Posted on 08/18/2011 5:58:55 AM PDT by NYer
Pope Benedict XVI waves as he arrives at Madrid's Barajas airport from Rome, August 18, 2011. The Pope arrived in Spain's capital for a four-day visit culminating in a mass on Sunday in the Cuatro Vientos aerodrome which over two million people are expected to attend.
MADRID - Pope Benedict XVI on Thursday denounced the profit-at-all-cost mentality he says is behind Europe's current economic crisis. The pontiff insisted that morals and ethics must play a greater role in formulating economic policy in the future.
"Man must be at the centre of the economy and the economy must not be measured only by the maximization of profit but according to the common good," the pontiff told reporters aboard his plane as he travelled to Madrid for the Catholic Church's World Youth Day.
The weeklong Catholic event is taking place against the backdrop of the European debt crisis, which has hit Spain hard.
Benedict's plane touched down in Madrid shortly before noon (1000 GMT) to a crowd of hundreds of young pilgrims cheering and waving mainly Spanish flags.
Pope Benedict was met off his plane by King Juan Carlos Queen Sofia. Socialist Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero and conservative opposition leader Marian Rajoy, the man forecast to take power in November elections, were also present.
Many Spaniards have balked at the cost of the visit at a time of economic difficulty for many. Spain has a nearly 21 per cent jobless rate.
Hours before the pontiff's arrival, riot police and protesters opposed to his stay clashed in downtown Madrid. Police said eight demonstrators were arrested and 11 people were injured in the disturbances Wednesday night in the city's Puerta del Sol plaza.
On Tuesday, police arrested a chemistry student working as a volunteer for the pope's visit on suspicion he was planning a gas attack on protesters opposed to the pontiff's visit, officials said. The 24-year-old Mexican student, identified by the Mexican Embassy in Madrid as Jose Perez Bautista from Puebla state, was expected to appear in a Madrid court Thursday.
Organizers expect a million or more young people from 193 countries to attend the festival.
The main events are a prayer vigil with the 84-year-old Pope and outdoor sleepover for pilgrims Saturday night at a sprawling air base, and Mass there the next morning.
The pope's attendance shows how much a priority he places on this economically troubled country, which has departed sharply from its Catholic traditions and embraced hedonism and secularism. In the economic bust, he may be hoping to lure back some of his straying flock.
This will be the third time the pontiff has visited Spain since his papacy began in 2005.
The visit also comes as Spain gets ready for early elections in the fall. While the church officially keeps out of politics, it will be sure to be watching closely because the outcome could affect Spain's direction on hot-button ethical issues.
The election will pit the ruling Socialists, who irked the Vatican with social reforms including gay marriage and a law allowing 16-year-olds to get abortions without parental consent, against conservatives who tend to back church thinking on such issues and are heavily favoured to win.
In Spain the church faces a congregation for whom being Catholic is more a birthmark than a way of life. A poll released in July says that while 72 per cent of Spaniards identify themselves as Catholic, 60 per cent say they "almost never" go to Mass and only 13 per cent every Sunday.
Except for a trip Friday to a historic monastery in El Escorial, 50 kilometres (30 miles) northwest of Madrid, the Pope will spend the whole visit in Madrid, meeting with young people, hearing confession from some of them, riding through the city in his pope-mobile and greeting young nuns, seminarians and university professors, among other activities.
Proving once again that Popes are lousy economists.
“...by which you mean....?”
I mean that to assume that the Pope has never read Adam Smith....etc. However, I see from subsequent posts that you understand the situation. The Pope has also made it clear that states can easily take too much control.
The press frequently places a focus on part of what is actually stated solely to promote an agenda.
Pope needs to shut up and concentrate on saving souls.
Free enterprise, i.e. “capitalism” is the only ethical economic system. It is the free and un-coerced exchange of goods and services.
What sort of coercion does he propose to inflict on the system?
You wrote: “I sense an agenda on the Popes part, and a fundamental lack of morality. It is immoral to steal from people and that is what he is supporting.”
Your “senses”-— (informed _solely_ by the MSM enemies of the TRUTH)-— are lying to you. Get up to speed:
WSJ OPINION
JULY 13, 2009
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124718187188120189.html
The Pope on ‘Love in Truth’
Anyone seeking a repudiation of the market economy will be disappointed.
By ROBERT A. SIRICO
In his much anticipated third encyclical, Caritas in Veritate (Love in Truth), Pope Benedict XVI does not focus on specific systems of economics — he is not attempting to shore up anyone’s political agenda.
He is rather concerned with morality and the theological foundation of culture.
The context is of course a global economic crisis — a crisis that’s taken place in a moral vacuum, where the love of truth has been abandoned in favor of a crude materialism.
The pope urges that this crisis become “an opportunity for discernment, in which to shape a new vision for the future.”
Yet his encyclical contains no talk of seeking a third way between markets and socialism.
Words like greed and capitalism make no appearance here, despite press headlines following the publication of the encyclical earlier this week.
People seeking a blueprint for the political restructuring of the world economy won’t find it here.
But if they look to this document as a means for the moral reconstruction of the world’s cultures and societies, which in turn influence economic events, they will find much to reflect upon.
Caritas in Veritate is an eloquent restatement of old truths casually dismissed in modern times. The pope is pointing to a path neglected in all the talk of economic stimulus, namely a global embrace of truth-filled charity.
Benedict rightly attributes the crisis itself to “badly managed and largely speculative financial dealing.” But he resists the current fashion of blaming all existing world problems on the market economy. “The Church,” he writes, “has always held that economic action is not to be regarded as something opposed to society.” Further: “Society does not have to protect itself from the market, as if the development of the latter were ipso facto to entail the death of authentically human relations.”
The market is rather shaped by culture. “Economy and finance . . . can be used badly when those at the helm are motivated by purely selfish ends. Instruments that are good in themselves can thereby be transformed into harmful ones. But it is man’s darkened reason that produces these consequences, not the instrument per se. Therefore it is not the instrument that must be called to account, but individuals, their moral conscience and their personal and social responsibility.”
The pope does not reject globalization: “Blind opposition would be a mistaken and prejudiced attitude, incapable of recognizing the positive aspects of the process, with the consequent risk of missing the chance to take advantage of its many opportunities for development.” He says that “the world-wide diffusions of prosperity should not . . . be held up by projects that are protectionist.” More, not less, trade is needed: “the principal form of assistance needed by developing countries is that of allowing and encouraging the gradual penetration of their products into international markets.”
The encyclical doesn’t attack capitalism or offer models for nations to adopt.
“The Church does not have technical solutions to offer,” the pope firmly states, “and does not claim ‘to interfere in any way in the politics of States.
’ She does, however, have a mission of truth to accomplish, in every time and circumstance . . .” Benedict is profoundly aware that economic science has much to contribute to human betterment. The Church’s role is not to dictate the path of research but to focus its goals. “Economic science tells us that structural insecurity generates anti-productive attitudes wasteful of human resources. . . . Human costs always include economic costs, and economic dysfunctions always involve human costs.”
He constantly returns to two practical applications of the principle of truth in charity.
First, this principle takes us beyond earthly demands of justice, defined by rights and duties, and introduces essential moral priorities of generosity, mercy and communion — priorities which provide salvific and theological value.
Second, truth in charity is always focused on the common good, defined as an extension of the good of individuals who live in society and have broad social responsibilities.
As for issues of population, he can’t be clearer: “To consider population increase as the primary cause of underdevelopment is mistaken, even from an economic point of view.”
Several commentators have worried about his frequent calls for wealth redistribution.
Benedict does see a role for the state here, but much of the needed redistribution is the result of every voluntary and mutually beneficial exchange.
To understand such passages fully and accurately, we do well to put our political biases on the shelf.
This encyclical is a theological version of his predecessor’s more philosophical effort to anchor the free economy’s ethical foundation.
Much of it stands squarely with a long tradition of writings of a certain “classical liberal” tradition, one centered on the moral foundation of economics, from St. Thomas Aquinas and his disciples, Frederic Bastiat in the 19th century, Wilhelm Roepke, and even the secular F.A. Hayek in the 20th century. It also clearly resonates with some European Christian democratic thought.
Caritas in Veritate is a reminder that we cannot understand ourselves as a human community if we do not understand ourselves as something more than the sum or our material parts; if we do not understand our capacity for sin; and if we do not understand the principle of communion rooted in the gratuitousness of God’s grace.
Simply put, to this pope’s mind, there is no just or moral system without just and moral people.
[My comment: Which is exactly what America’s Framers said: “We have no government armed in power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion. Our Constitution was written for a religious and moral people. It is wholly inadequate for the government of any other.” ~ John Adams ]
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Nothing has changed:
1963:
Encyclical of Pope John XXIII, On Establishing Universal Peace In Truth, Justice, Charity, And Liberty, April 11, 1963
“Man’s personal dignity requires besides that he enjoy freedom and be able to make up his own mind when he acts.
In his association with his fellows, therefore, there is every reason why his recognition of rights, observance of duties, and many-sided collaboration with other men, should be primarily a matter of his own personal decision.
Each man should act on his own initiative, conviction, and sense of responsibility, not under the constant pressure of external coercion or enticement.
There is nothing human about a society that is welded together by force.
Far from encouraging, as it should, the attainment of man’s progress and perfection, it is merely an obstacle to his freedom.”
“Hence, a regime which governs solely or mainly by means of threats and intimidation or promises of reward, provides men with no effective incentive to work for the common good.
And even if it did, it would certainly be offensive to the dignity of free and rational human beings.”
“Consequently, laws and decrees passed in contravention of the moral order, and hence of the divine will, can have no binding force in conscience, since ‘it is right to obey God rather than men.’”
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/religion/2287244/posts?page=4#4
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Pope John Paul II, and now Pope Benedict XVI teach that the individual Christian’s responsibilities toward God fall in this order:
“..an authentic...theology: [is] one that puts
[1] God and the life of the spirit first,
[2] direct charitable care of others second,
[3] and only then draws consequences for a just social order.”
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/religion/2287244/posts?page=7#7
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More:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/religion/2287244/posts?page=3#3
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/religion/2245094/posts?page=5#5
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/religion/2287244/posts?page=6#6
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/religion/2287244/posts?page=9#9
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/religion/2288576/posts?page=11#11
But also I sense, both Popes were also against the very hororable economic system known as socialism also because it is freedom-limiting. They are for balanced economics.
This Pope has been speaking out against the abusiveness of both socialism and that capitalism which is irresponsible.
Maybe it was a mistranslation. Maybe the Pope said “socialism no matter the cost.” 21 percent unemployment is not so bad as long as we have a socialistic economy. That’s it, “Socialism no matter the cost; not capitalism, no matter the benefit.”
To the contrary, God should be at the center of the economy. God determines the success of the economy. This is clearly established throughout the Old Testament where God tells the people He will restore them and bless them is they obey His commandments.
John Paul II strong defended a market-oriented economy. He said the error of socialism is anthropological. That socialism, to specifically include the welfare state form of socialism, undermines the way human being enter into solidarity (or, voluntary association) with each other. He would not have been surprised at the anti-social behavior of the current generation of pathetic creatures that the welfare state has spawned, who are rioting and demanding benefits no matter the cost on those who work. The current Pope skipped over the teaching of John Paul II, in his encyclical on social teachings, and harkened back to the scatter-brained, warm-fuzziness of John XXIII.
You make a good point. The left-wing media might be taking the expression “profit at all cost” out of context, even mistranslating it, as the expression is nonsense makes no sense. If the Pope didn’t mean to talk in left-wing, anti-capitalist blather, somebody should explain what the Pope said or meant to say.
Sorry - I stand by my post.
“Pope denounces profit-at-all mentality behind economic crisis hitting Europe”
I don’t think he’s pegged the cause of Europe’s woes.
"What influence in fact have Christian ecclesiastical establishments had on civil society? In many instances they have been upholding the thrones of political tyranny. In no instance have they been seen as the guardians of the liberties of the people. Rulers who wished to subvert the public liberty have found in the clergy convenient auxiliaries. A just government, instituted to secure and perpetuate liberty, does not need the clergy." -- James Madison
Wow!
I’m sorry.
I especially like “He is particularly concerned about the extent to which the role of charity has been replaced by the activity of the State in modern economies.”
I already donate money to church or even to help neighbors (times are hard) and I would donate more if I got to keep the some of what the State takes from me.
“[D]emocracy will soon degenerate into an anarchy, such an anarchy that every man will do what is right in his own eyes and no man’s life or property or reputation or liberty will be secure, and every one of these will soon mould itself into a system of subordination of all the moral virtues and intellectual abilities, all the powers of wealth, beauty, wit and science, to the wanton pleasures, the capricious will, and the execrable cruelty of one or a very few.”
John Adams, An Essay on Man’s Lust for Power, August 29, 1763
Please see post number 38. Thank-you.
Perhaps next he will lecture us on how many moons revolve around Jupiter.
And he would be better qualified to do so, than say... young earth creationists?
Thank you for dragging that issue into this thread and reminding everyone that "all good Catholics" are required to believe in evolution and historical criticism in order to prove they aren't trailer trash.
Poor Robert Bellarmine. He thought he was a "good Catholic" when actually he was a redneck!
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