Pope says prosperity bad
Well a bombshell has just been dropped on the youth of Australia. Prosperity is… er…bad. At least that’s what the Pope says. In a recent speech for World Youth Day in Sydney the Pontif let 400,000 young people know that material prosperity leads to spiritual poverty. ”In so many of our societies, side by side with material prosperity, a spiritual desert is spreading: an interior emptiness, an unnamed fear, a quiet sense of despair”. Now I agree that rampant materialism or being obsessed only with money or worldly possessions is a not a good thing. But at the fundamental level the Pope is saying prospering is a bad thing. Now the bible would seem to agree with him as Jesus himself says “Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.” (Matthew 19:24). But if we dig a little in the less popular parts of the bible we find this “Honour the LORD with thy substance, and with the firstfruits of all thine increase: So shall thy barns be filled with plenty, and thy presses shall burst out with new wine. ” (Proverbs 3:9-10). So we are told on the one hand that prosperity prevents you from going to heaven. On the other hand we are told that prosperity is our reward from god for our good deeds.
So we can’t rely on the bible for a final word on this issue. That’s fine. What bothers me more is the sheer hypocrisy of the statement. The leader of the one of the worlds richest organizations and the biggest landowner on earth is telling youth that prosperity leads to a spiritual desert, all the while wearing silk robes and carrying a staff of gold.
What upsets me most of all however is that the Pope is saying that prosperity is a bad thing. That doing well for yourself leads to emptiness and fear. Why would prosperity lead to emptiness? Short of obsessive materialism prosperity is almost always a good thing. There is the old adage “Money can’t buy you happiness” but according to a 2006 study, rich people are considerably happier than poor people. So maybe prosperity isn’t so bad…
You might resolve some of the conflict by remembering that Biblical Christianity is unambiguously communist. Acts 4:32 tells us “All the believers were one in heart and mind. No one claimed that any of his possessions was his own, but they shared everything they had.” This isn’t a verse out of context. Acts 4 and 5 are quite explicit in the communal nature of the Biblical church, which one presumes should be the model for Christians today. I explore that more at length here if you’re curious.
i fear you may be taking the popes words out of context. prosperity is only bad when it is put before God, what the pope is saying is that the more you focus on material things the further u distance yourself from God (causing a spiritual desert) thus the less you feel the presence of God. there is nothing wrong with being wealthy, as long as God comes first and not your wealth. the fact that the Pope wears silk robes of carries a gold staff means nothing, because it is not wealth that the church is focused on it is God, and our call as christians to be like God.