Oct 25, 2011,06:20am EDT
Tim Worstall
Former Contributor
Opinion
This article is more than 9 years old.
That isn’t just the implication it’s the explicit call in the latest from the Vatican: that we need to move to a system of world government:
If Vatican cardinals have yet to join the Occupy Wall Street protesters, a document released by the Holy See calling for a “world authority” to crack down on capitalism suggests some are considering it.
Alphaville has a bit of fun quoting scripture back at them here. The full (although preliminary translation) statement is here.
As someone educated and raised a Catholic I can tell you what the problem is here. It’s the otherworldly parts of the Vatican’s worldview.
In an institution which is based upon preparing us for the life after this one that’s no bad thing of course, and continual reminder that we should raise our eyes from the mundane cares of this world and consider our place in the eternity to come. However, it does in fact lead to a certain naivety about what actually happens in this world.
The idea is that we ought to move to something like a beefed up United Nations. A supra-national body capable of:
These measures ought to be conceived of as some of the first steps in view of a public Authority with universal jurisdiction; as a first stage in a longer effort by the global community to steer its institutions towards achieving the common good. Other stages will have to follow in which the dynamics familiar to us may become more marked, but they may also be accompanied by changes which would be useless to try to predict today.In this process, the primacy of the spiritual and of ethics needs to be restored and, with them, the primacy of politics – which is responsible for the common good – over the economy and finance. These latter need to be brought back within the boundaries of their real vocation and function, including their social function, in consideration of their obvious responsibilities to society, in order to nourish markets and financial institutions which are really at the service of the person, which are capable of responding to the needs of the common good and universal brotherhood, and which transcend all forms of economist stagnation and performative mercantilism.
With one proviso I’ve no problem with the basic desire, that the world could indeed be made a better place if the rules by which the world were run were changed and then enforced. My problem comes from the idea that the United Nations, or indeed anything involving politicians, is going to achieve anything like that.
The United Nations has, recently you understand, had the Sudan as a member of the Human Rights Committee, heck it’s even had Libya as the Chair of the Committee (yes, the Ghadaffi era Libya). And that’s what the problem is. Not the desire to make the world a better place, but the idea that politics is going to do so. It’s this phrase that so grates:
Opinion
This article is more than 9 years old.
That isn’t just the implication it’s the explicit call in the latest from the Vatican: that we need to move to a system of world government:
If Vatican cardinals have yet to join the Occupy Wall Street protesters, a document released by the Holy See calling for a “world authority” to crack down on capitalism suggests some are considering it.
Alphaville has a bit of fun quoting scripture back at them here. The full (although preliminary translation) statement is here.
As someone educated and raised a Catholic I can tell you what the problem is here. It’s the otherworldly parts of the Vatican’s worldview.
In an institution which is based upon preparing us for the life after this one that’s no bad thing of course, and continual reminder that we should raise our eyes from the mundane cares of this world and consider our place in the eternity to come. However, it does in fact lead to a certain naivety about what actually happens in this world.
The idea is that we ought to move to something like a beefed up United Nations. A supra-national body capable of:
These measures ought to be conceived of as some of the first steps in view of a public Authority with universal jurisdiction; as a first stage in a longer effort by the global community to steer its institutions towards achieving the common good. Other stages will have to follow in which the dynamics familiar to us may become more marked, but they may also be accompanied by changes which would be useless to try to predict today.In this process, the primacy of the spiritual and of ethics needs to be restored and, with them, the primacy of politics – which is responsible for the common good – over the economy and finance. These latter need to be brought back within the boundaries of their real vocation and function, including their social function, in consideration of their obvious responsibilities to society, in order to nourish markets and financial institutions which are really at the service of the person, which are capable of responding to the needs of the common good and universal brotherhood, and which transcend all forms of economist stagnation and performative mercantilism.
With one proviso I’ve no problem with the basic desire, that the world could indeed be made a better place if the rules by which the world were run were changed and then enforced. My problem comes from the idea that the United Nations, or indeed anything involving politicians, is going to achieve anything like that.
The United Nations has, recently you understand, had the Sudan as a member of the Human Rights Committee, heck it’s even had Libya as the Chair of the Committee (yes, the Ghadaffi era Libya). And that’s what the problem is. Not the desire to make the world a better place, but the idea that politics is going to do so. It’s this phrase that so grates:
the primacy of politics – which is responsible for the common good – over the economy and finance.
Given the spendthrifts, ogres, ignorants, panderers and outright thieves that actually manage to get into the positions where they can run the political process (yes, both democratically elected and self-appointed) we really don’t want to be giving them any more power: actually, we’d rather like to reclaim much of the power they already have, most especially over the economy and finance.
Which is where the Vatican has gone wrong. They’re just not noting how things actually turn out in this vale of tears. They actually think that politics is something done by people of good will and honesty. Something far more ludicrous than anything at all in the official theology.
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