A New World Order: with the Church as Privileged Partner?

(Please note that the argument presented here regarding the role of the Church is based largely on rumour and conjecture. While there is no explicit public documentation to back it up at this point, it can nevertheless be said to be plausible given the general context that is described. In any case, I offer it as a call to be alert.)

     In recent weeks we have seen signs of a world empire that has overextended itself and is no longer able to maintain the military force required to “police the world.” Moreover, it is also toying with disaster by reducing the funds available to meet the basic needs of its own citizens.  

    A variety of options have been offered to deal with this. In all of them the invisible empire of the transnational corporations lurks in the wings. Whether the American empire survives or not is of relatively little interest to them. Whether America thrives or collapses, the corporate empire ends up concentrating even more power and wealth in its hands.  It is entrenched.

     Of course it is important to the corporate empire to remain somewhat veiled and to allow “democratic” governments handle the public side of politics. In that sense, the transnationals would be prepared to line themselves up with any political empire that chooses to act as a front for them. (It must be noted however that, at this point, no government that could assert itself against them and survive.)

     At the same time, governments, as well as business itself, are becoming increasingly concerned about managing the social unrest that is driving more and more people into “deep poverty.” One of the options that have been proposed is a return to a very traditional relationship between government and religion. In this option, government would restrict itself to assuring a good business climate while leaving the question of “services to society” in the hands of religion.  This would include education, health and social services. It is to be understood that these areas would be carried out in a way that assures that there is adequate, trained personnel for the business, but would hardly promote a universal education designed to produce an independent-thinking population. (Quebec saw this role for the Church carried to an extreme during the Duplessis years between  1936 1959.) We are already a long way down that road.

     The idea of returning education, health care and social services to the Churches is not far-fetched. During the 1980’s Michel Camdessus, the director of the FMI at that time, suggested precisely this approach. It should also be noted that in Germany, even today, the government’s role in these areas is limited to passing part of the taxes on to the churches for this purpose.

     According to at least one analyst I have read, the Vatican realizes that the Americas and Europe are moving in this direction and is positioning itself to partner with governments in this new role. It wants to be an active player at the table in this new world order shaped by business and government.

     An arrangement between government and church would be a perfect set-up for the transnational corporate empire: governments create the financial and economic climate necessary for profitable business; religion takes on the social role. If anything goes wrong, it is not the fault of either government or business.  At a time when the entire world financial structure is on the verge of collapse and when global warming in the coming decades is threatening the survival for many millions of people, this approach could not look better for business or for the Church!

     If all this were to begin to take shape, one cannot underestimate the importance of a very solidly aware and organized civil society that would not permit health, education and social services to turned over to authorities who are, in the case of the Roman Catholic Church, unelected.

     Already in the background, I can hear readers from Quebec roaring with laughter and saying, “If there is one place on earth where the scenario of a church-government alliance could never take place, it has to be here in Quebec. In Quebec there would certainly be an overwhelming wave of rejection should the idea even be proposed. People here lived that experience once and are determined that it will never happen again. And it may well that it is never even proposed here. However…, however…, we should never underestimate the power of the corporate/government/media conglomerate to shift public opinion particularly if the move takes root in other places. It also needs to be said that, in politics, nothing is impossible.

(For the second part, see the post immediately above.)