ANSWER: Name this socialist

[Alexandre Fenelon]

At 09:15 11/08/99 -0400, you wrote:
>The answer is that these words are from "ON HUMAN WORK Laborem Exercens" by
>Pope John Paul II.  I actually posted them as I came across the work
>recently and what strikes me is how much more economically radical his
>writings are than most other labelled progressive groups out there.  Forget
>the Third Way folks- this is the Church that formally declared failing to
>pay union dues a sin in the most recent catechism.
>
>Of course - as Angela noted in a private post - the sexism of the Church
>comes out even in the language of this, but my curiosity is how
>unidimensional a lot of analysis is of the Catholic Church, often just
>lumping it in with other pro-life groups, who are usually allied with the
>economic Right.
>
>But it did strike me that the Catholic bishops were some of the most
>vociferous public opponents to Prop 209, Prop 187 and anti-welfare
>initiatives when I was out in California.  This was in notable contrast to
>such "left" heroes as Jerry Brown who personally told me he thought
>associating himself with affirmative action was a loser and kept far away
>from the issue until the movement had organized.
>
>How should the Left deal with such a global institution that actually shares
>some (if not all) of its beliefs on economic and many social issues
>(multiculturalism, death penalty, welfare) despite opposition to its
>patriarchal theology?
>
>This is a subset of the broader issue of left-religious links, but the
>Catholic Church is a particularly interesing institution for that analysis.
>
>--Nathan Newman
>
>-------------------------------------------
>
>Pop quiz.  These words are by a famous living thinker.  Can you name him?--
>NN
>===========================
>
>"While in the past the "class question was especially highlighted as the
>center of this issue, in more recent times it is the "world" question that
>is emphasized. Thus, not only the sphere of class is taken into
>consideration but also the world sphere of inequality and injustice and, as
>a consequence, not only the class dimension but also the world dimension of
>the tasks involved in the path towards the achievement of justice in the
>modern world. A complete analysis of the situation of the world today shows
>in an even deeper and fuller way the meaning of the previous analysis of
>social injustices; and it is the meaning that must be given today to efforts
>to build justice on earth, not concealing thereby unjust structures but
>demanding that they be examined and transformed on a more universal scale."
>------------------------------------------------------
>"Understood in this case not as a capacity or aptitude for work, but rather
>as a whole set of instruments which man uses in his work, technology is
>undoubtedly man's ally. It facilitates his work, perfects, accelerates and
>augments it. It leads to an increase in the quantity of things produced by
>work, and in many cases improves their quality. However, it is also a fact
>that, in some instances, technology can cease to be man's ally and become
>almost his enemy, as when the mechanization of work "supplants" him, taking
>away all personal satisfaction and the incentive to creativity and
>responsibility, when it deprives many workers of their previous employment,
>or when, through exalting the machine, it reduces man to the status of its
>slave."
>------------------------------------------------------------------
>"property is acquired first of all through work in order that it may serve
>work. This concerns in a special way ownership of the means of production.
>Isolating these means as a separate property in order to set it up in the
>form of "capital" in opposition to "labor"-- and even to practice
>exploitation of labor--is contrary to the very nature of these means and
>their possession. They cannot be possessed against labor, they cannot even
>be possessed for possession's sake, because the only legitimate title to
>their possession--whether in the form of private ownership or in the form of
>public or collective ownership--is that they should serve labor, and thus,
>by serving labor, that they should make possible the achievement of the
>first principle of this order, namely, the universal destination of goods
>and the right to common use of them."
>
>
>
This Pope is somewhat strange, althought he has a left wing discourse, in
practice 
he always followed right wing policies, he gave too much support to the
ultra-rightist
Opus Dei, beatified a fscist archbishop in Croatia and fought a well
succeded war
against left wing catholics in Latin America. Who can explain this?

                                Alexandre