Turkson and Davos

Regarding this year’s Davos World Economic Forum and the free admissions granted to certain figures: “About 200 academics… are also offered free admission. And about 20 religious leaders, including Archbishop Desmond Tutu and Cardinal Peter Turkson of Ghana (who is said to be considered among the candidates to be the next pope) make the list.  Andrew Ross Sorkin, “Free Matchmaking at a Setting in the Alps,” The New York Times, January 24, 2012.

The Pontifical Council on Justice and Peace issued last year its report: “Towards Reforming the International Financial and Monetary Systems in the Context of Global Public Authority”, having as its central recommendation the establishing a “public Authority with Universal Jurisdiction.”  The reactions of the various camps of Catholicism were predictable: John Allen positively squealed with delight and immediately elevated Cardinal Turkson to his Papabile list. John Thavis of Catholic News Service defended the Cardinal and pontificated on the deference Catholics should owe to the pronouncements of his Council. (Papal directives and legislation on, for example, contraception, higher education, religious orders and the traditional liturgy may be disregarded by the leading lights of the “American Catholic Church” at their discretion but the pronouncements of the Justice and Peace Council demand the highest respect). On the other hand, “Conservative Catholics” like George Weigel were outraged. The continuity of Turkson’s document with Pope Benedict’s teaching was challenged; the authority of documents issued by his Council called into question.  

Now I felt some of this criticism of Cardinal Turkson’s authority was unfair. After all, the Catholic Church has never endorsed the regime unfettered capitalism. And, going well beyond the position of traditional Catholic social doctrine, popes since John XXIII’s encyclical Mater et Magistra have sought to reach an accommodation with the political left on economics.  Pope Paul VI and his successors have been effusive in their praise of the United Nations. Recently, hadn’t Pope Benedict himself called for a global financial authority “with teeth in it”? (The Vatican was silent on this subject, however, when the Pope was invited before an International Criminal Tribunal).

I don’t need to do more than mention here some of the  substantive objections raised last year by critics –  including  some in the  the Vatican. That to propose the creation of a one world state is precious little help to policy makers working on the Euro and other current financial crises of the moment. That Cardinal Turkson gave no consideration to the adverse effect on the economy of factors such as the decline in the birth rate which Catholic doctrine should shed light on. That the vision of a universal public Authority stands in stark contrast with traditional teaching on subsidiarity (It is amusing to see how the Council argues it is implementing the principle of subsidiarity by proposing its exact opposite – one often encounters similar verbal gymnastics in corporate life).

But it seems to me the most cogent objection is that the one world authority already exists. It is called the United States.  Since the collapse of the Soviet Union the United States had become the “hegemon” of world economy and politics.  And it is under the direction of the forces controlling the United States that the specific economic abuses of the last 20 or more years have flourished.  The “hegemon” did not restrain these forces, on the contrary it actively supported their activity and global expansion (e.g. into Russia). And those nations which have avoided the financial and currency crises to a greater or lesser extent did so only because they did not jump on the globalist bandwagon in one or more key respects. That includes everything from the Canadian banking system to Great Britain’s retention of the pound sterling over the Euro to the “controlled economy” policies of China. It seems that these national initiatives were more successful than the global ones; why does Cardinal Turkson think that his one world Authority would be more successful than the United States has been?

Cardinal Turkson concludes his report with an anomalous exegesis of the Tower of Babel in Genesis. For Turkson, this is a summons to overcome by the “spirit of Pentecost” the effects of the division of man into multiple languages and nations and restore the unity of mankind. But we find in the curious and rare Demonologie of Egon von Petersdorff a discussion of this very question – with exactly the opposite conclusion. For that author interprets the “second fall of man” at the tower of Babel as a warning against all attempts to reestablish a world empire (or a world language). (Egon von Petersdorff, Demonologie, Vol I at 209-212 (Christiana Verlag, Stein am Rhein, 1982). Perhaps von Petersdorff gives more deference to the doctrine of original sin than Cardinal Turkson does! We should perhaps add that writers such as Vladimir Soloviev (Three Tales of the Antichrist) and Malachi Martin (Windswept House) would not at all be surprised at forces in the Vatican endorsing a unitary world state.

Indeed, the proposals of Cardinal Turkson are not at all anti-establishment, counter-cultural or in line with “occupy Wall street.”  They are exactly what the controlling academic and media elites of the West have been propounding for decades and reflect the ideology of the dominant political power in the world today. This is true not just of the “one world Authority” proposal but of the other specific ideas the Council for Justice and Peace endorses – such as the financial transactions tax. All this is eminently secular, completely in accord with the dictates of Western civil society. That’s why we read today of Cardinal Turkson’s all expenses paid excursion to Davos.

 What would be revolutionary in the long run would to return to the Church’s own social teaching.  For the Church’s authentic teachings have received remarkably little attention in recent decades. Certainly the Archdiocese of New York and the diocese of Bridgeport, in the epicenter of world finance, have maintained strict radio silence on the subject.  To discover the meaning today of concepts like usury, subsidiarity and a just wage, to explore the role of the family and of the community – that could be the inception of  more profound changes than the protesters of last year could ever imagine!