Posted on 07/07/2009 6:12:03 PM PDT by Pyro7480
Two major wire services- AP and Reuters- cherry picked excerpts from Pope Benedict XVI’s latest encyclical (a teaching document of the Catholic Church) on Tuesday to support left-wing economic and political positions, and all but ignored the pontiff’s traditional stances on the family, bioethics, and the environment. The AP also went so far to bring up “the state of the Vatican’s own [financial] books.”
Both Philip Pullella, who regularly writes about the Pope and the Vatican for Reuters, and the AP’s Nicole Winfield zeroed in on paragraph 67 of the encyclical, which is titled “Caritas in Veritate,” or “Charity in Truth,” which was released was signed by the Bishop of Rome on June 29, and released on Tuesday. In this paragraph, to use Pullella’s lede, “Pope Benedict…called for a ‘world political authority’ to manage the global economy.”
...While Pope Benedict did call for a “world political authority” and a “reform of the United Nations,” both authors (not to mention spectators on the left and the right) missed the context of this call....
Earlier in the document, in paragraph 57, Benedict forwarded the principle of “subsidiarity,” which has a clear meaning in Catholic social teaching. According to the Catechism of the Catholic Church, “the principle of subsidiarity is opposed to all forms of collectivism. It sets limits for state intervention....” The pope applied this in the context of the theme of the encyclical:
Subsidiarity is the most effective antidote against any form of all encompassing welfare state….In order not to produce a dangerous universal power of a tyrannical nature, the governance of globalization must be marked by subsidiarity....
(Excerpt) Read more at newsbusters.org ...
Please tell me where the misqoutes are in AGYG’s post #14?
“He’s saying if we continue with the current, globalized economic model, there will need to be such a system out of necessity to prevent oppression or further dehumanization”.
I commend you for expressing so well in one sentence the whole premise of what the Pope is addressing.
As a dear friend of mine told me today: “All human forms of government will eventually pass away and we, the faithful, will live in a monarchial model with the King”.
Meanwhile........
Now this is pure spin. The Holy Father said "there is urgent need of a true world political authority, as my predecessor Blessed John XXIII indicated some years ago".
I only hope that the misguided secular views of this Pope do not wreak as much havoc on the Catholic Church as the misguided secular views of John XXIII did.
The New Encyclical [Cairtas in Veritate -- Love and Truth] {Ecumenical]
I fear that this one is going to be judged as Humanae Vitae is - widespread acceptance of a half-asked nontruth where no one bothers to learn the theology and reasoning behind it because of excised passages. That is intellectually lazy and proves a lot of BXVI's points in the encyclical itself.
I’m a bit surprised at your response, MA. You know who +John Chrysostomos was preaching to in his Homilies, it was to the ruling elites of the Empire, the government. Homily L on Matthew is a good example:
“Do you really wish to pay homage to Christ’s body? Then do not neglect him when he is naked. At the same time that you honor him here [in Church] with hangings made of silk, do not ignore him outside when he perishes from cold and nakedness. For the One who said “This is my body”… also said “When I was hungry you gave me nothing to eat.”… For is there any point in his table being laden with golden cups while he himself is perishing from hunger? First fill him when he is hungry and then set his table with lavish ornaments. Are you making a golden cup for him at the very moment when you refuse to give him a cup of cold water? Do you decorate his table with cloths flecked with gold, while at the same time you neglect to give him what is necessary for him to cover himself? … I’m saying all this not to forbid your gifts of munificence, but to admonish you to perform those other duties at the same time, or rather before, you do these. No one was ever condemned for neglecting to be munificent: for the neglect of others hell
itself is threatened, as well as unquenchable fire....”
Here at sec. 4 he isn’t speaking to the local shoemaker, MA. It was the imperial nobility and the great merchants who decorated the churches of The City and they, MA, were the government.
“Kolokotronis, what is the purpose of calling for a world government when it will wind up being a United Nations on steroids?”
I must have missed that part, PM. Can you give me a cite?
I don’t believe 1 in 100 commentators have read it. I’m only on page 3 so far!
“I must have missed that part, PM. Can you give me a cite?”
Here you go:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/2287729/posts?page=11#11
And greetings to you! It’s been a while since we spoke.
Fallen for it?
Try "leaped upon it."
Actually, I think there may have been some trouble-makers doing the English translation of the document. I would like to see the words Benedict actually used that were translated as “redistribution of wealth” in English.
You already clicked on the Newsbusters link? Great. Essential reading. And here’s more: the ever-informed Fr. Fessio writing for Zenit about the encyclical:
http://www.zenit.org/article-26400?l=english
“Do you agree with Christ’s desire that “all may be one”?”
This is not the Pope’s vision for the Church... it’s his vision for the world.
Christ did not have a vision for the political world. He didn’t have a dog in that fight. The NT is clear that the “world” is owned by the Devil and he can give it to whoever he will. Has that changed since the first century?
Has the Pope forgotten that the world belongs to the Devil?
Has the Pope forgotten that those outside of Christ can not please God no matter how they strive for the “common good”?
PM, cherry picking +Benedict XVI is as fruitless a pursuit, and ultimately as misleading, as proof texting the Fathers or for that matter the Scriptures. The lines you have quoted have to be read first and foremost within the context of the chapter they are found in and the state of the world he is addressing. His suggestions are nothing more than a more just, from the pov of The Church which is not so parochial as that usually found in America, GATT, NAFTA, G8, G20, etc. system and are seen as potentially necessary in light of current conditions. The key, moreover, is his insistence on subsidarity. Beyond these obvious observations about a current context, it is far, far more important to read this encyclical within the Consensus Patrum of The Church. I know that seems to be a cop out, and that’s a fair criticism, but unless you have an almost gut comprehension of the Consensus Patrum, something which is born of more than merely reading The Fathers, which finds its source more in living our lives worshipping correctly within our liturgical community, The Holy Mother Church as the Latins call it, it will be at a minimum difficult to recognize what this pope, the most Patristic in 1200 years, is, and more importantly is not, saying.
PM, the bona fides of the Latin Church as being anti-communist and anti-socialist are too well established to be seriously questioned by any informed person. That the Pope does not embrace, indeed for all intents and purposes condemns, laissez faire capitalism and any form of local, national or international economic social Darwinism should come as no surprise to any Christian, whether or not he or she is a member of The Church or what is called around here a bible believing assembly.
If the foregoing is beyond argument, and I sincerely believe it is, then it seems to me that all Christians can learn from this latest exposition of the Faith of The Fathers on economic matters whether they can appreciate the Consensus Patrum or not.
Indeed it has been awhile since we spoke. Your voice as a thoughtful and well read Protestant is often missed in these discussions, my friend.
It takes a long while to digest it, doesn’t it?
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