Missing the Message… of a Papal Prophet

THE Holy Father has been greatly misunderstood not only by the secular press, but by some of the flock as well.1 Some have written me suggesting that perhaps this pontiff is an "anti-pope" in kahootz with the Antichrist!2 How quickly some run from the Garden!
Pope Benedict XVI is not calling for a central all-powerful "global government"—something he and popes before him have outright condemned (ie. Socialism)3 —but a global family that places the human person and their inviolable rights and dignity at the center of all human development in society. Let us be absolutely clear on this:
The State which would provide everything, absorbing everything into itself, would ultimately become a mere bureaucracy incapable of guaranteeing the very thing which the suffering person—every person—needs: namely, loving personal concern. We do not need a State which regulates and controls everything, but a State which, in accordance with the principle of subsidiarity, generously acknowledges and supports initiatives arising from the different social forces and combines spontaneity with closeness to those in need. … In the end, the claim that just social structures would make works of charity superfluous masks a materialist conception of man: the mistaken notion that man can live ‘by bread alone’ (Mt 4:4; cf. Dt 8:3) – a conviction that demeans man and ultimately disregards all that is specifically human. —POPE BENEDICT XVI, Encyclical Letter, Deus Caritas Est, n. 28, December 2005
FOOTNOTES:
- cf. Benedict and the New World Order [↩]
- cf. A Black Pope? [↩]
- For other quotes from popes on Socialism, cf. www.tfp.org and www.americaneedsfatima.org [↩]



