WaPo | “Is it realistic to hope that those who are obsessed with maximizing
profits will stop to reflect on the environmental damage which they will
leave behind for future generations? Where profits alone count, there
can be no thinking about the rhythms of nature.”
The pope
condemns the current global economy “where priority tends to be given to
speculation and the pursuit of financial gain, which fail to take the
context into account, let alone the effects on human dignity and the
natural environment. Here we see how environmental deterioration and
human and ethical degradation are closely linked.”
Wall Street comes under particular criticism: “Finance overwhelms the
real economy. The lessons of the global financial crisis have not been
assimilated.” As a result, “whatever is fragile, like the environment,
is defenseless before the interests of the deified market, which become
the only rule.”
For Pope Francis, the market and the economy
must be bound by rules that serve “basic and inalienable rights.” At the
center of these is work: “We were created with a vocation to work.”
Work is the setting for “rich personal growth . . . creativity, planning for the future, developing our talents, living out our values . . .
giving glory to God.” Therefore, priority should be given to “the goal
of access to steady employment for everyone, no matter the limited
interests of business and dubious economic reasoning.”
But
instead of the common good, we have constructed an economy built on
private interest and unrestrained appetite, an economy that excludes the
poorest and most vulnerable. For Pope Francis, “the cry of the earth
and the cry of the poor” derive from the same distorted global market
economy.
.........
Pope Francis is seeking a far more profound change: economic policy
grounded in moral values, measured not by how much money the few make
but the respect accorded the rights of all and the health of the
environment. Conservatives say he should stick to theology. But he
already is sticking to theology, understanding that the worship of
markets and the acceptance of unrestrained appetites are moral problems,
not technical ones. If this statement on climate is most welcome, his
teachings on the economy offer a critique necessary to finding the way
out of these problems.
