www.byzcath.org Forums General Discussions Town Hall Pope Benedict Calls For Wealth Redistribution

It seems impossible that anybody on this thread equating the pope's remarks with communism or socialism has actually read them. The only part that comes close is about leaders offering "concrete" assistance to parents in the education of their children. The rest of it is aimed at educators, families, and young people.

It would seem incumbent on decent christian folk to know what they're commenting on, even when it isn't the pope.

from http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/benedi...y-peace_en.html




What part of this phrase is unclear? Do these words not have the meaning that they seem to have when strung together and each one is checked with the dictionary?

And what of the also controversial statement made earlier by the Pontifical Council? Is this something we oguht to ignore or is it a real communication for the Catholic in the pew and the world in general?

Beyond that, in the current ecumenical setting, is it something that everyone ought to take seriously or not?

Bob

For the sake of decency, then, this is the full quote:

Peace, however, is not merely a gift to be received: it is also a task to be undertaken. In order to be true peacemakers, we must educate ourselves in compassion, solidarity, working together, fraternity, in being active within the community and concerned to raise awareness about national and international issues and the importance of seeking adequate mechanisms for the redistribution of wealth, the promotion of growth, cooperation for development and conflict resolution. “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God”, as Jesus says in the Sermon on the Mount (Mt 5:9).

It would help those who are confused by this if we were given a proper understanding of what exactly this is supposed to mean.

What does this specifically mean to you that we are missing?

It reads to me that one of the tasks of being a peacemaker according to the Pope is raising awareness about the (presupposed) importance of seeking adequate mechanisms for the redistribution of wealth.

Did I misinterpret anything?

Obviously, there is constant redistribution of wealth through the economic mechanisms in place. The Walton family which now has more wealth than the bottom 30% of the American population was not endowed with that wealth, it was accumulated through the actions of a mechanism of redistribution that moved it from other people in society to the Walton family.

The Roman Catholic Church has never advocated unfettered, laissez-faire capitalism. The obviously ignorant presumption that suggesting mechanisms for fair and morally acceptable wealth redistribution implies Marxist-Leninism is a predictable if sad response from an element of society that is incapable of rational discussion.

Mechanisms to redistribute wealth include: tax policies, social security systems, balanced and fair trading rules, protections for the rights of laborers, and a host of other things that are perfectly compatible with modern market capitalism.

Anyone who is blind to the inequities in the current systems and fails to see a need for some type of reform in the wealth distribution systems is either not honest with themselves or completely ignorant of the present economic reality in the world and in this country.

Oh, so this is a call for lower taxes? Well said then!

It is very well said; but how you conclude that this is a call for lower taxes is beyond me. Until we end the "I've got mine...ism" prevalent in contemporary America, I think we're in deep trouble. More than ever, we need a Jubilee Year.

With respect, it's not. The paragraph is one of several. One or two paragraphs before is the mention that peace is impossible without respect for individuals private goods. This along should kill the shrill "He's calling for communism!" argument.

In any case, the address is to young people, families, and peripherally, to leaders. The thrust of the whole discussion is that there are a whole mess of problems facing the world that young people with fresh ideas must face and solve if peace and justice are to be secured.

To turn such a call into a demand for government leaders to institute communism is a perfect misreading.

I'll have to leave this without proofreading. My baby is awake.

Well, you declined a specific explanation of what we are all talking about, so you'll have to leave us with our misreading.

jjp and Bob both ask, "what am I missing" in the pope's meaning. Someone said it quite early in the thread: "distributism". That, and everything more than 30 words of context.

For more specifics I refer you as a beginning to his encyclical Caritas in Veritate where Pope Benedict uses the word "redistribute" and variant forms probably a dozen times. Then work back from there in social and economic encyclicals.

I understand that we live in a world of six second newsbites, but explaining a concept like distributism is going to take a little longer. Perhaps wikipedia has an entry.

But if ultimately you just don't care to do the reading, I invite you at least to entertain the possibility that the pope isn't just speaking in the world's tired language of the same tired ideas. When a pope speaks of the distribution of wealth, he's surrounded in context and looking beyond the ostensibly opposite but strikingly similar injustices of capitalism and communism. You may not have heard about it, but that doesn't mean the Catholic Church hasn't said a whole lot about it.

Oh, that will work well. Assuming that, like the ancient Hebrews, we have a purely agrarian-pastoralist economy and debt servitude. Otherwise, it's just a catastrophe in the making.

The fact that individuals are even mentioning capitalism and communism in the same breath just indicates that some people just don't get it, won't get it and don't want to get it. You will always have those who are successful in life and those who are not. Humanity fairs far better in a capitalistic society than in a communistic one. We are living proof of that. Social engineering does not work. The cream will always rise to the top. To those who think that government can fix things, might I suggest that they take a look at healthcare. Government does not help, it hinders. You want to fix society? Easy. First, execute all lawyers. Second, eliminate all government interference in business. Third, restrict taxation to support ONLY defense and infrastructure. Eliminate any and all government concerns with "social" programs. And finally, rid D.C. of all governmental departments and their related agencies. Cut my taxes back down to around 1 or 2%. Leave all social issues to be handled by the private sector on a local basis. Stop the gravy train. If you give people an incentive to work, they will. Those who won't will be the victim of their own doing. And those with a marxist agenda, take it elsewhere. This is a Christian Forum, and marxism is of satan, not God.

Alexandr

Slavipodvizhnik, I live in Canada. You don't have to tell me about the pitfalls of big government.

There is a third alternative and the pope is proposing it.

I think it only fair to point out that there has never been "unbridled capitalism", anymore than there has been "unbridled Christianity". Moreover, if you take Adam Smith as the expositor of the ideal of capitalism, what you find in Wealth of Nations is very different from the caricature of amoral capitalism put forward by social democrats of various sorts. Smith's form of capitalism does not work without an underpinning of Judeao-Christian morality, and in fact, that morality is strengthened in capitalistic systems because capitalism only works when there is a high degree of social trust and social capital; i.e., when the parties in a transaction believe that the others will will not lie, cheat, steal or kill to get what they want. Adam Smith even sees altruism as being sustained by capitalism, since it is in one's enlightened self interest to look out for the poor, the sick, the homeless, etc., under the principle of reciprocity (Do unto others) if nothing else.

So we can't properly understand it without extra unnamed reading, and you can't explain it on your own.

What is the point in releasing such a speech that will be misunderstood and inaccessable to most?

I would point out again that this discussion didn't start by anybody actually reading the speech, but rather by relying on a secular source to grab a single phrase and blow it up.

But you have a point. Most Catholics, thank God, read very little that comes out of the Vatican. We must give thanks that Pope Benedict has so drastically reduced the papal output when compared to his predecessor.