Yet another conservative has taken issue with critical comments made by Pope Francis on capitalism and “trickle-down” economics.

Tea party activist Jonathon Moseley published a World Net Daily column Sunday that challenged the pope’s interpretation of the Bible, saying that Jesus had addressed his comments about helping the poor to individuals, not the government.

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Moseley, a Virginia business and criminal defense attorney, supports his claim with a verse from the Book of Luke in which Jesus declines to act as arbitrator when someone asks him to compel a brother to divide their family inheritance.

“In just one verse, we see that God rejects the left-wing ‘Jesus Christ supported socialism’ heresy,” Moseley writes. “When Jesus was asked to support redistribution of wealth — to tell one brother to share the family inheritance with the other — Jesus refused.”

Moseley says Jesus would never support a government or church “stealing property by force” to give to someone else because he wouldn’t even intervene with the family dispute described in the Bible.

He dismisses claims by those who say the pope’s Spanish-language Apostolic Exhortation was mistranslated, because Pope Francis himself had not disputed the translations and corrected translations differ little from the original.

But Moseley says the pope is wrong to argue for government intervention in the distribution of wealth, and he defends the pope’s American conservative critics.

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“One truth shines out from the Bible: Jesus spoke to the individual, never to government or government policy,” Moseley writes. “Jesus was a capitalist, preaching personal responsibility, not a socialist.”

Moseley mangles the definition of socialism to make it seem synonymous with totalitarianism and defines capitalism as synonymous with freedom, and proceeds with his arguments from there.

“Would Jesus endorse the violence needed for government intervention?” Moseley argues.

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He says that capitalism necessarily benefits society because businesses rely on consumers to choose their products or services.

“The consumer is king,” Moseley argues. “Consumers won’t buy unless the purchase benefits them. To reinforce that central pillar of capitalism, laws against lying and fraud are proper and necessary.”

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Moseley, who cohosts the “Conservative Commandos” radio show and serves as executive director of American Border Control, says the pope has got it all wrong on the free market.

“In teaching us how we should live, Jesus agrees that a man who traded with investment capital and earned profits is praised and rewarded by his master, a type for God, and given increased authority,” Moseley writes.

By contrast, he notes, Pope Francis specifically rejects the “invisible hand” of the free market as a “poison.”

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He says the pope has directly contradicted Jesus’ strategy of changing individual hearts one at a time by calling on political leaders to help improve the lives of the poor and to address the issue of wealth inequality.

“Jesus Christ is weeping in heaven hearing Christians espouse a socialist philosophy that has created suffering and poverty around the world,” Moseley writes. “It is impossible to love one’s neighbor as yourself without fighting against socialism, meaning government meddling in private lives.”

[Image via Agence France-Presse]