Encyclical caritas in Veritate analyzed by Atila Sinke Guimaraes

NEWS: October 29, 2009

Bird’s Eye View of the News

Atila Sinke Guimarães

AN ENCYCLICAL TO FOSTER THE REVOLUTION - Even though it is late, I will offer an analysis of Caritas in veritate. It is an encyclical that was first announced to be a criticism of Capitalism. Then, with the crisis of the Western economy that was triggered in September 2008, the Pope prudently waited to see what direction events would take. Finally, the document was released in early July with a corrected target. This time it was said to be “about the financial crisis,” not specifically direct against Capitalism. Actually, it is an effort to foster the Universal Republic, whether you call it the one world order, globalization, integral human development (n. 17) or the new humanistic synthesis (n. 21).

An omnipotent international authority

Benedict XVI’s views on this topic constitute the nucleus of his encyclical. He says:

In the face of the unrelenting growth of global interdependence, there is a strongly felt need … for a reform of the United Nations Organization, and likewise of economic institutions and international finance, so that the concept of the family of nations can acquire real teeth. One also senses the urgent need to find innovative ways of implementing the principle of the responsibility to protect and give poorer nations an effective voice in shared decision-making. 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.

Benedict XVI is holding up the failing banner of the UN

To manage the global economy … to bring about integral disarmament, food security and peace, to guarantee the protection of the environment and to regulate migration, for all this, there is an urgent need for a true world political authority …

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. Obviously, it would have to have the authority to ensure compliance with its decisions from all parties (n. 67 – from the official English text by the Vatican)

If this is not a papal pledge for the Universal Republic dreamed of by the Secret Forces, then words have lost their meaning.

So, not satisfied with promoting a Pan-religion by means of ecumenism and inter-religious dialogue, Benedict XVI comes to succor the UN in order to foster the establishment of the Universal Republic. Since it is general knowledge that this organization “doesn’t have teeth” to lead its members and to enforce its own decisions, the Pope enters the picture to help it achieve this revolutionary goal.

But this is not all. He envisages for the UN a broader role, whereby, as implied, it would have its own powerful international armed forces, a juridical system with a proper penal code to compel nations to obey its decisions regarding politics, economics, social issues and the environment.

To pursue socialist goals

One of the great advantages of globalization, according to Benedict XVI, is that it facilitates the “distribution of wealth” in order to avoid “inequality” as well as to thwart the present day system (reputedly a bad one) based on private property. These goals are expressed in the following excerpt:

The economic crisis presented a timely pretext to promote an old socialist agenda

The processes of globalization, suitably understood and directed, open up the unprecedented possibility of large-scale redistribution of wealth on a world-wide scale; if badly directed, however, they can lead to an increase of poverty and inequality …

For a long time it was thought that poor peoples should remain at a fixed stage of development, and should be content to receive assistance from the philanthropy of developed peoples. Paul VI strongly opposed this mentality in Populorum progressio. Today the material resources available for rescuing these peoples from poverty are potentially greater than before, but they have ended up largely in the hands of people from developed countries, who have benefited more from the liberalization that has occurred in the mobility of capital and labor. The world-wide diffusion of forms of prosperity should not therefore be held by projects that are self-centered, protectionist or at the service of private interests (n. 42).

It is not superfluous to remind my reader that until Vatican II the Church always taught that the poor should be the object of charity and receive alms with humility. John XXIII (Mater et Magistra) and Paul VI (Populorum progressio), however, combated this traditional perspective, stressing that the poor should not receive any help as an act of charity. Rather, they would have the civil “right” to receive help, and, therefore, the rich would have a “duty” to give it.

The poor should be helped through acts of charity, not by demands based on human rights

In this transition from assistance by mercy, to assistance obligated by law lies the essential difference between Catholic doctrine and Socialism. In the text above, Pope Ratzinger promotes the same socialist thesis supported by his conciliar predecessors and opposes the traditional teaching on charity, which he pejoratively calls philanthropy.

Also at variance with the traditional social doctrine of the Church is his attack on “self-centered forms of prosperity at the service of private interests.” It is an indirect, but strong, attack against private property.

Interesting to notice, additionally, is Benedict’s assault against “inequality,” presented as an evil per se. However, the harmonic inequality of classes inside a society was continually defended by the Church, as well as the inequality of wealth among nations. Inequality is a powerful means for man to know, love and serve God; there is nothing wrong with it per se. It may be wrong per accidens, accidentally, when badly used.

In earlier paragraphs, the Pope had already attacked inequality in general, without specifying that only bad inequalities shoud be avoided:

The world’s wealth is growing in absolute terms, but inequalities are on the increase. … The scandal of glaring inequalities continues (n. 22).
Through the systemic increase of social inequality, both within a single country and between the populations of different countries … not only does social cohesion suffer … but so does the economy, through the progressive erosion of ‘social capital’ (n. 32)

When explaining what integral development is, Benedict proposes an ideal not much different from that of Socialism and Communism. It is presented in typical progressivist language:

The theme of development can be identified with the inclusion-in-relation of all individuals and peoples within the one community of human family, built in solidarity on the basis of the fundamental values of justice and peace. … God desires to incorporate us into this reality of communion as well (n. 54).

From the constitution of the USSR, we know that self-management is the ultimate goal of Communism. (1) In Caritas in veritate Benedict XVI seems to concur with that same aim. Indeed, he proposes that business management should be undertaken by everyone involved in any way with the enterprise:

Self-management leads to the exhaustion of the sources of production and, therefore, to poverty

Business management cannot concern itself only with the interests of the proprietors, but must also assume responsibility for all the other stakeholders who contribute to the life of the business: the workers, the clients, the suppliers of various elements of production, the community of reference (n. 40).

Self-management should also be applied on the international level. Indeed, this goal seems to underlie the following paragraphs:

Paul VI had an articulated vision of development. He understood the term to indicate the goal of rescuing peoples, first and foremost from hunger, deprivation, endemic diseases and illiteracy. From the economic point of view this meant their active participation, on equal terms, in the international economic process … (n. 21).
Government and international bodies can then lose sight of the objectivity and ‘inviolability’ of rights. … Such way of thinking and acting compromises the authority of international bodies, especially in the eyes of those countries most in need of development. Indeed, the latter demand that the international community take up the duty of helping them to be ‘artisans of their own destiny’, that is, to take up duties of their own. The sharing of reciprocal duties is a more powerful incentive to action than the mere assertion of rights (n. 43).

Feeding class struggle

It is interesting to verify that the global-socialist perspective of Caritas in veritate does not prevent it from promoting class struggle inside each country.

Liberation Theology is based upon the simplistic, sophistic preaching that all land on earth belongs to God. Since God does not want poverty, then the poor people have the right to take the land from proprietors and use it for their own good. This sophism that ignores the right of property - confirmed by God in the 7th and 10th Commandments – is in accordance with the same slogan of Socialism and Communism, which demands that the land be equally distributed among all.

the Landless Movement threatening violence

Led by Catholic priests, the Landless Movement invades rural proprieties in Brazil "to distribute the wealth"...

In this encyclical Benedict hands another banner to Liberation Theology or other progressivist movements to continue their promotion of class struggle. He not only endorses the efforts of agrarian reform to give the land to the one who works it, but he establishes a new human right, “the right to water.” All men in a country and all the peoples on earth would have an equal right to water… He goes even further. He determines that a “new conscience” must be established in the minds of all men to accept these rights. Here are his words:

The elimination of world hunger has also, in the global era, become a requirement for safeguarding the peace and stability of the planet. Hunger is not so much dependent on a lack of material things as on a shortage of social resources, the most of which are institutional. What is missing, in other words, is a network of economic institutions capable of guaranteeing regular access to sufficient food and water for nutritional needs, and also capable of addressing the primary needs and necessities ensuing from genuine food crises, whether due to natural causes or political irresponsibility, nationally and internationally. …

At the same time the question of equitable agrarian reform in developing countries should not be ignored. The right to food, like the right to water, has an important place within the pursuit of other rights, beginning with the fundamental right to life. It is, therefore, necessary to cultivate a public conscience that considers food and access to water as universal rights of all human beings, without distinction or discrimination (n. 27).

What kind of social revolution can the right to water ignite? This is a question left to each one’s imagination. Two issues would be involved inside a country: First, there is the problem of the drinkable water. If your land has a creek and your neighbor’s does not, he can declare himself “poor” and invade your property to have access to that water. Second, there is the problem of the advantages that water can give its owner. If you build a mill on your creek or a generator to produce energy, you may well face a lawsuit from your neighbor, who imagines that he also has the right to these benefits coming from the water, based on Benedict XVI’s social teachings.

How this “right to water” would apply to countries is also open to speculation. Would the Sahara countries of North Africa have the “right” to cross the Mediterranean Sea and enter southern Italy, France or Spain to have access to places where water is abundant?

All religions must unite to foster globalization

With such plans and goals in sight, Benedict XVI exhorts all the religions of the world and men of good will to unite in order to uphold a global government that is not tyrannical. He says:

For believers, the world derives neither from blind chance nor from strict necessity, but from God’s plan. This is what gives rise to the duty of believers to unite their efforts with those of all men and women of good will, with followers of other religions and with non-believers, so that this world of ours may effectively correspond to the divine plan: living as a family under the Creator’s watchful eye…

By considering reciprocity as the heart of what it is to be a human being, subsidiarity is the most effective antidote against any form of an all-encompassing welfare State. … Hence the principle of subsidiarity is particularly well-suited to managing globalization and directing it towards authentic human development. … Globalization certainly requires authority, insofar as it poses the problem of a global common good that needs to be pursued. This authority, however, must be organized in a subsidiary and stratified way, if it is not to infringe upon freedom and if it is to yield effective results in practice (n. 57).

It is hardly necessary to note that Benedict once again subverts perennial Catholic teaching when he pretends that God’s plan for mankind is this announced Universal Republic, indifferent to which religion – if any – one professes.

In these paragraphs one can also glimpse the final goal of ecumenism: a Pan-religion fabricated to support this dreamed-of unity of mankind.

These are some comments I offer to my readers on the Encyclical Caritas in veritate. To avoid presenting unsubstantiated generalizations, I had to reproduce the necessary quotes, making this column longer than usual.

I believe we are seeing a new move: The Pope is taking on the role of the principal leader of the Revolution, just at a time when the Revolution is giving signs that it is losing its breath.

Note 1: “The supreme objective of the Soviet State is the construction of a classless communist society in which a socialist communist self-management will be able to develop.” Constitución – La Ley Fundamental de La Unión de las Repúblicas Socialistas Soviéticas, October 7, 1977, Moscow: Editorial Progreso, 1980, p 5.

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