Right-wing commentators continue to attack Pope Francis for his recent indictment of consumerism and unfettered capitalism, and WorldNetDaily is cheering them on.
In a cartoon by Mike Lester published in WND on Thursday, Francis spray paints over the line “Teach a man to fish” — which is not actually a Bible verse but is commonly misrepresented as one — and replaces it with “Give a man a fish.”
Jonathan Moseley of the Northern Virginia Tea Party also took to the conservative news outlet yesterday to maintain that Jesus is crying over the Pope’s “socialist philosophy”:
One truth shines out from the Bible: Jesus spoke to the individual, never to government or government policy. Jesus was a capitalist, preaching personal responsibility, not a socialist.
Pope Francis condemned capitalism. Some argue that Francis’ Spanish-language Apostolic Exhortation was mistranslated. But Francis is not among those disputing that translation. Moreover, corrected translations are no better.
Francis argues for dependence upon government to redistribute wealth. And con artists in the U.S. are seizing on the opportunity to spread the misery of socialism. Rush Limbaugh and Sarah Palin this week called Pope Francis on his mangling of economics. Then author Reza Aslan struck back in the Washington Post, claiming that Jesus was a socialist.
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Worst of all, this controversy encourages misery, poverty and the destruction of human lives. Jesus Christ is weeping in heaven hearing Christians espouse a socialist philosophy that has created suffering and poverty around the world. It is impossible to love one’s neighbor as yourself without fighting against socialism, meaning government meddling in private lives.
