Posted on 04/04/2007 7:38:32 AM PDT by Alex Murphy
VATICAN CITY (Reuters) - Rich countries bent on power and profit have mercilessly "plundered and sacked" Africa and other poor regions and exported to them the "cynicism of a world without God," Pope Benedict writes in his first book.
The Pope also condemns drug trafficking and sexual tourism, saying they are signs of a world brimming with "people who are empty" yet living among abundant material goods.
One section of the book was printed in Wednesday's Corriere Della Sera daily before publication later this month by Italian publisher Rizzoli, which owns the newspaper. A Rizzoli spokeswoman confirmed the authenticity of the excerpts.
In the 400-page book, called "Jesus of Nazareth," the Pope offers a modern application of Jesus's parable of the Good Samaritan, who stopped to help a man who had been robbed by thieves when others, including a priest, had not.
"The current relevance of the parable is obvious," the Pope writes.
"If we apply it to the dimensions of globalised society today, we see how the populations of Africa have been plundered and sacked and this concerns us intimately," the Pope says in his book, which comes out on April 16, his 80th birthday.
He drew a link between the lifestyle of people in the developed world and the dire conditions of people in Africa.
"We see how our lifestyle, the history that involved us, has stripped them naked and continues to strip them naked," he writes.
The German Pope, who has condemned the effects of colonialism before, said rich countries had also hurt poor countries spiritually by belittling or trying to wipe out their own cultural and spiritual traditions.
"Instead of giving them God, the God close to us in Christ, and welcoming in their traditions all that is precious and great ... we have brought them the cynicism of a world without God, where only power and profit count...," he writes.
The Pope says his comments were valid for other regions apart from Africa.
In what could be seen as a strong self-criticism of the Roman Catholic Church, whose missionary activities often went hand-in-glove with colonialism, the Pope writes:
"We destroyed (their) moral criteria to the point that corruption and a lust for power devoid of scruples have become obvious."
What does he call the forced Christianization by the Conquistadores and the Catholic Church of South America?
Has he apologized for that? Should he return all the gold and jewels that were stolen from the Incas and Mayans and Aztecs that were later used to build and decorate St. Peter's Basillica and the Vatican?
Oh the Humanity Hypocrisy!
Didn’t know that. Got any links/
Well its better than ripping the heart out of a still living human being I guess.
Senors Pizzaro and Cortez,
please pick up the white courtesy phone in the lobby.
What do you mean? Being anti-globalism is a conservative stance. Globalism is generally speaking a leftist ideology.
Are you Christian? Original sin is something that Christians believe in, except for perhaps a handfuls of small sects.
Don't Jews believe in Original Sin?
” What do you mean? Being anti-globalism is a conservative stance. Globalism is generally speaking a leftist ideology.”
“anti globalism” is leftist for anti-corporate and anti0-capitalist.
But Globalism is generally anti-national and leads to the erosion of individual nations sovereignty. I don’t think that a tendency towards a global government is a conservative trend.
glob·al·ism
Pronunciation: ‘glO-b&-”li-z&m
Function: noun
1): a national policy of treating the whole world as a proper sphere for political influence
2)the idea that events in one country cannot be separated from those in another and that a government should therefore consider the effects of its actions in other countries as well as its own
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