Pope Benedict On Wealth Creation

Catholic University faculties might be full of socialists, but the Pope begs to disagree:

“While it has been rightly emphasized that increasing per capita income cannot be the ultimate goal of political and economic activity, it is still an important means of attaining the objective of the fight against hunger and absolute poverty. Hence, the illusion that a policy of mere redistribution of existing wealth can definitively resolve the problem must be set aside. In a modern economy, the value of assets is utterly dependent on the capacity to generate revenue in the present and the future. Wealth creation therefore becomes an inescapable duty, which must be kept in mind if the fight against material poverty is to be effective in the long term.” [emphasis added]

By the way, he’s no warmonger either, much to the chagrin of the Catholic empire-builders who tried twisting Just War doctrine to justify the Iraq disaster:

“As I have pointed out before, it can happen that ‘immense military expenditure, involving material and human resources and arms, is in fact diverted from development projects for peoples, especially the poorest who are most in need of aid.'”

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9:37 am on December 13, 2008