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The Pope Speaks out on the Economy December 3rd, 2013
Fr. Seamus Finn, OMI was interviewed today by The Lay Catholic on the Pope’s recent exhortation, The Joy of the Gospel.
“…Father Finn said the last two decades in the United States have witnessed a “growth in wealth in assets for the top 1 percent and stagnation of wages and assets for the middle class,” resulting in “widening gaps between a very, very small number of people at the top, a middle class that’s holding its own, and an impoverished sector that is barely hanging on and very dependent on the charity of others.”
“Father Finn said Pope Francis’ portrayal of the ideological struggle over state intervention in the economy is realistic, as exemplified by current debates in the U.S.”
“We have a whole number of folks who are saying, let’s shrink the size of government, let’s let the market and the private sector come up with and propose solutions,” particularly in the education and health care sectors, he said. “And we’ve got lots of other people saying, that’s leaving a lot of collateral damage out there. Who’s responsible for it?”
Pope Francis to launch “Food for All” campaign November 20th, 2013
On December 10, Pope Francis will launch a worldwide movement to respond to the needs of the poor and vulnerable by acting to end hunger. Access to adequate and nutritious food is a global problem of immense proportions, even for families in the U.S.
At noon local time, a global wave of prayer will begin in Tonga and will progress around the world until it reaches American Samoa some 24 hours and more than 164 countries later.
Please join Catholic Charities USA, Catholic Relief Services, and the network of Caritas Internationalis agencies providing relief to people suffering from hunger around the globe in participating in the wave of prayer. This is the beginning of a much larger campaign to combat hunger.
In addition, please check out the faith-based resource on poverty and hunger available from Catholic Rural Life, called Food Security and Economic Justice.
World Bank Group President and the Pope Discuss Ending Poverty October 28th, 2013
World Bank Group President Jim Yong Kim and His Holiness Pope Francis met on October 28th at the Vatican to discuss their mutual efforts to end extreme poverty and provide greater opportunities for the poor and vulnerable.
“I was so grateful to meet with the Holy Father and was inspired by his passion and commitment to help the poor, the sick, and the hungry,” Kim said. “We talked about ways we could work together with faith leaders to make a preferential option for the poor, so they can have greater opportunity and justice in their lives.”
Kim thanked Pope Francis for his strong statements encouraging humble service to the less fortunate, as well as his support for better education, health care, environmental protection, and jobs with fair wages to help the poor lift themselves out of poverty.
Following the 20-minute meeting, Pope Francis and Kim agreed to explore ways to work together to end extreme poverty.
“At the World Bank Group, we have set a goal to end extreme poverty in less than a generation, and to boost shared prosperity for the bottom 40 percent of people in developing countries,” Kim said. “Pope Francis and I agree on the urgent moral imperative to lessen the suffering of over 1 billion people and to end the scandal of poverty. We share a vision of a world with greater compassion for all people in need.”
Pope Francis Urges Humanity to Cultivate and Care for Creation, Not Money June 6th, 2013
Pope Francis dedicated the catechesis of Wednesday morning’s general audience to the environment, noting that June 5th is World Environment Day promoted by the United Nations. The following is the summary of his address. The full text of the Pope’s catechesis is available in the link given below.
“When we speak of the environment, of creation, my thoughts go to the first pages of the Bible, to the Book of Genesis, where it is affirms that God puts man and woman on earth ‘to cultivate and care for it’. And the question comes to me:” the Pope said to the faithful gathered in St. Peter’s Square, “What does it mean to cultivate and care for the earth? Are we truly cultivating and caring for creation? Or are we exploiting and neglecting it?”
“Cultivating and caring for creation,” explained the Holy Father, “is God’s indication, given not only at the beginning of history, but to each one of us. It is part of his plan. It means responsibly making the world grow, transforming it so that it becomes a garden, a place that all can inhabit.”
“Benedict XVI recalled many times that this tasked entrusted to us by God the Creator requires that we understand the rhythm and logic of creation. Instead, we are often guided by the arrogance of dominating, possessing, manipulating, and exploiting. We don’t ‘take care’ of it; we don’t respect it; we don’t consider it as a freely-given gift to be cared for. We are losing the attitude of wonder, of contemplation, of listening to creation. Thus we are no longer able to read in it what Benedict XVI called ‘the rhythm of the story of God’s love for humanity’. Why is this happening? Because are we thinking and living ‘horizontally’; we are drawing away from God; we are not reading his signs.”
“But cultivating and caring for doesn’t just refer to our relationship with the environment, the relationship between humanity and creation. It also concern human relationships. … We are living a moment of crisis. We see it in the environment, but above all we see it in humanity. The human person is in danger. … This is the urgency of human ecology! The danger is serious because the root of the problem is profound, not superficial. It isn’t just a question of economics but of ethics and anthropology. … The dynamics of an economy and finance that lack ethics are dominating.”
Speaking off the cuff, the pontiff added: “What is in charge today isn’t the human person but money. Money is in command. And God our Father has given us the task of caring for the earth not for the money, but for us: for men and women. This is our charge. Instead, men and women are sacrificed to the idols of profit and consumption. It is a ‘culture of waste’.“
The full text of the Pope’s remarks are available here… (Download PDF)
