Posted on 08/20/2009 12:30:40 PM PDT by IbJensen
As observers continue to decipher the meaning of Benedict XVI’s latest encyclical, Caritas in Veritate, all appear to agree that the passage of note, the passage that may prove historic in its implications, is the one that is already becoming known as the “world political authority” paragraph:
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. One also senses the urgent need to find innovative ways of implementing the principle of the responsibility to protect and of giving poorer nations an effective voice in shared decision-making. This seems necessary in order to arrive at a political, juridical and economic order which can increase and give direction to international cooperation for the development of all peoples in solidarity. To manage the global economy; to revive economies hit by the crisis; to avoid any deterioration of the present crisis and the greater imbalances that would result; to bring about integral and timely disarmament, food security and peace; to guarantee the protection of the environment and to regulate migration: for all this, there is urgent need of a true world political authority. . . .
Could Benedict be in favor of world government, as many now believe? Taken in the context of papal writings since the dawn of the UN, as well as Benedict’s own opinions, recorded both before and after his election as pope, the passage gains another meaning. It is in reality a profound challenge to the UN, and the other international organizations, to make themselves worthy of authority, of the authority that they already possess, and worthy of the expansion of authority that appears to be necessary in light of the accelerated pace of globalization.
It is true that Benedict believes that a transnational organization must be empowered to address transnational problems. But so has every pope since John XXIII, who wrote in 1963 that “Today the universal common good presents us with problems which are worldwide in their dimensions; problems, therefore, which cannot be solved except by a public authority with power, organization, and means coextensive with these problems, and with a worldwide sphere of activity. Consequently the moral order itself demands the establishment of some such form of public authority.”
But such an authority has been established, and we have lived with it since 1948, and in many ways it has disappointed. So Benedict turns John XXIII’s formulation on its head: Morality no longer simply demands a global social order; now Benedict underscores that this existing social order must operate in accord with morality. He ends his own passage on world authority by stating that “The integral development of peoples and international cooperation require the establishment of a greater international ordering, marked by subsidiarity, for the management of globalization. They also require the construction of a social order that at last conforms to the moral order. . . .” Note the phrase “at last.”
What went wrong? According to Benedict, a world authority worthy of this authority would need “to make a commitment to securing authentic integral human development inspired by the values of charity in truth.” The obvious implication is that the current UN has not made this commitment.
To understand how the UN has failed, we must delve into the rest of the encyclical. According to Benedict, the goal of all international institutions must be “authentic integral human development.” This human development must be inspired by truth, in this case, the truth about humanity. Pursuit of this truth reveals that each human being possesses absolute worth; therefore, authentic human development is predicated on a radical defense of life.
This link is made repeatedly in Caritas in Veritate. “Openness to life is at the center of true development. . . . The acceptance of life strengthens moral fiber and makes people capable of mutual help. . . . They can promote virtuous action within the perspective of production that is morally sound and marked by solidarity, respecting the fundamental right to life of every people and individual.”
To some, it must seem startling how often Benedict comes back to life in an encyclical ostensibly dedicated to economics and globalization. But this must be understood as Benedict’s effort to humanize globalization. It can be seen as the global application of John Paul II’s own encyclical on life, Evengelium Vitae.
Without this understanding of the primacy of life, international development is bound to fail: “Who could measure the negative effects of this kind of mentality for development? How can we be surprised by the indifference shown towards situations of human degradation, when such indifference extends even to our attitude towards what is and is not human?”
Throughout the encyclical, Benedict is unsparing in the ways in which the current international order contributes to this failure; no major front in the war over life is left unmentioned, from population control, to bioethics, to euthanasia.
But none of this should come as a surprise. Since at least as far back as the UN’s major conferences of the 1990s—Cairo and Beijing—Benedict has known that the UN has adopted a model of development conformed to the culture of death. He no doubt assisted John Paul II in his successful efforts to stop these conferences from establishing an international right to abortion-on-demand. At the time, Benedict said, “Today there is no longer a ‘philosophy of love’ but only a ‘philosophy of selfishness.’ It is precisely here that people are deceived. In fact, at the moment they are advised not to love, they are advised, in the final analysis, not to be human. For this reason, at this stage of the development of the new image of the new world, Christians . . . have a duty to protest.”
Now, in his teaching role as pope, Benedict is not simply protesting but offering the Christian alternative, the full exposition of authentic human development. Whether or not the UN can meet the philosophical challenges necessary to promote this true development remains uncertain. But it should not be assumed that Benedict is sanguine; after all, he begins his purported embrace of world government with a call for UN “reform,” not expansion.
Thank you so much, editor-surveyor! Oh, your help in this is so much appreciated.
Maybe I see it as too complex at the moment for glib labels and descriptions.
Christ won at Calvary and the empty tomb.
And in some essential true sense(s) it was FINISHED.
However, having the title deed doesn’t mean one has moved in, necessarily.
Christ will take possession OVERTLY AND COMPREHENSIVELY at Armageddon.
Until then, satan has a hayday destroying as much as he can on the leash he’s on.
Not sure what almanac you're using but mine tells me there are more Christians now than ever before.
Perhaps we like to consider ourselves the Christian West, but there is growing evidence that indicates Western Christians are not the whole show. In fact, Mr. Jenkins says that in just 20 years, two-thirds of all Christians will live elsewhere - in Africa, Latin America, or Asia. Places considered unreachable several decades ago have now become hot spots for Christian growth, and hundreds of new churches are being planted each month in those places. Take the small country of Nepal, for example; the church there is growing faster than in any other nation. In 1960, the number of Christians totaled only twenty-five. Today, the number has risen to almost 1 million. Despite the abuse and isolation many Nepali Christians have faced in recent years, churches are springing up all over the country. And though Hindus, Buddhists, and Muslims, still constitute the majority of the population, Christianity is growing twice as fast as the other faiths. China is another example of the incredible growth of Christianity. From 1.5 million Christians in 1970, the church has grown to an estimated 64 million in 1990, then to approximately 90 million today. Estimates predict that the number will top 120 million in 25 years. The small country of Benin in Africa is yet another case of spreading Christianity. Although Benin suffers from poor health care, lack of clean water, poor education, and a high rate of HIV/AIDS, its church growth is still explosive. Nearly 120,000 new members are joining churches each year, and by 2025, it is probable that Christianity in Benin will reach 40 percent of the total population. Think for a moment and try to imagine Nepalis witnessing to Muslims, China sending missionaries to the Indians, and Africans evangelizing North America and Europe. It may seem impossible, but it is actually quite likely. "As the media have striven in recent years to present Islam in a more sympathetic light, they have tended to suggest that Islam, not Christianity, is the rising faith of Africa and Asia, the authentic or default religion of the world's huddled masses. But Christianity is not only surviving in the global South, it is enjoying a radical revival, a return to scriptural roots. We are living in revolutionary times," Mr. Jenkins said. No matter how bad things may seem here at home, God is at work, and in the end, it is God to whom every knee will bow, and every tongue confess. "While secular movements like communism, feminism, and environmentalism have gotten the lion's share of our attention, the explosive southward expansion of Christianity in Africa, Asia, and Latin America has barely registered on Western consciousness," said Philip Jenkins, distinguished professor of History and Religious Studies at Pennsylvania State University.
Amen. It can be argued that as a negative, defeatist premillenial POV has taken over this country the affects of a vibrant Christianity have diminished. It wasn't always that way when most of this country believed in the old hymn, "Onward Christian Soldiers."
Don't buy the negative press. Increase your depth of field. Life is long and there's a lot left. And all of it brings glory to the Triune God. 8~)
I just don’t understand so much in these threads.
The encyclical is full of flowery politico-bureaucratic-theological gobbledy-gook and double speak—it seems to me—to put it politely.
But the key paragraph is rather starkly clear.
Yet, the key paragraph gets dismissed as though it’s totally inconsequential.
And that by some of the finest minds on FR.
Shocking, to me.
Further, when we talk about the very clear and explicit statements in the startling paragraph, we are thought to be wholesale and blindly biased against the Pope’s person. In at least a good number of our cases—that’s simply NOT TRUE.
He writes or signed off on VERY STARTLING GLOBALIST STATEMENTS. There’s no other way to put it. The statements affirm key aspects of globalism in the more or less worst terms applicable.
Yet we are to treat such startling statements as meaningless drivel?
Sorry but that won’t wash. If it was such meaningless drivel why were these statements so clearly put, compared to so much of the bureaucratic, double-speak, politico gobbledy-gook in the rest of it?
If his assertions in that paragraph were so wimpish, useless, chaff, compared to the rest of the encyclical, why not just leave it out? What was the point?
Given that the wording makes the points in behalf of globalism starkly clear—why is it so many bright folks who are normally more faire-minded and normally demonstrate much higher integrity to a fair-minded comprehensive discussion of a topic—seem to play fast and loose and slippery with this one?
Mystifying.
Yet, the key paragraph gets dismissed as though it’s totally inconsequential.
Yep. Obviously no coincidence.
"Look over here, and never mind over here."
I think what you've misunderstood is that postmillennialism does not posit an increase of kingdom Christianity over time in a straight line. Future generations can disobey. Kingdom progess can, for a time, be reversed. The postmillennialist does not mark progress in terms of decades, maybe not even in terms of centuries. Unlike the pretribber who sees history changing in a single generation, the postmiller sees things occuring over thousands of years. And inbetween, there's nothing that says things can't look a whole lot like a dress rehearsal for the Tribulation.
Perhaps you mean professing?
Certainly the percentage of real Christians is lower than it has been in 300 years.
he's bound by the HS, for "greater is He that is in you than he that is in the world." Christ came and dispossessd Satan of his possessions, namely us.
Matthew 12:29
Or else how can one enter into a strong man's house, and spoil his goods, except he first bind the strong man? and then he will spoil his house.
Satan has no more power over us once we are indwelt by the HS. The war is fought from person to person, and every Christian is a triumph over Satan
I always hesitate to use the label, “real Christians.”
None of us knows the heart of another and none of us knows where God will bring each of us tomorrow.
The Gospel does not fail. That is what I know.
Post millenialism would appear to be mostly Kabbalah dressed up in Christian terminology.
Men, rather than Christ, ushering in the kingdom.
AMEN!
Men indwelt with the Holy Spirit. You disagree with that?
No argument, but that ignores the rest of the world, where Satan's grip is visibly increasing. The falling away is near.
Do you ever use the word “tares?”
Exactly. And through it all what are Christians to do? "Rejoice evermore; pray without ceasing."
All the time, but Arminians kept telling me there weren’t any. 8~)
And remember - there is more wheat than tares. If not, it would be the wheat among the tares instead of the tares among the wheat.
The people that ‘lose’ their salvation?
Sorry DrE, but that simply is counter to scripture.
Mercy and not debt. Gratitude and not recompense. Grace.
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