All Popes are anti-capitalist

Chris Trotter is excited that Pope Benedict has attack capitalism:

Pope Francis, like his namesake, Saint Francis of Assisi, is challenging the powerful to see the world through new eyes. The question, now, is whether the powerful will embrace this radical pope, or destroy him?

The fate of St Francis would have been grim, had the then occupant of the papal throne, Innocent III, not recognised in his charismatic power a force of huge potential benefit to the Catholic Church.

By extending his protection to Francis and his followers, Innocent allowed them to open a new pathway for the faithful. Pope Francis, in his first encyclical, Laudato Si (Praise Be), presents global capitalism with a similar choice. Either, brand this radical pope a heretic and destroy him, or, embrace his radical Christian ecologism as a uniquely effective way of re-presenting capitalism to an increasingly hostile world.

Almost every senior religious figure is anti-capitalism. That is why they are in religion, not business.

While Popes have differed in their views on social issues, on economic issues they have all denounced unfettered capitalism regularly.

Pope John Paul II spoke of capitalism having viruses of consumerism and materalism.

The arch conservative Pope Benedict spoke of the failures of capitalism.

So basically a Pope attacking capitalism is about as news worthy as a public health activist promoting a new tax. Not much.