Supreme Knight criticizes use of Pope's encyclical for political agendas

cna ^ | July 7, 2009

[NYer]

What we ought to be doing is reading the encyclical and seeing what we can learn from it

It's amazing how intelligent folks will believe the msm spin, yet won't make the time to read the encyclical and draw their own conclusions. I thought Freepers were above this nonsense.

CARITAS IN VERITATE

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[NYer]

CARITAS IN VERITATE

[humblegunner]

Well if the Pope is wrong, then he's wrong.

He has no education or experience in these matters.

[NYer]

Well if the Pope is wrong, then he's wrong.

Please cite the passage in the encyclical where he is wrong.

[TheRiverNile]

Thanks for the ping. Keep me in the loop.

[who_would_fardels_bear]

He used the word "redistribution".

He may as well have mentioned Obama or Clinton by name if his intent was to rile up Freepers.

Of course wealth is redistributed constantly in any kind of economic system from free market to socialist.

The reaction by many Freepers to this encyclical shows that conservatives are just as susceptible to Pavlovian conditioning as liberals.

[NYer]

He may as well have mentioned Obama or Clinton by name if his intent was to rile up Freepers.

You are looking at this encyclical through your 'political lenses'. Take those off and put on the ones of faith. Then reread what the pope has written.

[RobbyS]

The “social justice Catholics” will use this letter to justify their allegiance to Obama. Never mind that the pope’s whole argument hinges on the acceptance of the concept of natural law, which liberal Catholics do not accept.

[Ulysse]

I THINK that the Supreme Knight is wrong making a PC useless comment.

Pope’s last encyclique appears to be a great teaching which place human being at the centre and thye top of economy.

As far as i heard it is highlighting PERSONNAL RESPONSABILITY and human’s dignity and these are core CONSERVATIVE values

[ChocChipCookie]

Let's see. He uses the term, "common good" 20 times and "global" 54 times. He cites the United Nations 5 times.

In the face of the unrelenting growth of global interdependence, there is a strongly felt need, even in the midst of a global recession, for a reform of the United Nations Organization, and likewise of economic institutions and international finance, so that the concept of the family of nations can acquire real teeth.

Talking about redistribution of wealth:

Economic life undoubtedly requires contracts, in order to regulate relations of exchange between goods of equivalent value. But it also needs just laws and forms of redistribution governed by politics, and what is more, it needs works redolent of the spirit of gift.

The processes of globalization, suitably understood and directed, open up the unprecedented possibility of large-scale redistribution of wealth on a world-wide scale; if badly directed, however, they can lead to an increase in poverty and inequality, and could even trigger a global crisis.

What is also needed, though, is a worldwide redistribution of energy resources, so that countries lacking those resources can have access to them.

What does that mean? I can only figure that "certain" developed countries are using "too much" oil, and that is what is creating an imbalance of wealth. I've never had an issue with this Pope. I'm not Catholic but have found myself cheering many of his pronouncements. This time around, though, much of what he is saying could vey easily be used as an excuse to cripple our nation even further without identifying the evil, corrupt governments that cause much of the suffering in under- and undeveloped countries.

Regardless of the speaker, when I hear a speech or read an article that contains "redistribution", "social justice", "United Nations", "globalization", and "common good", a red flag starts waving.

[Salvation]

The Pope isn't wrong. Read the document.

And these threads that post the teurh -- including this one.

Supreme Knight criticizes use of Pope's encyclical for political agendas

Benedict XVI explains gifts and limitations of free market economy

Benedict XVI Tightens Up the Church's Social Teaching

Excerpts from Pope Benedict XVI New Encyclical "CARITAS IN VERITATE" (CHARITY AND TRUTH)

Love for others requires involvement in politics, pope says

[Salvation]

Don’t take things out of context!

[Mount Athos]

I appreciate what you say about personal responsibility, but this document explicitly calls for state involvement, and uses the word redistribution repeatedly. I’ll give the authors the benefit of the doubt about what they are calling for, but I think their language choice is questionable (redistribution) and falls into the hands of those who advocate socialism

http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/benedict_xvi/encyclicals/documents/hf_ben-xvi_enc_20090629_caritas-in-veritate_en.html

35. “But the social doctrine of the Church has unceasingly highlighted the importance of distributive justice and social justice for the market economy...”

36.”Therefore, it must be borne in mind that grave imbalances are produced when economic action, conceived merely as an engine for wealth creation, is detached from political action, conceived as a means for pursuing justice through redistribution.”

37.”Economic life undoubtedly requires contracts, in order to regulate relations of exchange between goods of equivalent value. But it also needs just laws and forms of redistribution governed by politics...”

39. “In this way he was applying on a global scale the insights and aspirations contained in Rerum Novarum, written when, as a result of the Industrial Revolution, the idea was first proposed — somewhat ahead of its time — that the civil order, for its self-regulation, also needed intervention from the State for purposes of redistribution.

[Sir Francis Dashwood]

Part IV. Of the Kingdom of Darkness
Chap. xlvii. Of the Benefit that proceedeth from such Darkness

[21] ...For from the time that the Bishop of Rome had gotten to be acknowledged for bishop universal, by pretense of succession to St. Peter, their whole hierarchy (or kingdom of darkness) may be compared not unfitly to the kingdom of fairies (that is, to the old wives' fables in England, concerning ghosts and spirits and the feats they play in the night). And if a man consider the original of this ecclesiastical dominion, he will easily perceive that the Papacy is no other than the ghost of the deceased Roman empire sitting crowned upon the grave thereof. For so did the Papacy start out of the ruins of that heathen power.

[22] The language also which they use (both in the churches and in their public acts) being Latin, which is not commonly used by any nation now in the world, what is it but the ghost of the old Roman language?

[23] The fairies, in what nation soever they converse, have but one universal king, which some poets of ours call King Oberon; but the Scripture calls Beelzebub, prince of demons. The ecclesiastics likewise, in whose dominions soever they be found, acknowledge but one universal king, the Pope.

[24] The ecclesiastics are spiritual men and ghostly fathers. The fairies and ghosts inhabit darkness, solitudes, and graves. The ecclesiastics walk in obscurity of doctrine, in monasteries, churches, and church-yards.

Hobbes, Thomas. Leviathan: with selected variants from the Latin edition of 1668. Ed. Edwin Curley. Indianapolis: Hackett, 1994.

http://oregonstate.edu/instruct/phl302/texts/hobbes/leviathan-contents.html

[Wuli]

I wish a were wrong, but I sincerely believe that I am not wrong, in thinking that (1)the current Pope’s messages on economic issues are INTENTIONALLY euphemistic enough that Marxists will find common cause with them, (2)that Benedict knows this, and (3)he is, in terms of political philosophy, active on the side of “democratic” socialists. He is part of that generation of European Roman Catholic intellectuals who have made common cause with Marxists in Europe on so-called “social justice” issues, only to see the socialists resulting victories produce socialist majorities that compromise family and life issues in the end.

If I were a lay member of the Catholic Church, I would be praying for an “American” Catholic Church, devoid of ALL Europe’s influences.

[Wuli]

“Obama: Social Justice in Catholic Church Has Had ‘Profound Influence’ on Me”

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2287702/posts

Actually, with Obama (1) being neither Catholic educated, nor (2) having any major personal, life-experience, close Catholic leaders as mentors or peers, nor (3) ever being a practicing Catholic, I believe Obama’s Marxist leanings have often found concordance with Roman Catholic “social justice” teaching; and that is what is closer to the truth - not that he was influenced by Catholic “social justice” teaching, but that he found IT often agreed with his thinking.

Now, American Catholics, try to envision just where his concordance with the Pope in Rome hopes to take us.

Please, please wake up.

[tiki]

The Catholic haters and the headline only, readers have been busy today trying to make everyone believe that Pope Benedict is calling for the dreaded “One World Government!!!!”.

[Kolokotronis]

Good article, NYer. Thanks for the post. The Supreme Knight is spot on!

[who_would_fardels_bear]

I was agreeing with you.

Maybe you should read posts before responding to them.