AP, Reuters Go Full Tilt in Spinning Latest Writing of Pope

NewsBusters.org ^ | 7/7/2009 | Matthew Balan

[Pyro7480]

Two major wire services- AP and Reuters- cherry picked excerpts from Pope Benedict XVI’s latest encyclical (a teaching document of the Catholic Church) on Tuesday to support left-wing economic and political positions, and all but ignored the pontiff’s traditional stances on the family, bioethics, and the environment. The AP also went so far to bring up “the state of the Vatican’s own [financial] books.”

Both Philip Pullella, who regularly writes about the Pope and the Vatican for Reuters, and the AP’s Nicole Winfield zeroed in on paragraph 67 of the encyclical, which is titled “Caritas in Veritate,” or “Charity in Truth,” which was released was signed by the Bishop of Rome on June 29, and released on Tuesday. In this paragraph, to use Pullella’s lede, “Pope Benedict…called for a ‘world political authority’ to manage the global economy.”

...While Pope Benedict did call for a “world political authority” and a “reform of the United Nations,” both authors (not to mention spectators on the left and the right) missed the context of this call....

Earlier in the document, in paragraph 57, Benedict forwarded the principle of “subsidiarity,” which has a clear meaning in Catholic social teaching. According to the Catechism of the Catholic Church, “the principle of subsidiarity is opposed to all forms of collectivism. It sets limits for state intervention....” The pope applied this in the context of the theme of the encyclical:

Subsidiarity is the most effective antidote against any form of all encompassing welfare state….In order not to produce a dangerous universal power of a tyrannical nature, the governance of globalization must be marked by subsidiarity....

[Pyro7480]

Stop obsessing over that one paragraph! You’re like the AP and Reuters writers. Read the whole thing- the Pope is familiar with human nature and the role of national government.

[Kolokotronis]

“And perhaps Kolokotronis has not had time to peruse the encycle.”

Read the whole thing this afternoon. I think it is a work of patristic genius. There is nothing here, PM, that The Church, at base, hasn’t been teaching for 2000 years. Read +John Chrysostomos “On Wealth and Poverty” and compare it to what +BXVI has written.

[PetroniusMaximus]

“Stop obsessing over that one paragraph! “

Pyro, we are living in a day when:

the nations of the world are turning against Israel,

the leadership of the G8 is calling for one world currency,

one of the leading evangelical preachers is calling for all religions to work together for the common good,

Christianity is being actively suppressed by multiculturalism and barred from the public square,

the American president is a Socialist,

abortion is epidemic,

homosexuals are idolized

and now the Pope is calling for a World Government with muscle to act for the “common good”.

I’m not obsessing, it’s just another piece of the puzzle falling in place.

[mike182d]

I think a lot of people are missing this line:

"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]"

The Holy Father is not saying the economy should be under the rule of some one-world government. He's saying if we continue with the current, globalized economic model, there will need to be such a system out of necessity to prevent oppression or further dehumanization. He poses no objections to scrapping a globalized economy entirely if there's another system the world is willing to adopt, nor is the Holy Father in a position to dictate which economic model is best.

Sometimes it helps to read more than a sentence of a 100-page document. There's a lot of great stuff in there.

[Pyro7480]

Speaking of abortion and homosexuality, the Pope addressed both in the encyclical. But is that secondary to you now?

[investigateworld]

That's the way I see it too. I think I'll quit driving the ladies to Church Bingo.....

To say I'm disappointed in this man would be an understatement - based on the points you listed.

[Pyro7480]

Oh, good grief...

[MondoQueen]

My opinion is that the media is always going to spin anything the Pope says to try to convince Catholics that it’s ok to have abortions, to divorce, and even not to go to Church. Thanks to the Free Republic responders, we can get a clear picture of exactly what has been spun. This is the first time in our history as a nation that there is an alternative media (that is us). Have you noticed that there are actually solid Republican lawmakers on Fox for the first time? All is not lost! By the way, I am a “Latin Mass Only” person. I don’t care if I have to travel 75 miles each way every Sunday for Mass (which I do)

[PetroniusMaximus]

“Read the whole thing this afternoon. I think it is a work of patristic genius.”

Kolokotronis, what is the purpose of calling for a world government when it will wind up being a United Nations on steroids?

Has human nature improved markedly since the founding of the UN in 45?

Didn’t Jesus entirely avoid earthly political strategics and disavow them when he said, “my Kingdom is not of this world”?

[PetroniusMaximus]

“Speaking of abortion and homosexuality, the Pope addressed both in the encyclical. But is that secondary to you now?”

No, I am glad for any time the Pope speaks the truth. I am not anti-catholic and I seek to be fair minded. I have much more respect for this Pope that the previous one (who seemed to be a real separatist).

But calling for a world government is an abomination, period. I don’t care who puts the idea forth.

[investigateworld]

Trust me, I'd be just as disappointed if Billy Graham or any other so called Protestant Leader were to propose such poppy cock.

And if you were aware of my posting history, you'd know during the homo- priests scandals, I was citing my experiences from when I was a crimes against children investigator to 'splain the numbers weren't out of whack as far as the whole RCC priesthood.

The guy is supposed to be aware of man's short comings? And he opens the door to a Food Fuhrer? A "Fairness to all" via taking away from the haves - with teeth?

Oy!

[PetroniusMaximus]

“(who seemed to be a real separatist).”

Sorry - that should have read, (who seemed to be a real syncretist).

[Larry381]

What many of today’s generation forget is that the Catholic Church was the greatest opponent of Communism and collectivism after the Second World War. I can still remember the nuns in my school warning about what would happen to the world if the reds won the cold war. The fact that some of these same nuns had been raped and maimed by red army troops in Eastern Europe at the end of that war lent those lessons a special poignancy.

[Mount Athos]

Read the whole thing this afternoon. I think it is a work of patristic genius. There is nothing here, PM, that The Church, at base, hasn’t been teaching for 2000 years. Read +John Chrysostomos “On Wealth and Poverty” and compare it to what +BXVI has written.

I think I found some things the church has not been teaching for 2000 years. As instructed, I will compare Chrysostomos to this encyclical.

"Wealth and Poverty" never advocates greater government involvement, nor a "social justice" model of commerce (this encyclical does). It explores the parable of Lazarus and the rich man asking how individuals should handle wealth for salvation.

I find nothing consistent between Chrysostomos advocating individuals donating to the poor(individual piety freely given), and this encyclical veering into discussing a state that forcibly takes wealth and "redistributes" it to others-- not for necessary public services but for "social justice" and "market justice".

Much in this encyclical is an ordinary and unsurprising natural growth from previous christian thought. It's not all bad. But perhaps the document veers from its core competency when they get to talking about government redistribution so much.

35. “But the social doctrine of the Church has unceasingly highlighted the importance of distributive justice and social justice for the market economy...”

Unfortunately people who talk a lot about "distributive justice" and "social justice" today look to coercive socialist government models that involve crushing levels of taxation and punitive means to enforce their own vision of piety. While Chrysostomos advocated that individuals donate to the poor, he never suggested that centurians should force merchants to give money to less successful merchants, or subsidize buyers with less money.

36.”Therefore, it must be borne in mind that grave imbalances are produced when economic action, conceived merely as an engine for wealth creation, is detached from political action, conceived as a means for pursuing justice through redistribution.”

Here the encyclical decries government inaction, and calls for greater government market intervention to create "justice" with "redistribution". Lost are the real world lessons that corruption, injustice and oppression often coincide with greater government involvement.

Some examples of governments that pursued justice through greater intervention in the market include Cambodia, North Korea, Stalin's USSR, etc... These are extreme examples but there are many more examples of greater government intervention leading to more suffering and a less Christian outcome. Maybe the encyclical should have tread more carefully in bemoaning government inaction in the market.

37.”Economic life undoubtedly requires contracts, in order to regulate relations of exchange between goods of equivalent value. But it also needs just laws and forms of redistribution governed by politics...”

Why does it need redistribution? Maybe they have wandered well beyond a natural extrapolation of Christian teaching, don't you think? Certainly it not anything consistent with what Chrysostomos. If the scope of what they are talking about is caring for the most needy and impoverished, they should say so, instead of broadly advocating "redistribution".

I really like the section where they say that individuals should reflect on their behavior at every level of commerce. Our actions affect lots of people. It's when the document veers from individual piety to collective that they wander afield. When the document starts explicitly advocating greater government involvement and "market justice" they are on dangerous ground. In any case I totally disagree with the suggestion that this is what the Christian church has taught for 2000 years.

[Mount Athos]

relevant links to make up your own mind.

Encyclical:

http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/benedict_xvi/encyclicals/documents/hf_ben-xvi_enc_20090629_caritas-in-veritate_en.html

On Wealth and Poverty:
(see especially section 35-42)

http://books.google.com/books?id=r3U_Ym4G5zQC&dq=%22on+wealth+and+poverty%22&printsec=frontcover&source=bl&ots=U6GimrbZsL&sig=RQ9UdZDu_syS_eHgunRzRb2Ex8E&hl=en&ei=MRVUSvy_EITatgPMmsmYDw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=3

[Salvation]

**It seems that some FReepers have fallen for the spin...**

It sure didn’t take them long to do it either.

[Salvation]

AP, Reuters Go Full Tilt in Spinning Latest Writing of Pope

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Excerpts from Pope Benedict XVI New Encyclical "CARITAS IN VERITATE" (CHARITY AND TRUTH)

Love for others requires involvement in politics, pope says

[narses]

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Obama Says A Baby Is A Punishment

Obama: “If they make a mistake, I don’t want them punished with a baby.”

[Salvation]

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/2287729/posts?page=37#37

[Salvation]

You are cherry picking. Why is it Republican FReepers do not believe the liberal spin of the lamestream media on politics. But when it comes to Catholicism, they believe the ABCNNBCBSers?