Vatican says Marx is good dope

Karl Marx, who coined the phrase “Religion is the opium of the people”, may well be spinning in his grave at Highgate cemetery, London, with the news today that the Vatican has endorsed his theories. L’Osservatore Romano, the official Papal newspaper, has, according to the Times, declared “that Marx’s early critiques of capitalism had highlighted the social alienation felt by the large part of humanity that remained excluded, even now, from economic and political decision-making.” Marx, the author of the Communist Manifesto, who died in 1883, joins a burgeoning list of historical figures previously excoriated by the Catholic Church such as Gallileo, Charles Darwin and most recently Oscar Wilde to receive a papal rehabilitation, whether they would have liked it or not. The paper, which is subject to papal approval, goes on to say that Marx’s work remains especially relevant today as man seeks “a new harmony” between his needs and the natural environment. It does, however, note that “nothing has damaged the interests of Marx the philosopher more than Marxism.”