeah, I could see where you would be offended. Perhaps medical training ruined me. I don't know. But this seems like a useful meditation for Mother's Day, 2014, so here it is.

Why Science Education Doesn't Matter

Science News recently had an article lamenting the sorry state of science education. This is actually just an example of a larger class of articles, in which scientists get upset that no one values them in the way they feel they ought to be valued (whether anyone really is valued in that way is a subject for another post).

As per usual, there was some moderate grousing about the religious right in the comments. So, I spent some time pointing out the facts about science education, to wit, complaints about the state of science education imply the existence of God.

After all, if you are an atheist, if you really believe the universe is just random and meaningless, then you have to recognize that whatever meaning you want to assign to your life is purely idiosyncratic.

If you recognize that your own life-meaning is peculiar to you alone, and no one else is bound to accept or believe it, then you cannot logically be very concerned about the state of science education in regards to other people. 

They do what they want, you do what you want, none of it ultimately means anything anyway. We all just fiddle with whatever we like until we die. Wine, women, song, science - each one is an equally valueless way of passing the time while we wait for self-awareness to cease, wait for our components to collapse back into entropy. 

Of course, you can argue that since you can COMPEL them to be interested, you have a RIGHT to force them to be interested: "might makes right". Which, in an atheistic universe is as reasonable a principle as any other, I suppose. 

But if that is your argument, and if you want to deal in reality, then you have to recognize that science education is thereby essentially a violent imposition of your beliefs on others who do not share them.

For some reason, atheistic science types violently reject the idea that their work is ultimately meaningless. Too much Christianity in their cosmos, I suspect. 

Why Obamacare?

Mark Steyn sees part of the problem, but not all of it. He sees the "what", but he doesn't yet understand the "why."

Automation and technology are taking jobs in a way never seen before. The automatons are actually able to fully replace workers. 

Those who sell the robotic slaves get rich, the ones who have the robotic slaves work for them get rich. The ex-workers get welfare, birth control and abortion. Welfare feeds them enough so they don't revolt and the rest sterilizes them so they don't produce any more unnecessary workers. 

This doesn't even rise to the level of Soylent Green.

At least in Soylent, people were useful, even if only as food.

The real future is this: people aren't needed. 

At all.

Pope Francis and the Ephphatha Moment

Everyone wants to say that Pope Francis is a communist. Here are his actual words:

In the case of global political and economic organization, much more needs to be achieved, since an important part of humanity does not share in the benefits of progress and is in fact relegated to the status of second-class citizens. Future Sustainable Development Goals must therefore be formulated and carried out with generosity and courage, so that they can have a real impact on the structural causes of poverty and hunger, attain more substantial results in protecting the environment, ensure dignified and productive labor for all, and provide appropriate protection for the family, which is an essential element in sustainable human and social development. 

As I have pointed out before, in the past two centuries, the combination of clear property rights, technology and capitalism has fed, clothed and housed the 1800 AD equivalent of roughly six entire planets of people. We only have about one billion poor people left on a planet of seven billion people - not bad work for 200 years worth of progress.

Structural Causes of Poverty

What are the structural causes of poverty and hunger? The Pope doesn't say. But, given the clear evidence of the last 200 years, we can conclude that those structural causes are unclear property rights, lack of technology and lack of capitalism. Marxism clearly harms the environment. Capitalism heals it. Capitalism ensures a much more dignified and productive labor than Marxism ever did. As for the family, both capitalism and Marxism are a mixed bag. Marx and Engels explicitly wanted the family destroyed. Capitalism implicitly is fine with the family being destroyed.

So, if capitalism helps the poor and the environment at the expense of the family, while Marxism is purely harmful, how should governments handle the inequality which is economic poverty?

The gaze, often silent, of that part of the human family which is cast off, left behind, ought to awaken the conscience of political and economic agents and lead them to generous and courageous decisions with immediate results, like the decision of Zacchaeus. 

Charity

No one ordered Zacchaeus to give of his wealth. No one confiscated it. Instead, Zacchaeus spontaneously decided to do the right thing with his wealth. So, the Pope is urging governments to give people the opportunity to do the right thing. He is not calling for higher taxes, more confiscation, wealth redistribution at the point of a gun. That is Marxism, and the Church has already explicitly declared Marxism condemned, anathema, a tool of Satan.

So what is Pope Francis doing? He is calling on individuals to be more generous, and he is asking governments not to stand in the way of that generosity, not to make that individual generosity more difficult than it already is. Indeed, you can argue that the Pope is calling on governments to lower tax rates and other confiscation techniques. In fact, he virtually says this just a paragraph later:

The account of Jesus and Zacchaeus teaches us that above and beyond economic and social systems and theories, there will always be a need to promote generous, effective and practical openness to the needs of others.

He is asking governments to promote giving by individual citizens like Zacchaeus.

I do not hesitate to state, as did my predecessors, that equitable economic and social progress can only be attained by joining scientific and technical abilities with an unfailing commitment to solidarity accompanied by a generous and disinterested spirit of gratuitousness at every level. A contribution to this equitable development will also be made both by international activity aimed at the integral human development of all the world’s peoples and by the legitimate redistribution of economic benefits by the State, as well as indispensable cooperation between the private sector and civil society.

As I pointed out above, his predecessors condemned Marx and Communism in the strongest possible terms. Socialism, whether national socialism or international socialism, is anathema to Catholic teaching and to this Pope.

Legitimate redistribution

So, what constitutes "legitimate redistribution"? Again, Pope Francis doesn't tell us the difference between "legitimate" and "illegitimate" redistribution. But he does tell us to interpret his words in the light of his predecessors' words, that is, in the light of the Magisterium of the Church.

The Church guarantees private property rights and liberty, endorses individual charity, doesn't like people to take other people's stuff. You are not allowed to do evil that good may come of it. You are not allowed to steal from the people you consider rich so that you can distribute their goods to the people you consider poor. After all, you don't know the whole story - you don't know who is really rich and who is really poor.

Subsidiarity is one of the founding principles of Catholic Faith. Even when movement of wealth takes place, it is supposed to take place according to the principle of subsidiarity - the people who directly own the wealth are supposed to give it to the people who directly need it with as few intermediaries as possible. None, if that can be managed. Interposing an entire government bureaucracy is a violation of subsidiarity. That's why Francis doesn't like government welfare.

So, "legitimate redistribution" does not necessarily have anything to do with tax rates or government confiscation. Indeed, given Church teaching, it is quite unlikely to include much in either of these categories. Again, nowhere in this speech does the Pope define what constitutes "legitimate" as opposed to "illegitimate" redistribution. Despite what the headlines say, nowhere does he use the word "wealth". He intends us to take his words in the context of the Catholic Magisterium.

The left reads everything Pope Francis says in light of their own agenda. By doing so, they try to steal spiritual riches in order to give to those who they consider poor. But their very inability to appreciate the content of those riches means the papal meaning gets twisted. As they try to transmit his message, they twist what he actually said into what they would prefer that he said. Thus, by the time "his words" reach the world, through the agency of the news organizations, they are no longer his words.

Twisting the good so it is no longer as good as it was - that is the definition of evil. But that is what keeps happening to this Pope's message. As the world grabs it,  both liberals and conservatives wring his messages like a sponge, but as we squeeze and twist it ever more tightly, we get not living water, but only gall for our trouble. Crucified by our own sins, we thirst for living water, but we insist on accepting only our own reeking waste instead. The world is not going to get much out of Pope Francis' exhortations until it allows its ears to be opened. It will not be able to pass on the papal message accurately until it allows its tongue to be loosed.

We don't need an "Ah-hah!" moment.
We need an "Ephphatha!" moment.