[TLDR (too long didn’t read): If you are reading this, chances are you care about HR. This Reader is about how religion is often subdued to Capital and the implications for human rights of fetishizing money. For a quick overview, just read the bolded text]. Note: You can easily translate the Readers to many languages, Use the app deepl.com and it is done instantaneously. It takes seconds to download the app into your computer or phone and translations are of high quality.
1. For the New Capitalism it is irrelevant whether one believes in God, in homeland or in family; it has created its own autonomous myth: Wellbeing, i.e., the consumer that feels happy being able to consume. Moreover, the religious man or the honest citizen is consequently not its concern; instead, the satisfied consumer is. Here, then, one reason why the Church is too often subdued to Capital; the latter utilizes the former so that the Church has repeatedly in history become an instrument of the powers-that-be. As much as before, today, the subservience of sectors of the Church to the influence Capitalism can be recognized. Things are just like that. It is useless to try to hide it –even a bit. (Pier Paolo Passolini) This, then, begs a couple question.
How can some bishops be neoliberals when Jesus of Nazareth, whose followers they claim to be, declared the love of God and the love of money incompatible?
-How can they side with neoliberalism when Pope Francis, whom they recognize as Christ’s representative on earth, is one of the most severe and forceful critics of neoliberalism as an economic theory and practice?
-Are these bishops going to (or are they already) disobey(ing) the Pope on a subject of such transcendence in the realm of ethics and human rights (HR)?
2. These facts contrast with Pope Francis’ condemnation of neoliberalism, which he describes as unjust at its root with its four “no’s”: “No to an economy of exclusion and inequality, that kills… No to the new idolatry of money… No to money that governs instead of serving… No to inequality that generates violence.” And the Holy Father continues: “The worship of the ancient golden calf (Exodus 32:1-35) has found a new and ruthless version in the fetishism of money and in the dictatorship of an economy without a truly human face and purpose.”
3. These bishops show an insensitivity towards the serious problems that the working class has been suffering from the crisis of 2008 until today, including the pandemic that has generated a sharp increase in unemployment, a deterioration in working conditions (already precarious), the loss of purchasing power and the advance of inequalities with dramatic HR consequences among the most vulnerable sectors of society —not forgetting the labor discrimination suffered by women.
4. However minor this episcopal leadership may be, they would do well to meet periodically with labor unions to take the pulse of the labor reality at both global and local levels, listen to their legitimate demands, make them their own, incorporate them in their discourses within the Social Doctrine of the Church (to which they much appeal) and defend these rights-related demands in their pastoral programs, from which they are usually absent. It would be the best way to overcome, or at least reduce, the abysmal distance that separates sectors of the Church from the working class* since the 19th century and to adopt the options voiced by the most impoverished people and groups neglected by the different powers. (Juan José Tamayo, liberation theologian).
*: God is the way; the Church only collects the toll. (graffiti)
Ponder two other views
5. Socialist Christianity is, not only a religious philosophy, but also a political belief and view point that adheres to the principles of socialism and of Christianity. Many Christian socialists believe that Capitalism is idolatrous and has its roots in the sin of greed. They actually identify greed as the cause of inequality and HR violations and propose an in-depth renovation of Catholicism and highlight the need to break with the static principles that have prevailed in bourgeois society and culture. The contradiction they set out to overcome thus is that between Christian principles and bourgeois ideology. (Dom Helder Cámara)
6. Secularism is neither permissive nor lawless chaos. It does not reject tradition and does not turn its back on culture, its impact or its achievements. Such accusations are little more than cheap demagoguery. Secularism is a different understanding of humanity and the world, a non-religious understanding.** (Yizhar Smilansky)
**: A dissenting view here: Atheists or agnostic people become believers when they are assaulted by the fear of dying –and that makes them face a crisis…
Bottom line
7. Men have kidnapped God. They have created religions that have survived for centuries –and continue to grow. [Can they be called the franchisers of divinity? (Edmundo Moure)] These religions are too often implacable, they preach love, justice and charity and are known to have committed atrocities to impose their dogmas. They judge, punish*** and frown at pleasure, curiosity and imagination. [I do not want here to delve on the implacable attitudes of the special franchises of born-again Christians, orthodox Jews and fundamentalist Islamists and Hinduists…****].
***: When the gods wanted to punish man, they made him, first of all, an insane sinner. (Roberto Savio)
****: The elementary rules of logic tell us that extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence and that what can be asserted without evidence can also be dismissed without evidence. (Christopher Hitchens)
8. Moreover, patriarchal gods are definitely not suitable particularly for women; they make women pay for the temptations and sins of men. Why are they so afraid of women? None of that guilt, punishment, penitence and sin are warranted. Life is to be celebrated. (Isabel Allende, The Sum of Our Days)
Claudio Schuftan, Ho Chi Minh City
Your comments are welcome at schuftan@gmail.com
All Readers are available at www.claudioschuftan.com
Postscript/Marginalia
-A funny if not sad recent link: https://www.rsn.org/001/florida-man-asks-schools-to-ban-bible-following-the-states-efforts-to-remove-books.html