A new spectre is haunting now the world??

Vatican Spring?

The following is the abstract of an article that is nearly completed, to be published in a book edited by Arno Tausch, and being concerned with the development of catholicism. A pre-version, i.e. an unedited version will soon be sent on request.

Abstract

Both, discourses in and about economy on the one hand, in and about ethics are very much caught in mutual abstinence. This applies independent of the political orientation. If the one side is acknowledged by the other it is more in vein of a counter-spirit. The following, of which the focus is the question if there is, following the election of Jorge Mario Bergoglio as pope, a new spectre haunting the world – the spectre of a fundamentally new catholic orientation – tries to discuss this supposed awakening in a wider perspective. By taking a wider view it comes to the conclusion, that there is surely the need for a rebuke of individualism and economism from an ethical perspective, but that such reprimand remains questionable as long as it does not analyse and criticise the structural foundations of such ‘aberrations’. And it concludes that there is surely need and space for ‘renaissance of ethics’, but that can only be reached by collective intervention and legislative procedures and not by praising joy. If change aims on being sustainable, it has to be drastic instead of scratching at the surface; if change aims on being just, it has to be structural instead of moral.