Vatican.va: "worst enemy is the worship of money generated by capitalism"

[Bartolome_Casas]

In light of Pope Benedict’s statements yesterday condemning all the harm of “unregulated financial capitalism” and pointing out the reality of “hotbeds of tension and conflict caused by growing instances of inequality between rich and poor by the prevalence of a selfish and individualistic mindset” (see a news report summary at vaticaninsider.lastampa.it/en/the-vatican/detail/articolo/benedetto-xvi-benedict-xvi-benedicto-xvi-21033/ ), I searched the Vatican web site and found the quote below:

For Carlos Valverde (p. 104-119), Christian humanism’s worst enemy is the worship of money generated by capitalism, a decisive factor in the rise of postmodern man. The alternative to capitalism which the Church puts forward is not a socio-economic system, but rather a culture of love and life. Modernity, which was the culture of reason, has entered upon an irreversible crisis. It is time to initiate a new culture before the Third Millennium, a culture which would put into practice the originality of the Gospel: a culture of love and of Christian agape.
vatican.va/roman_curia/pontifical_councils/cultr/documents/rc_pc_cultr_16121999_doc_ii-1998-syn_en.html

Here are the full texts of Pope’s statements yesterday, which include his statements about the evils of unregulated Capitalism:

vatican.va/holy_father/benedict_xvi/messages/peace/documents/hf_ben-xvi_mes_20121208_xlvi-world-day-peace_en.html

news.va/en/news/pope-on-new-years-day-find-inner-peace-in-god

 

[Aelred_Minor]

Very good. The Church isn’t in the business of providing specific technical economic programs, but the bishops including the Popes do provide excellent universal principles and general advice.

To quote Chesterton from memory (and therefore probably a bit inaccurately), “Capitalism picks men’s pockets, and Socialism tries to remedy the problem by outlawing pockets.” The answer to the problem of poverty is neither unrestrained capitalism nor dehumanizing, centralizing programs like socialism.

The real answer, as far as general attitudes and values go, is to measure the success of any economic strategy by the way it affects the common people and especially the poorest people in the society.

An example of economic development that does not work for the people would be the case of the Japanese electronics giants, if the article I read about them a couple days ago was accurate. These companies are or recently were in trouble, but have turned things around through massive cutbacks. By their own standards efforts to turn these companies around have been a success, but by real human standards they have been a failure for the companies’ workers and for Japan as a whole and promise to continue to be for the foreseeable future.

Now I’m not saying that anyone did anything wrong in this particular case. Perhaps without the cutbacks the companies would have gone bankrupt and even worse human consequences would have followed in the future. The point is that such “successes” at the expense of the people are really at best mitigated failures, and at worst may be exploitations of the poor and middle-class in order to enrich a few.

The same principles apply at the national and global levels. Economic success that leaves the majority of people in poverty or even drives them further into poverty is not success at all, even if business is thriving from the perspective of the governing elite and big business CEOs. When in a society a few people who already have too much money and property are accumulating even more while the rest of the population is getting poorer, and the elites are calling this progress or freedom, then something is seriously wrong with the system.

 

[smndtupidisaftr]

I’m still waiting for someone from the Vatican to tell me where in the world I can find a free market economy. Maybe Hong Kong and Singapore, but that’s it. Most so-called “capitalist” countries are fascist economies.

 

[Aelred_Minor]

I’m still waiting for someone from the Vatican to tell me where in the world I can find a free market economy. Maybe Hong Kong and Singapore, but that’s it. Most so-called “capitalist” countries are fascist economies.

It’s a relative term. Obviously no country has an entirely free market, nor should they.

 

[Vouthon]

Thank you for highlighting this Bartolome

 

[_Abyssinia]

Pope Benedict is not the author of the .va quote is he?

It is also wise to read other quotes from Pope Benedict on economic models

catholicsocialscientists.org/CSSR/Current/2009/Burke%20-%20Article.pdf

Page 233, ‘Truth and Tolereance’

No one can any longer seriously deny that what was supposed to be a movement to bring freedom was, along with National Socialism, the greatest system of slavery in modern history: the extent of the cynical destruction of human beings and of the world is very often passed over in shame and silence, but no one can deny it any longer

What is real? Are only material goods, social, economic and political problems “reality”? This was precisely the great error of the dominant tendencies of the last century, a most destructive error, as we can see from the results of both Marxist and capitalist systems. They falsify the notion of reality by detaching it from the foundational and decisive reality which is God

The Marxist system, where it found its way into government, not only left a sad heritage of economic and ecological destruction, but also a painful oppression of souls. And we can also see the same thing happening in the West, where the distance between rich and poor is growing constantly, and giving rise to a worrying degradation of personal dignity through drugs, alcohol and deceptive illusions of happiness

Love—caritas—will always prove necessary, even in the most just society. There is no ordering of the State so just that it can eliminate the need for a service of love. Whoever wants to eliminate love is preparing to eliminate man as such. There will always be suffering which cries out for consolation and help. There will always be loneliness. There will always be situations of material need where help in the form of concrete love of neighbour is indispensable. The State which would provide everything, absorbing everything into itself, would ultimately become a mere bureaucracy incapable of guaranteeing the very thing which the suffering person—every person—needs:
namely, loving personal concern

---

We do not need a State which regulates and controls everything, but a State which, in accordance with the principle of subsidiarity, generously acknowledges and supports initiatives arising from the different social forces and combines spontaneity with closeness to those in need

‘Deus Caritas Est, 28b’

 

[smndtupidisaftr]

It’s a relative term. Obviously no country has an entirely free market, nor should they.

I think they should, but the point is that people associate capitalism with these very fascist economies.

 

[lerapt78]

I’m still waiting for someone from the Vatican to tell me where in the world I can find a free market economy. Maybe Hong Kong and Singapore, but that’s it. Most so-called “capitalist” countries are fascist economies.

Good point (although we may differ a bit in the assignation of the word fascism).

I would say as well that we do not have a true capitalist society, so long as banks are able to profit from their successful endeavors as well as profiting from their unsuccessful risks by receiving bailouts from the taxpayers (among other abuses). In the free market, you’re supposed to win some and lose some. . . . not win win win, no matter what you do.

I can’t say that there is an economic system that is perfect for everyone, because a system will only work as well as the population who adopts it has the innate characteristics to both bring it to frutition and sustain it. Capitalism has worked well for our country, but I agree with the Vatican’s statement only because it specified unregulated capitalism.

 

[Bartolome_Casas]

Pope Benedict is not the author of the .va quote is he?

It is also wise to read other quotes from Pope Benedict on economic models

catholicsocialscientists.org/CSSR/Current/2009/Burke%20-%20Article.pdf

There was a period, from the 700s to the 1500s, when Muslim conquerers posed a real threat to Italy, France, and all of Europe really. Muslims did conquer and rule most of Spain for about 400 years. Western Civilization could have ended due to that threat from Muslim conquerors. The Church had a lot to say about the Muslim threat at that time.

But, by the 1930s, Muslim armies posed no threat to Europe. Rather, a different threat or threats were poised to destroy Western Civilization. And so, in the 1930s, the Church had lot to say about the heresies of Fascism and Communism.

In a similar way, the threats that Pope Benedict/Cardinal Ratzinger/Fr. Ratzinger was focusing on 10, 15, 20, 30 or 40 years ago will not be what he will focus on now, in the present. He and the Church have said that they are called to always inspect the “signs of the time.” Many thoughtful people are commenting that world economic and political conditions are changing more quickly than they did in the past. The pastors of the Church must talk about the conditions of today, when commenting on economic matters.

Thus, it seems logical that it must be significant that Pope Benedict sounded the alarm bells about “unregulated financial capitalism” in his two statements on January 1, 2013, and made no comment about any threats from Marxism, Communism, collectivism, or socialism. This cannot have been an oversight on the Holy Father’s part. Were anyone to suggest that was an oversight on the Holy Father’s part that would be an insult to the Holy Father.

 

[_Abyssinia]

There was a period, from the 700s to the 1500s, when Muslim conquerers posed a real threat to Italy, France, and all of Europe really. Muslims did conquer and rule most of Spain for about 400 years. Western Civilization could have ended due to that threat from Muslim conquerors. The Church had a lot to say about the Muslim threat at that time.

But, by the 1930s, Muslim armies posed no threat to Europe. Rather, a different threat or threats were poised to destroy Western Civilization. And so, in the 1930s, the Church had lot to say about the heresies of Fascism and Communism.

In a similar way, the threats that Pope Benedict/Cardinal Ratzinger/Fr. Ratzinger was focusing on 10, 15, 20, 30 or 40 years ago will not be what he will focus on now, in the present. He and the Church have said that they are called to always inspect the “signs of the time.” Many thoughtful people are commenting that world economic and political conditions are changing more quickly than they did in the past. The pastors of the Church must talk about the conditions of today, when commenting on economic matters.

Thus, it seems logical that it must be significant that Pope Benedict sounded the alarm bells about “unregulated financial capitalism” in his two statements on January 1, 2013, and made no comment about any threats from Marxism, Communism, collectivism, or socialism. This cannot have been an oversight on the Holy Father’s part. Were anyone to suggest that was an oversight on the Holy Father’s part that would be an insult to the Holy Father.

The last quote I posted is about the state which is vital to discussion about economic models

What do you think Pope Benedict means by unregulated financial capitalism? Where does it exist?

 

[SamH]

In light of Pope Benedict’s statements yesterday condemning all the harm of “unregulated financial capitalism” and pointing out the reality of “hotbeds of tension and conflict caused by growing instances of inequality between rich and poor by the prevalence of a selfish and individualistic mindset” (see a news report summary at vaticaninsider.lastampa.it/en/the-vatican/detail/articolo/benedetto-xvi-benedict-xvi-benedicto-xvi-21033/ ), I searched the Vatican web site and found the quote below:

For Carlos Valverde (p. 104-119), Christian humanism’s worst enemy is the worship of money generated by capitalism, a decisive factor in the rise of postmodern man. The alternative to capitalism which the Church puts forward is not a socio-economic system, but rather a culture of love and life. Modernity, which was the culture of reason, has entered upon an irreversible crisis. It is time to initiate a new culture before the Third Millennium, a culture which would put into practice the originality of the Gospel: a culture of love and of Christian agape.
vatican.va/roman_curia/pontifical_councils/cultr/documents/rc_pc_cultr_16121999_doc_ii-1998-syn_en.html

Here are the full texts of Pope’s statements yesterday, which include his statements about the evils of unregulated Capitalism:

vatican.va/holy_father/benedict_xvi/messages/peace/documents/hf_ben-xvi_mes_20121208_xlvi-world-day-peace_en.html

news.va/en/news/pope-on-new-years-day-find-inner-peace-in-god

Do we all get bunnies?

 

[Tighty_Whitey]

As far as I can tell the hot beds of conflict in this world have virtually nothing to do with discrepancies between rich and poor. I’m sure I’m forgetting a few but the key ones that come to mind are:

Syria
Afghanistan
North Korea

 

[Tighty_Whitey]

The Pope was certainly not talking about our own economy. We have so many regulations that it is becoming next to impossible for anything to get done. I know bankers that don’t want depositors and don’t want to make loans because it has become a hassle to deal with the regulators.

 

[Ridgerunner]

I recall something Solzhenitsyn said in comparing communism to capitalism. He referred to:

“The Soviet Union, where capital is dear and labor is cheap, unlike the West where it’s the other way around.”

Indisputably, capitalism can be abused, has been abused (e.g. the “crony capitalism” of 18th Century England or 21st Century America) and will be abused.

But one has to recognize that despite the pretensions of other systems, they do, indeed, result in making capital dear and labor cheap.

The question is not so much whether capitalism lends itself to hard-heartedness more than any other system mankind has devised, but whether peoples’ hard-heartedness leads to abuses of any and all systems. To the extent that people become hard hearted, they can manipulate the otherwise beneficent rule of law to oppress, or institute Gulags to “absorb surplus labor.”

But one has to at least give grudging acquiescence to the fact that when “labor is dear and capital is cheap”, people who have converted in heart are far more able to give aid to others than they are when it’s the other way around.

 

[Captain_America]

Defend our “bloody tooth” capitalism all you like. . . me, I’m still waiting for markets to somehow magically regulate THEMSELVES (of all things!).

Tired of Wall Street Fatcats asking Uncle Sam for help, and tired, too, of not seeing Uncle’s Sam’s SEC actually put some of these crooks behind bars where they belong.

Surprised at the weakness of the Obama administration in dealing with Wall Street rape.

 

[smndtupidisaftr]

Defend our “bloody tooth” capitalism all you like. . . me, I’m still waiting for markets to somehow magically regulate THEMSELVES (of all things!).

Tired of Wall Street Fatcats asking Uncle Sam for help, and tired, too, of not seeing Uncle’s Sam’s SEC actually put some of these crooks behind bars where they belong.

Surprised at the weakness of the Obama administration in dealing with Wall Street rape.

We haven’t had a free market since the central bank came back into existence.

 

[MarcoPolo]

and made no comment about any threats from Marxism, Communism, collectivism, or socialism. This cannot have been an oversight on the Holy Father’s part.

I have to side with _Abyssinia, and caution against reading into the Pope’s words things that are not there. Considering how explicitly he rejected socialist ideas in an encyclical versus a non-specific phrase about dangers of “unregulated capitalism” in a day-of-peace message, I do not think it reasonable to presume the Pope suddenly no longer thinks socialism or communism are threatening. Or that he thinks he was “wrong” when he wrote Deus Caritas Est.

That doesn’t mean he made an oversight yesterday. What it means is he didn’t mention them in this particular sermon yesterday. I happen to agree that some regulation of capitalism can be beneficial, such as regulation of monopolies without which we see the price greed the Pope is mentioning. But that doesn’t mean I think he must “only” have capitalism on his mind. To do so, I think, is to read the Pope’s words yesterday with a confirmation bias.

 

[Vouthon]

In his book Jesus of Nazareth, Pope Benedict XVI wrote about “…the cruelties of a capitalism that degrades man to the level of merchandise…”

So it isn’t an “out-of-the-blue statement”.

There’s also his uncle:

Benedict’s Uncle & Solidarity

For Pope Benedict XVI there is an additional influence. Fr. Georg Ratzinger (1844-1899), the Pope’s great uncle, was a contemporary of Heinrich Pesch. In fact, his remarkable work, Die Volkswirtschaft in ihrer sittlichen Grundlagen (transl. The Economy and Its Moral Foundations), published in 1881 and revised in 1895, is often quoted throughout the five volumes of Pesch’s Lehrbuch.

Ratzinger indicated how modern technology enhanced the de facto solidarity that exists among people involved in production; and he referred to that as the “law of solidarity.” Being a loyal Catholic priest, Georg Ratzinger perceived the notion of human solidarity in St. Paul’s exposition of the doctrine of the Mystical Body of Christ, as Pesch did also in his Lehrbuch (I, 2, p. 197). Its denial in the modern capitalistic order, “with its private speculation and raw egotism,” Ratzinger indicated, “naturally gave rise to socialism.” Thus, “every decrease in wages, is greeted as progress, because that enables each individual entrepreneur to fatten his profits at the expense of the workers.”

He continued: “It is taken for granted that every improvement in technology only increases the profits of the individual capitalists, while the masses of workers plunge ever more deeply into the abyss of dependency, poverty, and misery” (p. 246). The Ratzinger genetic link appears to be not sympathetic to capitalism!

Capitalism, defined as a system where the owners and managers of capital dominate the economy and thereby society at large, and manipulate these in their own interests without regard for the common good, has nevertheless outlasted Marxian socialism and its dire predictions. That may be because Marxism was laden with the kind of contra-natural ideological baggage which made its early demise inevitable. During what was historically speaking its brief existence on this planet, it had to be put into place and sustained with outrageous force and based on internecine hatred between the working class and the ruling class. Such bitter animosity is in certain respects more unnatural and counterproductive than the greed that drives the capitalistic system.

 

[Schism_hater]

What do you think Pope Benedict means by unregulated financial capitalism? Where does it exist?

Well, it may not exist currently in the US but it has in the past, and the whole point of the “Tea Party” wing of the GOP is that the Us should return to unregulated capitalism. So if nothing else, the Pope’s statement is a rebuke to “Tea Partiers”, and a merited one.

 

[smndtupidisaftr]

Well, it may not exist currently in the US but it has in the past, and the whole point of the “Tea Party” wing of the GOP is that the Us should return to unregulated capitalism. So if nothing else, the Pope’s statement is a rebuke to “Tea Partiers”, and a merited one.

This country grew much faster and the state of the poor improved at an unparalleled rate during that time of “unregulated capitalism”.

The perception of that age is more a result of revisionist history than what actually happened…