Connect with us

Pope Denounces Globalization As ‘Ideological Colonization’ – But Evangelicalism Is Too

Published

on

Pope Francis is making big headlines today, but his more stunning comments aren’t getting the attention they deserve.

Pope Francis made big news today when he told reporters on an airplane that Catholics should stop breeding “like rabbits” just because the Church has banned contraception. But that bit of stunning rhetoric in reality is dwarfed by another of his opinions the pontiff shared Monday.

The Pope denounced attempts by rich nations to mold poorer ones, when those attempts mandate “ideological” requirements. For example, the Pope explained, “certain loans on certain conditions.”

The Pope described “an example of what I saw 20 years ago, in ’95.”

“A Minister of Public Education had asked for a big loan to build schools for the poor, public schools,” Pope Francis told reporters. “They gave the loan on condition that in the schools there would be a school book for children of a certain level, no? It was a well prepared book, where the theory of gender was taught. This woman needed the money but that was the condition. She was smart. She said yes, and also made them give another book, of a different orientation. And so she succeeded. This is ideological colonization. They enter with an idea that has nothing to do with the people; but with groups of people yes, but not with the people.”

“It colonizes the people with an idea that wants to change a mentality or a structure,” Francis added.

Perhaps even more stunning is the degree to which he denounced these outreaches, comparing them to “Hitler youth.”

“During the Synod, the African bishops lamented this: certain loans on certain conditions. I only say that which I have seen… Why do they say ideological colonization? Because they take a real need of the people to have an opportunity to enter and make themselves strong with the children. But this is not new, the dictators of the last century did the same. They came with their own doctrine. Think of the BalilLa (The Fascist Youth under Mussolini), think of the Hitler youth.”

What does this mean?

The AP described the Pope’s idea of “ideological colonization” as “allowing health care workers to distribute condoms, or withdrawing assistance if legislation discriminating against gays is passed,” for example.

But does it not also mean that American Evangelical groups that have set up shop in Africa, including Uganda for example, and are working to impose their beliefs on that culture in exchange – acknowledged or implied – for humanitarian assistance are, to quote the Pope, “colonizing empires”?

Which U.S. Evangelical groups would fall under the Pope’s denounced “colonizing empires” label?

What about the American Family Association? Its Thomas Street Coffee, as NCRM reported in 2103, according to one of their coffee importers, infiltrates developing nations where missionaries are not allowed.

“The gospel is often very feared in those countries,” McKee explained. “It’s illegal in many of those areas to proselytize. Missionaries would normally get kicked out by the government.”
 And so what may have once seemed to McKee like a detour from his missionary calling has proved to be the most direct route to reach lost nations. All in the name of coffee, Mark travels to these countries, establishes contact with growers and works to improve the quality of their coffee, something that also means a better quality of life for them. In the process, people hear the name of Christ, and native Christians are born to carry on with evangelism after McKee has gone.

“I come in and say, ‘I’m an expert on coffee and I want to work with you to make your coffee better and give you more money for it. And we’re going to provide schools and help provide for your kids,’” McKee said. “And they’re like, ‘Wow, we really like what these Christians are doing.’ So, it actually opens doors for sharing the gospel.

“They look at a Christian who is sent and supported by a missionary organization like, ‘That’s a professional Christian; he gets paid to share his Jesus with me.’ But when someone’s there to help them set up a business and make money, they see a different view of it. And it allows missionaries to stay in countries where you can’t have a missionary visa.”

And what about all the Evangelical groups that preach anti-gay hate, imposing their beliefs on nations like Uganda?

For the Pope to denounce “ideological colonization,” he must denounce it all, not just some. 

 

Image via Flickr

 

 

There's a reason 10,000 people subscribe to NCRM. You can get the news before it breaks just by subscribing, plus you can learn something new every day.
Related Topics:
Continue Reading
Click to comment
 
 

Enjoy this piece?

… then let us make a small request. The New Civil Rights Movement depends on readers like you to meet our ongoing expenses and continue producing quality progressive journalism. Three Silicon Valley giants consume 70 percent of all online advertising dollars, so we need your help to continue doing what we do.

NCRM is independent. You won’t find mainstream media bias here. From unflinching coverage of religious extremism, to spotlighting efforts to roll back our rights, NCRM continues to speak truth to power. America needs independent voices like NCRM to be sure no one is forgotten.

Every reader contribution, whatever the amount, makes a tremendous difference. Help ensure NCRM remains independent long into the future. Support progressive journalism with a one-time contribution to NCRM, or click here to become a subscriber. Thank you. Click here to donate by check.

News

Trump: Democrats Are Plotting ‘Total Obliteration’ of Supreme Court

Published

51 minutes ago

on

December 5, 2025

By

President Donald Trump is claiming that the top priority of Democrats is the “total obliteration” of the U.S. Supreme Court. His remarks came just hours after SCOTUS gave Republicans a 6-3 win along partisan lines, in the form of approving Texas’s redrawn mid-decade congressional maps that could help add five GOP-held seats to the U.S. House of Representatives. A lower court had ruled the redrawn Texas maps were likely racially biased.

Although there are different ways to measure, one study by Court Accountability this fall found that the Supreme Court has ruled in Trump’s favor 90% of the time.

“Most of these wins for the president came from the court’s ‘shadow docket’ slate of opinions — where the court has typically, in the past, only ruled on administrative measures,” according to Truthout. “However, in recent years, the Supreme Court has been making announcements on cases, issuing injunctions or allowances of actions to remain in place, that have the same effect, essentially, as a final decision.”

READ MORE: White House Touts Trump’s ‘Track Record’ on Affordability

On Friday, the president declared that the “Democrats number one policy push is the complete and total OBLITERATION of our great United States Supreme Court.”

“They will do this on their very first day in office, through the simple Termination of the Filibuster, SHOULD THEY WIN THE UPCOMING ELECTIONS,” he wrote.

Trump has strongly advocated for Republicans to eliminate the Senate filibuster.

“The Radical Left Democrats are looking at 21 Justices, with immediate ascension,” he wrote, claiming that Democrats would more than double the current size of the court.

“This would be terrible for our Country. Fear not, however, Republicans will not let it, or any of their other catastrophic policies, happen. Our Country is now in very good hands. MAGA!!!”

Some court reform advocates have suggested the Supreme Court be expanded to 13 justices, one for each of the thirteen U.S. Courts of Appeals.

READ MORE: Trump’s Ballroom Seen as ‘Key Evidence’ He’s Out of Touch as Cost of Living Spikes

 

Image via Reuters 

 

 

Continue Reading

News

White House Touts Trump’s ‘Track Record’ on Affordability

Published

3 hours ago

on

December 5, 2025

By

As President Donald Trump calls Democrats’ push for affordability a “con job,” a “hoax,” and a “scam,” the White House continues to try to promote his focus on that very word — a focus many Americans say is, at best, insufficient.

“It’s a con job. I think affordability is the greatest con job,” Trump said from the Oval Office on Tuesday, as CNN reported. The news network noted that “for Trump, calling affordability a scam is doubly strange because it’s the very issue that helped propel him back to the White House.”

“Candidate Trump,” CNN added, “used remarkably similar language to what President Trump now dismisses as a hoax.”

For example, at an August North Carolina rally, Trump vowed, “We will target everything from car affordability to housing affordability to insurance costs to supply chain issues.”

READ MORE: Trump’s Ballroom Seen as ‘Key Evidence’ He’s Out of Touch as Cost of Living Spikes

“Starting on day one, we will end inflation and make America affordable again,” Trump said in a late September rally in Pennsylvania.

A new Politico poll released on Thursday shows that many Americans blame President Trump for the affordability crisis they are experiencing on a daily basis.

“Almost half — 46 percent — say the cost of living in the U.S. is the worst they can ever remember it being, a view held by 37 percent of 2024 Trump voters,” Politico noted. “Americans also say that the affordability crisis is Trump’s responsibility, with 46 percent saying it is his economy now and his administration is responsible for the costs they struggle with.”

While candidate Trump vowed to end inflation “on day one,” the White House now promises that President Trump will “continue to focus on delivering on his Day One priority of ending Joe Biden’s inflation crisis.”

On President Joe Biden’s last day in office, inflation was officially at 2.9%. For the month of January, it came in at 3%. Through September, the last month of the official Labor Department reports, inflation stood at 3%.

Kevin Hassett is the Director of the White House’s National Economic Council, a senior advisor to the President on economic issues, and rumored to be a top Trump pick to run the Federal Reserve.

On Friday, he spoke with Fox Business host Maria Bartiromo, who decried Democrats’ ability to “rally around” the affordability crisis.

READ MORE: Inside Trump’s ‘Golden Age’: Troubling New Trends Emerge

“I just think, all of a sudden, the Democrats have found a way to get affordability to stick to their brand,” Bartiromo lamented. “And, Kevin, President Trump came into office with this priority of getting inflation down.”

“How is it possible that the Democrats have been able to rally around this word, ‘affordability,’ and make people think that that’s what they’re focused on and not what the Republicans are focused on, going into an election year?” she asked.

“You know,” Hassett replied, “it’s just what happens sometimes when, you know, one political party has a lot of the media echoing what they’re saying.”

Promising that “there’s lots and lots of things that we could do to reduce the problem of affordability,” Hassett declared that “the affordability problem is 100% created by the Biden administration, with their runaway regulation and their runaway inflation.”

He then touted Trump’s “track record” on the issue, referencing a topic from the first Trump administration.

“The thing I want to remind you is that the President has a proven track record on affordability in healthcare, and it’s this,” he insisted. “If you go back and look at our first term, when we came in and we started to negotiate with the drug companies and make sure that the FDA was approving generic drugs, we had two years in a row where the consumer price index for drugs went negative.”

“We had declining drug prices,” Hassett said. “The only two years that that happened, going all the way back to World War II, we did it then. We’ll do it again.”

READ MORE: Trump Urges Judge Aileen Cannon to Keep Jack Smith Report Secret

 

Image via Reuters

Continue Reading

News

Trump’s Ballroom Seen as ‘Key Evidence’ He’s Out of Touch as Cost of Living Spikes

Published

21 hours ago

on

December 4, 2025

By

The White House reportedly will be submitting plans for President Donald Trump’s $300 million ballroom to a federal planning commission later this month, after the East Wing of the White House has already been demolished and as the president replaces the project’s top architect.

“The 90,000-square-foot ballroom will dwarf the White House itself, at nearly double the size, and President Donald Trump has said it will accommodate 999 people,” the Associated Press reported on Thursday.

Critics blasted the latest news.

“Let me get this straight,” wrote U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), in response to the news. “Trump has a plan for a new ballroom, but barely has a concept of a plan to lower the cost of health care?”

READ MORE: Inside Trump’s ‘Golden Age’: Troubling New Trends Emerge

“Millions are losing health care, but hey, a ballroom! Unbelievable,” declared U.S. Rep. Katherine Clark (D-MA).

“It seems like the Trump White House is working harder on constructing a new White House Ballroom than averting huge spikes in monthly premiums for 20 million Americans next year,” observed Brendan Duke of the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP).

Those sentiments align with a new study from Navigator Research about how some Americans in six Senate battleground states feel about President Donald Trump’s focus.

“The wealthy are seen as benefitting from a rigged system,” Navigator reported on its findings, “and politicians are seen as not getting it. Many view President Trump as particularly out of touch, with his ballroom project as key evidence.”

“Trump is seen as out of touch with working class people, with several citing his ballroom project as a proofpoint,” Navigator added.

READ MORE: Trump Urges Judge Aileen Cannon to Keep Jack Smith Report Secret

The study noted that focus group participants “are struggling mightily to afford the basics – like dog food or energy bills – and see no real sign of the situation improving.”

Navigator also cited comments from focus group participants who shared a variety of concerns, including about the cost of living — and the president’s ballroom.

“I see the president building a ballroom when there’s people that can’t feed their families,” said a Michigan woman, described as a “weak Democrat.”

A woman in New Hampshire, also a weak Democrat, shared, “I blame Trump. He’s greedy, he wants to make money for him and his rich friends. They are throwing Americans aside, cutting, SNAP,” she said of the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program. “Everything’s gone to the wayside so that the rich can get richer.”

“I’m scared,” said a New Hampshire woman, an independent. “I’m scared. I’m scared of us losing our healthcare, of him not getting the care that he needs, and me not being able to provide for my family, even though I went to school and got a career to do so.”

A New Hampshire woman described as a weak Democrat said, “I think the economy’s going to tank because when we all lose healthcare starting in January, or most of us like me, I’m going to lose it in January, what is that going to do to the economy? People can’t afford to buy anything now. It’s going to just kill it.”

“How about a ballroom?” asked a Maine woman who was described as an independent. “A billion dollars. How much was it? $5 billion, $3 billion or something? Do we really need a ballroom, ladies? Are we going to go to a f – – dance?…They’re all out for themselves. ‘Let’s do the ballroom. Let’s do stuff that don’t need to be done and screw the American people.’”

READ MORE: Student’s Bible-Based Essay Grade Leads University to Put Instructor on Leave

 

Image via Reuters

 

 

Continue Reading

Trending

Copyright © 2020 AlterNet Media.