Even the New York Times cannot escape absurd reporting on absurd discourses.  The discourse, dear reader, is to name something with a label so broad and amorphous that everyone can interpret in any old convenient way, where convenient means “mystify.”  The Church, capital C, is an expert at mystifying.  The problem is that when people do not fully comprehend the mystification, they run right into contradiction and inconsistency.  So here is the New York Times.  Watch closely at the end of the second paragraph:

ASUNCIÓN, Paraguay — His speeches can blend biblical fury with apocalyptic doom. Pope Francis does not just criticize the excesses of global capitalism. He compares them to the “dung of the devil.” He does not simply argue that systemic “greed for money” is a bad thing. He calls it a “subtle dictatorship” that “condemns and enslaves men and women.”

Having returned to his native Latin America, Francis has renewed his left-leaning critiques on the inequalities of capitalism, describing it as an underlying cause of global injustice, and a prime cause of climate change. Francis escalated that line last week when he made a historic apology for the crimes of the Roman Catholic Church during the period of Spanish colonialism — even as he called for a global movement against a “new colonialism” rooted in an inequitable economic order.

Somehow the old Roman Catholic Church during the period of Spanish colonialism has something to do with “global capitalism” and so was also a victim of the “subtle dictatorship” and so therefore can apologize without taking responsibility (it’s The Mission redux).  What would responsibility involve?  See, er,  Harvey Keitel, Bad Lieutenant?

via In Fiery Speeches, Francis Excoriates Global Capitalism – The New York Times.