ROME — Pope Francis warned Sunday democracy is in “crisis” around the world, likely with an eye to a rise in right-wing parties across Italy, Austria, Argentina, Netherlands, and Germany.
It is evident that in today’s world, democracy “is not in good health,” the pontiff told a group of 900 participants in the 50th annual Social Week, celebrated in the northern Italian city of Trieste.
The pope went on to compare the modern “crisis of democracy” to a wounded heart that has suffered a heart attack, manifested by “various forms of social exclusion” that “limit participation.”
“The throwaway culture generates a city where there is no place for the poor, the unborn, the fragile, the sick, children, women, the young, the old,” he said, and in this throwaway culture, “power becomes self-referential,” incapable of listening to and serving people.
Free elections are not enough because if voters are not trained correctly, they could make the mistake of voting for populist leaders, he suggested.
“The very word ‘democracy’ does not simply mean people voting,” he said. “It is not only the vote of the people, but it requires that conditions be created for everyone to express themselves and participate.”
Participation “cannot be improvised,” he added. “It is learned as children, as young people, and must also be ‘trained’ to a critical sense with respect to ideological and populist temptations.”
Unfortunately, the notion of “the people” is often misinterpreted and “could lead to the elimination of the very word ‘democracy’ (‘government of the people’),” he said. “Nevertheless, in order to affirm that society is more than the mere sum of individuals, the term ‘the people’ is necessary, but this is not populism.”
“Ideologies are seductive,” he declared. “Someone compared them to the Pied Piper of Hamelin; they seduce you, but then they drown you.”
“Democracy always requires the transition from taking sides to participating, from ‘cheerleading’ to dialogue,” he said.
“As long as our economic-social system still produces one victim and there is only one person discarded, there can be no celebration of universal fraternity,” Francis cautioned. “A human and fraternal society is able to strive to ensure in an efficient and stable way that everyone is accompanied on the path of their lives.”
The pope also warned that the welfare state is not the solution and easily becomes an obstacle to solidarity.
“Certain forms of welfarism that do not recognize the dignity of people,” he said, and in this way become “the enemy of democracy and the enemy of love of neighbor.”
“And certain forms of welfarism that do not recognize the dignity of people are social hypocrisy,” he added.
Pope Francis has been a vocal critic of populism and nationalism as modern forms of selfishness.
Solidarity is “the most effective antidote to modern forms of populism,” Pope Francis told European Union leaders in 2017, and only a stronger, consolidated Europe can stem the rising tide of populist movements.
The pontiff contrasted solidarity, which draw us “closer to our neighbors,” with populism, which is “the fruit of an egotism that hems people in and prevents them from overcoming and ‘looking beyond’ their own narrow vision.”
“There is a need to start thinking once again as Europeans,” Francis said, because this union will only be lasting and successful if the common will of Europe “proves more powerful than the will of individual nations.”
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