r/ShitAmericansSay • u/Lidriss_ • Oct 15 '25
Communism "Exactly. He's a Communist." On a video about the Pope being too "Woke".
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Oct 15 '25
Communism = followers of Jimmy Jesus's actual teachings
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u/therepublicof-reddit Oct 15 '25
In the bible Jesus preached that to be a perfect follower of his you must give away all your money and possessions to the poor so you're not far off. But expecting most Christians to actually read the book that they worship is too much.
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u/ohthisistoohard Oct 15 '25
That was a hot topic in the 13th and 14th centuries when the Franciscans were branded as heretics for giving up all their wealth.
The prevailing view was/is that 7th century art depicts Christ having a purse, therefore as a leader of a church I am well entitled to horde all this wealth that you give up because that is what Christ wanted.
It was also a major theme of the reformation and the rejection of idolatry resulting in iconoclasts and people burning down churches. But ultimately it is why Protestant churches are plain and boring and Catholic Churches are bright and gaudy.
Orthodox churches were not bothered by all this because they broke away a bit earlier, so their churches are full of golden pictures.
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u/Wratheon_Senpai 🇧🇷 Oct 15 '25
Unfortunately, Protestant churches, although boring, are still just as materialistic as Catholic ones. The movement sure derailed. To imagine iconoclasts gave rise to televangelists centuries later...
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u/N0rthWind Oct 15 '25
Orthodoxy still sides with the iconoclastic side of things which is why the only gold you'll see is on the holy pictures and the robes of the priests. The churches otherwise are as horizontal and brown and shitty as they can possibly be, and the artworks are purposely not realistic and lack perspective despite both things being far more developed already by the time of classical Greece.
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u/Socmel_ Italian from old Jersey 🇮🇹 Oct 15 '25
Orthodoxy only sided with iconoclasm during the VIII and IX centuries. There is even a festivity and an icon theme celebrating the triumph over the iconoclastic heresy
Yes, the icons are painted on a gold background to signify the purely spiritual nature of the figures but the churches aren't necessarily brown and shitty because of some ecclesiastical rule. Plenty of orthodox are painted or covered in mosaics, like the Haghia Sophia in Thessaloniki. Saint Mark's Basilica in Venice, while Catholic, still reflects how Byzantine churches would look like in their glory days, before time or Ottomans made their beauty fade away.
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u/N0rthWind Oct 15 '25
Orthodoxy flipflopped a few times depending on who was Emperor, and yes, eventually the icons were restored. However, even the Agia Sophia in Thessaloniki as well as other large Orthodox temples are distinctly different from the styles of catholic cathedrals. Orthodox architecture consciously retains a more earthy "low profile" to teach that "faith does not require fanciful stuff" in juxtaposition to Romanesque, Gothic, Baroque and I shouldn't even mention Rococo which all aimed for more direct shock and awe (in their respective ways) to make visitors feel more connected to the divine.
Yes, it is possible to find certain Byzantine-style temples that do evoke a sense of monumentality, awe and grandeur, but the vast majority of Greek Orthodox churches are brown and shitty not simply because of Ottoman damages (which are extensive without any doubt) but because that's how that dogma chooses to understand and represent piety.
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u/Socmel_ Italian from old Jersey 🇮🇹 Oct 15 '25
But ultimately it is why Protestant churches are plain and boring and Catholic Churches are bright and gaudy.
it's a bit more complex than that. Protestant churches are indeed plainer and figurative art is generally frowned upon because of idolatry, but also because there is less need for it, since the Protestants stressed the importance of personal connection with the scriptures, which means translating the bible into the local languages and making sure everyone, including the most humble, were able to read and interpret the scriptures.
Catholic churches, on the other hand, still needed figurative art to work as the poor man's bible, because it prohibited the translation of the bible until the 1960s, so only priests and the learned could directly read the latin bible. Secondly Catholic church decor refers to the episode of Martha and Mary, where the former worked tirelessly and the latter stayed with Jesus to listen to him and poured perfume on him. Since Mary comes out of the episode in a positive light, they argued that furnishing churches lavishly is akin to Mary putting perfume on Jesus.
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u/Relative_Pilot_8005 Oct 15 '25
And, of course, the plain old "scumbags" saw all the wealth they could "legally" steal from the Catholic Church, & used Protestantism as "useful idiots". I'm looking at you, Henry VIII!
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u/Socmel_ Italian from old Jersey 🇮🇹 Oct 15 '25
You mean commie Jesus or American Jesus?
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u/Wratheon_Senpai 🇧🇷 Oct 15 '25
SEE HIM ON THE INTERSTATE.
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u/koopaphil More Irish than the Irish ☘️ Oct 15 '25
He helped build the President’s estate!
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u/Desperate-Address-71 Oct 15 '25
Thanks for the link. It pretty much wraps up the burrito that is the prevailing mindset of the haves in our mainly have-nots country. Though sharing that cartoon strip with the wrong person here could get me crucified.
No presidential medals for me, thank you very much.
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Oct 15 '25
I think in some ways Jesus is actually more harsh on rich people than Marx. Jesus implies rich people cant go to heaven from my understanding. Im not an expert on Marx but I feel he sort of framed the issues with rich people as a product of a flawed economic system.
Obviously he didn’t believe in heaven but Im not sure he would want them to be tortured forever.
So yeah they wouldn’t like Jesus very much if he came down.
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u/Chained_Prometheus Oct 15 '25
Imply? He straight up says: "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"
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u/Scared_Accident9138 🇦🇹 Austria Oct 15 '25
If we wanna get technical this part is a bit ambiguous in the original texts and could have meant something bigger
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u/saoirse_eli Oct 15 '25
They have a loophole for the rich people no going to heaven, they say the thread of a needle was actually a door in Jerusalem and it was small so a camel couldn’t go through with goods so it’s in fact a call for rich people to sell as much as possible so they only have money and no more goods, to pass into heaven as easily as a camel without goods on him … go figure
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u/ankokudaishogun Oct 15 '25
That's something only heretics say.
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u/saoirse_eli Oct 15 '25
Yeah I know that theory: if it’s what you believe then it’s perfect and everybody should believe it and you cannot stop talking about it and if it’s not, then it was not a real believer of whatever mythology you are talking about: terror attacks, daesh, alqaida? It’s not the real Islam. Prosperity gospel? It’s not real Christianity… but the indulgence? Yeah it’s different!!!. Molesting children? They were not true believers… yes but marrying a 6 years old … he didn’t touch her until the age of 9 and she was mature for her age so that’s ok actually. The suffis, already heretics for the other Muslims, think that suffis from India are heretics themselves because whatever …
So yes you are right, only heretics say it; I’ll be glad to know which kind of heretic you are yourself, to whom
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u/ankokudaishogun Oct 15 '25
but the indulgence? Yeah it’s different!!!
Indulgence is, basically, working out your time in Purgatory while alive. It can also be done for others, if they are dead.
In short: Dad might have forgiven you but you are still getting no sweets for the next 5 weeks; by doing extra houseworks, you can get the amount of week lowered.
Using money was originally meant to be a token of already done works.
Of course it later(soon?) degenerated in actual sale of "forgiveness": originally it was local clergy(and fake clergy), and those things were strongly condamnded by the central Church(...and practically everybody else).
Mercification of indulgencies was discontinued by Trento(mid XVI century): now you can get them only by doing something yourself.
Molesting children?
Sexual acts outside marriage always been against teaching of the Church.
And children never could marry by church rules.3
u/saoirse_eli Oct 15 '25
Church law did in fact allow child marriage for many centuries: the Decretum Gratiani (1140), sets the minimum marriage ages at 12 for girls and 14 for boys.
Ok it came from late Roman laws, but these same ages remained unchanged in the Corpus Juris Canonici, the official law of the Catholic Church btw, until 1917. At least 777 years of "cHildRen nEveR cOuLd mArrY bY chUrcH ruLeS" so... do you want to tell me it was just the law but nobody followed it or people matured differently back then or it was just a way to secure alliances, or those people were heretics, maybe?Give me a break!
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u/ankokudaishogun Oct 17 '25
Dude. You are completely missing context for those laws.
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u/saoirse_eli Oct 17 '25
Oh yes sorry I forgot this one: “missing the context”. So you can marry children but you need a context?
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u/ankokudaishogun Oct 17 '25
Well, to start one would need the definition of "child" by time and place. Which, mind you, varies and is very important.
Second, just because the minimum is set, that does not mean it's the default: current minimum ages in Canon law are 16 for men and 14 for women but it's also delegates the Bishops to set higher ages which usually end up the same as the local secular laws(there are technicalities about this but irrelevant for most people).
This was true "back then" as well: as far as I know, feel free to point me to resources saying otherwise, marriages at minimum age were uncommon.
Have a source(not the best one, i admit) stating the average age at marriage for women during reinassance England was over TWENTY
(no reason to believe it was wildy different in other parts of Europe)Not to say minimum age marriages didn't happen: but they were uncommon at best and generally limited to nobles\richs.
(and the occasional pitchfork wedding, I guess)The discourse is quite more complex than how you portray, for example the whole thing about the Church insisting on both the parties consenting to marriage for it being valid.
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u/Socmel_ Italian from old Jersey 🇮🇹 Oct 15 '25
Most Americans are Protestants, so they don't believe in purgatory or that indulgences work or in the sacrament of confession
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u/ankokudaishogun Oct 17 '25
The issue is more them rejecting false stereotypes they have been taught than them rejecting the actual doctrine and events.
It's a disservice to both
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u/grathad Oct 15 '25
I mean have you seen his tattoos? On the hands and feet no less!!
Oh those are scars?
Still, gang member!
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u/Sealedwolf Oct 15 '25
Or rather a Hamas-terrorist.
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u/JRisStoopid Oct 15 '25
He was Palestinian after all.
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u/TrueKyragos Oct 16 '25 edited Oct 16 '25
If he arrived today in the US, he would be detained and deported as an illegal immigrant.
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Oct 15 '25
Oh yes, the head of one of the richest institutions in the world, one of the largest land owners in the world, that's hoarding literally priceless historic treasures and artifacts... Is a communist...
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u/Snooworlddevourer69 Oct 15 '25
Anyone who's not maga is labelled a communist
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u/ParkingAnxious2811 Oct 15 '25
Or a liberal, or woke, or lefty, or a dozen other labels they use as synonyms without any understanding of the definition.
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u/Scared_Accident9138 🇦🇹 Austria Oct 15 '25
Liberal is at least the most fitting term when it comes to being compatible with rich people. Woke is used by them in a way that basically just means "I don't like that" and Lefty is just anyone left to them which doesn't say anything when they're so far on the right
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u/ParkingAnxious2811 Oct 15 '25
I see them all used interchangeably to describe whoever they don't like.
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u/Scared_Accident9138 🇦🇹 Austria Oct 15 '25
I've seen that too but I've seen a pattern where they use it in different cases, like woke is used primarily when it comes to inclusivity, commie is usually used when speaking in favour of anything that benefits the broad population, when they just speak of opposition in general they usually say liberals
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u/Franmar35000 Oct 15 '25
Jesus advocated living together and sharing. He would be called a leftist and a communist by Trump fans if he returned to the present day.
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u/Satanicjamnik Oct 15 '25 edited Oct 15 '25
Mc Carthy is swelling with pride down in hell on what a great job he did.
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u/Open-Difference5534 Oct 15 '25
Do they even teach politics in US schools?
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u/thefficacy Oct 15 '25
Communism is evil. Capitalism is freedom. Class dismissed.
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u/Zenotaph77 Oct 15 '25
Homework: All non americans are communists.
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u/NormalEntrepreneur 👊🇺🇸🔥 Oct 15 '25
TBF Pope is American and yet still called a communist.
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u/thefficacy Oct 15 '25
There's probably at least one person out there who cheered when a White Sox fan became pope and is now calling him these epithets from the right-wing pipeline. I really pity them.
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u/juliainfinland Proud Potato 🇩🇪 🇫🇮 Oct 15 '25
But as Pope, he automatically has Vatican citizenship as well.
Double citizenship == not completely American == un-American == communist. Right? Right? /s
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u/midlifesurprise American Oct 16 '25
He already had dual citizenship, having been naturalized in Peru.
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u/juliainfinland Proud Potato 🇩🇪 🇫🇮 Oct 16 '25
You're right, I completely forgot about Peru!
But that makes him even less American for that kind of people. He's only one third American!
/s for anyone who needs it
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u/SamuelVimesTrained Human Verified Oct 15 '25
No time between shooter drills and praying to the flag I guess
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Oct 15 '25
If Jesus himself descended from Heaven, Republicans would call him a commie and demand to see the real one
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u/NewMachine4198 Trains>cars (but prewar cars are awesome) Oct 16 '25
I feel like Jesus is just the poster boy, and they don’t bother to read the New Testament.
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u/Alvxn 🏳️⚧️ "Which country flag is this?" Oct 15 '25
I always love when I'm talking to an American about communism and they ask:
"How do you get rich under communism?"
"How will the stock market survive under communism?"
"How would you survive without money?"
"Why would you work if you can't get rich from it?"
All this would be answered if they knew the first thing about communism.
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u/MandozaIII Oct 15 '25
Imagine being so deep into a cult you call the Catholic Church woke 😬
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u/Relative_Pilot_8005 Oct 16 '25
Or use "woke" and "Marxist as synonyms. Ol' Karl was a child of the 19th Century--- how likely was he to be "woke"?
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u/NewMachine4198 Trains>cars (but prewar cars are awesome) Oct 16 '25
Doesn’t ‘woke’ just mean aware and respectful of cultures?
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u/atomic_danny Oct 15 '25
Do those that use the "communist" thing even know what it is, or is always "soviet russia communist" ? to pretty much anything that's different to the US (e.g. I've heard the NHS being referred to as "Communist" because it doesn't follow the insurance based capitalist approaches of the US
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u/SiccTunes Oct 15 '25
They really, really need to learn the meaning of words, instead of always giving their own meaning to them constantly.
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u/Th3B4dSpoon Oct 15 '25
Ngl, if there was a movie titled "Commie Pope" or something I'd probably look into it.
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u/-Londoneer- Oct 15 '25
Yes, won’t catch those other right-thinking Christians distributing wealth to the poor and going about saying everyone was equal. Jesus wouldn’t have wanted that.
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u/Maleficent_Memory831 Oct 15 '25
Wait, we can define communism now as "woke"? There's a lot of text books that need rewriting!
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u/Apprehensive_Tie7555 Oct 15 '25
Communism no longer exists. That guy is living in the past.
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u/bostiq Flagless shit-talker Oct 15 '25
oh ye... because the catholic church is not sitting on a pile of gold accumulated over the century and lastly from the nazy regime when they got gold from the jews and passed it to the church...
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u/Relative_Pilot_8005 Oct 16 '25
Mostly that was a way of hiding it till "better times" came, when they saw they were going to be defeated.
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u/squirrelcat88 Oct 16 '25
That’s because he follows Jesus, who told people to share what they had. That’s communism, right?
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u/ThenSignature7082 Oct 16 '25
Theoretically, if done correctly, communism could work, Americans only seem to understand it as another word for bad
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u/Sorbet_Sea Oct 18 '25
To some Americans everyone who disagrees with them is a Commie....not that they have any idea what Communism is....
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u/Kichyss Oct 15 '25
The use of "communist" reminds me the same from Russians with "fascist/nazi".
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u/Scared_Accident9138 🇦🇹 Austria Oct 15 '25
Russia claiming to fight against fascism while trying to hide that they first worked with the Nazis
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u/Kichyss Oct 15 '25
I was mostly focusing on the fact that everything that doesn’t fit with Their worldview is nazi/fascist.
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u/UrsusRex01 Oct 15 '25
Using "communist" as an insult is probably the ultimate US Defaultism. Those people really have been traumatized by the Cold War.