Some observations:
(1) He is saying that the UN as presently constituted absolutely "s*cks." It is a sewer of corruption and violates its own Charter of Human Rights on a systematic, constant basis.
(2) The "with real teeth" terms is probably a most unfortunate translation into English from an original either in German or Italian. We do not know what language Caritas in Veritate was originally composed. But it is well known that Pope Benedict is fluent in German, Italian, and Latin. What is curious is the English translation bears an American idiomatic expression that does not show up in the Italian, German, or Latin texts.
At this point, I just want to say: Somebody please shoot the translator. (And if he's a Jesuit, maybe you ought to consider hanging him first, just to be sure. Just kidding.) In any case, concepts as a rule do not have "teeth." So even the American idiom seems out of place.
(3) Pope Benedict knows that there is a political dimension to human existence wherever human beings live. 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. Indeed, a main bearing of the piece is to show the limits of not only politics, but of all earthly governments and other purely secular organizations which have lost sense of what constitutes the common public good — which under God's Law boils down to "loving in truth."
(4) Somehow you didn't highlight this:
The integral development of peoples and international cooperation require the establishment of a greater degree of 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, to the interconnection between moral and social spheres, and to the link between politics and the economic and civil spheres....To me, this was the central point of the entire passage. The Pope speaks of "solidarity" — but it is a solidarity functionally expressed by means of subsidiarity. Subsidiarity is a doctrine holding that, in all of human affairs, decisions ought to be delegated to the "least" level of individual competence capable of handling the specific details, in the measure of his individual capabilities and experience, of what is finally a common enterprise. This is the very idea that gives legitimate "voice" to the expressions of the "common man" — whom Pope Benedict goes on to explain is the single most valuable "capital resource" on the face of the planet. We cannot speak of rational, sustained "global development" at all without reference to the individual human person.
By the way, the Pope is not "endorsing" globalization. He simply acknowledges it as a fait accompli, as already an established fact of reality. The genie is already out of the bottle. Now we have to figure out what to do about it.
If you insist on reading Caritas in Veritate as a "political document," you are missing the author's intent in writing altogether.
Or so it seems to me. JMHO FWIW
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.
Let's just go ahead and highlight this:
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Integral to what? Ahhhhh development of peoples AND international cooperation.
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peoples and international cooperation cooperating over what in what ways to what ends?
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REQUIRE? Required by whom? By what? Based on what? For what Goals? Toward what ends?
It's a great sounding intro. What CAN it POSSIBLY mean in the REAL CONTEXT OF CURRENT GEOPOLITICS and of geopolitics of the last 100+ years? IF it is to be considered more than an intellectual burp, what CAN it POSSIBLY mean?
1. It's warm and fuzzy SOUNDING about the topic of 'developing people AND international cooperation' together. How grand.
AND, in the context of REAL GEOPOLLITICS . . . what a farce.
There is NOTHING of ANY SIGNIFICANCE that has gone on in the REAL international world of GEOPOLITICS of the last 100 years which has NOT been managed and/or manipulated, arranged, caused, executed, more or less wholesale by the globalist cabal of international elite families and controllers driven and led by the king of hell. THAT'S JUST A FACT--as the dozens of their quotes ref'd in my tagline emphasize.
That is NOT to say that God has been sleeping. Certainly even the king of hell is subject to God's allowing satan to get away with whatever he temporarily has gotten away with. However, God's Script is more or less clear in Scripture. God's script is to allow satan to arrange, implement, engineer, establish a satanic global government in the era in which Israel is brought again to the Holy Land as happened in 1948.
So, in practical REAL terms, the sentence fragment would have been more honestly and realistically worded to have said:
The integral development of peoples and international cooperation BY ORDER OF SATAN AND HELL require . . .
REQUIRE . . . the establishment of a greater degree of international ordering,
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Oh, yes, INDEEDY! Satan insists on THAT! It MUST BE in order for satan to require all people groups to bow and worship before him. I'm sure he's thrilled that the good Pope agrees with his hellish agenda, on that score.
In fact, satan is ahead of the Pope . . . the global ID chip implant; global cameras monitoring everything and everyone; global chip implants in all farm animals and pets; chips in all products being scanned at building entries and exits; all spheres of daily life being controlled by international organizations, standards, REQUIREMENTS all subjected to international monitoring and controlling agencies of . . . drum roll . . . the global government headed by satan himself.
imho, ANYONE who even remotely thinks or remotely imagines, fantasizes that there are other options either doesn't believe
--SCRIPTURE
--THE REALITIES published abroad about geopolitical facts daily
--THE CURRENT INESCAPABLE TRENDS
--THE TRUE INTERNATIONAL COOPERATION ACTIVITIES AT THE HIGHEST LEVELS LED BY THE KING OF HELL.
marked by subsidiarity,
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What a wonderful, sweet, human, grass-roots word.
OBVIOUSLY it automatically means that Satan and all his geopolitical machine and gestapo will automatically and in all respects submit to the local parish priest directed by the Vatican. /sar
. . . perhaps in terms of media propaganda until the gestapo can appear and slice the good priest's head off . . . So much for subsidiarity at that point!
for the management of globalization.
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Ahhhhhh . . . for the management of globalization. THE GOAL, THEN??? IS THE MANAGEMENT OF GLOBALIZATION.
When did satan hire the Pope as a consultant to his global machine? When did satan delude the Pope or anyone else that satan would be listening to the Pope about the "management of globalization?"
They also require the construction of a social order
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Ahhhhh, yes, the CONSTRUCTION of a SOCIAL ORDER.
Evidently the good Pope believes that satan has left that goal out of his global machine's manipulations and goals?
Evidently the good Pope thinks that satan has been asleep at the switch regarding satan's construction of the most tyrannical, ruthless, deadly, destructive and cruel social order construction EVER TO HAVE BEEN AND THAT EVER WILL BE--as Scripture warns?
Or does the good Pope delude himself that satan will suddenly abandon satan's own cruel evil CONSTRUCTION OF HELL'S SOCIAL ORDER ON EARTH in behalf of the good Pope's version?
that at last conforms to the moral order,
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AHHHHH . . . how sweet. Here we have the announcement that the king of hell has submitted all his evil globalist machine to being sanitized, overhauled, and righteousness saturated by good Pope's magical encyclical appeal, announcement. I suspect all the demons in hell had a good laugh on that one!
to the interconnection between moral and social spheres,
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Ahhhhhhhhhh, yes, "interconnection." That's such a wonderful MSM globalist propaganda term. Lovely. Oh, and how grand--INTERCONNECTING MORAL AND SOCIAL SPHERES! How Heavenly!
So, just how does the good Pope envision the MORALITY OF HELL permeating the global social spheres? Because pre-Armageddon, that's the ONLY geopolitically managed imprinting on the social spheres that any 'successful' political, governmental body will be allowed to implement, manage, oversee . . .
and to the link between politics and the economic and civil spheres....
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Ahhhhh . . . LINKING . . . yet another warm and fuzzy globalist code-word for international !!!!CONTROL!!!! of the most ruthless sort.
Sounds like the good Pope has signed on to hell's management of politics, economics and civil spheres just as the globalists have been intensifying in tyrannical ways for at least 100 years. There will certainly be NO OTHER management of such by any ruling body OTHER THAN the globalists from hell PRE-ARMAGEDDON.
Again, either the Pope is shockingly ignorant of such realities . . . in denial of such realities . . . playing some sort of gamey charade about such realities . . . and/or complicit in trying to smooth-talk millions of RC's into compliant submission to such schemes and realities from hell.
I can't logically conclude anything else.
“They also require the construction of a social order that at last conforms to the moral order, to the interconnection between moral and social spheres, and to the link between politics and the economic and civil spheres....”
Maybe someone needs to read about the Fall of Man, and then contemplate what that entails for society.