Pope Benedict Peace Message Calls For Wealth Redistribution

[Encephalon]

These kinds of stories don't often make headlines. They don't because whenever the conservative Papacy issues a statement about the need for a more progressive arrangement of global financial institutions (it has done so repeatedly over the last 3 decades that I know of), it messes up the tidiness that normally demarcates the lines between liberals and conservatives. Liberals become perplexed but welcome the news nevertheless, while conservatives like John Mclaughlin and Robert Novak react with apoplexy and sweep it under the rug before anyone else notices.

 

In a way, these messages from the Vatican are not unlike the legacy of William Jennings Bryant, the fundamentalist Christian best known for his unwavering rejection of the theory of evolution During the Scopes Monkey Trial of 1925 on the grounds that it would legitimize Herbert Spencer's school of social Darwinism. He was a fiercely committed progressive populist, a Leftie by today's standards, but refused to let science create schisms in his worldview.

 

Well, we'll see if this latest message from the Papacy figures at all in the growing movement to impose a global Financial Transactions Tax in 2012. I'm not holding my breath.

*************************************************************************************************************************************

 

By Francis X. Rocca

Religion News Service

 

VATICAN CITY (RNS) Noting a "rising sense of frustration" at the worldwide economic recession, Pope Benedict XVI said that a more just and peaceful world requires "adequate mechanisms for the redistribution of wealth."

 

The pope's words appeared in his message for the World Day of Peace 2012, released on Friday (Dec. 16) at the Vatican.

 

The message laments that "some currents of modern culture, built upon rationalist and individualist economic principles, have cut off the concept of justice from its transcendent roots, detaching it from charity and solidarity."

 

Authentic education, Benedict writes, teaches the proper use of freedom with "respect for oneself and others, including those whose way of being and living differs greatly from one's own."

 

Peace-making requires education not only in the values of compassion and solidarity, but in the importance of wealth redistribution, the "promotion of growth, cooperation for development and conflict resolution," Benedict writes.

 

The pope also calls on political leaders to "ensure that no one is ever denied access to education."

 

The message was presented on Friday by officials of the Vatican's Pontifical Council of Justice and Peace. The same body published a controversial document in October blaming the world's economic and financial crisis on an "economic liberalism that spurns rules and controls," and calling for global regulation of the financial industry and the international money supply.

[mYTHmAKER]

So Catholic church is going to re distribute their wealth

[Encephalon]

So Catholic church is going to re distribute their wealth

 

Their wealth?! Hah! No, just everyone else's! Good point!!

[doc benway]

Few institutions in the history of humanity have been more effective and ruthless when it comes to accumulating wealth at the expense of the underprivileged than the Roman Catholic Church. And even fewer institutions have the wealth of the church.

Imagine the impact the pope could have if he chose to act rather than speak.

[Trunk]

VATICAN CITY (RNS) Noting a "rising sense of frustration" at the worldwide economic recession, Pope Benedict XVI said that a more just and peaceful world requires "adequate mechanisms for the redistribution of wealth."

I'm surprised and glad to hear this. Not being a Catholic, probably I hear only the "news-worthy" (awful) things - and undoubtedly many people take up virtuous acts, inspired by their Catholic faith. yay!

 

Still, the first things that jump to my mind are corruption and hypocrisy, entrenched in religious-political structure. Given the shell game they've played re: molestation, they've lost credibility.

 

Sarah Silverman inspires me more to raise a flag and do good work.

 

 

This next one not about Catholics, just very cool.

[Encephalon]

Few institutions in the history of humanity have been more effective and ruthless when it comes to accumulating wealth at the expense of the underprivileged than the Roman Catholic Church. And even fewer institutions have the wealth of the church.

Imagine the impact the pope could have if he chose to act rather than speak.

 

Which makes this all the more unusual given that this Pope is probably the most conservative guy since Pope Innocent VIII who decreed in 1484 that cats should be burned at the stake, along with their cat lovers. Apparently, the presence of half the world living on $2/day while ostentatiousness abounds in consumer cultures wreaks a little too much cognitive, if not moral, dissonance in this man's consciousness.

 

Sarah Silverman... what a pure angel.

Edited December 17, 2011 by Encephalon

[Bubbles]

I'm surprised and glad to hear this.

 

Actually this is nothing new. The Catholic Church repeats the same ideas about economy and social questions since 1891(Rerum Novarum by Pope Leo XIII) and updated them since. As always and as everyone can see it, there is a long way from words to action as far as the institution is concerned. The real thing is more often found in individuals or small groups actions.

Edited December 17, 2011 by bubbles

[Informer]

"The Vatican has large investments with the Rothschilds of Britain, France and America, with the Hambros Bank, with the Credit Suisse in London and Zurich. In the United States it has large investments with the Morgan Bank, the Chase-Manhattan Bank, the First National Bank of New York, the Bankers Trust Company, and others. The Vatican has billions of shares in the most powerful international corporations such as Gulf Oil, Shell, General Motors, Bethlehem Steel, General Electric, International Business Machines, T.W.A., etc. At a conservative estimate, these amount to more than 500 million dollars in the U.S.A. alone.

 

Now you do the math. Way too much in my estimation.

 

EDIT: "The Vatican's treasure of solid gold has been estimated by the United Nations World Magazine to amount to several billion dollars. A large bulk of this is stored in gold ingots with the U.S. Federal Reserve Bank, while banks in England and Switzerland hold the rest. But this is just a small portion of the wealth of the Vatican, which in the U.S. alone, is greater than that of the five wealthiest giant corporations of the country. When to that is added all the real estate, property, stocks and shares abroad, then the staggering accumulation of the wealth of the Catholic church becomes so formidable as to defy any rational assessment.

 

EDIT: "The Catholic church is the biggest financial power, wealth accumulator and property owner in existence. She is a greater possessor of material riches than any other single institution, corporation, bank, giant trust, government or state of the whole globe. The pope, as the visible ruler of this immense amassment of wealth, is consequently the richest individual of the twentieth century. No one can realistically assess how much he is worth in terms of billions of dollars."

 

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20081119062114AAkwhdI

[gendao]

Pope Benedict XVI said that a more just and peaceful world requires "adequate mechanisms for the redistribution of wealth."

Starting with the Vatican, I presume...not?

 

And instead of correcting some of the root causes of financial poverty (like rampant overbreeding by people who can't afford it) - he only exacerbates such behavior, while then advocating unfair measures to keep enabling it.

Pope Benedict XVI renewed the position of the Catholic Church on Friday against the use of birth control and contraception.

Obviously, this is largely for SELF-GAIN to keep exponentially INFLATING their own ranks and revenue. And now he wants non-Catholics to subsidize their cult breeding program as well?

 

Get the fawk outta here!!! Can we all agree on some better solutions to poverty than Robin Hood thievery? Seriously, if you really believe in that - then why is theft even a crime? Shouldn't anyone poorer than you simply be ALLOWED to take anything you own? Shouldn't you just be able to take anything from a store without paying for it, if you can't?

 

Although, I will agree that the world is a lot more gray than the extremist left/right dichotomy... In reality, many people may hold a mix of views on different issues.

Edited December 17, 2011 by vortex

[Taomeow]

So Catholic church is going to re distribute their wealth

 

 

You got it. If one's left trouser pocket bulges because of a thick wad of cash tucked in there, or one's right one, it looks untidy and attracts attention. So one would want to distribute his money more evenly between his left and right pockets.

[Jetsun]

[Gerard]

Ah! The good ol' Pope, I mean Dark Lord.

 

 

The dark side of the force is a pathway to many abilities some considered to be unnatural.

 

The Vatican will never redistribute wealth acquired since the times of the Emperor Constantine, gee we are talking about 1700 years of ripping off fellow humans. Their attachment to wealth and power is far too great.

 

These people will never learn that:

 

Worldly riches are like nuts; many a tooth is broke in cracking them, but never is the stomach filled with eating them. (Nachman of Breslov)

 

[Birch]

Ah, "Das Vater". Neat trick folks.

[C T]

Brother David Steindl-Rast for Pope?

 

...anyone?

 

 

"Everything is a gift. The degree to which we are awake to this truth is a measure of our gratefulness, and gratefulness is a measure of our aliveness."

 

"People who have faith in life are like swimmers who entrust themselves to a rushing river. They neither abandon themselves to its current nor try to resist it. Rather, they adjust their every movement to the watercourse, use it with purpose and skill, and enjoy the adventure."

 

"Monastic contemplatives have staked out a clearly limited area to be transformed by contemplation: the monastery. Lay contemplatives face the challenge of transforming the whole world."

 

"One single gift acknowledged in gratefulness has the power to dissolve the ties of our alienation."

 

(notable quotes from Br David S-R)

[Encephalon]

 

Uh-oh.

 

Their was a collective reaming of the Roman Catholic Church about a year ago in here, very much like the trajectory this one is taking. If memory serves it was I who originated that thread and it would disturb me if I have inadvertantly done so again. I believe the consensus was that it was beneath us to rejoice in the depravity of the RC Church and that we should pity those whose unskillful acts engender karmic debts.

 

My intention was not to bash Catholicism but to point out that even amongst an institution as conservative as the RC Church there is alarm that half of our planet's brethren live on $2/day, while gluttony and ostentatiousness, and the attendant spiritual and ecological impoverishment, is reserved for a priviledged few.

 

Brother David is The Man!

Edited December 18, 2011 by Encephalon

[9th]

From 15 shades of dog's dust

We fell in fields of flowers

Felt like dancing in the dusk

But didn't have the power

Now we had a place

It wasn't much, but it was ours

We called it Our Dominion

 

Built a cabin on a crest

Spent evenings in your eyes

You'd tell me tales of noble quests

I'd sing you lullabys

We'd sleep beneath those triple moons

Entwined beside the fire

Truly, Our Dominion

 

And from a cloudless sky

Our friends descended

Wearing silver wings

They'd heard the sound of distant laughter

Read our thoughts in smoky rings

Sure enough, they liked it here

Sure enough, they all moved in

They called it their extension

 

Someone said "Get organized! We'll prosper if we scheme!"

He opened a casino, he pumped fluoride in the stream

They named a plaza in his honour

Shit, they keep it clean

 

From each and every angle, highways grew from holes in hell

They numbered all the houses, built a thousand black hotels

Demolished our poor cabin, we relocated to a cell

We called it "space"

 

They taxed the air, the earth, the little birds up in the trees

They fined us for a kiss in public, we paid up when we sneezed

And soon the place was richer than Pope Pious Avocado III

And all his dominion

 

The city climbed the mountain

The mountain sped on skateboards to the sea

They lined up, mouthed a dozen Holy Marys on their knees

The waters opened wide, they planted flags

And in they dived

 

Time to fly away again

Was all too claustrophobic

We shuffled to the park

But it was fence-to-fence aerobics

Thunder clapped, it rained black boiling bile

And we fled soaking

Back

 

Still there is a place deep down inside your soul

Where only I can go

There's a place deep down inside my soul

Where you can go

 

Call it "Home"

Our Dominion

 

 

- EKS

[Trunk]

Uh-oh.

Yeah, I was thinking/feeling the same - that I contributed to.

Maybe we can all agree that there's plenty to legitimately bitch about

- and that it'd be more fun to focus positively.

[Birch]

Focussing on the positive only is half of what gets people into this shit in the first place

 

----shadow opinion alert----

 

Rivers...Eygpt:-)

 

Seriously, bitching on the material, physical and spiritual theft and carnage of centuries ain't allowed on TTB?

[9th]

[Trunk]

Seriously, bitching on the material, physical and spiritual theft and carnage of centuries ain't allowed on TTB?

Totally allowed.

I was not speaking as a moderator,

only as a person speaking my feelings of the moment.

[Encephalon]

Focussing on the positive only is half of what gets people into this shit in the first place

 

----shadow opinion alert----

 

Rivers...Eygpt:-)

 

Seriously, bitching on the material, physical and spiritual theft and carnage of centuries ain't allowed on TTB?

 

I think it should be allowed too. It's just that the last time this dialogue came up, some lost the ability to separate the Christian history from the Christianity, and all Hell broke loose.

 

Maybe that won't happen this time.

[9th]

[SirYuri]

"The Vatican has large investments with the Rothschilds of Britain, France and America, with the Hambros Bank, with the Credit Suisse in London and Zurich. In the United States it has large investments with the Morgan Bank, the Chase-Manhattan Bank, the First National Bank of New York, the Bankers Trust Company, and others. The Vatican has billions of shares in the most powerful international corporations such as Gulf Oil, Shell, General Motors, Bethlehem Steel, General Electric, International Business Machines, T.W.A., etc. At a conservative estimate, these amount to more than 500 million dollars in the U.S.A. alone.

 

Since the discussion is about billions of dollars I would like to share this one...

 

There was a rumor here in the Philippines about the wealth of the former president(Ferdinand Marcos) who was ousted by the american banks through propaganda. The rumor was he accumulated his wealth by digging all the gold loot that was buried here by the Japanese during the world war. The estimated worth is 5million metric tons of GOLD. It was a rumor until the wife after a few decades revealed in a interview that it was true. The World Bank is still onto them that's why they can't release it for the benefit of our country. After he was ousted the US government took control and down goes the economy upto now.I just hope everything will turn our okay in the near future.

[Birch]

I think it should be allowed too. It's just that the last time this dialogue came up, some lost the ability to separate the Christian history from the Christianity, and all Hell broke loose.

 

Maybe that won't happen this time.

 

Maybe they'd be correct in such a case. Reminds me of that attempt to distinguish between different types of capitalism. Apparently there's a "good" kind and an "evil"'kind. But that's in the other thread.

When is a religion no longer beneficial might be a question I'd ask.