Pope Condemns Pagan Love of Money; Catholic Love of Money OK?

Christianity has always had a schizophrenic relationship with wealth and power. On the one hand, a significant part of Christianity's origins lie with the sayings of an itinerant preacher who believed that the apocalypse was near and people should stop worrying about material goods. On the other hand, Christianity's survival is due in large part to its union with the Roman Empire, a union which necessarily led to a close relationship with power, money, and wealth. Defense of the status quo was inevitable and became part of Christianity's very nature.

As a consequence, we can witness throughout history constant contradictions and conflict within Christianity over wealth and power. Christian leaders have regularly preached against greed and wealth and on behalf of the poor and powerless, but they have done so from richly apportioned churches and only rarely make any overt moves against the status quo -- moves which would have threatened the power of political and social leaders they heavily rely upon. Pope Benedict XVI doesn't break any new ground here, continuing in a long and depressing tradition.

Paraphrasing from the New Testament, Benedict decried “insatiable greed” and said “the love of money is the root of all evil.”

“Have not money, the thirst for possessions, for power and even knowledge, diverted man from his true destiny?” the pope asked.

Benedict blasted modern society’s thirst for these new “pagan” idols as a “scandal, a real plague.” The pope urged the faithful to “shun the worship of idols. Do not tire of doing good!”’

Source: MSNBC

To be fair, the Catholic Church probably isn't quite as wealthy as some people seem to assume. There surely aren't any vaults in the Vatican basement, filled with gold and silver that's being hoarded. There aren't billion-dollar Swiss bank accounts just accruing interest. On the other hand, there is a tremendous wealth of property, art, and related items. Popes don't live in "luxury" in the sense that we think of when we think of rich people in America, surrounded by the latest electronic gadgets, but they do live surrounded by inimitable architecture and art.

This means that there is a strong impression of contradiction and hypocrisy when such a powerful, well-off organization presumes to not only tell others that they should stop loving wealth and power so much, but actually dares to describe such attitudes as "pagan." Love of wealth and power is human, not pagan, which means that it can be found in every religious, political, and economic system. Benedict's denunciation might as well have been of "Jewish" idols, but how would that have gone over?