In today's show we analyse a letter by Pope Francis to the participants in the Plenary Session of the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences in April 2017.

This letter contains a savage attack on libertarian philosophy which is tantamount to a repudiation of the most basic values of moder liberal democracy. The basic message is in line with a Marxist / collectivist viewpoint which percieves individual rights as a threat to the greater good of the greater number. 

It is hard to see how these words accord with the basic teachings of Christianity:

Finally, I cannot but speak of the serious risks associated with the invasion, at high levels of culture and education in both universities and in schools, of positions of libertarian individualism. A common feature of this fallacious paradigm is that it minimizes the common good, that is, “living well”, a “good life” in the community framework, and exalts the selfish ideal that deceptively proposes a “beautiful life”. If individualism affirms that it is only the individual who gives value to things and interpersonal relationships, and so it is only the individual who decides what is good and what is bad, then libertarianism, today in fashion, preaches that to establish freedom and individual responsibility, it is necessary to resort to the idea of “self-causation”. Thus libertarian individualism denies the validity of the common good because on the one hand it supposes that the very idea of “common” implies the constriction of at least some individuals, and the other that the notion of “good” deprives freedom of its essence.

Other topics covered in today's show include the US posture on North Korea and some alarming developments in Australia reagrding parental rights and vaccination of children.

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