The "good" that he wants "in" is for people to live in Christ, to answer His Call in their souls, hearts, and minds. The "bad" he wants "out" (described at section 14) is "the technocratic ideology so prevalent today."
The "technocratic ideology" is what people today mindlessly call "values-neutral." It is unconcerned with ethical or moral criteria, it is radically anti-human, and brings degradation wherever it goes. In a system of capitalism where this ideology reigns, profit becomes an end in itself, instead of the by-product of something else: the creation of new economic value in satisfaction of real human needs and wants. Rank speculation is of equal worth to human creative effort in such a system. This is what the Pope objects to, and I object to it also. Arguably, this ideology was a major culprit in bringing on the current global economic meltdown.
Still in Caritas in Veritate, the Pope has not advanced any program for correcting this situation, no plan to "limit profit." In the first place, such a thing is entirely beyond the scope of his competence and authority. In the second place, in this encyclical his purpose is to evoke a major cultural renewal based on the Word of God, in charity and in truth. In his last encyclical, Deus Caritas Est, he wrote of God's love.... He is informing the world at large of these things; this is what is called Christian evangelization. He bids us all to do likewise, and then the "profit thing" will just naturally smoothe itself out in time, God willing. Profit should be based on the creation of new value, not on "pushing paper around." (My term.)
I've been very puzzled by the responses of many of you to Benedict's encyclical on charity in truth. I just don't understand them, probably because I don't see something that you see. I've been wondering what that could possibly be. Then I had a strange thought. Is it possible that there is an undisclosed assumption behind your testimonies? And that assumption is the belief that the Pope is an evil man, perhaps the Anti-Christ — maybe Satan himself???
If that is your belief, then your conclusions become understandable to me.
But I would question that assumption.
Please forgive me for not having written sooner. I've been having computer problems.... ARRGGGHHHHH! (I hope they're nipped in the bud now; we'll see.)
Thank you so much for wrriting, Poe White Trash!
I would probably drop the "arguably."
No, I see just a mortal man, albeit a world elite, with an agenda, however you view him as something more and like people with Obama, are willing to project your own feelings on to him. Just like Obama screams "racist", any attempt to look at him objectively without all the accompanying accoutrements of the Vatican, is met with "that's hatred".
No "undisclosed assumption." Just reading the man's words and disagreeing with what he's saying about the need for a global authority "with teeth" to dictate America's economic, judicial, social and political future.
And it is likewise "puzzling" that some conservatives don't see this.
If he thinks the world should be ordered according to Christian principles, let him say that clearly and then work to transform those institutions through the force of debate and logic and faith, not coersion as despots prefer.
Truly, as I said before, Caritas in Veritate by title and content (the forest, not the trees) strikes me as Pope Benedict's meditation on what I called earlier the 'truest expression of love.'
And as I mentioned earlier based on my experience with that crazy facebook quiz there are indeed many people who believe the truest expression of love is words, simply someone telling them they are loved no matter what. Such a person would not likely agree with the Pope's encyclical.
And others in the quiz believed the truest expression of love was a hug or holding hands, etc. There were also those, by the way, who believed that the truest expression of love was gifting - a diamond ring, a car, flowers, candy, etc. These might have a problem with the encyclical.
But I agree with Pope Benedict that the truest expression of love is something that we do. It could be giving a homeless guy a meal or mowing the neighbor's yard, visiting someone who is lonely, giving up a parking place, helping someone find a job, etc.
The difference between the Pope's and my viewpoint is that I am thinking of what an individual Christian does to express love whereas he is thinking universally, as he has been called to do.
I don't KNOW that he is not, I just do NOT see him that way. I certainly hope he is not.
He seems to have kindly eyes and a gentle heart. I prefer to read into both a lack of horrific levels of evil.
NEVERTHELESS, I'm FORCED BY HIS WORDS to consider it extremely sobering and troubling that he is
ESSENTIALLY
ADVOCATING A GREATER DEGREE OF GLOBAL CONTROL over economics, migration, distribution of goods, etc. etc. than we have at present.
That's startling. I was startled with the earlier Pope's statement in the list of quotes the last 100 years ref'd in my tagline [I'm still eager to know whether you have managed to read ANY % of that list of quotes, or not].
I was MORE startled to read the critical paragraph in this encyclical.
When he clearly calls for MORE GLOBAL CONTROL, I tend to believe that he means MORE GLOBAL CONTROL.
I don't see any of his champions hereon really dealing with that statement of his much at all, if at all. Why? What's with the blindness or denial of those clear statements of his?
Why is it somehow OK, WONDERFUL, all sweetness and posies wrapping the GREATER GLOBAL CONTROL in sanitizing TRUTH IN LOVE AND SUBSIDIARITY????
Those things do NOT sanitize anything for many of us. They are white-wash. They are a water pistol against a forest fire. They are meaningless idyllic pontifications from either someone grossly out of touch with current global realities or someone grossly denying current global realities.
I CANNOT YET SEE ANY OTHER WAY TO CONSTRUE IT. I've tried for months. Nothing else makes the least bit of sense given the evidence. And it has nothing to do with me seeing Benedict as evil. I don't.
I'm beginning to wonder who's side he's on in terms of satanic glboalism. But that could be from being duped, deluded, or a list of other reasons having little to do with his heart after God or his heart after humanity.
And, I have to be adult enough, smart enough, logical enough, honest enough and informed enough to consider--WHO ELSE ON THE WORLD STAGE IS CURRENTLY CLAMORING FOR
MORE GLOBAL CONTROL?
Functionally, effectively, globally, there is ONLY
ONE
other force, group, movement, etc.
IN BEHALF OF GLOBAL GOVERNMENT . . . though there are myriad sub-groups. THAT IS THE SATANIC GLOBALISTS.
THEY HAVE CLEARLY AND RATHER UNARGUABLY (at this point) been in essential control of the key aspects and parts of the globe and it's component interacting parts for AT LEAST 100 years. That is demonstrable. That is provable. That has tons and tons of hard primary source and primary actors' evidence to back it up. The quotes in my tagline ref are the tip of the ice berg.
So, we have the Pope on the one hand advocating for MORE GLOBAL CONTROL
We have the globalists tightening and extending their already under the table very tyrannical GLOBAL CONTROL over essentially all the main aspects of daily life for the overwhelming majority of the world's populace--and increasing same geometrically and overtly daily.
>>> The “good” that he wants “in” is for people to live in Christ, to answer His Call in their souls, hearts, and minds. The “bad” he wants “out” (described at section 14) is “the technocratic ideology so prevalent today.” <<<
If _Caritas_ were simply a call to live in the path of our Savior, then it could be simply expressed in 5-6 pages. Instead, we have 52 pages of the Call to Christ AND jargon AND policy statements (AND, not to mention, a call to a vague notion of spirituality). Christ’s word doesn’t get buried, but it gets kinda hard to discern. Not lost, just a little hard to hear clearly amongst all the competing voices.
It’s not an easy document to understand. I have a lawyer friend, a newly minted Catholic who has a degree in English and who has no problems with Encyclicals like _Evangelium Vitae_ or _Humanae Vitae_, and even he gave up in frustration before reaching the half-way point. I fail to see how it was intended to reach the laity, even an educated laity.
>>> The “technocratic ideology” is what people today mindlessly call “values-neutral.” It is unconcerned with ethical or moral criteria, it is radically anti-human, and brings degradation wherever it goes. In a system of capitalism where this ideology reigns, profit becomes an end in itself, instead of the by-product of something else: the creation of new economic value in satisfaction of real human needs and wants. Rank speculation is of equal worth to human creative effort in such a system. This is what the Pope objects to, and I object to it also. Arguably, this ideology was a major culprit in bringing on the current global economic meltdown. <<<
Unfortunately, we post-lapsarian men are saddled with (self)degradation, avarice, and other moral faults usually covered by the notion of Sin. Regardless of ideology or economic system. The problems with solutions to capitalism — by the way, thank you for not using that weenie-word “globalization”: it’s obvious to me what is really being attacked here — is that they are/will be just as riddled with sin and (self)deceit and self(degradation) as the political-economic system it attempts to tame or replace. Just look at the human tragedy that the Bolsheviks created in Russia and elsewhere. To look at that, and to say in one’s heart that “I can do better, for I have Christian spirituality and Christian ethics on my side,” is — I would argue — to tread a very old and very dangerous path. It saddens me to see that BXVI appears to be on it.
>>> In a system of capitalism where this ideology reigns, profit becomes an end in itself, instead of the by-product of something else: the creation of new economic value in satisfaction of real human needs and wants. <<<
The problem is that power-mongering, lust, avarice, pride, injustice etc. ALSO satisfy “real human needs and wants” in our Fallen humanity. In a “new” economic value system, I don’t doubt that our sins would have their traditional forms whilst taking on new forms and causing different miseries. What worries me is that a new “global” authority that would be needed to “integrally humanize” international capitalism would be even more of a degrader of persons and peoples than the system we currently have. All that power will have to go somewhere... my guess is that it will go downhill — and not so gently — on our heads. I have no faith in unlimited gov’t this side of Judgement Day.
>>> Arguably, this ideology was a major culprit in bringing on the current global economic meltdown. <<<
Ideology has nothing to do with it. Capitalism has business cycles. Boom and bust. This has been obvious for centuries. Changing ideologies won’t change the reality of how the system works — or doesn’t work.
>>> Still in Caritas in Veritate, the Pope has not advanced any program for correcting this situation, no plan to “limit profit.” In the first place, such a thing is entirely beyond the scope of his competence and authority. <<<
One does not have to advance a political program or particular policies when one can point to and advocate policies already in existence. Or simply argue for “what is to be done.” Which is what BXVI does in _Caritas_. Catholic “integralism” and the “distributism” of Belloc and Chesterton have been around for many decades; to see the jargon of “integral” and “subsidiarity” and “solidarity” evinced so strongly in the text, and yet to deny the connection with economic and political programs long associated with the Church, bespeaks a peculiar kind of blindness on your part which I do not understand.
>>> In the second place, in this encyclical his purpose is to evoke a major cultural renewal based on the Word of God, in charity and in truth. In his last encyclical, Deus Caritas Est, he wrote of God’s love.... He is informing the world at large of these things; this is what is called Christian evangelization. He bids us all to do likewise, and then the “profit thing” will just naturally smoothe itself out in time, God willing. Profit should be based on the creation of new value, not on “pushing paper around.” (My term.) <<<
Once again, I couldn’t disagree with you more. _Caritas_ is much more than an exercise in the Great Commission, or an admonition to capitalists and statesmen to “play nice” and be less like Scrooge. This Encyclical is calling for world-wide and REVOLUTIONARY changes in how “business” is done, both between real businesses and between nations.
To take your example: if profit were to be administered so that it is “based on the creation of new value, not on ‘pushing paper around’ — which to means to me that there would be no M-C-M’ or M-M’, and certainly little or no capital accumulation — then I don’t doubt that global capitalism would fold pretty fast. And then social order. Where’s the Christian morality in that?
>>> I’ve been very puzzled by the responses of many of you to Benedict’s encyclical on charity in truth. I just don’t understand them, probably because I don’t see something that you see. I’ve been wondering what that could possibly be. Then I had a strange thought. Is it possible that there is an undisclosed assumption behind your testimonies? And that assumption is the belief that the Pope is an evil man, perhaps the Anti-Christ — maybe Satan himself??? <<<
Are you addressing me, Betty Boop? I can only speak for myself, but I do not assume that BXVI is an evil man or the Anti-Christ, or that the Church is the Whore of Babylon, or any such stuff. Shades of Dan Brown! What I see are words on paper in the form of _Caritas in Veritate_, words which convey arguments for global changes which I find disturbing and worth discussing. I thank you for the discussion so far, but I think that an attempt to “mind-read” my intentions is beneath you.