This Economy Kills by Andrea Tornielli

Author:Andrea Tornielli
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Liturgical Press
Published: 2015-07-22T16:00:00+00:00

chapter 7

AMERICAN THEOCON CRITICISM . . . OF BENEDICT XVI?

This concentration of power and might, the characteristic mark, as it were, of contemporary economic life, is the fruit that the unlimited freedom of struggle among competitors has of its own nature produced, and which lets only the strongest survive; and this is often the same as saying, those who fight the most violently, those who give least heed to their conscience.

—Pius XI, Quadragesimo Anno

We would be remiss, however, after going through some of the most flagrant accusations leveled against Pope Francis, to forget an important detail: not many years ago, similar attacks from American neocon and theocon circles were also raised against Pope Benedict XVI. In fact, on June 29, 2009, Benedict XVI signed his third encyclical, Caritas in Veritate, which dealt primarily with social issues. At over one hundred pages, it was essentially an update on Paul VI’s Populorum Progressio (1967) and John Paul II’s Centesimus Annus (1991). The world had changed between 1991 and 2009, and there was need for a fresh new look on specific issues. The encyclical, whose publication had been delayed to allow the inclusion of a few thoughts on the economic and financial crisis, calls for a national economic development of countries to be implemented along three inseparably linked directives: responsibility, solidarity, and subsidiarity.

The pope’s document met widespread acclaim but also some criticism. According to some, different topics were presented without taking a clear position, leaving room for ambivalence. With regard to globalization, for example, there were those who found that the document was attentive to the “great problems of injustice in the development of peoples,” but also that “growth has taken place, and it continues to be a positive factor that has lifted billions of people out of misery.” Coincidentally, similar criticism was moved against Benedict’s successor.

But the strongest criticism was over the passages dealing with the markets and globalization; and, surprisingly, those critics were from the “right”—namely, those who have a clear and especially positive idea of markets and globalization. The paragraphs that received most of the criticism are the ones that follow.1

Benedict XVI writes: “The global market has stimulated first and foremost, on the part of rich countries, a search for areas in which to outsource production at low cost. . . . Consequently, the market has prompted new forms of competition between States as they seek to attract foreign businesses to set up production centres, by means of a variety of instruments, including favourable fiscal regimes and deregulation of the labour market. These processes have led to a downsizing of social security systems.”

Further, the pope adds: “Through the combination of social and economic change, trade union organizations experience greater difficulty in carrying out their task of representing the interests of workers.” And then, “The global context in which work takes place also demands that national labour unions . . . turn their attention to those outside their membership, and in particular to workers in developing countries”

A passage on foreign trade

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