The Communist Manifesto has some innocuous sentences in it, too, that could be highlighted to "prove" it's a harmless document. The problem comes when other sentences do reveal a specific, ill-advised agenda.
And to blame the pope's injudicious comments on a poor translation seems weak. Isn't this the Vatican's translation?
Pope Benedict knows that there is a political dimension to human existence wherever human beings live.
But you wrote you were "simply astonished that (I) read Caritas in Veritate as being, in any sense, a 'political document.'"
Now you're saying the pope recognizes a political dimension "wherever human beings live." I would agree with that.
But he is very clear in saying that the political dimension has absolutely no authority or rational pretense to being either fundamental in human affairs, or "omnicompetent" in dealing with acutely real human problems.
We must be reading different documents. He is very clearly offering a political solution to the world's problems by subjugating productive countries to the rule of a global authority where less productive countries have an equal say in the global economy. That is global socialism. Period.
By the way, the Pope is not "endorsing" globalization. He simply acknowledges it as a fait accompli, as already an established fact of reality.
No, globalism on the order of the pope's scenario is not a fait accompli. God forbid it ever comes to that.
If you insist on reading Caritas in Veritate as a "political document," you are missing the author's intent in writing altogether.
You and I have the same ability to know "the author's intent in writing altogether." We're both speculating and drawing conclusions. I guess we'll just have to disagree over those conclusions.
VERY WELL and accurately put, imho.
Thanks.