Storck on Socialism

Thomas Storck writes a column for the neo-Catholic TCR News on what the late Pope John Paul II meant by Socialism and why it must be fought by Catholics.

Near the end of his piece, Storck notes that in the teaching of the late Holy Father, he "is indirectly suggesting here that, just as no Catholic can be a socialist, no Catholic can be a capitalist, insofar as that means one who embraces the full logic of the capitalist system".

Though the late Holy Father was not a Distributist, his writings were sympathetic to it. He lived and suffered under both Nazi and Communist tyranny in his native Poland. So he would be familiar with the horrors that both these 'flavors' of Socialism inflict on a country. But he also saw the devistation that a society dominated by big business and big banks would do, as has happened in too many countries.

So we who promote Distributism in the world, in whatever country we find ourselves in, can be thankful that Pope John Paul II - in spite of the scandals and confusion that marked much of his reign on the Chair of St. Peter - fought both Marx, Hitler and Adam Smith to the best of his ability.

Let us do likewise.