So that the Pope can deal with the delicate feelings of rich Catholics:
At least one wealthy donor in New York City is skittish about Pope Francis’ comments about capitalism.
Ken Langone, the billionaire Roman Catholic who helped found Home Depot, told CNBC he has heard grumbling about the Pope’s comments about the wealthy. Langone is helping to run the New York Archdiocese’s $180 million fundraising effort to restore St. Patrick’s Cathedral in Manhattan.
The billionaire investor and philanthropist, who gave $200 million to New York University’s medical center in 2008, told CNBC an anonymous seven-figure donor felt slighted by the pope’s recent comments.
Langone has not been shy about sharing those opinions with New York Archbishop Cardinal Timothy Dolan, telling him, “you get more with honey than with vinegar.”
Dolan told the financial network in an interview on Monday he has heard from Langone that one wealthy donor got the “sense that the Pope is less than enthusiastic about us.”
The Archbishop said he explained to Langone, “‘Well, Ken, that would be a misunderstanding of the Holy Father’s message. The Pope loves poor people. He also loves rich people.’ … So I said, ‘Ken, thanks for bringing it to my attention. We’ve gotta correct to make sure this gentleman understands the Holy Father’s message properly.'”
One of the weirdest things to me about our current pathology of worshiping the rich is that they demand it from us proles. I mean, they are the true winners in society, and they just don’t understand why we don’t love them as much as they love themselves. Everyone knows that the importance of Christian charity is giving away .5% of your wealth and then salving the wound with the grateful tears from the populace.
Yatsuno
If Francis is making the rich Catholics uncomfortable, that’s good. It’s reminding them that great wealth that is hoarded is something the biblical Jesus railed against, and they are supposed to give up their worldly goods and help the poor. Amazing what happens with a Jesuit pope.
JPL
The Pope needs to kiss his ring, or the donations stop.
Tom Levenson
Just in case anyone has whiplash, I pulled a post bigfooting this one (little footing?). Who knew the BlogOverlord would suddenly find his muse.
Mine’ll be back in a bit.
On topic: I wonder how much Francis likes Dolan — pederast-enabler that he is — editing his remarks for him. A guess: not much.
Phylllis
I’m about 30% through The Family by Jeff Sharlet, and this is exactly the attitude/thinking that is impressed upon the elites involved. Re: Jesus wanted you to be rich, that’s why you’re rich, and those that aren’t rich should respect that Jesus considers you ‘more than’.
And Francis strikes me as a ‘comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable’ kind of guy.
Violet
Jeez, they have such thin skins. It’s like they’ve never lived in the real world.
scav
Abject love of the proles, necessary tax-write-offs and un-canonical lip-service from religious leaders, and all for “charity” that benefits stones, not people.
Baud
I think the Church should go back to selling indulgences. They can do it on ebay now.
chopper
the poor, poor rich people.
lol, i’m sure you use the same logic when it comes to getting work out of your employees, amirite?
Patrick
I always thought that as a Christian, you should give without demanding anything back. The giving itself was reward enough. Just a hunch, but Langone is a prime example of how today’s Christianity is just backwards.
So is HomeDepot now another store I need to think twice about shopping at?
patrick II
@Tom Levenson:
I bet Pope Francis likes this even less:
CARDINAL TIMOTHY DOLAN:(on meet the press) … a pope by his nature can’t make doctrinal changes. In fact, his sacred responsibility is to protect the integrity of the faith and to pass it on.
Cermet
Have to say after this wonderful comment’s by the 0.00001% I see that the Islamic terrorist have it all wrong – it isn’t the US government that is their enemy but those of the US 0.01% that really controls the US government and set all military policy through their bought puppet socks, the news media.
We have found the enemy and they are the 0.01% … that is the more accurate modern version of that saying.
MattF
One would think that Dolan has, at least, a passing awareness of what the Christian gospels have to say about that rich/poor business. Maybe, if you’re a cardinal, you get to make exceptions. Or, maybe not. We shall see.
Howard Beale IV
Looks like a lowly camel will thread through the eye of a needle before Langone gets to Heaven.
MoeLarryAndJesus
Jesus was all about the joy of tax write-offs and getting your name engraved prominently in public spaces.
TOP123
Matthew 6:1-4
Take heed that ye do not your alms before men, to be seen of them…
JPL
Well someone has to go there .. his feelings were hurt
@Patrick: He’s been long gone from the company.
Baud
Pope needs to stop reading shit like this:
Scotius
@Violet:
It’s like they’ve never lived in the real world.
In many ways they haven’t. If you are born with wealthy parents in the US, you are living in a world where you will never have to worry about paying for healthcare or housing or getting into a good school and getting a good job if you want it. You also live in a world where there are no real consequences for failure and where crimes that would send a poor person to prison for decades can be dismissed as “youthful indiscretions”.
Omnes Omnibus
@Violet:
They haven’t.
Mike in NC
Pity that Mitt Romney wasn’t eligible to be elected Pope to assuage the feelings of the filthy rich.
danimal
@TOP123: Simply amazing that our rich overlords don’t even pretend to understand the Christian religion that they are fighting to protect from the intrusive arms of the federal government.
Petorado
Langone shouldn’t bitch about the Pope. If this guy really believes in a higher power, his creed says he’ll face a far less sympathetic and political judgment that will really kick his ass for an eternity. The more god-like Langone wants to be on this world, the harsher the retribution in the other. We can only hope.
Ash Can
According to the excerpt and the full article, with Langone whining to Dolan, it’s Dolan who’s put in the situation of having to smooth ruffled feathers — and there’s some question of whether anyone’s feathers other than Langone’s are actually ruffled. That’s fine. Let those two hucksters deal with each other. There’s no indication that any of this is getting anywhere near the pope. And if it did, I have the feeling that he’d say, “If this is what it takes to get St. Pat’s fixed up, then fuck it.”
LT
That story is unbelievable. “Stop saying mean things about rich people or I won’t give millions of dollars to your JESUS Church!”
Holy fuck.
kdaug
@Scotius:
This is the crux of it. Right there.
We keep hearing about “job creators”, blah-blah-blah. Bullshit.
Inherited. Wealth.
I ain’t getting into the weeds. I know of what I speak.
David Koch
$180 million to remodel a
Pyramidbuilding!?Dolan might as well build a golden calf, and say, “Nah, where’s your Pope Francis, now, see!”
eta: it only cost $160 million to build the new Boston Garden.
Ruckus
@Scotius:
This.
A billion times this.
Those things that afflict those of the lower classes, whatever those things are seldom life effecting for the wealthy. Many of those things never even reach the stage beyond mere pocket change annoyance. They are handled, bought off. And even things that can’t be bought off, like cancer, can generally be mitigated, with money.
That isn’t the real world. Or even a facsimile.
Baud
@David Koch:
Golden Calves are expensive.
MBL
Meanwhile, apparently the piddly-ass $250 federal deduction that I get for buying a thousand dollars in supplies for my classroom is going away.
Use these fucks for food.
EriktheRed
I’m not Catholic, but I’m gonna dare to speculate that the Vatican doesn’t really need this douchebag’s money.
BillinGlendaleCA
@Tom Levenson: My neck still hurts, good post Tom(read it b4 you pulled it back).
watergirl
@JPL: I thought for sure your link was going to take us to this:
Beaker sings Feelings
scav
Speaking of Dolan and funds, we are talking about this guy, no? cite
Such a gathering of angels.
burnspbesq
@Tom Levenson:
Bad read there. In fact, you’ve got it exactly backwards. This is Dolan figuring out that there’s a new Pope and he needs to get with the [email protected]Tom Levenson:
Villago Delenda Est
This asshole REALLY needs a tumbrel ride.
watergirl
I’m hoping that Dolan will get smacked down like the other fellow did last week when he was removed from the hot-shot group that gets to select future cardinals. That happened shortly after he talked smack in some interview about the pope not being able to really make any changes (okay, not smack exactly).
You can seem from my comment that I haven’t retained the name of the cardinal or whoever it was that got removed from the group, the name of the hot-shot group, the publication he spoke to when he implied that the pope can’t really make changes, etc. But I do recall the new pope’s name, so there’s that, I guess.
I am loving this new pope.
Ruckus
@MBL:
Using rich fucks for food will give you gout. And they taste like shit.
Amir Khalid
Mr Wealthy Donor is probably right about the Pope’s feelings, at that. One-percenters like him already get much more of life’s honey, and much less of its vinegar, than anyone else. I too might take a dim view of them demanding yet more honey. Francis hasn’t been in office long enough yet to score any major wins; but he’s talking the right kind of fight, and I do like that.
Mustang Bobby
Actually, the full quote is “you get more flies with honey than with vinegar.” And actually, a rotting corpse works best, but that’s neither here nor there.
I love the subtle extortion. “Nice little church you have here. Be a real shame if something happened to it.”
David Koch
As long as we’re stopping the world, let me add this epic clip of Snoop Dogg and John Kerry at the White House Xmas party
Ruckus
@burnspbesq:
You are incapable of even helping yourself aren’t you?
Villago Delenda Est
@Baud:
The poor pay a higher percentage of their income needed to sustain their lives than the rich do.
This parable explains this to those who obviously are unwilling to understand.
The Dangerman
@Villago Delenda Est:
This should be like Disneyland; some people go to the head of the line for the tumbrel. He’s my new #1 (Limbaugh is now #2, which is fitting).
Napoleon
@Patrick:
I swear in the last couple of years someone who was rich and affiliated with Home Depot, I assume this guy, was involved with some outrageous winger BS. I just can not recall the details.
srv
Francis should just excommunicate a billionaire or two to make examples of them.
scav
@Ruckus: Burnsie probably admires the virtuosity of said beanie’s ability to suck up to whichever of the higher and mightier (be they of the monetary or theological hierarchy) is in closer proximity.
Sly
First, current? The demand by the powerful that the less powerful lick their boots is not new.
Second, Adam Smith summarized the core of this problem two and a half centuries ago:
Or, in the modern parlance: When you’re surrounded by ass-kissers, it is natural to assume that your shit doesn’t stink.
jefft452
@scav: “…for “charity” that benefits stones, not people”
This, a thousand times this
“All the churches is Spain are not worth one drop of Spanish blood”
Elizabelle
Hearing this morning about Ken Langone’s idiocy literally stopped me from going to Home Depot today. There are a few items I need.
Local hardware store, here I come.
MEMO to Mr. Langone: The Catholic faith is its people. Not its buildings. Not its capital campaigns.
Amir Khalid
@David Koch:
I know the usual argument is that God’s house must look nice. Sultans and presidents have been known to splurge on crazy-deluxe five-star mosques too, so I can tell you it’s hardly a Christian-only boondoggle. But the construction budgets for such mosques, and the US$180 mil to redo St Patrick’s, mean money that could have been spent more directly on the needs of the communities at hand.
watergirl
@srv: I’m thinking maybe just refuse to give them communion, over and over again, until they change their tune.
Bex
@MoeLarryAndJesus: And so saith Bill O’Reilly in his new “book.”
MomSense
“It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.”
/the original soshulist usurper
Baud
@Amir Khalid:
Assuming, of course, that the donors would have donated the same amounts for such tawdry purposes.
Baud
@MomSense:
The full context is better:
Villago Delenda Est
@Baud:
Spawn of the Marquis de Mittens, He’s talking about YOU, jackholes.
Yatsuno
@Villago Delenda Est: There’s a passage in the Book of Mormon that overrides that. Somewhere in Moroni I think.
kuvasz
Re: Idolization of the rich.
http://polaris.gseis.ucla.edu/pagre/conservatism.html
Baud
@Yatsuno:
Yeah, I think it’s the part of Moroni I that talks about the teeny tiny camels.
MomSense
@Baud:
Oh I agree. If you read the gospels, you find that Jesus spends much more time talking about economic justice and dignity than anything else. It does surprise me how many Christians are completely ignorant of the teachings of Jesus (at least as portrayed in the gospels).
I think the reality is that supply side economics is the Republican religion and has completely overtaken Christian teachings. Unfortunately there is no shortage of Christianist pastors who enable this BS and come up with all sorts of justifications for the prosperity gospel but it is NOT biblically based.
The catholic church has always had a very strong economic justice movement but it hasn’t always been advocated so forcefully from the Pope. I really do hope that economic justice becomes the focus and that they drop their homophobia and anti abortion ferver. For much of the history of the Catholic Church, they supported abortion through about 20 weeks. Saint Brigid was an abortion provider!!
MomSense
@Baud:
Or the very LARGE needles.
PurpleGirl
@Napoleon: You could be thinking of the other founder of Home Depot — ??? Black, who gives to conservative groups and causes and has gotten involved with charter schools.
Botsplainer
What I said on Facebook today about this:
Botsplainer, +5
David Koch
btw, as long as we’re on this subject, digya catch how Paul Ryan condescendingly refers to Pope Francis as “this guy”:
Roger Moore
It isn’t the Pope’s job to make rich people feel good about themselves. It’s his job to help people live up to Jesus’ teachings. Sometimes he can do that by giving praise where it’s deserved, but sometimes he has to do it by giving criticism where it’s deserved. If asshole “anonymous donor” (and Langone’s “my anonymous friend” routine is paper thin) thinks the Pope’s general criticism is aimed at him, maybe he needs to spend less time complaining and more time examining his conscience to see why he thought those comments were aimed at him.
Chris
@Patrick:
There’s just a little problem. We’re already tried catching rich people with honey instead of vinegar. That’s what the last thirty three years of economics in the West, euphemistically called “trickle down,” have been about; let the rich people keep all the honey, and maybe, because they’re just such nice guys, they’ll spread it around.
That didn’t happen.
The honey had its chance, and it didn’t catch any flies, so now you’ve got Pope Francis and various others calling for vinegar.
(The vinegar, it should be pointed out, did wonders for the economy in the middle of the twentieth century).
Yatsuno
If you twist any passage of the Bible hard enough, you can make it say pretty much whatever the hell you want. The pastors that have figured this out and run huge ministries with ungodly church buildings can totes justify those seven Porsches he needs to drive into work every day because how can he be seen as a leader if he drove the same coloured car every day? It’s distortions, lies, and playing off ignorance. Notice how many of these pastors also approve of homeschooling. Indoctrinate them young and they will keep up the
revenue streamholy works until Jeebus actually does come back to lift the .1% into Heaven.Chris
@MomSense:
Quoted for truth.
The Bible, like the Constitution, is a text conservatives worship not for what it says but for what they want it to say. That’s the essence of fundamentalism.
scav
@Chris: Honey, honey, honey. . . .Let’s just coat the rich in the stuff, and, being unfortunately short of flies (being so poor and shit), attract fire ants instead.
Redshirt
I think you’re all forgetting Gekko 4:20 – “Greed is Good”.
BillinGlendaleCA
@Amir Khalid: The new and rather grand cathedral here in LA is sometimes call the Rog Mahal after Cardinal Roger Mahony. Happy New Year Amir, how is 2014?
Chris
@David Koch:
Yes, there’s a fascinating duality between capitalism-as-ideal and capitalism-in-the-real-world that they’re constantly dancing back and forth between.
All of capitalism’s failures are dismissed as “that wasn’t real capitalism” (much the way some intellectuals a generation ago dismissed all the flaws in Russia, China, Cuba et al as Not True Communism). In fact, because “crony capitalism” involves having the government on your side, they argue, it’s really the government that’s the problem, which means it’s really socialism.
At the same time, they’ll endlessly defend those same crony capitalist systems by praising them as examples of Real Capitalism.
America under the robber-barons, Wall Street in the 2008 financial crisis, all the third world dictatorial systems we’ve ever propped up in the name of the Almighty Dollar – I’ve heard all of them alternatively criticized as “crony capitalist” perversions of real capitalism, or praised as examples of Real Capitalism that did great things by the right, depending on what argument needs to be made at the moment.
MomSense
@Yatsuno:
Yes and no. Yes, you can take quotes out of context and twist them–but you have to twist them. When you read through the Christian bible, especially the words and deeds purported to come from Jesus, it is remarkably consistent in its message.
TheBladeItselfIncites
I look forward to the day when Frankie Pope tells Langone to sell all he has and give it to the poor and the heads of Langone and Cardinal Moneyworship Child-Rape explode simultaneously in glorious technicolor.
Omnes Omnibus
@Botsplainer: Calvin didn’t preach what is known today as Calvinism.
Roger Moore
@MomSense:
Sure, but when somebody quotes from scripture to prove a point, they’re inherently taking one small piece out of the larger context. That makes it easy, or at least easier, for somebody who wants to argue that Jesus really wanted us all to be rich to twist his meaning. As long as they’re arguing individual passages, nobody is ever going to get enough of the Bible to see the big picture. I would like to see how they accommodate something like Matthew 6:19-21 in the Prosperity Gospel.
MomSense
@Roger Moore:
You can’t which is why they proof text.
Roger Moore
@MomSense:
Sure. Proof texting has a long history in Christianity going back all the way to the Gospels themselves, which were more than happy to do it to Isaiah.
Keith P
Gee, I wonder if Francis will be intimidated by the rich guy and tone down his talk so that a cathedral can be remodeled.
jefft452
@Chris: “(The vinegar, it should be pointed out, did wonders for the economy in the middle of the twentieth century).”
True, worked even better than @Mustang Bobby: “a rotting corpse”
My gut inclinations lean Jacobin, but having grown up during the greatest expansion and increase of standard of living in human history, I know my gut is wrong
But if I cant have Roosevelt today,
Robespierre tomorrow is a nice consolation prize
Chris
@jefft452:
More to the point – if they won’t let me have Roosevelt, they’re kind of bringing Robespierre onto their own heads.
TheBladeItselfIncites
@Chris:
Any chance of an intermediate Vlad the Impaler phase?
Joseph Nobles
@Baud:
FTFY
Roger Moore
@Joseph Nobles:
FTFY.
Patrick
@Chris:
Amen! Warren Buffett once said that “the class war is over. My class won”.
And yet, spoiled rich people like Lagone are not happy. Just mind-boggling. Maybe he should read the bible a bit more. That would give him the answer.
TheBladeItselfIncites
@Patrick:
You cannot be serious!
A rich “conservative Catholic” read the Bible? That’s the sort of grubby, resentful peasant thing that Martin Luther wants you to do.
Heliopause
You mean, like, the Pope? Take a guess at the total net worth of the Vatican’s cash + real estate + artwork + other investment holdings. Go ahead, guess.
Sluggocat
The Pope is smart. He knows that the upcoming war between the 1% and the 99% will be brutal. However, the upcoming environmental chaos of the next 100 year will sweep away most of the economic and social systems we now know. The Pope is thinking long-term and positioning the Church into the next century. Smart…
Kyle
@Mustang Bobby:
A pity he doesn’t practice what he preaches. Home Despot is in the basement with Mall-Wart when it comes to treating employees like crap.
sherparick
@Patrick: It is sorta interesting to watch their heads explode. But you really had to watch Michelle Caruso-Cabrera, a real sycophant snark about the Pope and how Lagome is showing him just where he would be without Capitalists. This is refurbishing St. Patrick’s Cathedral, not giving to the poor and of course the donations go front and center (I am reminded of the ol’ movie, “The Bishop’s Wife (Anglican of course) and how Angel Cary Grant schooled Bishop David Niven on what was important).
However, their problem is really not with the Pope, but as the historian Page Smith once wrote, but with the founder of Christianity.
Luke 16:19-31
New International Version (NIV)
The Rich Man and Lazarus
19 “There was a rich man who was dressed in purple and fine linen and lived in luxury every day. 20 At his gate was laid a beggar named Lazarus, covered with sores 21 and longing to eat what fell from the rich man’s table. Even the dogs came and licked his sores.
22 “The time came when the beggar died and the angels carried him to Abraham’s side. The rich man also died and was buried. 23 In Hades, where he was in torment, he looked up and saw Abraham far away, with Lazarus by his side. 24 So he called to him, ‘Father Abraham, have pity on me and send Lazarus to dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue, because I am in agony in this fire.’
25 “But Abraham replied, ‘Son, remember that in your lifetime you received your good things, while Lazarus received bad things, but now he is comforted here and you are in agony. 26 And besides all this, between us and you a great chasm has been set in place, so that those who want to go from here to you cannot, nor can anyone cross over from there to us.’
PIGL
@MBL: There’s not enough of them, and I doubt they would taste delicious. OTOH, maybe there is enough to feed the few remaining tigers with, for a few weeks. Great enterainment value, just saying, I am.
The Lodger
@scav: “Archbishop Dollar”? Perfect!
The Lodger
@Ruckus: This is why we should feed them to the sharks first, and then feed the sharks to the pigs.
TheBladeItselfIncites
@The Lodger:
Other way round. That way we can can do a Gadarene Swine reenactment for free.
The Lodger
@Napoleon: You’re thinking of Bernie Marcus, participant in the infamous billionaire’s conference call.
“If a retailer has not gotten involved with this, if he has not spent money on this election, if he has not sent money to Norm Coleman and these other guys,” Mr. Marcus said, apparently referring to Republican senators facing tough re-election fights, then those retailers “should be shot; should be thrown out of their goddamn jobs.”
A wanker of the first water.
PIGL
@TheBladeItselfIncites: Vlad the Impaler was a pussy. What you’re really thinking of is Basil the Bulgar-Slayer. Look it up.
Emily68
@patrick II: I bet Pope Francis likes this even less:
CARDINAL TIMOTHY DOLAN:(on meet the press) … a pope by his nature can’t make doctrinal changes. In fact, his sacred responsibility is to protect the integrity of the faith and to pass it on.
Does anybody know how doctrinal change happens in the Catholic church? Does the Pope just say “I’ve prayed over this matter and I’ve come to the conclusion that oral contraceptives are perfectly natural after all.”
In other words, how does a bill become law in the Catholic church?
Zeppo Manx
“One of the weirdest things to me about our current pathology of worshiping the rich is that they demand it from us proles. I mean, they are the true winners in society, and they just don’t understand why we don’t love them as much as they love themselves.”
-John Cole
That reminds me of this quote (possibly found on Balloon Juice)…
“The modern conservative is engaged in one of man’s oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness.”
― John Kenneth Galbraith
I would have thought that having loads of money precludes the need for praise from “the people” or moral self-justifications. If I magically get a few million bucks, I promise not to care one whit what the Pope or any of y’all, think of me as I swim in my solid gold pool.
TAPX486
I don’t remember from my Sunday school days Jesus saying – ‘Wonderful are the rich for their feelings will not be hurt’
Bob h
Nice cathedral you got there. Too bad if it doesn’t get fixed up.
Talentless Hack
@Tom Levenson: On topic: I wonder how much Francis likes Dolan — pederast-enabler that he is — editing his remarks for him. A guess: not much.
Can you demote cardinals? Send him off to Craggy Island or someplace? That would be saweeeeeeet!
coin operated
Having been raised in NYC, Neil deGrasse Tyson had this to say after serving consecutive appointments int the GWB administration:
“I came to realize that Republicans, above all else, do not want to die poor”
Seems to me that the monied Xian overlords knew exactly which party they wanted to be included with.
Person of Choler
@Phylllis:
I’d say a Pope has quite a comfortable gig; let him afflict himself first by way of example.
TheBladeItselfIncites
@PIGL:
Dear child, I knew about the legend of Basil Bulgaroktonos when you were still cowering in snotty terror at the concept of the alphabet.
Cordially yours,
etc etc.
Gertiegreen
@Mustang Bobby:
All along they forget what this new Pope seems most mindful of: the PEOPLE are the Church… Not some fancy Cathedral of stone!
Gertiegreen
@Mustang Bobby:
All along, Pope Francis seems to remember what Dolan & the wealthy he sucks up to cannot: the Church is the PEOPLE – not the bricks & stained glass of a Cathedral!