ROME — Pope Francis told a group of Spanish businesspeople Monday that today’s world is characterized by “war,” “environmental crisis,” and “economic imbalance.”
“We are living in a period of notorious economic and social imbalances,” the pontiff declared, where “extravagance and wretchedness exist side by side.”
In the current context, “characterized by war and the environmental crisis,” the pope asserted, “it is urgent to propose an economy suited to helping solve the great problems that we live worldwide.”
In his critique of the economy, the pope reserved his harshest appraisal for the world of finance.
Sometimes the economy “gets sick and becomes finance, and when the economy is transformed into finance, everything becomes liquid or gaseous,” he warned.
In his address, he cited a world economic leader who said she had organized a summit between economics, humanism, and religion, which worked very well, but when she tried to do the same with finance, humanism, and religion, it was a failure.
“That makes me think a lot, no? Francis said.
Christian businesspeople should be prophets like Amos, who in the seventh century B.C. “denounced the desire for luxury and enrichment of the powerful in the people of Israel, which benefited only one sector, while the great majority of the people were oppressed, hungry, in need,” the pope stated.
It is up to you “to carry out your service as prophets who announce and build the common home, respecting all forms of life, taking an interest in the good of all and promoting peace,” he said.
“Economic conversion will be possible when we live a conversion of heart,” he continued, “when we are able to think more about those in need; when we learn to put the common good before the individual good; when we understand that the lack of love and justice in our relationships is the consequence of a neglect of our relationship with the Creator, and this also has repercussions in our common home.”
“Then, and perhaps only then, will we be able to reverse the harmful actions that are preparing a sad future for new generations,” he added.
In his discourse, the pope also encouraged his hearers “to creatively transform the face of the economy, so that it is more attentive to ethical principles” and not to forget that its activity is “at the service of the human being, not only of a few but of all, especially the poor.”
It is important for you to “be aware that you are not above nature, but that you have to take care of it, because future generations depend on this,” he urged. “Your company must have, in some way, a care not to contaminate nature anymore, on the contrary, to open paths of healing.
“It is in our hands to change the trend of contamination that is destroying everything,” he said.