Pope: Let us sow the seeds of a fair economy in the polluted financial world
Francis speaks to the Centesimus Annus Pro Pontifice Foundation: "Let us return to making the Church's social doctrine known: building a more just and supportive world is not something practical, detached from doctrine, but is giving body to faith".
Vatican City (AsiaNews) - "We need to sow many small seeds in the polluted soil of financial dominance that will allow a fair and beneficial economy to flourish, on a human scale and worthy of man," stated Pope Francis today as he received participants at a conference promoted by the Centesimus Annus Pro Pontifice Foundation in audience at the Vatican.
Francis noted how in the current era "the uncertainties and precariousness that mark the lives of so many people and communities are aggravated by an economic system that continues to discard lives in the name of the god money, instilling rapacious attitudes towards the Earth's resources and feeding many forms of iniquity. We cannot remain indifferent before this".
The Pope added that the response cannot be denunciation alone, but must pass above all through the active promotion of good: "We need possibilities that become reality, realities that give hope. This means putting the Church's social doctrine into practice".
The Holy Father wen on to quote a dialogue he had four years ago with "a great woman economist" with governmental responsibilities. "She told me," the Pontiff recounted, "that she had tried to create a dialogue between economics, humanism and faith and that it had gone well in a reflection group. But there was no opening at all in the world of finance. Interesting. This makes me think. That woman helped me to understand the world of finance was something unattainable, something 'liquid', 'gaseous' that ends up like a chain letter...".
In order to emerge from this situation, we need to begin again from the Church's social doctrine, which contributes - Francis explained - to a vision of the world "that is opposed to the individualist one, insofar as it is based on the interconnection between people and has the common good as its goal. And at the same time it opposes the collectivist vision, which today re-emerges in a new version, hidden in the projects of technocratic homologation. Social doctrine is anchored to the Word of God, in order to orient processes of human promotion starting from faith in God made man. For this reason it must be followed, loved and developed: let us be passionate about social doctrine once again, let us make it known: it is a treasure of the Church's tradition".
Solidarity, cooperation, responsibility - the Pope commented - "recall the same mystery of God, who is Trinity. God is a communion of Persons and directs us to fulfil ourselves through generous openness to others (solidarity), through collaboration with others (cooperation), through commitment to others (responsibility). And to do so in every expression of social life, through relationships, work, civil commitment, the relationship with creation, politics". And it is the mystery of the Incarnation that leads Christians to recognise with Jesus "in every man a brother, in every woman a sister".
Animated by this universal communion," said Francis, "as a believing community we can fearlessly collaborate with each one for the good of all: without closures, without exclusionary visions, without prejudices. As Christians we are called to a love without borders and without limits, a sign and a testimony that we can go beyond the walls of selfishness and personal and national interests; beyond the power of money that often decides the causes of peoples; beyond the fences of ideologies, which divide and amplify hatred; beyond all historical and cultural barriers and, above all, beyond indifference". The construction of a world of greater solidarity, justice and fairness - concluded the Pope - "for a believer is not something practical detached from doctrine, but it is giving substance to faith, to the praise of God, lover of man, lover of life". Because "the good you do to every man on earth," he concluded, "gladdens the heart of God in heaven".
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