In a New York Times op-ed on Thanksgiving Day, the socialist Pope Francis criticized groups that protested coronavirus lockdown restrictions and declared that we “cannot return to the false securities of the political and economic systems we had before the crisis.”
“With some exceptions, governments have made great efforts to put the well-being of their people first, acting decisively to protect health and to save lives…,” he wrote. “Yet some groups protested, refusing to keep their distance, marching against travel restrictions — as if measures that governments must impose for the good of their people constitute some kind of political assault on autonomy or personal freedom! Looking to the common good is much more than the sum of what is good for individuals.”
Wrong. What is good for individuals is what best makes for the common good.
“It means having a regard for all citizens and seeking to respond effectively to the needs of the least fortunate,” Francis continued. “It is all too easy for some to take an idea — in this case, for example, personal freedom — and turn it into an ideology, creating a prism through which they judge everything.”
To the frustration of collectivists like Pope Francis, America was built on the “ideology” of personal freedom. Americans are rightly skeptical of, and resistant to, “measures that governments must impose for the good of their people” — especially agenda-driven measures that destroy people’s livelihoods, businesses, and communities like draconian lockdowns.
“God asks us to dare to create something new,” the Pope claimed. “We cannot return to the false securities of the political and economic systems we had before the crisis. We need economies that give to all access to the fruits of creation, to the basic needs of life: to land, lodging and labor. We need a politics that can integrate and dialogue with the poor, the excluded, and the vulnerable, that gives people a say in the decisions that affect their lives. We need to slow down, take stock, and design better ways of living together on this earth,” he urged.
Francis needs to slow down and take stock of how the utopian socialist vision he preaches has wreaked nothing but mass-murdering misery and deprivation throughout history. If he truly cares about the poor and the vulnerable, he must acknowledge that the only economic and political system that can help elevate them, and give them a say in their own lives, is the personal freedom supported through capitalism.