Richard Ra­moutar

On Ju­ly 7, Pope Bene­dict XVI, in a new en­cycli­cal, Car­i­tas in Ver­i­tate (Love in Truth) called for "the ur­gent need of a true world po­lit­i­cal au­thor­i­ty." "Fur­ther­more, such an au­thor­i­ty would need to be uni­ver­sal­ly-recog­nised and be vest­ed with the ef­fec­tive pow­er to en­sure se­cu­ri­ty for all, re­gard for jus­tice, and re­spect for rights" in the midst of the glob­al re­ces­sion. Fur­ther­more the en­cycli­cal states that "such an au­thor­i­ty would need to be reg­u­lat­ed by law to ob­serve the prin­ci­ples of sub­sidiar­i­ty and sol­i­dar­i­ty to seek to es­tab­lish the com­mon good and to make a com­mit­ment to se­cur­ing au­then­tic in­te­gral hu­man de­vel­op­ment in­spired by the val­ues of char­i­ty in truth. "An en­cycli­cal is the high­est form of pa­pal writ­ing, and gives the clear­est in­di­ca­tion to the world's 1.1 bil­lion Catholics and to non-Catholics of what the Pope and the Vat­i­can think about spe­cif­ic so­cial and moral is­sues."

This clar­i­on call has caused a cer­tain amount of con­ster­na­tion and in­ter­est in po­lit­i­cal and re­li­gious cir­cles, not­ing that the call comes short­ly af­ter the Unit­ed Na­tions Con­fer­ence on the World Fi­nan­cial and Eco­nom­ic Cri­sis, and called for glob­al tax­es and more pow­er­ful glob­al in­sti­tu­tions. Whilst the en­cycli­cal em­braces nu­mer­ous hu­man rights ar­eas like mi­gra­tion, in­ter­na­tion­al tourism, the Pope al­so warns that such an in­ter­na­tion­al or­der could "pro­duce a dan­ger­ous pow­er of a tyran­ni­cal na­ture," and that "the gov­er­nance of glob­al­i­sa­tion must be marked by sub­sidiar­i­ty." Pope Bene­dict XVI "pinned re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for the world­wide re­ces­sion square­ly on greed and an amoral fas­ci­na­tion with tech­no­log­i­cal progress for its own sake." In ad­di­tion, this en­cycli­cal "takes as its point of de­par­ture the ar­gu­ment that on­ly a be­lief in the truth, as pro­claimed by Chris­tian­i­ty, can of­fer the nec­es­sary an­swers."

But this begs the ques­tion: Whose Chris­tian­i­ty does he have in mind? He con­tin­ues: "The con­vic­tion that the econ­o­my must be au­tonomous, that it must be shield­ed from in­flu­ences of a moral char­ac­ter has led man to abuse the eco­nom­ic process in a thor­ough­ly de­struc­tive way. "In the long term, these con­vic­tions have led to eco­nom­ic, so­cial and po­lit­i­cal sys­tems that tram­ple up­on per­son­al and so­cial free­dom, and are, there­fore, un­able to de­liv­er the jus­tice that they promise." With his call for a "world po­lit­i­cal au­thor­i­ty," Pope Bene­dict XVI in­di­rect­ly sug­gest­ed the in­abil­i­ty of the Unit­ed Na­tions in its cur­rent form to solve the world's prob­lems. Will the Vat­i­can help shape and or­gan­ise this world po­lit­i­cal or­der? But can a world gov­ern­ment co-ex­ist with free­dom and democ­ra­cy? What does this mean for the sep­a­ra­tion of church and state in the mod­ern world, and for the USA, since the Ro­man Church calls it­self the on­ly true Moth­er Church, re­spon­si­ble for the souls and sal­va­tion of mankind? What is the pur­pose and mo­tive be­hind this en­cycli­cal? Is there a glob­al po­lit­i­cal eco­nom­ic and re­li­gious agen­da for the Vat­i­can?

Will the pa­pa­cy be re­stored to its for­mer glob­al po­si­tion be­fore 1798 and its sub­se­quent loss of its pa­pal ter­ri­to­ries in 1870? His­tor­i­cal events and Bible prophe­cy have record­ed not on­ly its de­cline, but al­so its res­ur­rec­tion, restora­tion and growth of glob­al pow­er and in­flu­ence. For ex­am­ple, since the sign­ing of the Lat­er­an Treaty of Feb­ru­ary 11, 1929, which re­stored tem­po­ral sov­er­eign­ty, the pa­pa­cy has made tremen­dous strides forg­ing diplo­mat­ic re­la­tions with over 170 na­tions, in­clud­ing two of the most pow­er­ful lib­er­al democ­ra­cies, the UK in 1982, and the USA in 1984. The pa­pa­cy has ad­just­ed its re­li­gio-po­lit­i­cal po­si­tion from the Tri­den­tine Coun­cil 1545-'63), Vat­i­can I (1870) Coun­cil, and Vat­i­can II Coun­cil (1962-'65) to suit the tenor of the times and be con­tend­ing with the pro­gres­sive forces of sec­u­lar­ism, hu­man­ism and ma­te­ri­al­ism. Some schol­ars and ex­perts on Vat­i­can glob­al pol­i­tics and on the church re­la­tions have prof­fered a quan­tum of in­ter­est­ing views and in­sights about the Vat­i­can's role in the in­ter­na­tion­al are­na and which may en­light­en the gen­er­al pub­lic.

James Kurth's ar­ti­cle in the Na­tion­al In­ter­est, sum­mer 1993, "The Vat­i­can's For­eign Pol­i­cy," not­ed that "the most an­cient and en­dur­ing of Eu­ro­pean in­sti­tu­tions is the Ro­man Catholic Church. "For much of the past two mil­len­nia, it was a cen­tral pres­ence that shaped and de­fined Eu­ro­pean life." Jour­nal­ist Carl Bern­stein, in an ar­ti­cle "Holy Al­liance" in the Time mag­a­zine, point­ed out the Vat­i­can's in­flu­en­tial and com­bined role with the USA in the demise of the com­mu­nist em­pire and the So­vi­et Union, and Kurth's recog­ni­tion of this fac­tor, along with the dis­in­te­gra­tion of Yu­goslavia and the re­union of Eu­rope, sug­gest that "Eu­rope once again is hav­ing great con­se­quences for the rest of the world." Sig­nif­i­cant­ly, Kurth posits that "recog­nis­ing these changes and the po­ten­tial that they bring for even more changes in the fu­ture, Pope John Paul II in 1991 pro­mul­gat­ed a new pa­pal en­cycli­cal, Cen­tes­imus An­nus (On the Hun­dredth An­niver­sary), which pre­sent­ed a dis­tinc­tive Catholic con­cep­tion of a just so­cial or­der for the new Eu­rope and the new world, and he con­tin­ued to ad­vance this con­cep­tion on many oc­ca­sions" dur­ing his pon­tif­i­cate. Kurth re­minds us that "thus the an­cient church ad­dress­es the new era; the pre-mod­ern in­sti­tu­tion ad­dress­es the post-mod­ern age.

"But the Catholic Church not on­ly ad­dress­es the new era; it will again help to shape and de­fine it, too." For­mer Catholic schol­ar and Vat­i­can in­sid­er, the late Prof Malachi Mar­tin, in his book, Keys of This Blood, out­lined the pa­pa­cy's strug­gle for world dom­i­na­tion be­tween the com­mu­nist world and the cap­i­tal­ist West. Mar­tin not­ed that there will be one win­ner, and that is the pa­pa­cy. Mar­tin rea­sons: "The pa­pa­cy is best placed to run any world gov­ern­ment which may emerge. The Ro­man Church stands alone... as the first ful­ly-re­alised, ful­ly prac­tis­ing and to­tal­ly in­de­pen­dent geopo­lit­i­cal force in the cur­rent world are­na. The Pope's moral au­thor­i­ty con­tin­ues to grow, and he is recog­nised as a great leader." An­oth­er ex­pert in Vat­i­can glob­al af­fairs is Avro Man­hat­tan, whose book, The Vat­i­can in World Pol­i­tics, was pub­lished in 1949 by Gaer Pub­li­ca­tions. Man­hat­tan "presents with sin­gu­lar clar­i­ty and with­out bias the con­flicts be­tween the Ro­man Church and the free­doms of democ­ra­cy."

Back in 1949, Man­hat­tan said that "The Unit­ed States is in­ti­mate­ly in­volved in the at­tain­ment of both the im­me­di­ate and the ul­ti­mate goals of the Vat­i­can, and that these goals in­clude

(a) the an­ni­hi­la­tion of com­mu­nism and of So­vi­et Rus­sia

(b) the spir­i­tu­al con­quest of the USA and

(c) the ul­ti­mate Catholi­ci­sa­tion of the world.

The world has wit­nessed the ac­tu­al ful­fil­ment of the demise of the So­vi­et Union and Com­mu­nism, and has seen the spir­i­tu­al strate­gic im­per­a­tive of Vat­i­can II Coun­cil, De­cree on Ec­u­menism, and Re­li­gious Lib­er­ty, and where it has had a tremen­dous im­pact, not on­ly on Protes­tant church­es, but of all ma­jor re­li­gions around the world, as well as the es­tab­lish­ment of diplo­mat­ic re­la­tions with the USA.

Crit­i­cal analy­sis

Oth­er an­a­lysts see this de­vel­op­ment as very com­plex and chang­ing. An­drew Gavin Mar­shall, writ­ing for Glob­al Re­search in an ar­ti­cle en­ti­tled The Fi­nan­cial New World Or­der: To­wards a Glob­al Cur­ren­cy and World Gov­ern­ment, April 6, 2009, and pri­or to the pub­li­ca­tion of the pa­pal en­cycli­cal, not­ed that "the fu­ture of the glob­al po­lit­i­cal econ­o­my is one of moves to­ward a glob­al sys­tem of gov­er­nance, or a world gov­ern­ment, with a world cen­tral bank and glob­al cur­ren­cy, and that con­cur­rent­ly, these de­vel­op­ments are like­ly to ma­te­ri­alise in the face of and as a re­sult of a de­cline in democ­ra­cy around the world and thus a rise in au­thor­i­tar­i­an­ism." Fur­ther Mar­shall not­ed that "what we are wit­ness­ing is the cre­ation of a new world or­der, com­posed of a to­tal­i­tar­i­an glob­al gov­ern­ment struc­ture.

"In fact, the very con­cept of a glob­al cur­ren­cy and glob­al cen­tral bank is au­thor­i­tar­i­an in its very na­ture, as it re­moves any ves­tiges of over­sight and ac­count­abil­i­ty away from the peo­ple of the world and to­ward a small, in­creas­ing­ly in­ter­con­nect­ed group of in­ter­na­tion­al elites." Is it that in­ter­na­tion­al crises such as 9/11, the cur­rent fi­nan­cial predica­ment and the con­tin­ued wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and wars in the mak­ing are be­ing used to build a to­tal­i­tar­i­an or­der? If the Vat­i­can will help shape and im­ple­ment a world glob­al po­lit­i­cal and eco­nom­ic au­thor­i­ty, how will that af­fect in­ter­na­tion­al re­li­gious lib­er­ty?

Per­haps, the most com­pelling ques­tion that may con­front lo­cal politi­cians, states­men and the cit­i­zen­ry in the im­me­di­ate fu­ture is how will this glob­al au­thor­i­ty af­fect Vi­sion 2020, the sov­er­eign­ty, na­tion-state and con­sti­tu­tion of Trinidad and To­ba­go?