Where's the Vatican's Kaboom?

My favorite character in the Warner Brothers animation universe may be Marvin the Martian. "Where's the kaboom?" he plaintively asked in one cartoon. "There was supposed to be an earth-shattering kaboom?"

That's how I imagine the scene in one of the Vatican's offices last week. The Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace released a document recommending a restructuring of the world's economy on a scale (if an opposite direction) that makes Ron Paul seem unambitious.

But the reaction, at least in the mainstream media, has been decidedly short on "kaboom."

There are some obvious reasons, of course. For one thing, the paper was apparently released in Italian. And the "unofficial" English version produced by Vatican Radio reads as if parts were translated by a computer programmed by Yoda.

Plus, the document is a weird combination of savvy economic history and an untethered analytical certainty only possible for an outfit that believes it has the excusive franchise on understanding God's will.

But this is no small outfit. If you took all the Tea Partiers and all the Occupiers in America and put them together, they'd not outnumber the combined membership of a handful of large U.S. Catholic parishes.

And the document is not the product of some minor functionary. Imagine if the U.S. Council of Economic Advisors produced a new plan for the economy, based on a presidential State of the Union address, and delivered with the tacit approval of the president.

There'd be some kaboom, I'm thinking.

That makes the relative lack of news coverage surprising to me. Most reports have been brief and inside. The Boston Globe, which won a Pulitzer not long ago for its reports on Catholic scandals, ran with a short wire story. Yes, there's been plenty of chat in the religion press and blogosphere, but that's not the same thing.

I'm old enough to recall when the U.S. Catholic bishops could get major media attention by just debating nuclear disarmament. In this case, the Vatican is calling for something even more explosive: A no-kidding, tin-hats-alert, cue-the-Illuminati, one-world government. In charge of the global economy. In the name of a higher morality than making a profit.

Kaboom?

The document is titled "Towards Reforming the International Financial and Monetary Systems in the Context of Global Public Authority." It's based largely on an encyclical titled "Charity in Truth" released two years ago by Pope Benedict XVI.

So what does the document say? Start with this:

"Every individual and every community shares in and is responsible for promoting the common good."

And this:

"What has driven the world in such a problematic direction for its economy and also for peace? First and foremost, an economic liberalism that spurns rules and controls."

(I imagine the translator means something like "libertine attitude" where he's using "liberalism.")

A solution?

"Recognizing the primacy of being over having and of ethics over the economy, the world's peoples ought to adopt an ethic of solidarity as the animating core of their action. This implies abandoning all forms of petty selfishness and embracing the logic of the global common good which transcends merely contingent, particular interests."

Which means a global government that controls the global economy, overriding national authorities.

"In this process, the primacy of the spiritual and of ethics needs to be restored and, with them, the primacy of politics -- which is responsible for the common good -- over the economy and finance."

And so on. You can read it all here. And yes, as more than one commenter has noted, a lot of it would get the waggling fingers of agreement at any of the Occupy rallies.

My favorite critique from an insider is by Mark Brumley, president and CEO of Ignatius Press. Mostly, I just love this passage from his column for The Catholic World Report:

"The fact is, the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace might just as well call for the establishment of Star Trek's United Federation of Planets. It would have just as much likelihood of providing solutions to our problems in your lifetime, your children's lifetimes, or their children's lifetimes."

Heh. Live long and prosper.

But still, there are more than 60 million self-identified Catholics in the U.S. Surely there should be some front page discussion about how this document issued from their faith's center of authority might influence them?

Or maybe not. Coincidentally, the National Catholic Reporter released the results of a new national survey of American Catholics on the same day the Pontifical Council's document came out. Here are a few highlights:

Only 30 percent said that the Vatican's teaching authority is very important to them. Only 40 percent said that the church's teachings on abortion were very important to them. Only 35 percent said the church's teachings about same-sex marriage were very important to them. Only 29 percent said the church's teachings about the death penalty were very important to them.

And these are all social justice topics that the Catholic authorities, from several popes on down, have been firing on for many decades.

So what would you say is the likelihood that many American Catholics will pay much heed to a Vatican document that would overturn many of the central tenets of our economy? How many minds might be changed?

And that might be the best reason there's been no kaboom.