The Pope’s Historic Visit: Embracing His Message
Pope Francis isn’t anticapitalist nor prosocialist. He’s simply being faithful to traditional Catholic teaching (“Heavenly!” Sept. 25).
All current economic social systems directed for the wellbeing of its people are flawed, including capitalism.
The Catholic Church argues that socialism, communism and all forms of totalitarianism violate the Catholic principle of subsidiary, which argues that political and economic decisions are best made at the local level.
All systems of governance are flawed. Consequently, all forms of governance are in need of continual reform and reassessment.
Fr. John J. Pasquini
Vero Beach, Fla.
Rich Lowry’s dismissive piece on the pope’s address to Congress illustrates the arrogance and ignorance in equal measure of his thinking (“Forgive me, but speech is full of holeys,” Sept. 25).
He obviously didn’t hear a word the pope said in his address.
The pope wasn’t trying to provide solutions to that body, he was reminding it and Americans that we are a better people when we work together, when we help one another, when we welcome differences, when we support the less fortunate, when we care effectively about making a better society.
Perhaps Lowry doesn’t believe in community, the common good and that our “common home,” the planet we live on, is in great disrepair.
I strongly urge Lowry to listen to the pope again. He might learn something valuable.
The pope offered nu
merous solutions if we take his suggestions to heart.
Leigh Johnson
Washington DC
Many Catholics on the right might see Pope Francis as an apostate. And even though I’m not a Catholic, or even a Christian for that matter, I feel I’m a fish in uncharted waters. That said, two out of three liberal positions Francis has taken are consistently within Catholic dogma.
Yes, Francis should cool it with global warming, but on income inequality and immigration the pope’s positions are in line with Catholic values.
Gary Schwartz
Fort Lee, NJ
Conservative members of Congress surely listened to the Pope’s address with closed ears and closed minds.
I can only imagine how infuriating it is to Donald Trump for Pope Francis to call for compassion and decent treatment of the refugee, something that surely makes his bizarre hair stand on end.
How long can it be before Trump calls the pope a “loser” and a “failure?”
Oren Spiegler
Upper Saint Clair, Pa.
The historical parallel to when the church hierarchy, along with the majority of scientists, believed the Earth was the center of the universe in the 17th century is uncanny.
This pope is siding with a group of scientists who without substantial proof propose that climate change is due to carbon emissions.
Respectfully, it’s time that Pope Francis concern himself with faith and morals and leave the discussion of climate change to the scientists and politicians.
Jack Mcguire
Effort, Pa.
I viewed with profound disappointment the scene of Pope Francis allowing himself and the church to be used as an emptyheaded puppet sitting on President Obama’s lap.
There’s no group with a greater visceral hatred for the Catholic Church than the Democratic Party.
Robert Reeg
Stony Point
Do you think when the pope was at Madison Square Garden he gave the New York Knicks a special blessing? Frank Gonzalez
Wilton, Conn.