The Pope Occupies Wall Street

The Pope Occupies Wall Street [Excerpts]

On [October 24, 2011], the Vatican called for creation of a “global public authority” and a “central world bank” to regulate the world’s financial institutions. As Reuters reported, “The document from the Vatican’s Justice and Peace department should please the ‘Occupy Wall Street’ demonstrators and similar movements around the world who have protested against the economic downturn.”

The Vatican got very specific in its recommendations. It condemned the “idolatry of the market” and called for global wealth redistribution, asking nations of the world to participate in an “ethic of solidarity.” In a passage that could have been ripped from Marx, the Vatican stated, “If no solutions are found to the various problems of injustice, the negative effects that will follow on the social, political and economic level will be destined to create a climate of growing hostility and even violence, and ultimately undermine the very foundation of democratic institutions, even the ones considered most solid.”

This is wrongheaded in the extreme. By impoverishing the middle and upper class in order to press for greater “fairness,” the socialism implicitly supported by this document pushes a utopia of equality in poverty.

So why is the Vatican so gung ho for a global reserve currency? Skeptics would say that the Vatican opposes the U.S.’s control over the global economy. The Vatican under Pope Benedict XVI has routinely gone out of its way to criticize capitalism as unfair and problematic – in 2009, for example, the Pope issued an encyclical calling for a “profoundly new way” of organizing business, suggesting that a global political authority be established to push for “the common good.” This is well within the tradition of modern Popes, who have almost universally endorsed the notion of a super-national government. This is understandable given the universalist mission of the Catholic Church.

http://frontpagemag.com/2011/10/28/the-pope-occupies-wall-street/