In any case we clearly see, and on this there is general agreement, that some opportune remedy must be found quickly for the misery and wretchedness pressing so unjustly on the majority of the working class. . . . By degrees it has come to pass that working men have been surrendered, isolated and helpless, to the hardheartedness of employers and the greed of unchecked competition.
—Leo XIII, Rerum Novarum
Although chosen “from the end of the world” at the time of his election, Jorge Mario Bergoglio had behind him twenty years of episcopacy in the megalopolis of Buenos Aires, the capital of Argentina. A remote megacity, far away from Europe, characterized by phenomena, processes, challenges, and problems that put it “at the margins,” but at the same time at the “heart” of the world—even from the perspective of the global socioeconomic challenges and contradictions. At the beginning of the new millennium, the large South American country experienced an economic-financial collapse. In December 2001, the country was wrecked by severe social unrest. Many families ended up on the streets. One day, from a window of the archbishop’s residence, Bergoglio, who had recently been appointed cardinal, saw the police in the Plaza de Mayo charging a woman. The archbishop picked up the telephone and called the minister of the interior. They did not put him through but had him speak instead to the secretary of security. The archbishop asked whether he knew the difference between agitprop and people who were simply asking to get their own money back, which was being held by the banks. The future pope spoke of his own experience during those months in a long interview with Gianni Valente, published in the journal 30Giorni, in January 2002.1
“The image of the depression that Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio always has in his mind,” wrote the journalist introducing the interview, “is not the noisy, angry cacerolazo street protest, but the intimate one, the image of battered dignity, of mothers and fathers who weep in the night when their children are asleep, when no one can see them. ‘They cry like babies, like the babies they were when their own mothers would have used to comfort them. Their only consolation are God our Lord and his Mother.’ ”
“In the presence of a people strangled by the anonymous, perverse mechanisms of speculative economy,” Valente observed, “even he, usually a quiet and reserved man, becomes severe.”
Bergoglio cited the “Letter to the People of God,” written by the Argentinian Episcopal Conference and published on November 17, 2001, which described “many aspects of this unprecedented crisis: the concept of the state as something magical; the squandering of the people’s money; the extreme liberalism wielded by the tyrannical market; tax evasion; lack of respect for the law, as much in the way it is set down and applied as in terms of observance; the loss of a work ethic; in short, a generalized corruption that undermines the cohesion of the nation and takes away its prestige in the eyes of the world. This is the diagnosis. In the final analysis, the root of the Argentinian depression is of the moral order.”
Far from being a mishap, although of enormous proportions, the Argentinian depression seemed rather a crisis of the system, of the economic model imposed on the country over the previous two decades. The words of the then-cardinal of Buenos Aires were explicit:
Throughout this time, there has been economic financial terrorism proper. And it has had its consequences which are not hard to see: more rich people, more poor people, and a drastically reduced middle class. There have been other less circumstantial consequences, such as the disaster in the field of education. At this moment in the city of Buenos Aires and in its residential suburbs, there are two million young people who neither study nor work. Given the barbarous form assumed by the financial globalization in Argentina, the church in this country has always taken the indications contained in the magisterium as its points of reference. They are for example, the criteria outlined in no uncertain terms in John Paul II’s allocution, Ecclesia in America.
“Seventy years ago, in the encyclical Quadragesimo Anno, written just after the Wall Street Crash of 1929, Pius XI had described the speculative economic model with the power to impoverish millions of families from one minute to the next as ‘the international imperialism of money.’ ”
A forgotten expression of Pius XI, Bergoglio considered this phrase timely to describe the situation of the depression in Argentina:
It’s a definition that never loses its pertinence, and it has a biblical root. When Moses went up to the mountain to receive God’s law, the people became guilty of idolatry in fabricating the golden calf. Today’s imperialism of money also has an unequivocal idolatrous face. It is curious how idolatry always goes hand in glove with gold. And where there is idolatry, God and the dignity of man made in God’s image are cancelled. So the new imperialism of money even takes work away, which is the one expression of the dignity of man, of his creativity, the image of God’s own creativity. The speculative economy does not even have any further need of labor. It bows down to the idol of cash which is self-generating. This is why there is no remorse in turning millions of workers out of their jobs.
This is the description of a reality, of processes at work, felt and experienced by a man who at the time was the pastor of the diocese of Buenos Aires. Bergoglio explained how the church looked at that phenomenon without falling into the trap of ideology, but at the same time without ending up justifying—in the name of the fight against ideology—profoundly unjust models.
“The Puebla documents,” explained the future pope,
are important on this point. The Latin American Episcopal Council meeting in Puebla was a watershed. They managed to look at Latin America through dialogue with its own cultural tradition. And likewise as regards the political and economic systems, the good things they were concerned about were the religious and spiritual resources of our peoples, expressed in the grassroots religious sense, for example, that Paul VI in his time had exalted in his apostolic letter Evangelii Nuntiandi, no. 48. The Christian experience is not an ideological one. Its distinguishing feature is originality which is not negotiable, which is born of the wonder of the encounter with Jesus Christ, of one’s wonder at the person of Jesus Christ. And this is kept up by our people, is manifest in grassroots devotions. The leftist ideologies and this now triumphant economic imperialism of money all cancel this Christian originality of the encounter with Jesus Christ, which is still part of the lives of so many of our people in their simplicity of faith.
In that interview, Cardinal Bergoglio addressed the role played by the international community and central financial organizations in the Argentinian depression: “I don’t think that man is central to their thinking, despite all the fine things they say. They always recommend governments to adopt their rigid directives, always talk about ethics and transparency, but they seem to me to be ‘ethicalistic’ only, devoid of goodness.”
And regarding the church’s criteria in taking action during that time, he added: “In involving ourselves in the common effort to find a way out of the depression in Argentina we keep in mind what the tradition of the church teaches. A tradition that describes the oppression of the poor and the act of defrauding workers of their wages as two sins that cry to God for vengeance. These two traditional formulas are totally pertinent to the magisterium of the Argentinian Episcopate. We are tired of systems that generate poor people for the church then to look after.”
“Only 40 percent,” explained Bergoglio, “of the resources designated to the most needy sectors by the state ever reach them. The rest get lost along the way. There is corruption. The church has launched an extensive parochial network of canteens for the increasing numbers of children and adults living on the streets.”
And at a moment when the country’s leadership and managerial classes had been totally discredited, the future pope reaffirmed the importance of politics and political commitment. “The important role of politics must be restored however much the politicians have discredited it; as Paul VI said, politics can be one of the highest forms of charity. In our country, for example, the ‘functionalist’ approach associated with the dominant economic model experimented with the two extreme phases of life, children and the elderly, the two age groups worst hit by the crisis because of the devastation it has caused in the fields of education, health, and social assistance. A people that does not look after its children and elderly is a people without hope.”
Archbishop Bergoglio’s closeness to his people, especially the poor, the weak, and the sick, was the hallmark of his episcopate. He celebrated many Masses among the cartoneros (collectors of cardboard from waste fields), in the villas miserias (slums in Buenos Aires), and among the unemployed. He was always close to the church that is on the “frontier,” sending priests to the villas miserias, caring for their training, encouraging and supporting them, and especially visiting them.
As archbishop, Bergoglio used strong words to define some problematic aspects of the reality of Argentinian megacities: “In Buenos Aires, slavery has not been abolished. Here there are people who still work as if they were slaves,” he once said before the members of the NGO La Alameda, a group of activists against the trafficking of women for sexual purposes and against the slave-like working conditions of the many illegal textile atelier and seasonal workers arriving from neighboring countries for the harvest season or fruit picking.
During the conference of the Latin American bishops in Aparecida, a meeting in which Bergoglio had a significant role, particularly in preparing the final document, the then-cardinal archbishop of Buenos Aires spoke of inequalities and distribution of wealth that produces “a scandalous inequality.” It was May 16, 2007. With reference to the social dimension, Bergoglio spoke of a “scandalous inequality affecting personal dignity and social justice.” Discussing the specific situation of Argentina, he observed:
Between 2002 and 2006, the poverty rate in Argentina rose by 8.7 percent; it currently is at 26.9 percent, and apparently we are in the most unequal region in the world, the one that grew the most but also the one that reduced poverty the least. The unjust distribution of goods persists, which creates a situation of social sin that cries to heaven and excludes many brothers and sisters from the chances of a fuller life. Political powers and economic plans of different types show no sign of producing significant changes to “eliminate the structural causes of global economic dysfunction” (Benedict XVI, Address to the Diplomatic Corps, January 8, 2007). In Argentina it is urgent to promote a just conduct, consistent with a faith that promotes human dignity, the common good, full inclusion, full citizenship, and the rights of the poor.
Worth noting in the passage quoted here is the contradiction inherent in the theory that economic growth always brings about opportunities for enrichment for all people. When, as we will see, in the exhortation Evangelii Gaudium, Pope Francis challenges the “trickle-down” economic theory, it will not be on the basis of opposite theories but by virtue of his experience observing the situation of the Argentinian people, in a country where high growth rates were accompanied by an increase in poverty rates. Worth noting also is the future pope’s reference, drawing on a speech by Pope Benedict XVI, to “the structural causes” of this situation.
Bergoglio reiterated the same points in 2011, at the Congress of the Social Doctrine held in Argentina. On that occasion, the cardinal criticized “an economy that offers almost unlimited possibilities in all aspects of life to those who manage to be included in that system.”
During the twenty years of his episcopacy in Argentina, Bergoglio’s public positions on the issues of social justice and concern for the poor have always been traced to their evangelical root. This aspect becomes clear especially during an intervention that the then-cardinal archbishop of Buenos Aires recorded to be broadcast during Argentina’s national Caritas meeting, in 2009.
Bergoglio on that occasion began with an example:
At a Caritas center things happen that should not happen . . . . Excuse me if I offend any of you; I do not mean to offend anyone. I just want you all to understand the dangers of today in promoting charity in the church. At one of the centers a party was thrown for one of the coworkers. The party took place in one of the 36 luxury restaurants of Puerto Madero in Buenos Aires, where the most economic dinner costs 250 pesos. These 36 restaurants are only within a mile from a shack of one of the villas miserias. If you want to share in Caritas’s mission of solidarity with the poor, your habits must change accordingly. You cannot afford certain luxuries that you used to enjoy before your conversion. You may say, ‘Father, you are a Communist!’ Maybe, but I don’t think so! I only interpret what the church asks of each one of us. To work with Caritas means to renounce to something. It requires spiritual poverty. Solidarity has to take you to the visible gesture of spiritual poverty. “The Latin American Church is called to be a sacrament of love, solidarity, and justice within our peoples (Aparecida Document, 396).”
Archbishop Bergoglio insisted on personal commitment and change in the personal lives of those who are involved in helping the poor:
When you live charity in this way, your life is under renovation, your flesh is changing. You are the one who becomes poor in a way and rich in others. Caritas service must lead to a radical change of lifestyle. Many years ago, it was with shame that we attended luxury dinners to raise money for Caritas. Jewelry was auctioned—expensive stuff. You were wrong! That was not Caritas! That is an NGO. With Aparecida we are in front of a choice of the heart: either you are part of an NGO, or of Caritas. If you become part of the latter, let your life be changed. Your lifestyle will be changed anyway. You will become a friend of the poor and you yourself will become poor, in the austere modesty of your new life.”
The future pope then referred to Mafalda, a popular Argentianian comic strip character created by Quino (the pseudonym of the Argentine cartoonist Joaquín Salvador Lavado). “But if you want to do good in an NGO,” Bergoglio added, “maybe you’ll end up like Susanita, Mafalda’s friend, who once said: ‘When I grow up, I will organize tea parties with cookies and classy stuff, so then I can buy polenta, pasta, and the other junk the poor eat.’ When you enter into the dynamics of conversion, of a life conversion, of solidarity to the flesh of your brothers and sisters, when you are not ashamed of them, then the horizon widens up for you and you will see Jesus’ face. And the contemplation in seeking the face of God in the poor, becomes the contemplation of the face of Jesus himself. But for this to happen, we need much prayer.”
“Caritas workers give hope,” explained Cardinal Bergoglio,
because they themselves have already been filled with the hope of Christ who was close to the weak and the poor. “The church is called to be the advocate of justice and of the poor in the face of intolerable social and economic inequalities which cry to heaven” (Aparecida Document, 395). The social doctrine of the church is capable of inspiring hope in the midst of the most difficult situations because if there is no hope for the poor, then there is no hope for anyone, not even for the rich. If you are unable to offer hope to the poor, then you yourself will be without. You will live for the day, for daily contentment, filling your time with small gratifications . . . with no horizons. You will be a Christian of circumstance, making sure that you do not lack anything.
The future pope continued by mentioning the “unjust structures” and the commitment to change them—a commitment that is not based on ideological positions but represents the horizon of the Christian who is close to the poor.
The preferential option for the poor demands that we proclaim this truth to our leaders to change unjust structures. In doing so, it also asks that they themselves become open to hope. Many men and women engaged in social work do not know the meaning of what the church calls social justice. The social doctrine of the church opens up the horizon starting from the poor you have come to know, helped, and accompanied. Then you even start to love them. And then, you start to enter into their lives and they in yours. You start to include them, thus opening up the horizon of hope. You give hope to them, and they give it back to you. Justice opens you to the mission of giving hope to those in charge, to change the nature of social structures. We must not forget what Pope Benedict XVI said: “For the Church, the service of charity, like the proclamation of the Word and celebration of the sacraments, is an indispensable expression of her very being” (Aparecida Document, 399). Do not think that you are a good Catholic just because you go to Church, you go often to confession, and do some charity work, collaborating with Caritas, but then you keep living according to the spirit of the world. Aparecida asks us to give up all worldliness, that is, to give up the spirit of the world, the same one that did not welcome Jesus. Your renunciation creates space in you for Jesus’ wonderful revelation; a beautiful face hidden in the dirty and wounded faces of the many men and women of this world.
In October 2009, Bergoglio spoke about the social debt at the opening of a seminar on the topic: “The ethical foundation from which we must judge the social debt as immoral, unjust, and illegitimate is the social recognition of the serious damage that its effects have on life, on the value of life, and therefore on human dignity.”
“The greatest immorality,” continued Bergoglio, referring to a ruling of the Argentinian bishops “lies in the fact that it happens in a nation that has the objective conditions for avoiding or correcting such harm, but unfortunately it seems that the same country opts for exacerbating inequalities even more. This debt involves those who have the moral or political responsibility to protect and promote the dignity of the people and their rights, and those parts of society whose rights are violated.”
“Human rights,” concluded Bergoglio, citing the Santo Domingo document of the Latin American Bishops, “are violated not only by terrorism, repression, and murders, but also by the existence of conditions of extreme poverty and unjust economic structures that cause great inequalities.”
Finally, we would be remiss if we did not mention Bergoglio’s Lenten message, his last as archbishop of Buenos Aires. On that occasion, the cardinal urged to produce “a change” in Argentinian society, warning his fellow citizens of the risk of getting used to living under the effects of the “dominance of money,” whose “demonic effects” are “drugs, corruption, the trafficking of persons, including children,” and “violence that kills and destroys families.”2
“Little by little we get used to hearing and seeing, through the media, the crime news in contemporary society, presented almost with perverse enjoyment; and yet, we get used to it, and we live with violence that kills, destroys families, and rekindles wars and conflicts.”
“The suffering of the innocent and non-violent never ceases to hit us; contempt for the rights of the most vulnerable individuals and peoples is not unknown to us: the empire of money with its demonic effects such as drugs, corruption, human trafficking, including children, along with poverty, both material and moral, are the common currency.” After stating that “the destruction of dignified work, the painful migrations, and the lack of a future are also part of this symphony,” Bergoglio admitted that “not even our mistakes and sins as Church remain outside this general panorama.”
“Today we are again invited to undertake a paschal journey toward life, a path that includes the cross and renunciation, which will be painful but not sterile. We are invited to admit that something is not right in ourselves, in society, and in the Church; we are invited to change, to turn around, to be converted.”
Bergoglio continued by saying: “The most personal egoisms are justified, the lack of ethical values in a society that metasta-sizes in families, in the environment of neighborhoods, in towns and cities, testify to our limitations, our weakness, and our inability to transform this long list of destructive realities.”
In the face of this situation, Bergoglio also recognized: “The trap of impotence that makes one think if it is worth trying to change when the world continues its carnival dance disguising for a while everything.” But the future pope recalled that “when the mask falls, the truth appears.” Finally, Archbishop Bergoglio invited his audience to have hope, pointing out that, beyond the plastic smiles and applications of makeup, Lent represents the possibility of real change. And this liturgical time “is not only for us, but also for the transformation of our families, our communities, our Church, our country, and the whole world.” Lent is an opportunity “that God gives us to grow and mature in our encounter with the Lord who is made visible in the face of the suffering of so many children without a future, in the trembling hands of the elderly who have been forgotten, in the feeble knees of many families” who face life “without finding anyone to assist them.”