The Pope Goes Marxist - Let's Hope He Is Not Speaking Ex-Cathedra

It turns out Pope Benedict XVI has a bit of Karl Marx in him. The Pope has issued a 144 page encyclical letter (not ex cathedra), Caritas In Veritate (Charity in Truth), arguing for what amounts to a new socialist world order with business centrally controlled and run for the social good rather than profit.

It is more than a bit ironic, since the father of socialism, Karl Marx, provided the historical framework for the war on Christianity that the left is carrying on so successfully today. But in a way, it is not surprising that both should advocate socialism, as socialism is ultimately a Utopian ideal, As Churchill sagely noted some years ago, there are only two places where socialism would work - "in heaven, where it is not needed, and in hell, where it is already in practice."

"Ex Cathedra," by the way, refers to the relatively recent doctrine of papal infallibility. The doctrine holds that the Pope speaks with divine inspiration - and thus his pronouncements are infallible - when he speaks on moral issues and invokes the doctrine of infallibility by explicitly stating that his teaching is a core belief to be adopted by the entire Church.

This from the Washington Post on the Pope's encyclical letter:

Pope Benedict XVI criticized the international economic system yesterday and called for a new global structure based on social responsibility, concern for the dignity of the worker and a respect for ethics.

"Today's international economic scene, marked by grave deviations and failures, requires a profoundly new way of understanding human enterprise," Benedict wrote in his latest encyclical, which is the most authoritative document a pope can issue. "Without doubt, one of the greatest risks for business is that they are almost exclusively answerable to their investors, thereby limited in their social value."

In the sweeping 144-page document, Benedict sketches a radically different world economy, in which access to food and water is a universal right, wealthy nations share with poorer ones and profit is not the ultimate goal of commerce. He advocates the creation of a "world political authority" to manage the economy.

He blames "badly managed and largely speculative financial dealing" for causing the economic meltdown. The primary capital to be safeguarded is people, he says, adding that economic systems need to be guided by charity and truth. . . .

Unfortunately, the Pope has things backwards. He apparently skipped Econ 101 to concentrate on religious training. Capitalism has been the greatest engine of human advancement and the war on poverty that the world has ever known. The breakdown in the markets that we are experiencing can be traced in a direct line to government intervention for the purpose of social engineering - precisely what the Pope is advocating. If the Pope wants to ensure social progress, he is going about it in completely the wrong way. As Anatole Kaletsky wrote in the Times in 2003:

Even if there were room for argument about the benefits of free trade and free markets to workers in advanced industrial countries — and there really cannot be, if we compare what has happened to ordinary people’s lives in Western and Eastern Europe, not to mention in North and South Korea, during the 50 years since the Second World War — the principle that global capitalism is the most benign and successful of all human creations would be firmly established by the social progress in China since its integration into the global economy.

A few days ago, Charles Krauthammer noted that when our President finds himself on the side of Castro and Chavez, its time for him to reevaluate his position. A similar thing can be said of our Pope. When he finds himself advocating the policies of Marx and Lenin, that ought to be a clue that it is time to reevaluate his position. Business are and always will be soulless institutions. It is the individuals who profit from and are employed by the business - those with souls - upon whom the Pope should be concentrating. And history tells us that, as a general rule, their condition will be better and their charitable giving will grow the more the business profits.