Replies

I don’t go to DU. It’s a long standing policy of mine that helps keep my digestive tract in good working order.

In any case, whoever’s dissing the Encyclical at DU is just having a knee jerk reaction based on past gripes about abortion, etc. The document has only been out seven days and the import of what the Pope has said hasn’t fully rippled through the chattering class yet.

And here’s what the Pope has said. He has proposed a global political structure backed up by the “authority to ensure compliance,” which can only mean authority from the barrel of a gun, just as all law is ultimately enforced, if it comes to it, by physical coercion.

The Pope’s defenders seem to claim that a principle of “subsidiarity,” also mentioned in the Encyclical, should mollify concerns that the “world authority” might become a “tyranny.” They’re living in a dream world if they think subsidiarity negates hierarchy. That’s kind of like saying a mail room supervisor can tell the CEO to take a hike if he doesn’t like what the CEO wants him to do. Or perhaps, better yet, an altar boy can tell the Pope he’s removing the Sacraments from the Roman Catholic religion whether the Pope likes it or not.

POWER assigns to the OFFICE, and the higher the office’s place in the hierarchy, the more power it accrues. Catholic clergy understand hierarchy very well. They just about invented it in its modern form. The Pope wants to superimpose a hierarchy above all other hierarchies, a world hierarchy exercising ultimate authority on the most important issues, and all his silly disclaimers about subsidiarity are mere window dressing, catnip for innocents who don’t understand the uses and functions of power.