One of the "cornerstones" of modern economy, the unassailable credit of the United States: downgraded.
Ours is an extraordinarily interesting age, of which this latest piece of news is just a very minute sign: the explosive energy that sprung up in the small western end of Eurasia in the Middle Ages, shaped by Christendom, a burst of creativity and missionary spirit which covered the whole world: the originally Christian West, whose good (and sublime) and bad (and hideous) ideas shaped the world as we know it, and that, in a kind of lifeline, lived its last decades of influence after the European disasters of the 20th century in some of its old colonial outposts - that energy seems to be finally spent. Many aspects of that civilization, enormously wealthy and yet bankrupt as well as spiritually exhausted, remain and will survive, but its hegemonic presence seems likely to be replaced. By what? And does it matter, in the eternal scheme of things?
Despite rivers of ink in "social" and "economic" doctrinal documents since "the Council", it is astounding that the best Catholic commentary on the troubles of this age was written 80 years ago.This is not the first time some of these words of Pius XI are posted here - but they never seem to get old:
Ours is an extraordinarily interesting age, of which this latest piece of news is just a very minute sign: the explosive energy that sprung up in the small western end of Eurasia in the Middle Ages, shaped by Christendom, a burst of creativity and missionary spirit which covered the whole world: the originally Christian West, whose good (and sublime) and bad (and hideous) ideas shaped the world as we know it, and that, in a kind of lifeline, lived its last decades of influence after the European disasters of the 20th century in some of its old colonial outposts - that energy seems to be finally spent. Many aspects of that civilization, enormously wealthy and yet bankrupt as well as spiritually exhausted, remain and will survive, but its hegemonic presence seems likely to be replaced. By what? And does it matter, in the eternal scheme of things?
Despite rivers of ink in "social" and "economic" doctrinal documents since "the Council", it is astounding that the best Catholic commentary on the troubles of this age was written 80 years ago.This is not the first time some of these words of Pius XI are posted here - but they never seem to get old:
[I]n the first place, it is obvious that not only is wealth concentrated in our times but an immense power and despotic economic dictatorship is consolidated in the hands of a few, who often are not owners but only the trustees and managing directors of invested funds which they administer according to their own arbitrary will and pleasure.
This accumulation of might and of power generates in turn three kinds of conflict. First, there is the struggle for economic supremacy itself; then there is the bitter fight to gain supremacy over the State in order to use in economic struggles its resources and authority; finally there is conflict between States themselves, not only because countries employ their power and shape their policies to promote every economic advantage of their citizens, but also because they seek to decide political controversies that arise among nations through the use of their economic supremacy and strength.
This dictatorship is being most forcibly exercised by those who, since they hold the money and completely control it, control credit also and rule the lending of money. Hence they regulate the flow, so to speak, of the life-blood whereby the entire economic system lives, and have so firmly in their grasp the soul, as it were, of economic life that no one can breathe against their will.
This concentration of power and might, the characteristic mark, as it were, of contemporary economic life, is the fruit that the unlimited freedom of struggle among competitors has of its own nature produced, and which lets only the strongest survive; and this is often the same as saying, those who fight the most violently, those who give least heed to their conscience.
The ultimate consequences of the individualist spirit in economic life are those which you yourselves, Venerable Brethren and Beloved Children, see and deplore: Free competition has destroyed itself; economic dictatorship has supplanted the free market; unbridled ambition for power has likewise succeeded greed for gain; all economic life has become tragically hard, inexorable, and cruel. To these are to be added the grave evils that have resulted from an intermingling and shameful confusion of the functions and duties of public authority with those of the economic sphere - such as, one of the worst, the virtual degradation of the majesty of the State, which although it ought to sit on high like a queen and supreme arbitress, free from all partiality and intent upon the one common good and justice, is become a slave, surrendered and delivered to the passions and greed of men. And as to international relations, two different streams have issued from the one fountain-head: On the one hand, economic nationalism or even economic imperialism; on the other, a no less deadly and accursed internationalism of finance or international imperialism whose country is where profit is.
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"Wherefore," to use the words of Our Predecessor, "if human society is to be healed, only a return to Christian life and institutions will heal it." For this alone can provide effective remedy for that excessive care for passing things that is the origin of all vices; and this alone can draw away men's eyes, fascinated by and wholly fixed on the changing things of the world, and raise them toward Heaven. Who would deny that human society is in most urgent need of this cure now?
Minds of all, it is true, are affected almost solely by temporal upheavals, disasters, and calamities. But if we examine things critically with Christian eyes, as we should, what are all these compared with the loss of souls? Yet it is not rash by any means to say that the whole scheme of social and economic life is now such as to put in the way of vast numbers of mankind most serious obstacles which prevent them from caring for the one thing necessary; namely, their eternal salvation.
Pius XI
