Individualism: Lost in Translation?

The current Bishop of Rome is again condemning individualism. Let us be clear, individualism is the fundamental belief in the equality of each person, each individual, and the rejection of the collective. It is a principal one can strongly argue is consonant with New Testament teachings, perhaps excluding some of Paul. Individualism is the principle by which each person has the same rights as every other and that the persons individual actions count not those of the collective.

In a Vatican release for the colossus at Davos the Bishop states:

In these years, the World Economic Forum has offered an opportunity for the engagement of diverse stakeholders to explore innovative and effective ways of building a better world. It has also provided an arena where political will and mutual cooperation can be guided and strengthened in overcoming the isolationism, individualism and ideological colonization that sadly characterizes too much contemporary debate. 

One would find it rather difficult to relate colonization with individualism, in fact it was the Colonial efforts of many countries that destroyed the very individualism that made for the lands before their capture. Slavery is in essence a destruction of individualism and it was a fundamental element of Colonial control.

Again we must go back to the battle between Ockham and John XXII to see the initial growth of individualism. Salvation is an individual act, an act of freedom by the person and not the collective. Marxism is fundamentally a belief in the collective and a rejection of the individual.