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Cross-posted on the Corner<\/a>:<\/p>\n It\u2019s no great secret that Roman Catholic \u2018social\u2019 teaching, normally seen as a form of corporatism, is a touch difficult to reconcile with free market economics, even more so in the era of Pope Francis, a man who absorbed too much and understood too little during his youth in Peronist Argentina.<\/p>\n That said, this (via the Catholic Herald<\/em><\/a>) was, well, quite something:<\/p>\n \u201cRight now, those who are best implementing the social doctrine of the Church are the Chinese,\u201d a senior Vatican official has said.<\/p>\n Bishop Marcelo S\u00e1nchez Sorondo, chancellor of the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences, praised the Communist state as \u201cextraordinary\u201d, saying: \u201cYou do not have shantytowns, you do not have drugs, young people do not take drugs\u201d. Instead, there is a \u201cpositive national conscience\u201d.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n A national conscience so positive that, until recently, it positively insisted that women should only have one child each, and positively reinforced that insistence with methods up to and including forced abortions, a practice that may not<\/a> have disappeared quite so completely as the Chinese regime now likes to suggest.<\/p>\n A national conscience so positive that it can\u2019t see what\u2019s\u00a0wrong with the Laogai<\/a>, China\u2019s gulag, the largest system of forced labor camps in the world.<\/p>\n And a national conscience so positive that Mao, the murderer of tens\u00a0of millions, remains venerated.<\/p>\n Back to the Catholic Herald<\/em>:<\/p>\n The bishop told the Spanish-language edition of Vatican Insider that in China \u201cthe economy does not dominate politics, as happens in the United States, something Americans themselves would say.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n They would? What they might say is that in the U.S.\u00a0there is more of a separation<\/em> between the economy (and thus\u00a0the individual) and politics (and thus the state), than corporatists\u2014whether of the Vatican or Chinese Communist variety\u2014might like.<\/p>\n The Catholic Herald<\/em>:<\/p>\n Bishop S\u00e1nchez Sorondo said that China was implementing Pope Francis\u2019s encyclical Laudato Si\u2019 better than many other countries and praised it for defending Paris Climate Accord. \u201cIn that, it is assuming a moral leadership that others have abandoned\u201d, he added.<\/p>\n He accused US president Donald Trump of being \u201cmanipulated\u201d by global oil firms, and said that, as opposed to those who follow \u201cliberal thought\u201d, the Chinese are working for the greater good of the planet.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n This bishop, like his pope, cannot, it seems, resist the lure of conspiracism: Demagogues\u2014a\u00a0 species certainly not confined to the Vatican\u2014tend to be like that.<\/p>\n Note too Sorondo\u2019s obvious disdain for the very idea of \u201cliberal thought\u201d \u2013 and, to be clear, by \u201cliberal\u201d he\u00a0 means classical<\/em> liberal.<\/p>\n That should come\u00a0as no surprise.<\/p>\n And this\u00a0was no one-off.<\/p>\n Here\u2019s Sorondo\u00a0last year (via Crux<\/em><\/a>):<\/p>\n \u201cChina could be a model we need today to respond to globalization, a model for the dignity and freedom of human beings\u2026\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Sorondo\u2019s remarks are, I am sure, the product of deep ideological conviction, however revolting, but they also, doubtless, come with another, more cynical objective, flattering a dictatorship with which the Vatican is currently very keen to cut a deal<\/a>\u00a0over\u00a0the appointment of bishops.<\/p>\n A\u00a0sort of Lateran Two<\/a>, you might say.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Cross-posted on the Corner: It\u2019s no great secret that Roman Catholic \u2018social\u2019 teaching, normally seen as a form of corporatism, is a touch difficult to reconcile with free market economics, even more so in the era of Pope Francis, a … Continue reading