Pope Francis, "The worship of the ancient golden calf has returned in a new and ruthless guise...

[theHandpuppet]

76. Or maybe you ought to do some research

Like this:
https://www.commondreams.org/headline/2013/01/01-4
Or this:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/12/16/pope-benedict-wealth-distribution_n_1154798.html
Or this:
http://www.faithinpubliclife.org/blog/why_pope_benedict_disagrees_wi/
Or this:
http://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/pope-benedict-cautions-against-increasing-social-inequality/
Or this:
http://theweek.com/article/index/255848/9-ridiculous-claims-in-rolling-stonersquos-cover-story-on-pope-francis
4. "Francis threw down a real marker in November, with the release of his first apostolic exhortation, or official written teaching. Apostolic exhortations under John Paul II and Benedict tended toward the dogmatic (JPII's Familiaris Consortio restated orthodox Church teaching on birth control and the traditional family) or the wonky (Benedict's Sacramentum Caritatis spent 32,000 words on the Eucharist). In this context, the blistering attacks on income inequality in Francis' Evangelii Gaudium ("The Joy of the Gospel&quot resonate like a bomb."

Where to begin? How about with the observation that between them John Paul II and Benedict wrote four encyclicals on economics — each one of them carrying greater teaching authority than an apostolic exhortation and typically going on longer than 32,000 words. Every one of these documents contains passages that criticize unregulated capitalism in precisely the ways that Francis has. That's because the church's teaching about economics has been remarkably consistent from the time of Pope Leo XIII's Rerum Novarum (1891) down to today.

That teaching is, roughly, that pure forms of free-market capitalism and communistic socialism are each gravely defective in moral terms. In their place, the church advocates a mixed system of private property, locally controlled private and public charity, worker unionization, and government regulation and welfare programs. Francis' words don't resonate like a bomb. They resonate like an echo.