Catholic Online Forum

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James Daly

"It is the Lord." (Jn 21:7)

The Tower of Babel comes to mind.

Just what we need -a world authority to promote the common good. The same world authority that would then define what the common good was...

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Daniel

"Do you think that I have come to establish peace on the earth? No, I tell you, but rather division." -- Luke 12:51

From Caritas in Veritate



http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/bened ... te_en.html

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James Daly

"It is the Lord." (Jn 21:7)

James,

Sure, it would be nice if such a thing existed and at the same time, proposed only laws that really were for the common good as the church defines it and always followed those laws and every nation always followed those laws but it will never happen and to give such authority to some sort of international body to force compliance is dangerous because at some point, it will fail to live up to it's ideal. I also don't understand how this fits into the Church's support for the sovereignty of nations. Given for example, the blatant anti-israeli statements made by the UN, they're hardly an institution of impartiality and I do believe the Pope is espousing a utopian ideal that will never, and given human nature and original sin, can never succeed. I say that with pain as I have love and respect for him but the prospect of what he proposes actually frightens me.

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Valerie Garcia
vals1990@yahoo.com

"Listen, O my son, to the precepts of thy master, and incline the ear of thy heart, and cheerfully receive and faithfully execute the admonitions of thy loving Father, that by the toil of obedience thou mayest return to Him ....." St. Benedict

Val,



That is pretty much the argument anarchists use in urging that any government is a bad idea.



During the Middle Ages each kingdom (and at least two republics I can think of) was sovereign unto itself; yet throughout Christendom universal laws were known and (largely) observed. There's no contradiction between the two.



Actually, I find a world of law and order more appealing than a world of brute might and raw power.

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James Daly

"It is the Lord." (Jn 21:7)

National governments do not seem capable of properly regulating multinational corporations. Some sort of check is needed for that. I'm not sure a supranational financial regulatory body is the right thing, but we need something. In theory the dominant economic power should be able to regulate some of these effectively because it would be a "If you want to do business here, you have to obey our laws." But reality is that even the US, by a factor of two the world's largest economy, is not doing that.

Currently there is an enormous amount of realpolitik going on in the world, in which nations get away with doing things because they are too powerful for anyone to do anything about it. No sovereign nation is going to invade Russia or China over the death of one of that nation's citizens or unfair labor practices, so such things go by with few consequences. Again, is a supranational regulatory body the right answer? It is difficult to think of one that could be trusted with such authority, to think of how its regulations would be enforced, and what checks on its power could be put in place.

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Jeff Stevens

James,



I wouldn't mind a world of law and order either and we have it to some extent but I don't want an international entity telling any country what can and cannot be done when it's not a matter of what is right but just a matter of who happens to be influential in that entity at any given time. I'm not an anarchist and of course, no government, including mine, ever lives up to it's ideals (well Saudi Arabia kinda does but I don't like their ideals) but when you have a world where China and Russia have veto power at the security council, it doesn't give me much confidence in any sort of world body.

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Valerie Garcia
vals1990@yahoo.com

"Listen, O my son, to the precepts of thy master, and incline the ear of thy heart, and cheerfully receive and faithfully execute the admonitions of thy loving Father, that by the toil of obedience thou mayest return to Him ....." St. Benedict

You all seriously think a global central power would/could be for the "common good", whatever that is? Given the adage "power corrupts" I can barely envision the global repression, even bordering on slavery, that would exist under such a tremendous central power. With all respect, I think our Church has more pressing internal issues to address.

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BobA

Bob A said what I meant

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Valerie Garcia
vals1990@yahoo.com

"Listen, O my son, to the precepts of thy master, and incline the ear of thy heart, and cheerfully receive and faithfully execute the admonitions of thy loving Father, that by the toil of obedience thou mayest return to Him ....." St. Benedict

Given the principles the Pope set out and James quoted above, the idea is utopian. We haven't even established local governments based on those principles yet.

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Dean
Most people's sense of history goes back to breakfast time - Benjamin Netanyahu