[TFP.ORG] The Pope was Benedict XV (1914-1922). He warned the faithful against the evils of socialism in a document issued exactly one hundred years ago this month on March 11, 1920.
The title says it all: “Epistle Soliti Nos: On the Need to Beware of Socialist Propaganda.”1 Although a century old, Pope Benedict’s warning remains perfectly up to date. It seems appropriate to present a summary here.2
However, the facts that gave rise to this pontifical warning must first be told.
Ideal Culture Medium for Socialist and Communist Propaganda
The pontificate of Benedict XV (1914-1922) took place during one of the most troubled periods in history. There was the First World War, which the Pope called “the suicide of civilized Europe,” with all its horrors of death and destruction. The conflict was followed by a sinister procession of revolutions (notably the Bolshevik Revolution). The “Spanish flu,” one of the deadliest epidemics in human history, struck at this time.
The “chaos and dramatic change that had arisen from the ashes of devastated Europe — the fall of empires, the creation of new states, the seizure of Russia by communism”3 — created an ideal culture medium for the germination of socialist and communist propaganda: political and social unrest, economic crisis, unemployment, misery and hunger.
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AMDG
Obviously, the headline jarred me awake thinking that our current pontiff was being quoted. However, it was Benedict XV of the time of the Third Secret. I believe now that Benedict took that name (XVI) for a specific reason. He had to have been forced out. It's just a matter of how. He was not able to withstand the "attacks by wolves".---What will the world be like "after the smoke clears" from the virus? There is no doubt of a move toward socialism here in the U.S. The mob is gathering. "Gypsies, tramps, and thieves who hate religion" are lighting the torches. Oh wait! That was 1917.
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ReplyDeleteOne of the first socialist societies in history was the early Church in Jerusalem. (Acts 2: 43-47; 4:32 - 5: 11).
ReplyDeleteThe oldest continuing form of democratic socialism is religious life in the Catholic Church.
People don't have to be communists to be socialists. It's at the heart of Christianity and that's why American Catholicism has so much difficulty with the Social Encyclicals of the Popes.