Conservatives minimize import of Vatican's document on economic justice

[rug]

October 24, 2011 4:13 P.M.
By George Weigel

“Rubbish, rubbish, rubbish,” says voice therapist Lionel Logue to King George VI as the brassy Australian walks the about-to-be-crowned king through a particularly orotund part of the coronation ceremony in The King’s Speech. Logue’s comment nicely sums up the media and Catholic Left commentary on a “Note” released today by the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, “Towards Reforming the International Financial and Monetary System in the Context of Global Public Authority.”

Drudge got it wrong: “Vatican Calls for ‘Central World Bank’.” CNBC got it wrong: “The Vatican called on Monday for the establishment of a ‘global public authority’ and a ‘central world bank’.” The best of the Italian Vaticanisti, Sandro Magister of L’espresso, linked Occupy Wall Street and “the Vatican at the Barricades” in the headline of his insta-commentary, a theme also harped upon by the deposed editor of America, Fr. Thomas Reese, S.J.

All of which was “rubbish, rubbish, rubbish.”

The truth of the matter is that “the Vatican” — whether that phrase is intended to mean the Pope, the Holy See, the Church’s teaching authority, or the Church’s central structures of governance — called for precisely nothing in this document. The document is a “Note” from a rather small office in the Roman Curia. The document’s specific recommendations do not necessarily reflect the settled views of the senior authorities of the Holy See; indeed, Fr. Federico Lombardi, the press spokesman for the Vatican, was noticeably circumspect in his comments on the document and its weight. As indeed he ought to have been. The document doesn’t speak for the Pope, it doesn’t speak for “the Vatican,” and it doesn’t speak for the Catholic Church.

http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/281140/pope-chaplain-ows-rubbish-george-weigel

More: "A Bureaucratic Curial Note Is Not a Papal Doctrinal Decree"

http://www.catholicvote.org/discuss/index.php?p=22025

What are they worried about?

[ret5hd]

1. Who was the notes inteded audience/reader?

[OHdem10]

2. The GOP conveniently and conistently ignore the Church whenever

it proclaims anything to do with SOCIAL JUSTICE.

Heck, they sure ignored both recent Popes when they
spoke out against UNREGULATED CAPITALISM.

Pope Benedict very early pointed out that Communism
is not good nor is UNREGULATED CAPITALISM>