Poplar Catholic Bishop Robert Barron sharply criticized New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s inaugural pledge to replace “the frigidity of rugged individualism with the warmth of collectivism,” calling collectivism responsible for over 100 million deaths last century and “disastrous” in modern regimes like Venezuela and Cuba.
In response to these remarks, Barron invoked Catholic teaching, which emphasizes market economies based on human dignity. Conservatives, including Gov. Ron DeSantis, echoed these concerns about the loss of rights under collectivist ideologies.
In any case, the controversial Mayor of New York said, starting the massive feud, “We will replace the frigidity of rugged individualism with the warmth of collectivism. If our campaign demonstrated that the people of New York yearn for solidarity, then let this government foster it.” The comment came in his inaugural address.
Firing back, the popular catholic bishop said, “There was a line from Zohran Mamdani’s inaugural address yesterday that took my breath away. He said he intended to replace ‘the frigidity of rugged individualism with the warmth of collectivism.'”
Continuing his epic retort, Barron kept hammering away at Mamdani. “Collectivism in its various forms is responsible for the deaths of at least 100 million people in the last century… For God’s sake, spare me the ‘warmth of collectivism,'” he pointed out.
Bishop Robert Barron wrapped up his remarks, saying, “Socialist and communist forms of government around the world today — Venezuela, Cuba, North Korea, etc. — are disastrous. Catholic social teaching has consistently condemned socialism and has embraced the market economy, which people like Mamdani caricature as ‘rugged individualism.’ In fact, it is the economic system that is based upon the rights, freedom and dignity of the human person.”
Adding his own condemnation, Florida Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis slammed the socialists’ wild comments. “The ‘warmth’ of collectivism ‘always requires coercion and force.’ How many dead over the past 100 years due to collectivist ideologies?” he added.
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When the remarks went viral on social media, everyday conservatives were equally appalled. “When Mamdani says, ‘We will replace the frigidity of rugged individualism with the warmth of collectivism.’ It’s straight out of Communism,” one post read.
Watch Mamdani’s warmth of collectivism comment here:
“Replace each instance of “socialism” here with “collectivism” and you’ll have a clear picture of Mamdani’s goals for NYC,” a woman reacted. Outraged, another conservative asked, “Which military is gearing up to fight on behalf a Maduro, as a Catholic, we do not justify communism. See Bishop Barron’s comment on communism made yesterday in response to Mamdani’s speech.”
Similarly annoyed, one response stated, “The people in America worshipping Mamdani & socialism need to read this, unchecked, this is where they’re headed, this is what the end goal of collectivism is.” Bringing much-needed historical context, a tweet noted, “Zohran Mamdani can almost make socialism sound appealing if you missed the last century… —Make Collectivism Murderous Again, and again…”
Rounding out the comments, another added, “So Socialism has a bad stigma, so Mamdani applies PC culture and now calls it ‘collectivism.’ …This trickery of verbiage is used to manipulate the population…”
Featured image credit: Bingjiefu He, CC BY-SA 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons