Pope Disses Neoliberalism In New Book.

By Cernig

I wonder how this will play with catholic voters?

In the first book he has written since he became pope, published tomorrow (16 April 2007), Benedict XVI criticizes the world’s wealthy nations for having "plundered and sacked" Africa and other poor regions of the world.

...The Pope says that the exploitation of the poor by the rich is part of the "cynicism of a world without God" and he argues that Jesus’ famous parable of the Good Samaritan chastens the church to act for justice.

...The pope draws a direct link between the consumerism of people in the rich world and the dire conditions of people in Africa and other poor nations, challenging the neo-liberal economic paradigm which argues that these two factors are unrelated.

"We see how our lifestyle, the history that involved us, has stripped them naked and continues to strip them naked," he writes.

The pontiff, who has condemned the effects of colonialism before, says rich countries had also hurt poor countries spiritually by belittling or trying to wipe out their own cultural and spiritual traditions.

Given that the Republican platform is entirely built on the neoliberal ideas that private enterprise should be free of all state interference, social programs are unwanted government interference in the free market, that there is no "public good" only "individual freedom" and that the poor are simply too lazy to lift themselves up by their non-existant bootsraps, I can see this leaving catholic voters between a rock and a hard place. Many won't vote Dem because, as conservatives continually remind them, the Dems support abortion. Now they can't vote Republican without contradicting His Holiness.