And your fixation on one paragraph while ignoring all of the other points that Benedict XVI makes in the rest of the document has greatly distorted your perception of what he is saying. Did you know that (at the end of the introduction) he says (emphasis mine):
"The Church does not have technical solutions to offer[10] and does not claim “to interfere in any way in the politics of States.”[11] She does, however, have a mission of truth to accomplish, in every time and circumstance, for a society that is attuned to man, to his dignity, to his vocation. Without truth, it is easy to fall into an empiricist and skeptical view of life, incapable of rising to the level of praxis because of a lack of interest in grasping the values — sometimes even the meanings — with which to judge and direct it. Fidelity to man requires fidelity to the truth, which alone is the guarantee of freedom (cf. Jn 8:32) and of the possibility of integral human development. For this reason the Church searches for truth, proclaims it tirelessly and recognizes it wherever it is manifested. This mission of truth is something that the Church can never renounce. Her social doctrine is a particular dimension of this proclamation: it is a service to the truth which sets us free. Open to the truth, from whichever branch of knowledge it comes, the Church's social doctrine receives it, assembles into a unity the fragments in which it is often found, and mediates it within the constantly changing life-patterns of the society of peoples and nations[12]."
The first sentence I highlighted contradicts your assertion that the Pope has meddled in temporal political affairs. He explicitly makes no such claim. Which other Vatican documents on social or economic issues have you read?
I beg you to sit down and prayerfully read, not skim, the entire document. As I said before, this Pope does not speak in sound bites. Taking one paragraph of a 50+ page document and overreacting without reading the context it came from or understanding the Catholic thought behind it (he is writing this primarily to Catholics with the understanding that they are familiar with Catholic history and thought) is not a rational approach. However, I can't stop you from running around yelling, "The sky is falling!"
I predict quite seriously that the uproar around it will grow so intense he'll have to alter it himself and remove the offending passages.
Apparently, you have not followed this Pope very closely. People were killed in response to the quote taken out of context from his lecture given at Regensberg University and he did not change what he said. Or when he changed the text of a prayer in the Roman Missal of 1962 and certain parties were still "offended" - he stood his ground. His modus operandi is to look at an issue from all angles before coming to a conclusion. He did not write this encyclical on a napkin and then just decide to publish it. He has looked at it through the lenses of faith and reason, which he has repeatedly said are both necessary.
He most certainly is meddling in temporal political affairs, and in a manner so radical that no other Catholic document compares. What other Pope has proposed a World Political Entity in charge of all the economies in the world, and with the expressed, indeed "obvious" according to the Pope, "authority to ensure compliance with its decisions," an authority that can only be ensured by the barrel of a gun?
Again -- focus on what the Pope has actually proposed, not on the flowery, sometimes almost impenetrable, ecclesiastical jargon the Vatican is so skilled at producing, which often obscures more than it reveals.
“The Church does not have technical solutions to offer[10]
and does not claim “to interfere in any way in the politics of States.”[11] She does, however, have a mission of truth to accomplish...”
What in Hell does the pope mean by a governing authority with enforcement powers for all of the following areas:
“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, as my predecessor Blessed John XXIII indicated some years ago.”
“Furthermore, such an authority would need to be universally recognized and to be vested with the effective power to ensure security for all, regard for justice, and respect for rights[148]. Obviously it would have to have the authority to ensure compliance with its decisions from all parties, and also with the coordinated measures adopted in various international forums.”
So, he has no technical solutions and won't interfere in US politics, but he wants a human superauthority with complete enforcement powers that:
- Serves as a global political order
- Serves as a global economic order
- Serves as a global juridical order
- Disarms all countries
- Regulates migration
- Prevents “imbalances”
- Provides food security
- Provides peace
What in the pope's words can't you understand? He won't interfere in our matters directly, but he wants this authority to do everything else to us.
Screw him. He's freaking crazy.
Ignoring for the moment his false dichotomy between socialism as "truth", on the one hand, and empiricism and skepticism on the other, his proposals, if enacted, would certainly interfere in many ways in the politics of nations. But where is the truth in the whole oxymoronic notion of "charity" at the barrel of a gun? Where is the truth in turning the meaning of voluntary charity upside down? Where is the truth in socialist redistribution of wealth schemes? Where is the truth in proposals for unbridled power of elite global "managers" "with teeth", which are nothing but the teeth of ravenous wolves?
He refers here to Jesus in John 8:32 saying that the truth shall set you free, but what regard have international socialists who aim to be the controllers of this global "authority" ever had for truth? Where did Jesus Christ, Truth Himself, ever propose these kind of socialist doctrines, which will be enforced by death or imprisonment for disobedience? How is socialism that enslaves and emprovishes a "service to the truth which sets us free"? Where is the truth in the accumulation of governmental power of universal jurisdiction by a select few?
The Scripture says, "Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty". I must have missed the part in the Bible where is says that where there is "managing globalization" or forced "redistribution of wealth" there is liberty.
Where is the truth in the naivete, (or derangement, or deception or whatever) that Godless tyrants have any intention of restraining themselves by quaint ideas of subsidiarity and limited, stratified government?
Cordially,
I plan to do my best to make time to read the whole encyclical as I did the last similar one before it.
When I do, I will post my commentary on it’s own thread.
My current perspective is that this encyclical reads somewhat like the last one only worse.
The globalism stuff is more blatant, more brazen, more clearly and starkly stated.
Sure, there’s a dozen or more rationalizations, equivocations, talking out of both sides of his fingers, yada yada yada.
However, whether one is crying “subsidiarity”
as an explanation, a fig-leaf, a lofty sounding intellectual smoke screen or rationalization . . .
or whether one is screaming !!!OUT OF CONTEXT!!! OUT OF CONTEXT!
It just doesn’t wash.
It almost appears that the Pope is trying to white-wash rank tyrannical evil and make the medicine go down with a train load of sugary words.
It won’t work.