Everybody is talking about Pope Benedict’s next encyclical. It seems to be a social encyclical. And the suspicion is that it has been signed and waiting to be promulgated. Meanwhile the entire world is going into recession and the people’s question is how long will this recession last; and will there be a rebound as in past recessions?What could the Pope be saying or hinting recently with regards to the present world economy?
Popes are well known to predict many human events way ahead. The rise of communism and its spread around the world has been seen by the Popes of the last two centuries. We wonder, will there be a recovery in the present recession?
The Holy Father gave the major saying that true progress is commensurate to spiritual progress. If we progress in the spiritual sphere, everything else in the physical and natural will progress. If we are progressing spiritually, we will progress in the natural sphere: nobody will go hungry. As the Gospel has it: If we seek first the kingdom of God, everything else will be given us. Here, the Holy Father is enunciating a general Evangelical principle.
Now let us come to the minor proposition. The Holy Father mentioned in one of his Christmas messages that greed has ruled world economy. He added that while there is progress in everything material, there has been no commensurate progress in the spiritual sphere.
In the minor proposition the Holy Father is hinting that the recession is due to this dichotomy and divorce between human and spiritual progress. He is not insinuating that he is attributing the recession to economic factors existing in the world today. He is saying that there is a higher and greater factor involved in the recession….a Divine Factor which, every time man forgets the end for which he was created, chastises them with war, famine, plagues, earthquakes and …. recessions. And it is this factor that we must consider as to whether we will rebound from the recession or not.
The Holy Father declared this year a year of faith in honor of St. Paul. Why did he do that when the faith has been preached in every corner of the world? Because as seen by St. John the Baptist in the Old Testament and mentioned many times by the Blessed Virgin in her apparitions, man has no faith. Even Christ mentioned it: “When the Son of Man comes, will He find faith on earth? “
If we consider the Divine Factor in this syllogism we are forced to conclude that this recession, just like natural calamities and wars, is a chastisement as St. Alphonsus Liguori would have said, and because of the impossibility for men to obey the reason for which he was created, the recession will be here to stay …. and worsen. This conclusion is what follows if we consider the major and minor of the syllogism.