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A NOVUS ORDO WATCH ANALYSIS
 

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Michael Voris's Black Hole of Forgetfulness
Occupy Wall Street,
Benedict XVI and The Vortex

“The advent of a Universal Republic, which is longed for by all the worst elements of disorder, and confidently expected by them, is an idea which is ripe for execution. From this Republic, based on the principles of absolute equality of men and community of possessions, would be banished all national distinctions, nor in it would the authority of a father over his children, or of the public power over the citizens, or of God over human society, be any longer acknowledged. If these ideas are put into practice there will inevitably follow a reign of unheard-of terror.”

― Pope Benedict XV,  Moto Proprio Bonem Sane, July 25, 1920
 

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Sections

• The "something direct" that Benedict never said
• About that "low level subterranean office…"
• Dining at the Novus Ordo "moral buffet"
• The PCJP's "helpful", "well-intentioned" call for a one-world government
• Does the media really mean "the Vatican" = "the Pope"? And does it matter?
• The troublesome "Father" Thomas Reese
• Occupy Wall Street and the Vatican: useful idiots?
• Liberation theology and other "new world dynamics"
• Shedding light into Michael Voris's Black Hole of Forgetfulness
 

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Installments of Michael Voris's web TV commentary The Vortex usually begin more or less the same way. First, you see a still photo of him looking preppy in his sports coat and Justin Bieberish haircut, while an audio track in the background percolates with a funky slap bass guitar riff reminiscent of the Seinfeld theme song (of all things!), soon to be joined by some spacey sound effects. The program begins with him gazing into the camera, as he twirls a pencil around in circles and greets his viewers with the show's tagline: "Hello everyone and welcome to The Vortex, where lies and falsehoods are trapped and exposed". And to be honest, he's comes across as an engaging host who often does a pretty good job at exposing lies and falsehoods…up to a point.

And what precisely is that point?

It's the point where he quits talking about radical "priests" and dissident "nuns", troublesome USCCB agencies and just about anyone or anything in the Vatican not named Benedict XVI. No, "Pope" Ratzinger's Modernist lies and falsehoods never get "trapped and exposed" on The Vortex, because they never even get discussed there; it's like they all get pulled into a whirling vortex of a different sort―call it Michael Voris's Black Hole of Forgetfulness.  (Oh, occasionally Benedict gets mentioned, but only selectively for things like issuing a decree to crack down on the seminaries or Summorum Pontificum or being ignored or misinterpreted by Novus Ordo liberals; things that to the gullible prove that the "Holy Father" is really on the side of the angels.)

And then there are a few shows when Mr. Voris manages to botch up nearly everything, as in the above commentary, which he's entitled "Church Liberals Strike Again" (we seriously considered calling this analysis "Michael Voris Strikes Again", because the one-sided approach he displays here is so typical of his program).
This time he starts out with a Benedict quote or what appears to be a Benedict quote.

He complains that liberal news media picks and chooses what it wants to report coming from the Vatican. "How is it", he asks,

that when the Pope himself personally comes out and says something direct, like the sun is setting on western civilization, no one in the mainstream media even reports it? But when some low level subterranean office in the bowels of the Vatican comes out with a well-intentioned, but essentially redundant-type document, which amounts to little else than a research paper, the entire world media reacts as though man has just landed on the sun. (Bold text denotes where the text appears on the video.)

What's interesting here is how Mr. Voris's mention of "the sun is setting on western civilization" is strongly made to seem like a direct quote, as it's prefaced by "when the Pope personally…says something direct like (emphasis added)", accompanied by a photo of Benedict XVI giving a public address when those words are flashed on the screen and, to top it off, he changes his tone of voice when he says it (this, of course, is often done by speakers who want to convey to their listeners that someone is being quoted directly, when the speaker doesn't want to preface the statement in what's perceived as a fussier, more drawn out, old fashioned way with the word quote, such as "something direct, like [quote] The sun is setting…etc." and end it with "…western civilization" [end of quote].") . This impression of a direct citation is immediately reinforced when the phrase "low level subterranean office in the bowels of the Vatican", which is a direct quote from the show's host, similarly appears on the screen right afterwards.   Return to SECTIONS
 

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The "something direct" that Benedict never said

The problem, as an online search (including the Vatican's own website) quickly reveals, is that it isn't a direct "papal" quote at all, for at no time has the purported successor to St. Peter ever said or written "the sun is setting on western civilization" since his election. The closest he's come to making such a statement was during a Christmas address last year to the 'Roman Curia' (photo right) in which he spoke of the decline of the Roman Empire: "The sun was setting over an entire world".

It was undoubtedly about that speech that Mr. Voris was thinking (as can be seen in the above link), for there Benedict was making a parallel of ancient Rome's collapse with the modern moral malaise (specifically mentioned as major factors were drugs, hedonism, child pornography/prostitution, "pedophile priests" and moral relativism) contributing to a decline not only in Western Civilization, but the world as a whole.

All in all, the address is one of Benedict's more Catholic-sounding utterances, so it's in keeping with what we'd expect Mr. Voris to cite, but he should have phrased it so as not to strongly suggest a direct quote (this is a bad habit of his, as we'll see later). Be that as it may, he makes much too much over the lack of media coverage. Yes, we'll agree that it was a strongly-worded message and it wasn't reported; however it wasn't the first time, nor has it be the last, when "Pope" Ratzinger bemoaned such ills (doing something about them, especially clerical child abuse―where he has a direct say―is a different matter), and those variations on a theme certainly have been covered by news organs.

Another consideration is that secular news sources only cover a little religious news, relatively speaking, and virtually all of them, if forced to make an editorial choice, would certainly opt to wait a few days and cover his much better known and more significant "Urbi et Orbi" Christmas Message to the World, as it is addressed, not to a small group of Vatican bureaucrats, but to everyone in the world. There's nothing at all unreasonable at that. The point being, they weren't ignoring Benedict, as is suggested on The Vortex, merely ignoring a particular speech of his upon which Mr. Voris places much importance. In other words, he's making a mountain out of a mole hill, which is never a good way to lead off a commentary on how the media is distorting things.    Return to SECTIONS

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About that "low level subterranean office…"

The main issue in his commentary is something else altogether, however, as it pertains to the "Pontifical" Council on Justice & Peace (PCJP), which he derisively refers to as "some low level subterranean office in the bowels of the Vatican", and its statement on global economic reform. Before getting to that, though, it's worth taking a moment to quote where we can agree at least in part with Mr. Voris. Concerning the PCJP's name, he says

…there's that word you always have to be leery of every time you see it in some non-papal Church document: justice. It almost always means something very different from actual justice, and is merely a cover to move along some strange notion―and when it comes to economics, "what's mine is mine, and what's yours is mine".

Certainly he's right about the post-Vatican II abuse of the word "justice", though we would question his restricting the abuse to "non-papal" documents. When he describes the misuse of the term as "what's mine is mine, and what's yours is mine", of course, he's alluding to what's taught in Marxist liberation theology, the "Catholic theology" that's supposedly been condemned by Modernist Rome, but which always manages to hang around in one disguised form or another, even being subtly (and sometimes not so subtly) promoted by the "Popes" who ostensibly oppose it.

Anyway, paradoxically, this is also one of the places where he contradicts himself. Just a moment earlier he referred to the document as "well-intentioned", but now he's warning us to be leery of the same document. Actually, to be more specific, he brings up this point about the abuse of justice in the context of the council's name, but he doesn't cite the document itself. As it turns out, the word "justice" is used three times and "injustice" once in this "research paper". Given that the report is about economics, we ask Mr. Voris how it is that this "well-intentioned" communiqué (he later again uses that same phrase to refer to it, along with "harmless". "generally benign", and "helpful"―but "useless" [emphasis added; go figure that one out!]) doesn't fall under his personal censure as teaching falsely about justice, as spreading strange (and dangerous) notions that equate to Marxian redistribution of the wealth ("what's mine is mine, and what's yours is mine")? The other problem here is that the group Mr. Voris warns us to be leery of as spouting warmed-over―but "well-intentioned" (sic)―Marxism is a "Pontifical" council that has the full backing of Benedict XVI! (Mr. Voris effectively concedes this point later, when he states, "His [Benedict's] Council for Justice and Peace published it….[emphasis added]")

Yet he tries to make it sound like the PCJP is a nothing group that sort of sprung up on its own at Vatican City when no one was paying attention. Mr. Voris should know better than that. All he would have needed to do was go on the Vatican's own website to discover that far from trivial, it's actually part of what in the Novus Ordo "Church" passes for The Roman Curia. In truth, it dates back to 1967, when Paul VI established it as the "Pontifical" Commission "Justitia et Pax" (John Paul II changed the name in 1988). Incidentally, just one example to demonstrate the real measure of what he would have us believe is some fleabag, store front-type outfit: In 2004 the Pontifical Council on Justice and Peace issued a lengthy, major Vatican document in 15 languages entitled Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church―the English translation includes over 1000 footnotes(!) and is prefaced with a congratulatory letter penned by none other than "Cardinal" Angelo Sodano (photo left), Modernist Rome's then-Secretary of State, on behalf of John Paul II―not bad for such a lowly and forgettable office.   Return to SECTIONS

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Dining at the Novus Ordo "moral buffet"

Not surprisingly, Mr. Voris and other conservatives in the Novus Ordo "Church" are attempting damage control. E. J. Dionne Jr., the self-described "liberal Catholic" op-ed writer for the Washington Post, notes:

Needless to say, Catholic conservatives were not happy with the document, and they did all they could to minimize its importance. George Weigel, the conservative Catholic writer, took to National Review’s blog to denigrate the Pontifical Council as “a rather small office in the Roman Curia” and to insist that its document “doesn’t speak for the pope, it doesn’t speak for ‘the Vatican,’ and it doesn’t speak for the Catholic Church.”

Oh really? Then for whom does it speak? Weigel wasn’t done. “This brief document from the lower echelons of the Roman Curia no more aligns ‘the Vatican,’ the pope, or the Catholic Church with Occupy Wall Street than does the Nicene Creed,” he wrote. “Those who suggest it does are either grossly ill-informed or tendentious to a point of irresponsibility.”

My, my. It is always entertaining for those of us who are liberal Catholics to watch our conservative Catholic friends try to wriggle around the fact that, on the matters of social justice and the economy, Catholic social teaching is, by any measure, “progressive.” Conservatives regularly condemn liberal “Cafeteria Catholics” who pick and choose among the church’s teachings. But the conservatives often skip the parts of the moral buffet involving peace, social justice and what Pope John Paul II called the “idolatry of the market.”

As it happens, the Pontifical Council is no mere “small office.” It has been a pioneer over the years in Catholic thinking about solidarity and justice. And this document is firmly rooted in papal teaching going back to Popes John XXIII, Paul VI and John Paul II. Pope Benedict’s 2009 encyclical, Caritas in Veritate, spoke explicitly of the need for a global political authority to keep watch on an increasingly integrated world economy. The Vatican meets the Wall Street occupiers

It sounds like Mr. Voris reads Mr. Weigel's column or who knows, maybe Mr. Weigel watches The Vortex; in any case, they're on the same wave length. This whole notion about the PCJP being a "rather small office in the Roman Curia", simultaneously ignores a key point while stating it: the council, regardless of its relative size, is part of the powerful Conciliar Curia. Dionne is on the mark when he observes that if it  “doesn’t speak for the pope, it doesn’t speak for ‘the Vatican,’ and it doesn’t speak for the Catholic Church”, then "for whom does it speak?", so long as we understand those terms as the Novus Ordo substitutes for "pope", "Vatican" and "Catholic Church" (clearly it doesn't speak for the true Catholic Church in any way).

However, perhaps the best rebuttal of the Voris-Weigel "don't blame it on the Pope" position has come not from a liberal, but from the well-known neo-traditional Catholic author Thomas E. Woods, who on his blog responded: “I’m supposed to distinguish between the Pontifical Council and the Pope, you say. Fair enough. But did those people appoint themselves? Is Rome consistently surprised by how liberal its appointees turn out to be? Fewer and fewer people believe this anymore.” Cited, Vatican Council Calls for World Government, Central Bank  Return to SECTIONS

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The PCJP's "helpful", "well-intentioned" call for a one-world government

When Mr. Voris gets around to discussing the document itself, the water gets further muddied.

Anyway, this council published a document called―get this―Towards Reforming the International Financial and Monetary Systems in the Context of Global Public Authority―whew! Within seconds of it becoming public, actually, before it became public, the liberal media had either misunderstood it or deliberately mischaracterized it, and announced that "the Vatican", not some council out of many, but "the Vatican", had announced its support for a Global Public Authority, which sounds very much like a one-world government.

When the media uses the word "Vatican", it really means "Pope", and that's exactly what the media hoped that the world understands it to be. The Pope never said this, he never said anything of the kind; in fact, he never said anything at all. His Council for Justice and Peace published it, and most interestingly, when they said it they gave the guidelines by which their statement should be read: as a possible path in line with recent social teachings of the Magisterium. As a matter of fact, they released it now in advance of the G20 Summit happening in Europe soon. So, in that sense it's helpful, but in the end somewhat useless as a document for leading the world out the current el morass―even the Vatican can't do that.

Earlier in his talk he was complaining how the liberal media ignored Benedict XVI, while giving undue attention to an unimportant council, but now the same media is being blamed for having "either misunderstood or deliberately mischaracterized" the "research paper", the council that published it and "the Vatican". As far as misunderstanding or falsely characterizing the document, its call for a "Global Public Authority" does sound very much like a one-world government, because that's what's being proposed. This can be easily shown by way of noting it's call for a “'central world bank' that regulates the flow and system of monetary exchanges similar to the national central banks” and the following call for nations to hand over power to "a world Authority and to regional Authorities":

Time has come to conceive of institutions with universal competence, now that vital goods shared by the entire human family are at stake, goods which the individual States cannot promote and protect by themselves. So conditions exist for definitively going beyond a ‘Westphalian’ international order* in which the States feel the need for cooperation but do not seize the opportunity to integrate their respective sovereignties for the common good of peoples. It is the task of today’s generation to recognize and consciously to accept these new world dynamics for the achievement of a universal common good. Of course, this transformation will be made at the cost of a gradual, balanced transfer of a part of each nation’s powers to a world Authority and to regional Authorities, but this is necessary at a time when the dynamism of human society and the economy and the progress of technology are transcending borders, which are in fact already very eroded in a globalized world. The birth of a new society and the building of new institutions with a universal vocation and competence are a prerogative and a duty for everyone, with no distinction.

(Emphases added; from Towards Reforming the International Financial and Monetary Systems in the Context of Global Public Authority)    * "'Westphalian’ international order"

The report makes an effort to assuage legitimate fears of about the concentration of power in a one world government (above which there is no higher court of appeal) by appealing to the principle of subsidiarity, a real tenet of Catholic social teaching, which teaches that decisions should always be made by the smaller groups directly affected, whenever possible, rather than by a greater more distant element of society (subsidiarity found its way into the U.S. Constitution in the Tenth Amendment). Of course, the problem with this is that the whole reason the document exists in the first place is the contention that now is the time for larger global and regional authorities to subsume responsibilities that national authorities are no longer capable of handling.

One thing that's clearly  problematic in that presumption is that the axiom "absolute power corrupts absolutely" won't apply here; as a greater and greater concentration of authority is gradually turned over to the new world order in an increasingly dechristianized planet, the growth of complementary military forces needed to enforce global edicts will evolve, as well. The principle of subsidiarity will then be cast aside in everything but name only (the global government will set up regional, national and local affiliates), having served its purpose as window dressing for world tyranny. At that point, no one will be able to elude injustice, which will be universal. Return to SECTIONS

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Does the media really mean "the Vatican" = "the Pope"? And does it matter?

In plain English, if ever implemented,  this plan will involve (among other things) the involuntary (and possibly forcible) seizing of American tax dollars by a global entity to "balance" the international economic playing field, taking from the "haves" and giving to the "have nots". Now, it's unclear whether Mr. Voris is suggesting the media has it wrong about the document's pushing of world government, because the paper clearly does do that, or he's simply upset that in his view secular news sources misuse the term "Vatican", when to his thinking it is really the PCJP promoting globalism, and not the "Pope". He directly accuses the media of trying to condition people to believe VATICAN = POPE (or perhaps more to the point here, PCJP = Vatican = Pope), yet we're left to wonder whether he approves or disapproves of the new world order being proposed. His use of "one-world government" is something he certainly knows would be opposed by the vast majority of his viewers and, one would presume, by him, and he talks about how the report's essentially benign, even helpful, so he doesn't seem to have familiarity with the pro-world government's document if he thinks the media's mischaracterizing it. It is he, and not the media, we submit, who seems to be misunderstanding the import of what's being proposed, because it is anything but benign.

Concerning his contention that new articles are deliberately mixing Vatican and Pope, this turns out to fall more on Mr. Voris' perception of how liberal media works, than on cold hard facts. To that end we took a few moments to crosscheck his claim and found relevant articles from three well-known liberal standard bearers, The New York Times, The Boston Globe, and USA Today. While all three view "the council's report" as being equivalent to "the Vatican's report" or "a Vatican council's report", none of them claim Benedict XVI to be the author nor do they in any way equate "the  Vatican" with him, as is claimed. In fact, when they do talk about him, they mention him by name separately from the council, only linking the two to say that the latter's report is a reiteration or an elaboration on what he'd already taught. And quite frankly, that's exactly what ought to be expected from competent professional journalists, who, regardless their political bias, are able to make such simple distinctions, as "Pope", "Vatican" and "Curial office". In such a regard they tend to be careful.

Now at the same time, in fairness to Mr. Voris, it is true there are undoubtedly times when news media, whether left, right or center, secular or religious, can and do use the term "Vatican" synonymously with "Pope". Yet as far as we can see this is done without any intent to confuse matters, much as in the famous aphorism of St. Augustine, paraphrased as  "Roma Locuta Est, Causa Finita Est" (often translated as "Rome has spoken, the matter is settled"). There, "Roma" (or, more properly, in Augustine's words, sedem apostolicam, "the Apostolic See") definitely means Pope; in this case, specifically Pope Innocent I. Certainly now, while the Doctor of Grace and those who've paraphrased him meant to signify the Successor to St. Peter by the terms "Apostolic See" and "Rome", they didn't seek to mislead anyone, and the proper connotation was understood by their readers. Thus, they could just as easily have put "The Vatican has spoken, the matter is settled" and the sense would be preserved―the Pope has given a final ruling on said dispute, the case is closed. But that's only one way "Vatican" can be properly used, and to be honest, it really isn't used that way very much these days, at least not exclusively. Now, in news reports "Vatican" means all or part of the Roman bureaucracy as much as it does Pope―context is everything. (For an interesting discussion of what St. Augustine did and didn't write, see "Roma Locuta Est – Causa Finita Est: An accounting of what transpired between Pope St. Innocent I, Pope St. Zosimus, St. Augustine, Pelagius and Celestius")

In disallowing the PCJP's report the title "Vatican document", the primary criterion used by Novus Ordo conservatives like Messrs. Voris and Weigel seems to be that it wouldn't constitute part of what passes in their sect as the Magisterium. Yet that hardly disqualifies it. In truth, documents of every level of importance coming from Vatican City (both pre- and post-Vatican II) are reasonably referred to as Vatican documents, magisterial or not. In reality, to refer to the PCJP's economic recommendations as a Vatican document is roughly analogous to calling a report from the Environmental Protection Agency "an Obama Administration document". It's time for these men to quit playing semantic games and face up to the fact that the only reason they're attempting to minimize this is because they sadly realize that it represents that very dark, but official side of the Novus Ordo religion that teaches things that cannot easily be reconciled with true Catholicism. In the end, this Vatican document has quite a bit more clout than Mr. Voris wants to admit. Let's face it, if this "research paper" were as unimportant as he'd like to make us think, would the PCJP wouldn't have bothered to circulate it to the world's major news media? No, this was intended to be an fairly significant official declaration of sorts, perfectly timed to get a great deal of attention just prior to the G20 Summit and at a time when the radical Occupy Wall Street protesters and their compatriots in other cities around the globe were making hourly news with their actions. Return to SECTIONS

But what's interesting is how the liberal, modernist, progressive crowd in the Church, like, for example, Jesuit priest Fr. Thomas Reese and many others immediately jumped all over this, and said the most ridiculous things, like "This positions the Vatican somewhere to the left of Nancy Pelosi."

Really?

And even more outrageous. "The Pope would be much more comfortable with the Occupy Wall Street gang than with Tea Partiers."

Oh really, Father?

Then he pulled a doozy and said, "Many people think the Pope is a Republican because he's against abortion and gay marriage, but economically he's much more of a Democrat."

Ah, Father, for the record, he's neither, and that's a nutty comment to make.

This whole thing is a case of a generally benign document, trying to think through the economic mess, applying the Church's principles of fairness, etc., and coming up with a document that in the end doesn't really offer much in the way of tangible "boots on the ground"-type solutions. And that's fine, the Church doesn't do economics; heck, most parishes struggle to keep their own books balanced, much less solve world financial meltdowns.

But what's truly telling is that a year before the election…the modernists liberal Catholics as a way to further implant in the mind of the general populace that real Catholic voting and political stances always side with the poor―and here's the rub―over and above everything else; that poverty of the body is the real concern, and everything else is secondary, including the actual dogmatic Church teachings on such things like abortion and homosexual marriage.  

Fr. Thomas Reese is not alone. As the coming days and weeks unfold,  expect to see this story get recycled and referenced throughout the mainstream media as something akin to this: Well, we all remember that even the Pope thinks the world economy should be jiggered with to support a United Nations managed government and a World Bank to fight the issue of poverty. That's really in keeping with the Obama Administration's views as well, so Catholics should feel good and satisfied when they cast their votes for Obama.

A relatively harmless and somewhat redundant Vatican document has now become a political hot potato, because modernists and political liberals in the Church have engineered it that way. Yet another sterling example of why faithful Catholics have to be plugged into Church teachings and always ready to defend the Faith.

(Please note that none of the "direct quotes" from "Fr." Reese are not exactly direct quotes. We've deliberately transcribed them that way as a mild protest of Mr. Voris's looseness when it comes to making attributions. Again, like the Benedict quote at the top of this piece he's not misrepresenting anyone, merely paraphrasing (in the case of "papal" quote, we might call it interpretive paraphrasing), but he ought to be more careful in how he conveys their thoughts, so as not to unintentionally mislead his viewers into thinking they're hearing direct quotes.)

What are we to make of the "ridiculous", "outrageous" and "nutty" statements of "Fr." Reese? Mr. Voris doesn't go into specifics for each, so it's instructive to take a quick look at the "Jesuit" what said and wrote. Here's the short television interview:

And his column: Vatican’s economic statement will be way to the left of Wall Street financiers

For starters, Mr. Voris finds the idea that "This positions the Vatican somewhere to the left of Nancy Pelosi" to be "ridiculous". As "Fr." Reese writes in his column (and echoes in the video), the document is calling for "the redistribution of wealth and the regulation of the world economy by international agencies". Where precisely that places it ideologically in regards to House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi we don't know, but it's squarely in her political neighborhood. Remember how earlier in his commentary Mr. Voris warned viewers about the strange "what's mine is mine and what's yours is mine" (that is, redistribution of the wealth) mentality pervasive when non-papal documents (like the one in question) talk about justice, and he also seemed to warn them about it espousing a one world government? So it really isn't ridiculous to say that the report in question is promoting a leftwing agenda.

Next, is the "outrageous" suggestion that "The Pope would be much more comfortable with the Occupy Wall Street gang than with Tea Partiers". What is left out of The Vortex's quote is an important qualifier used by "Fr." Reese: "…when you look at his economic positions, you find that he's much more comfortable with the people occupying Wall Street than he would be at any Tea Partiers" (emphasis added)." It's hardly outrageous to maintain that in terms of economics Benedict XVI would be more comfortable with Occupy crowd than with Tea Partiers, since the latter are strongly opposed to Marxian redistribution and world government, while the "Pope" has never denounced the positions advanced in  the PCP report.

What about the typifying of "Many people think the Pope is a Republican because he's against abortion and gay marriage, but economically he's much more of a Democrat" as "nutty"? Here Mr. Voris seems desperately to be grasping at straws. Clearly, "Fr." Reese isn't speaking literally: "Pope" Ratzinger is a German citizen living in Vatican City and is a card-carrying member of neither American political party.  He's simply saying, rightly, that many Americans (probably most), if asked to say which party Benedict's views on social issues more closely correspond, would answer "Republican" (especially as in grassroots Republicans), but the positions advanced in the report of Benedict's Council are clearly well left of center, and thus are more line with the Democratic Party.   Return to SECTIONS

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Occupy Wall Street and the Vatican: useful idiots?

It's outrageous, Michael Voris assures us, to suggest that Benedict XVI might be comfortable with the leftwing Occupy Wall Street (OWS) protesters, yet this is what the "liberal, modernist, progressive crowd in the Church" would have us believe, with the ultimate goal in mind to saturate public opinion between now and next fall's election, "so Catholics should feel good and satisfied when they cast their votes for Obama".

And according to George Weigel,  “This brief document from the lower echelons of the Roman Curia no more aligns ‘the Vatican,’ the pope, or the Catholic Church with Occupy Wall Street than does the Nicene Creed.” 

One the other side, the "leftwing Catholics" obviously see a kinship. "It's clear the Vatican stands with the Occupy Wall Street protestors and others struggling to return ethics and good governance to a financial sector grown out of control after 30 years of deregulation", wrote Vincent Miller, a professor at the once-Catholic University of Dayton. Wall Street protests gain Vatican support

Such comments are what much as would be expected from the liberal and conservative wings of the Novus Ordo "Church". But more to the point, exactly where do the authors of the document stand on this point? Catholic News Service reporter Cindy Wooden writes:

Catholic social teaching and the Occupy Wall Street movement agree that the economy should be at the service of the human person and that strong action must be taken to reduce the growing gap between rich and poor, Vatican officials said.

"The basic sentiment" behind the protests is in line with Catholic social teaching and the new document on global finance issued Oct. 24 by Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, said Cardinal Peter Turkson, council president.

The U.S. protesters have focused on Wall Street because "Wall Street is considered to be a big engine house -- a big financial structure whose power extends all over the world," the cardinal told Catholic News Service.

People who suffer from the way the financial markets currently operate have a right to say, "Do business differently. Look at the way you're doing business because this is not leading to our welfare and our good," he said.

"If people can hold their government to account, why can we not hold other institutions in society to accountability if they are not achieving or not helping us live peacefully or well," Cardinal Turkson said.

"The Vatican is not behind any of these movements, but the basic inspirations can be the same," he said.

Bishop Mario Toso, secretary of the justice and peace council, told reporters the Vatican's new document "appears to be in line with the slogans" of Occupy Wall Street and other protest movements around the globe, but "even more it is in line with the previous teaching of the church," including Pope Benedict XVI's 2009 encyclical, "Charity in Truth" ("Caritas in Veritate"). Vatican officials see agreement in church teaching, Occupy Wall Street

Sure, it can be argued that these men only have a limited say at Vatican City, but it should be pointed out that the neither Benedict XVI nor anyone else has repudiated the connection drawn by these men. It's altogether possible that their grasp is lacking of exactly what Occupy Wall Street stands for and what some of their more extreme slogans say (such as the one shown in the above photo).

And there are, of course, things found in some of the stances put forth by the OWS movement and proposals of the PCJP report with which any Catholic could readily agree, as they are to be found in the social teachings of the Church prior to Vatican II: from employees being entitled to fair wages and not being treated like mere pieces of equipment to the need for regulations in the financial sphere as in others walks of life, etc. The importance of in ethics of economics was specifically spelled out as early as 1891 with Pope Leo XIII's encyclical, Rerum Novarum. However, Catholics can in no way espouse some of the other central positions coming from these modern would-be reformers, including socialism of one form or another and world government. (Proposals like the exclusive use of paper ballots for voting and the across the board forgiveness of debts are reasonable in theory, but in the case of the former, having an international agency oversee American elections would only bring another form of corruption, and the latter simply would be impractical to implement, unless some mechanism is put in place for involuntary compliance.)

For Vatican officials to be giving support of any kind to the OWS at the very least shows a profound ignorance of what's really going behind the scenes with that movement. Far from being a grassroots group, a lie that mainstream media perpetuates, Occupy Wall Street has ties with Ivan Marovic, Serbian founder of the professional "protest" group Otpor! (“Resistance!”), who has taken credit for assisting in organizing such recent demonstrations as the one that helped topple Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak's regime (no, it wasn't spontaneous).

Egypt is a prime example of how Otpor's tactics are being used to destabilize autocratic governments so as to bring "democracy" to those nations. The key to understanding this regime change is that the dictatorships are targeted very selectively. How horribly a regime treats its people isn't the criterion used to determine whether it gets "spontaneous" demonstrations against it; that's just a pretext, when in reality, it's a matter of political restructuring in a region. When those driving for world government decide a dictator has outlived his usefulness, one of the favored ways of removing him is through internal pressures.

The following video shows how Marovic's group is the creation of the American power elite―Democrats and Republicans alike. He and other Otpor leaders studied in the U.S. with political science professor and revolution guru Gene Sharp, who's also a strong influence for the Occupy Wall Street movement, which is said to show a movie about his theories at "Occupy camps in cities all over the world." Also mentioned specifically in the video is multi-billionaire supporter of leftwing causes, George Soros, who OWS could reasonably identify as part of the 1%―in reality, with a net worth estimated at $22 B, he's much more like part of the 001%!

 

Liberation theology and other "new world dynamics"

As mentioned near the top of this analysis, in its recommendations the PCJP uses the rhetoric of Marxist liberation theology. For whatever reason, Mr. Voris seemed ready to bring this point out, then just hinted about it and backed away from the subject. As also mentioned, John Paul II and now Benedict XV have, despite at times speaking out against it and even issuing slaps of the wrist, more often allowed its promoters to be remain in good standing with the Conciliar Church and have themselves  espoused some of the same ideas―so the feigned opposition is just so much of the same doubletalk informed Catholics have long come to expect from Modernist Rome

It's worth noting in this regard that the sort of "Catholic" leadership to expect to be represented in the Vatican-approved "global public authority" is likely to include such as the likes of the disgraced Maryknoll priest,  Fr. Miguel d'Escoto Brockmann, a participant in the bloody Communist-inspired Sandinista revolt in Nicaragua, a member of the ruling junta from 1979-1990, and, more recently, United Nation's General Assembly President. (See his UN page and Liberation theology priest heads the UN). John Paul II also gave the regime his tacit blessing by visiting the country in 1983, rather than condemning its subjugation under the tyrannical rule. His much-publicized, but ultimately bogus rebuke of Jesuit Fr. Ernesto Cardenal (photo left), d'Escoto's Sandinistist comrade, gave the impression that "His Holiness" opposed liberation theology, a photo op that succeeded in deceiving countless gullible souls around the world.

To further show his supposed displeasure, the "pontiff" "suspended" Cardenal, d'Escoto and other revolutionary priests (sadly, it appears they were all validly ordained, which makes matters worse, as they betrayed their vocation), while for a real Pope no censure short of excommunication would have been applied to clerics who worked for the triumph of Communism in their country through the violent overthrow of a democratically-elected government. It should also be noted that the punishment imposed had nothing to do with the fact that these men were promoters of heretical liberation theology; rather, it merely was a reprimand for them holding political office. (One need only consider this juxtaposition to show where John Paul II's true sympathies were!) Like fellow criminal d'Escoto, Cardenal still is a "Catholic" in good standing, and in the spring he was a featured speaker at Xavier University.

More to the point of this analysis, however, in May 2009 General Assembly President d'Escoto (photo below right) issued "The Draft Outcome Document" in conjunction with the UN Conference on the World's Financial and Economic Crisis that sounds eerily like the PCJP's Towards Reforming the International Financial and Monetary Systems in the Context of Global Public Authority.  

 The D'Escoto-UN plan, which has received scant media coverage, is nothing short of a full-blown call for world government administered through the UN. The Draft Outcome Document issued by D'Escoto on May 8, 2009 on behalf of the "G-192" (the representatives of the 192 Member States of the UN), decries the evils of "a profit centered economy" and the current "prevailing socio-economic system" and declares: "The anti-values of greed, individualism, and exclusion should be replaced by solidarity, common good and inclusion."

How do D'Escoto and his UN comrades propose to accomplish this? The 19-page document lays out a Sandinista-style Marxist-Leninist program for the entire planet that involves global government, with a huge new global bureaucracy exercising vast powers over all human activity. U.N.'s Marxist Plan for Global Government

"Our growing global problem set", the document concludes, "will also eventually require global financial mechanisms to solve them. There are serious constraints to achieving this, but until we do, globalization without global institutions will continue to lead the world into chaos.…" Among the proposed "mechanisms" is the creation of several new United Nations institutions that would have huge control over our lives:

• Global Stimulus Fund
• Global Public Goods Authority (Sea, Space, Cyberspace)
• Global Tax Authority
• Global Financial Products Safety Commission
• Global Financial Regulatory
• Authority Global Competition Authority
• Global Council of Financial and Economic Advisors
• Global Economic Coordination Council
• World Monetary Board (Contingent SDR emissions)  

The details of the D'Escoto-UN plan are certainly much more spelled out that of the PJCP, but details aside, the two visions are closer than you might think. Consider that in one of the few places the Vatican council report provides any real specificity, we read: "It would seem logical for the reform process to proceed with the United Nations as its reference because of the worldwide scope of its responsibilities, its ability to bring together the nations of the world, and the diversity of its tasks and those of its specialized Agencies." Sadly, that the Vatican is already on board with the United Nations―and has been for quite some time―will surprise no one who's at all familiar with the situation, one that goes above "low level" councils and revolutionary priests.   Return to SECTIONS

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Shedding light into Michael Voris's Black Hole of Forgetfulness

One of ways Mr. Voris seeks to trivialize the significance of the PCJP report is to call it repetitive: "a well-intentioned, but essentially redundant-type document" and "(a) relatively harmless and somewhat redundant Vatican document". However, he never bothers to say what he means by that. Now, when one takes a look at what the council wrote, it really doesn't repeat itself internally, so assuming he's bothered to read it, he must be referring to some other sort of redundancy.

But why doesn't he elaborate?

Well, his apologists will say he only has five minutes or so for his comments, so he has to deliver them in abbreviated form. That's legitimate as far as it goes, however there's more to it than that. Near the end of his talk, Michael Voris sneaks in this observation: "As the coming days and weeks unfold, expect to see this story get recycled and referenced throughout the mainstream media as something akin to this: Well, we all remember that even the Pope thinks the world economy should be jiggered with to support a United Nations-managed government and a World Bank to fight the issue of poverty. That's really in keeping with the Obama Administration's views as well, so Catholics should feel good and satisfied when they cast their votes for Obama." He immediately follows this by saying that "modernists and political liberals in the Church have engineered" discussion of the PCJP document in a way that can be used in Obama's re-election bid.

This is interesting wording by him, to say the least. Based on what precedes and follows, a viewer could reasonably get the impression that talk about how "the Pope thinks the world economy should be jiggered with to support a United Nations managed government" amounts to just another example of "the mainstream media" misunderstanding or mischaracterizing the report as something coming from Benedict XVI, when it was no such thing. And all, that would be in keeping with the general tone of what's gone before in the commentary.

Perhaps that's what Mr. Voris intended, though there's a different truth to be uncovered there that he doesn't take time to examine. Remember where he attacks the media for giving the false impression that it's the "Pope" and not some council voicing "support for a Global Public Authority, which sounds very much like a one-world government"? Then he goes on, rather insistently declaring: "The Pope never said this, he never said anything of the kind; in fact, he never said anything at all."

Well, never is a long time, Mr. Voris. Yes, you're right that he never said anything at the time in question, however he did very much say something of the kind prior to the PCJP report. Strange, but the liberals cited above, both secular and Novus Ordo, are very upfront about from whence the redundancy derives and in no way confuse or mischaracterize, as summed up well on the following blog.

Though none of these (the PCJP's) plans has been infallibly defined, the drafters took great care to present them as the culmination of a long chain of encyclicals, from John XXIII’s Pacem in Terris and Paul VI’s Populorum Progressio to Benedict XVI’s Caritas in Veritate. It would be hard, given any hermeneutic of continuity, to use Benedict’s own phrase, to see this as an abrupt shift in direction. Vatican to Main Street, U.S.A.: The (Tea) Party’s Over

At this point we think it's time to paraphrase Mr. Voris from early on in "The Vortex": How is it that when "the Pope" himself personally comes out and writes something direct, like "there is urgent need of a true world political authority, as my predecessor Blessed John XXIII indicated some years ago", Michael Voris doesn't even report it? (For the record, this is a direct quote and not one that just seems to be one on YouTube.)

Yes, the redundancy comes from echoing what Benedict XVI himself personally wrote directly in Caritas in Veritate, in which he very explicitly covers much the same ground as the later, less significant PCJP document. If anything, "Pope" Ratzinger with his call for a "true world political authority" is just as extreme as his council. Among his recommendations is the following:

Related Links:
A Socialist West? When?
The Vatican calls for world government
Vatican Backs Obama's Global Agenda
Pope Calls for "World Political Authority"
Vatican joins calls for crackdown on financial markets
Pope's plea for a New World Order (article on 1985 speech)
Here's the risk: Occupy ends up doing the bidding of the global elite
Extremists agree: Communist Party USA and American Nazi Party support Occupy Wall Street

 VIDEO  Damage control from Ave Maria Radio (how to avoid that nasty "world government" question)
 AUDIO/TEXT  "Fr." Thomas Reese on NPR - Occupy Wall Street's Most Unlikely Ally: The Pope
 

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