Before I get to why Pope Benedict XVI is a disappointment, a note about standards of reporting nowadays.
The scribe reporting the story about Pope Benedict’s latest contribution to Rousseauist rubbish claims to be excerpting from the Pontiff’s “first book.” Knowing that Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger is the prolific author of many books, I was hopeful. My thinking being that the Pontiff must have been younger and less thoughtful when he indicted the West for Africa’s woes.
From this report, it appears that Philip Pullella thinks a new book the Pope has written is his first. Pullella writes:
“Rich countries bent on power and profit have mercilessly ‘plundered and sacked’ Africa and other poor regions and exported to them the ‘cynicism of a world without God,’ Pope Benedict writes in his first book.”
How likley is this, given the Pope is almost 80, exceptionally learned, and has lived an incredibly full life given over to contemplation and intellectual pursuits. A quick Google traces the origin of the error. Catholic News Agency’s headline goes so: “Pope Benedict XVI completes first book of Pontificate, ‘Jesus of Nazareth.'” In his cut and paste effort, Pullella must have caught only the first part of that sentence. Or, conversely, misunderstood the modifier.
“The Pope also condemns drug trafficking and sexual tourism,” pules Pullella. As a former AIDS counselor in South Africa, I suggest the Pope apply his brilliant mind to the problem of infection rates in Africa. In Africa AIDS is heterosexual. Rates of infection in Southern Africa would not have reached 20 to 33.7 percent of the adult population if not, very plainly, for unfathomable sexual promiscuity and brutality.
As to the Pope’s other indictment against the West, here’s what I wrote in “The Clinton and Bono Collective Unconscience:”
“The late Sir P. T. Bauer, the foremost authority on foreign aid, pointed out that a responsible demand for aid mustn’t avoid examining those ‘popular attitudes and behaviours in the poor societies’ which cause and perpetuate the misery. … rich nations were streaks ahead of sub-Saharan Africa and Southeast Asia well before colonization. Countries like Australia and Switzerland were rich absent any meaningful ties to the undeveloped world. As Bauer proves, this was the result of the West’s human resources, not its exploitation of the backward world.”
Update: Some Catholic bashing is going on in the Comments Section. I disagree with —and dissociate from —it. Moreover, the idea that the West plundered Africa is nonsensical and is rooted in Leninist-Marxist theory. I suggest commentators on the blog acquaint themselves with capitalism, the impetus for this blog. A capitalist invests his capital in digging up useless good-for-nothing substances from the ground. He gives jobs digging up the useless stuff to locals who had no jobs before, and didn’t have the smarts and capital to do what he is doing. Then another capitalist creates goods from the previously inert stuff the first capitalist dug up. The goods are sold all over. Entire industries have arisen around useless stuff capitalists turned into useful goods. The wealth redounds to all involved, including the person being paid 50 cents an hour, for before the capitalist came along to “plunder,” he was paid NOTHING an hour. If not for this process–and Anglo American–a diamond would never have become a girl’s best friend. If you think this is exploitation, then you do pround to Leninism-Marxism.
From “Mutant Marxists in the Heart of Darkness“:
“[M]ost ‘resources’ in nature are useless lumps of nothing. If not for man, iron, aluminum, coal and oil would lie purposeless and pristine in the wildernesses. Man discovered that these elements could be used to assuage human needs. Once he identified and ingeniously matched the human need with the material thing, he devised ways to establish mastery over the resource, and came up with means to harness it. Most ‘resources’ provided by nature become goods of value only when man connects the dots. If not for man, the matter and energy abundant on earth would come to naught. The ability to discover and transform natural resources into usable goods, as well as to develop ‘resource-enhancing and sustaining technologies’ are the unique provenance of man.”
Our friend Robert Murphy has written the Politically Incorrect Guide to Capitalism. I suggest you purchase it, and while you’re at it, get a copy of Peter Bauer’s brilliant Dissent on Development.
Other articles about the Pope: