Last week, after all the excitement of the Pope's Anglican announcements, a news item of interest seems to have slipped past into the secular world without much a reaction from the Catholic blogs who have bigger things on their minds. However, as an avowed enemy of Communism, I have not allowed myself to forget this particular news item, as it implies a rehabilitation of Marx by the Roman Catholic Church when no such thing has happened. So, it looks like refuting a major error is up to me.
On the 23rd October, the Dominion Post published a cut-down version of the The Times article Vatican thumbs up for Karl Marx after Galileo, Darwin and Oscar Wilde. The Dominion Post titled this cut-down version, "Church revises hatred of Marx".
The problem is that both The Times and The Dominion Post misunderstand the significance of an article published in the Vatican's newspaper, L'Osservatore Romano, written by Georg Sans, a professor at the pontifical Gregorian University. The Times' version of the article states:
For The Times to claim that because the article in question was previously vetted by the Secretariat of State, therefore the article has "papal endorsement", is also a bit of a stretch. The current Secretariat of State is Tarcisio Bertone, who Sandro Magister of Chisea believes is directly reponsible for a number of errors in communications and governance that have negatively impacted upon Pope Benedict. Have a look at these three articles that spell out the problems and their impact upon the Holy Father:
Maybe a retraction is in order, though, I won't hold my breath.
Related Link: Vatican thumbs up for Karl Marx after Galileo, Darwin and Oscar Wilde ~ The Times Online
On the 23rd October, the Dominion Post published a cut-down version of the The Times article Vatican thumbs up for Karl Marx after Galileo, Darwin and Oscar Wilde. The Dominion Post titled this cut-down version, "Church revises hatred of Marx".
The problem is that both The Times and The Dominion Post misunderstand the significance of an article published in the Vatican's newspaper, L'Osservatore Romano, written by Georg Sans, a professor at the pontifical Gregorian University. The Times' version of the article states:
Professor Sans’s article was first published in La Civiltà Cattolica, a Jesuit paper, which is vetted in advance by the Vatican Secretariat of State. The decision to republish it in the Vatican newspaper gives it added papal endorsement.First of all, the Vatican newspaper L'Osservatore Romano has published a number of controversial articles over the last several years that are at odds with Catholic doctrine and by extension, the Pope. So to claim that the newspaper speaks for the Church, which The Dominion Post seems to have understood the case to be is not exactly correct.
For The Times to claim that because the article in question was previously vetted by the Secretariat of State, therefore the article has "papal endorsement", is also a bit of a stretch. The current Secretariat of State is Tarcisio Bertone, who Sandro Magister of Chisea believes is directly reponsible for a number of errors in communications and governance that have negatively impacted upon Pope Benedict. Have a look at these three articles that spell out the problems and their impact upon the Holy Father:
Tarcisio Bertone, the Cardinal Who Was Supposed to Help the Pope Since becoming secretary of state, he has exposed Benedict XVI to two public embarrassments. The first was in Poland, with the Wielgus case. The second is in Italy, with the maneuvers for the change at the top of the episcopal conferenceFurther, if Pope Benedict had changed his mind about the evils that Marx had unleashed upon the world, we wouldn't be hearing about it through an article by a professor, we'd be hearing about it from the Pope himself. Especially since, as both The Times and The Dominion Post have said, the Catholic Church has been very hostile to his work and it's effects for a very long time now.
Double Disaster at the Vatican: Of Governance, and of Communication This is the upshot of the lifting of the excommunication for four Lefebvrist bishops. The isolation of Pope Benedict, the ineptitude of the curia, and the misfires of the secretariat of state
Retractions. The Holy Office Teaches Archbishop Fisichella a Lesson The congregation for the doctrine of the faith has released a "clarification" that in fact repudiates the article published in "L'Osservatore Romano" by the president of the pontifical academy for life, on the abortion performed on a Brazilian mother-child. Here's the document
This overturns a century of Catholic hostility to his creed. Two years ago Benedict XVI singled out Marxism as one of the great scourges of the modern age. “The Marxist system, where it found its way into government, not only left a sad heritage of economic and ecological destruction, but also a painful destruction of the human spirit,” he told an audience in Brazil.The second sentence of the above paragraph from The Times article negates the first sentence, and should have set off the warning bells with whomever was given the task to cut the article down to size for a New Zealand audience.
Maybe a retraction is in order, though, I won't hold my breath.
Related Link: Vatican thumbs up for Karl Marx after Galileo, Darwin and Oscar Wilde ~ The Times Online