VATICAN CITY – Pope Benedict on Tuesday called for a “world political authority” to manage the global economy and for more government regulation of national economies to pull the world out of the current crisis and avoid a repeat.
The pope’s call for a re-think of the way the world economy is run came in new encyclical which touched on a number of social issues but whose main connecting thread was how the current crisis has affected both rich and poor nations.
Called “Charity in Truth,” parts of the encyclical appeared bound to upset conservatives because of its underlying rejection of unbridled capitalism and unregulated market forces, which he said had led to “thoroughly destructive” abuse of the system.
The pope said every economic decision has a moral consequence and called for “forms of redistribution” of wealth overseen by governments to help those most affected by crises.
Benedict said “there is an urgent need of a true world political authority” whose task would be “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.”
Such an authority would have to be “regulated by law” and “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.”
“Obviously it would have to have the authority to ensure compliance with its decisions from all parties, and also with the co-ordinated measures adopted in various international forums,” he said.
[More]
Notes:
My immediate thought?
“Good luck with that one.”
Just what we need more government to pay for.
I was thinking we already have that concept.
It’s known as the UN.
“So how’s that little thing going?” many may ask.
Response: “Not well! Not well at all.”
Query: “So why are we paying big bucks for it when everyone is going broke?”
Response: “Well, err, ahhhh (and then total silence).”
And just where would one go if you got on the wrong side of this one world authority, or did not agree with its “ideals”.
Of course governments are always altruistic and are peopled by individuals who have no personal agendas nor hunger for power and control, which is of course why the Pope would like “governements” to oversee the programs.
“And just where would one go if you got on the wrong side of this one world authority, or did not agree with its “ideals”.”
You go where Paul Martin wanted to go — you create something new that works ( and you have no idea how much that idea gauls me but he was right).
I don’t recall Big Paulie Martin suggesting a replacement for the UN…
He did, Mack. A fast search of Google doesn’t turn it up but he suggested at one point that a new world body should be created to replace the UN consisting of 22 developed nations.
I need a “prof” here to help me as I can’t immediately lay my hands on it but the idea is important and I do recall it. I may have misunderstood what I read at the time but I am certain there are many who know exactly what I am writing about and can direct and correct me if I’m wrong.
The Pope’s a flippin Liberal!
Paul Martin’s plan had nothing to do with the UN, he just wanted to expand the informal G8 (Group of Eight) until it became the G20 group of twenty industrialized nations. John McCain had the right idea when he planned to start a League of Democracies as a counter to the UN and its complete lack of standards for admission.
The Pope’s a flippin Liberal!
Why would that surprise you? Christianity prides itself on mercy, sharing, etc etc. The dog-eat-dog Americanized version is not at all like Christianity practiced in most of the world.
The other thing the church is … authoritarian. Of course they’d like to centralize world economic control so they can worm their way into it. Business hasn’t been too good lately, especially after the child molestation scandal. Speaking of which, the Catholic church’s slow and inadequate response to these allegations is a good preview of what will happen should economic power ever be centralized. Europe (where this power will likely be based) will become well-coiffed Moscow and the rest of the world will be barren/forgotten Siberia.
Yeah, those dog-eat-dog American Christian groups are so awful. That’s why President G.W. Bush turned to them instead of the UN to deliver his very successful Presidential Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, or PEPFAR, in Africa. Which reminds me of a documentary film I saw not long ago and can highly recommend: “The Lost Boys of Sudan”.
http://www.lostboysfilm.com/
“The Lost Boys of Sudan” is about 27,000 orphaned boys, some of them just toddlers, who fled thousands of miles from the violence in Darfur, Sudan, into Ethiopia and then down into Kenya. Vicious groups of dog-eat-dog American Christians then proceeded to house, clothe, feed, and educate them until they turned 18, at which time, said white Christian mobs, sponsored their immigration into the U.S.A, finding the young men jobs, and paying for their food, accommodations, and transportation needs until they could support themselves. The largest group of about 7000 former Sudanese refugees currently resides in Omaha, Nebraska.
Yes I’ve heard of the Lost Boys. A couple of feel good stories doesn’t explain away the visceral response the Christian right has to anything that smells like a social program. Not wanting people to be totally dependent on the government is one thing – screaming bloody socialism if the government tries to spend $1 on the poor while waving the flag if it spends $10 bombing is quite another.
Here’s another story:
http://www.vaildaily.com/article/20070511/NATIONAL02/70511021
Come on Cynapse, how can you equate this? How do you even know that this middle-schooler who commited the heinous crime of tossing a slab of leftover Easter ham in the general direction of some Muslims was even a Christian? And even if he was, compare this stupid kid’s thoughtless actions to China’s multicultural policy of hacking “the others” apart with machetes, which is what would have happened to the Lost Boys of Sudan if they hadn’t fled the Muslims in Darfur, and what happens whenever different groups of blacks encroach on each other’s territory anywhere in Africa. True, we aren’t perfect so the utopia you long for is not acheivable, but our western Christian rooted societies are several orders of magnitude more tolerant than any other societies possibly could be, so that will have to do. At least there is a good chance that these Somalian refugees from black crime in Atlanta will be able to have the decent life that eluded them in their homeland, somewhere in America if they can ever escape the east coast. Maybe they just need directions to Omaha.
Pretty wide brush you’re waving around there, Cynapse. Funny how you blow off a good example (how many kids rescued? so what?) but a bad example where two people acted like idiots justifies denouncing entire demographics. Yep, no irony there.
Perhaps those of us who “scream” wouldn’t do so if the government only spent the $1… but, instead, they give the poor a nickel and the rest disappears into administration, accountability mechanisms, ads boasting about delivering the $1 as well as announcing another $5 as soon as they can find someone who needs it… while the NDP swears “average Canadians demand” the government hand out billions more…
Perfect utopia? Who asked for that? The principle in play here is that if you’re going to crow about how much better you are than the rest of the world you need to back it with something matching. Now I’ve been to Martha’s Vinyard, close to the height of U.S. opulence, and also the hellhole that is East Detroit. Very different nations there, and not just in terms of money. Yes, America has many faces but it’s a little dishonest just to present the best one all the time. Not that other countries aren’t guilty of this (Canada comes to mind, naturally) and in fact the West congratulates itself just a little too much on social gains that previously existed elsewhere.
Western Christendom has been dominant for the past 500 years in terms of creativity, wealth, governance and (until recently) technology. No one’s going to dispute that. There are elements who have provided a near-utopia of social equality but they are often derided as socialists and starry eyed dreamers. Ironically, the very people dragged kicking and screaming through every social advance are the ones who bark the most about how socially advanced the West is compared to other areas. Bragging about your ideological defeats is strange, gentlemen.
Who is crowing about anything? I was merely reflexively responding to the scorn you so often level towards Christians. I am not particularly religious myself but it has long been obvious to me that there is no group more intolerant than atheists such as yourself. I understand completely that the Soviet Union was officially atheist for a reason, and that the left wing collective has programmed you to fear Christians as you do, but I just know too many of them who are fine people, undeserving of such hate. It is a shame that the Catholic Church often tried to hide the child abuse perpetrated by some of its priests, but it is no less a shame when secular school systems likewise try to hide the much more widespread problem of child molestation perpetrated by some teachers, social, and child care workers, and it is even more of a shame that lefties often try to amplify one set of crimes while ignoring the other, just to advance their cause.
Unfortunately, the populations of non-western societies, well known for their violence (do you read history books by any chance?), vastly outnumber us, so we still need a well equipped armed forces (which in reality costs us only a tiny fraction of what we spend on maintaining our societal entitlement systems), which unlike our social programs, is actually well defined as one of the responsibilities of our federal government. I have no problem at all with social spending that we can afford, but in case you hadn’t noticed, our governments are inefficient and wasteful, and thanks to socialist starry eyed Utopian dreamers, our western societies are more than just broke. Do you actually believe that it will benefit the underprivileged if we bankrupt our civilization?
It may be comforting for you to think that some left-wing collective has programmed me and most people my age into seeing the dirt that SoCon Christians and non-religious SoCons do in the name of Xtianity and the West, but unfortunately the SoCons don’t need the help. I was going to write more but then I read this:
http://www.nationalpost.com/most-popular/story.html?id=1767472
Gay Pride gets a fraction of the money that the other festivals get, yet Ablonczy gets sacked. Non SoCon CPC MP’s are afraid to talk about it. Why? Because the Pro-Life SoCons think Gay pride is “anti family”. Are these the fine people you are thinking of? I didn’t want to see what goes on at Pride so you know what I did? Stayed home. People have been known to do that when they don’t like Jazz during their visits in Montreal, seeing cowboys brutalize animals in Calgary, or cramming too many Caribbeans in one place in Toronto. They don’t make a “family values” issues of it and try to stop others from using tourist funding to bring in tourists.
BTW I’m agnostic, not atheist. Also, these attacks are based on the willing activities of a portion of the Christian community. They could choose not to behave that way. It’s no different than when you attack Islamists and claim (at least here) that you’re not attacking all Muslims.
Come on Cynapse, how can you equate this? How far do you believe that any Gay Pride Parade would make it through the streets of any city in any non-western, non-Christian country? Once again, if this were to have happened in Islamabad or Tehran say, they would be breaking out the machetes, stoning homosexuals to death, or hurling them from tall buildings, not quibbling about taxpayer funding of said parade, and why exactly should the rest of the country feel good about paying for Toronto’s parades? Would Torontonians be happy to pay for an equivalent Parade of Christians out west? Once again, we are more than just going broke, so any such festivals should either begin to think about making it on their own merits, or to have had their day and be cancelled.
Would Torontonians be happy to pay for an equivalent Parade of Christians out west
Apparently we would. Not only that, but one frequently accused by lefty-enviro types of animal cruelty. I don’t think the geography is an issue here so much as the fact that sometimes the government is going to fund parades that aren’t your cup of tea.
As for Christianity itself, you are in Toronto so you’ve no doubt met staunch Italian Catholics or Ethiopian/Eastern/Russian Orthodox Christians. They’ve been around much longer than these “culture warriors” so it’s not about this 2000+ year old religion as a whole. It’s a small sect of Islamist-type crusaders. The fact that they aren’t using violence on the same scale as in Tehran speaks more to the nature of our society than their intentions. Recall, the culture warriors do have a couple recent kills under their belt.
“Would Torontonians be happy to pay for an equivalent Parade of Christians out west? “
Brian S . that is fair question and needs to be debated. I agree with you that Cynapse is very annoying on his malice toward Christians, because he also admits that atheists are socons.. .people can make choices within or outside their religion …it’s complicated and doesn’t fit nice neat little filling holes.
I’m a Christian, I’ve told my minister I’m in favour of SSM and hope he supports it because without the gay community we would not be able to hold our central core Toronto Church together.
Similarly we will never never elect a Conservative in Toronto if we do not smarten up on this subject. The core support for the CPC is largely only rural for many reasons ..They are more entrepreneurial, more capitalist etc. But Conservatives have not elected an MP or MPP in Toronto for 2 decades and won’t with this attitude about gays.
We all have gay friends in Toronto and the workplace has many open about it and …so what?
We don’t need to defend Christians… they’ve been defending themselves for 2000 years; they are the fastest growing religion in China etc.
But gays still think they need to be defended and maybe they do. I’m fully prepared to do that and I think our government should support a parade that is in fact commercially viable for Toronto if you add it all up.
Come on Cynapse, how can you equate this….
Most of the small sects of hardcore Christian-types in Ontario, completely shun us and our technology, while plodding along in their horse drawn buggies to trade for supplies in out of the way places like Mount Forest. So very very scary.
Everything you say is true nomdeblog, but gays can be very intolerant themselves, especially towards Christians, while completely ignoring the very real threat that a small minority of Muslims could pose to them, all for the good of the collective.
True Brian , but ironically we can only tolerate someone if we don’t agree with them, if we do agree , there is nothing to tolerate. But we are all sinners and improvement is needed, that’s the whole point of Christianity.
As a Christian who listens to sermons about the “unclean” woman who Jesus helped instead of scorning like the Synagogue hierarchy did, I think we need to evolve the bible, trial and error just like we do capitalism and search for solutions rather than assume there can be a permanent plan that works according to “the Won”.
We expect moderate Muslims to marginalize their extremists, therefore as Christians we need to do the same and marginalize those that are intolerant toward gays. Part of that is symbolic with the parade at this stage, it won’t be needed much longer, I know gays who think it is already served its purpose, but let them collectively decide.
Let’s be pragmatic about this. Mike Harris supported gay spousal benefits in his day and once told me “you know what nomdeblog, gays like tax cuts too” LOL
The PMO would not risk the ire of a very vocal minority like the GLBT community via this high-profile firing over a handful of fundamentalists. As we have seen, these groups who like to use “family” in their name and mantra have influenced Reform/Alliance/CPC and GOP policy for years. These people have formed powerful groups like the Christian Coalition which have leading edge software and full time lobbyists at their disposal. They’ve managed to slow down the spread of legal gay marriage and continuously bring abortion to the forefront of the culture wars … many decades after Roe vs Wade was decided.
The fundamentalists are numerous and powerful, nomdeblog. Perhaps it is YOU who is on the fringe? There were certainly Christians and even some ministers at the Pride parade, but they do not have an entire political wing’s social agenda at their disposal. They certainly can’t pressure the PMO to fire ministers for supporting parades that go against their political agenda.
“Perhaps it is YOU who is on the fringe?”
Oh no Cynapse there are a lot more than just me and Dick Cheney that are tolerant of gays.
Furthermore to lump it in with religion is a red herring used for your intolerance of Christians. As you said yourself, there are atheists and agnostics that are anti-gay ; as well as Liberals and Dippers. It can’t be neatly shoved into part of your Christian and Conservative bashing file. I’m afraid it’s more omni-present and many are guilty of intolerance of all kinds.
nomdeblog, that previous statement doesn’t make much sense. You’re calling me anti-Christian for pointing out those parts of the faith you (as a socially liberal Toronto church-goer) do not want to advertise … then you turn around and use my same statements as proof that not only Christians support some of the more unsavoury crusades in question?
Well sure it must have occurred to you that this fact was worked into the overall model??
If you take your mind out of Toronto for a minute, you’ll realize that many Christians are quite proud of their anti-gay stance and militant anti-abortion activities. Are you calling them false Christians? Some of them no doubt believe you are a false Christian.
This is another instance of that projection issue I was discussing with Brian S a bit earlier. You can’t assume that you are representative of all Christians or all of any group in which:
1) Members are born into the group
or
2) There is virtually no barrier to entry
This means that when people attack fundamentalist Christianity, you are foolish to fight back and accuse them of “intolerance”, as though these fundies don’t actually exist (much less carry prominence). The best you can do is distance yourself from said views This tactic of attacking with a Pat Robertson and defending with a Nomdeblog is fooling no one.
This “one world government” stuff sounds like something out of Revelation.
Cynapse, being anti-gay is a tag that the left have used quite successfully as being a Conservative phenomena. It’s not. It is a point of view that exists all over the place. As you say, some atheists are anti-gay. To try and tag Christians and Conservatives with this is not valid. Some are anti-gay, some aren’t. Harper is well aware of that.
As the Globe editorial says today “The Prime Minister, who has shown little appetite for allowing social conservatives to dictate policy, should make clear that it is Ablonczy, not Trost, who speaks for the government”
Moreover the MP Trost from Saskatoon making the fuss doesn’t speak for Conservatives in Saskatoon either. I was just talking to someone today from Saskatoon, a conservative, who said that gay pride is becoming very prominent there too and the attitude of most citizens is …so what? This isn’t just a big city change, it is happening everywhere, it will soon burn itself out as being a battle won and we can move onto something more relevant … Jack has a long list every day.
The attitude is “so what” if they keep their peckers in their pants and bums covered up at Pride parades. If they insist on letting it all hang out, well then, criticism is certainly warranted.