Pope Francis is responding to rightwing American critics who claim his recent teaching is Marxist.  He says that’s just not true, but that even Marxists can be good people.  And he knows that because he’s known a few Marxists in his day.

In an interview with the Italian daily La Stampa, the Argentinean pontiff said the views he had espoused in his first apostolic exhortation last month were simply those of the church's social doctrine.  In it the pontiff aimed directly at “trickle down economics”, that failed idea that giving more money to wealthy people would results in them giving it back to the rest of society.  Inexplicably influential rightwing US radio host Rush Limbaugh attacked the Pope as “dramatically, embarrassingly, puzzlingly wrong”.

“The ideology of Marxism is wrong.  But I have met many Marxists in my life who are good people, so I don't feel offended,” Pope Francis told the Italian newspaper. 

And he defended his critique of the economics espoused by Margaret Thatcher, Ronald Reagan, Friedrich Hayek, and their followers.

“There was the promise that once the glass had become full it would overflow and the poor would benefit.  But what happens is that when it's full to the brim, the glass magically grows, and thus nothing ever comes out for the poor.  I repeat:  I did not talk as a specialist but according to the social doctrine of the church.  And this does not mean being a Marxist.”