Stop trying to make “Fetch” happen. You cannot be a socialist and a Catholic…
I don’t know what it is with a segment of our Catholic brethren that they believe that Socialism is somehow consistent with Catholicism. We’ve addressed this in a previous article but, apparently with the National Catholic Reporter now issuing a broadside against Bishop Barron, we need to do it again.
As always, Marxists, from atop their mountain of self-righteousness, suggest from the very title of their article, that our adherence to Catholicism is “tendentious”—i.e. promoting a controversial point of view. News flash for you “democrat socialists”: Catholicism, for actual Catholics, is not controversial. However, wearing “Catholic Charity” like some sort of skin suit to mask a malicious, godless, violent ideology like Marxism a/k/a “Democrat Socialism” is not only controversial but downright dangerous. And, we should call it what it is: A genocidal ideology dressed up in Catholic clothing. And yes, National Catholic Reporter: in this morality play YOU are the wolf coming for the many sheep who, unfortunately, suffer from suicidal empathy.
Here’s what NCR is doing in the piece: it takes one sloppy word choice (“warmth of collectivism”), reframes Bishop Barron’s very normal Catholic warning as “mendacity,” then tries to launder socialism into “basically Catholic” by swapping in a safer label (“democratic”) and pretending the Church’s condemnations only applied to the mean versions. That’s not Catholic social teaching. That’s PR.
Let’s be clear: Catholic Charity NEVER comes from the barrel of the government gun yet time and again we have to have fingers waved at us about our lack of charity if we don’t submit to government theft and redistribution.
1) “Warmth of collectivism” is not a Hallmark card—it's a doctrinal red flag
NCR quotes Mamdani praising “the warmth of collectivism” and then scolds Barron for reacting like a Catholic bishop who has read the last 150 years of papal teaching.
But the Church didn’t condemn collectivism because it’s “insufficiently cozy.” She condemned it because it inverts the moral order: the person becomes material for “the project,” and rights become permissions granted by the group.
Pius XI describes the core problem with communist collectivism in blunt terms: it strips man of liberty, “robs human personality of all its dignity,” and recognizes no real rights of the individual in relation to the collective—reducing him to “a mere cog-wheel.”
So when a politician advertises “collectivism” as warmth, Barron isn’t “tendentious.” He’s doing the thing bishops are supposed to do: identify the lie hiding inside a pretty word. (The lie is: the collective can [and should] carry your moral burdens for you.)
2) The Church explicitly says you can’t be both “Catholic and socialist”
NCR tries to narrow the condemnations to “aggressively secularist” socialism and suggests democratic socialism is basically exempt. And its champion, allegedly, is an anti-semitic, Islamic Marxist with a nice smile and we Catholics are supposed to submit or we lack charity? Spare me. Since NCR wants to trot out encyclicals, we can play too:
NCR cites Quadragesimo Anno to piously condemn free market economics and capitalism more broadly. However, the author must have missed this statement in that same encyclical:
“Religious socialism, Christian socialism, are contradictory terms; no one can be at the same time a good Catholic and a true socialist.”
Reading is fundamental. Complete reading provides context. Like any Marxist, NCR’s author trots out the Church as a prop and support for the murderous ideology of socialism pretending [like they all do] that “Socialism just wasn’t done right but this time—with Mamdani—it’ll be utopia.”
News flash number 2: Utopia comes from the Greek “οὐ” and “τόπος” roughly meaning: imaginary place—i.e., it cannot exist.
Now, does the Church require one particular modern political party platform? No. Catholic social teaching is not a party. But it does judge ideologies by their anthropology and moral premises. Socialism as a theory of society—especially when it trends toward collectivist control and class-conflict thinking—is repeatedly judged irreconcilable with Christianity.
3) “But capitalism!” is a dodge, not a refutation
NCR’s move is classic: “Barron condemned socialism, but has he condemned capitalism enough?”
Catholic social teaching does warn against the excesses of capitalism—especially “individualist economic teaching” that treats the market as a moral autopilot. As noted, NCR manages to quote Quadragesimo Anno on this point.
But here’s what they’re smuggling in: the idea that because the Church critiques capitalist abuses, therefore bishops must stop warning about socialism/collectivism. That doesn’t follow.
The Church rejects both:
laissez-faire economic individualism (market-as-idol), and
collectivist socialism/communism (State/party-as-idol).
The correction to one error is not “the opposite error with nicer branding.” It’s the moral order: dignity of the person, family integrity, subsidiarity, solidarity, and justice.
Leo XIII condemns socialism’s “community of goods” approach because it is “directly contrary to the natural rights of mankind,” and insists that this main tenet “must be utterly rejected.”
So: yes, the Church condemns certain abuses of free market economies. But she also says don’t solve it by abolishing the person into the collective.
4) “Empathy weaponized” is real—and the popes already described the trick
NCR essentially argues that “collectivism” can mean a humane solidarity and that Barron is dishonestly conflating it with murderous regimes.
But Pius XI describes exactly how the pitch works: communism presents itself as the champion of justice and equitable distribution—things that are “entirely and undoubtedly legitimate”—and uses that moral language to draw in even those who reject terror in principle.
That’s your “weaponized empathy” in papal vocabulary: real injustices → moral outrage → ideological capture → the person becomes expendable.
And Leo XIII, even earlier, calls out the bait-and-switch: socialists claim to care for “the needs… of all men,” while aiming to seize and hold goods in common through an attack on property and social order.
This is why Barron’s instinct is correct: when someone celebrates collectivism, you don’t reply with “aww.” You reply with Catholic realism about what collectivism does to persons.
5) The pro-Barron Catholic answer: dignity is personal, not statistical
Barron’s core point in the tweet NCR quotes is that collectivist regimes have been disastrous and that Catholic teaching condemns socialism and defends the dignity of the person.
That’s not “right-wing.” That’s the Church’s anthropology:
Society is for man, not man for society.
The State that “absorbs everything into itself” becomes bureaucracy and cannot give the “loving personal concern” people need; we do not need a State that “regulates and controls everything,” but one that respects subsidiarity.
Marxism’s underlying move—sacrificing persons now for a promised future—is explicitly condemned as “inhuman philosophy,” where people are “sacrificed… to the moloch of the future.”
So when politicians sell socialism as “kindness,” the Catholic reply is: kindness that dissolves persons into the collective is not kindness. It’s soft-totalitarian sentimentality.
6) Why bishops should speak here (and why NCR hates it)
NCR complains Barron is “one-sided,” should stop commenting, and is “scandalizing the faithful.”
But bishops are not hired to be the chaplains of whichever ideology has the best branding this quarter. Leo XIII literally describes socialism/communism/nihilism as a “deadly plague” threatening society, attacking authority, family, and property.
If that’s true—and it is—silence isn’t prudence. It’s negligence.
Finally, the idea that Bishop Barron should keep his comments in his diocese is also nonsense and, candidly, insulting. If I have to see Fr. James Martin paraded and celebrated the world over for his “ministry” then certainly Bishop Barron’s warnings about ideologies responsible for 200 million deaths worldwide is more than welcome and courageous.
Bishop Barron isn’t “distorting doctrine.” He’s doing the rare thing many modern churchmen are punished for: speaking in nouns instead of vibes.
Endnotes (Encyclicals)
Leo XIII, Quod Apostolici Muneris (1878): socialism/communism/nihilism described as a “deadly plague,” attacking authority, marriage/family, and property.
Leo XIII, Rerum Novarum (1891): socialism’s “community of goods” “must be utterly rejected”; inviolability of private property; socialist transfer to “common property” is unjust.
Pius XI, Quadragesimo Anno (1931): “no one can be at the same time a good Catholic and a true socialist.”
Pius XI, Divini Redemptoris (1937): communism “strips man of his liberty,” “robs human personality of all its dignity,” denies rights of the individual, making him a “cog-wheel.”
Benedict XVI, Deus Caritas Est (2005): the State that absorbs everything becomes bureaucracy; we do not need a State that “regulates and controls everything”; critique of Marxist logic and “moloch of the future.”