Recently at the Synod of Bishops for the Middle East, Pope Benedict offered an impromptu address to the gathered bishops regarding the false powers of our world.

Some commentators noted that while the first English-language accounts of this talk listed the pope’s warnings on terrorism, drugs and violence as ‘false divinities that must be unmasked,’ his primary warning, interestingly, did not make the list: the evil of ‘the anonymous capital of our day that enslaves man.’

In contrast, Italy’s, Corriere della Sera, immediately headlined this as its front-page story: ‘Pope: Anonymous capital’s power to destroy threatens the world.’ (With the sub-headline being: ‘The Pope sets his sights against the irresponsible financial power that places man in slavery.’)”

Below is an excerpt from Pope Benedict’s talk followed by a video clip from Catholic Television of Pope Benedict calling for an awareness of the common good in the work of economics.  (In his address, the Holy Father makes use of the imagery found in the Book of Revelations to structure and bring forth his thought.)

And this process of loss of power (of the false gods) continues throughout history, spoken of in Revelation chapter 12; it mentions the fall of the angels, which are not truly angels, they are not divinities on earth. And is achieved truly, right at the time of the rising Church, where we can see how the blood of the martyrs takes the power away from the divinities, starting with the divine emperor, from all these divinities. It is the blood of the martyrs, the suffering, the cry of the Mother Church that makes them fall and thus transforms the world.

This fall is not only the knowledge that they are not God; it is the process of transformation of the world, which costs blood, costs the suffering of the witnesses of Christ. And, if we look closely, we can see that this process never ends. It is achieved in various periods of history in ever new ways; even today, at this moment, in which Christ, the only Son of God, must be born for the world with the fall of the gods, with pain, the martyrdom of witnesses. Let us remember all the great powers of today’s history, let us remember the anonymous capital that enslaves man, which is no longer in man’s possession, but is an anonymous power served by men, by which men are tormented and even killed. It is a destructive power, that threatens the world. And then the power of the terroristic ideologies. Violent acts are apparently made in the name of God, but this is not God: they are false divinities that must be unmasked; they are not God. And then drugs, this power that, like a voracious beast, extends its claws to all parts of the world and destroys it: it is a divinity, but it is a false divinity that must fall. Or even the way of living proclaimed by public opinion: today we must do things like this, marriage no longer counts, chastity is no longer a virtue, and so on.

These ideologies that dominate, that impose themselves forcefully, are divinities. And in the pain of the Saints, in the suffering of believers, of the Mother Church which we are a part of, these divinities must fall, what is said in the Letters to the Colossians and to the Ephesians must be done: the dominations, the powers fall and become subjects of the one Lord Jesus Christ. On this battle we find ourselves in, of this taking power away from God, of this fall of false gods, that fall because they are not deities, but powers that can destroy the world, chapter 12 of Revelations mentions these, even if with a mysterious image, for which, I believe, there are many different and beautiful interpretations. It has been said that the dragon places a large river of water before the fleeing woman to overcome her. And it would seem inevitable that the woman will drown in this river.  But the good earth absorbs this river and it cannot be harmful.

I think that the river is easily interpreted: these are the currents that dominate all and wish to make faith in the Church disappear, the Church that does not have a place anymore in front of the force of these currents that impose themselves as the only rationality, as the only way to live. And the earth that absorbs these currents is the faith of the simple at heart, that does not allow itself to be overcome by these rivers and saves the Mother and saves the Son. This is why the Psalm says – the first psalm of the Hour – the faith of the simple at heart is the true wisdom (cf Psa. 118:130). This true wisdom of simple faith, that does not allow itself to be swamped by the waters, is the force of the Church…

Do you think the Holy Father is trying to tell us something?