The common good requires the social well-being. . . . Development is the epitome of all social duties. Certainly, it is the proper function of authority to arbitrate, in the name of the common good, between various particular interests; but it should make accessible to each what is needed to lead a truly human life: food, clothing, health, work, education and culture, suitable information, the right to establish a family, and so on.
—Catechism of the Catholic Church, no. 1908
“The social state of right and, in particular, the fundamental right to employment should not be dismantled.” In his speech to the participants in the plenary assembly of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, led by Cardinal Peter Turkson and held in the Clementine Hall of the Apostolic Palace on October 2, 2014, Francis offered a glimpse of his social gospel. “[The social state of right] is a fundamental good in regard to dignity, to the formation of a family, to the realization of the common good and of peace,” and for the pope, it “cannot be considered a variable dependent on financial and monetary markets.”1
The pope also recalled that the plenary assembly of the Pontifical Council, “coincides with the fifth anniversary of the promulgation of the encyclical Caritas in Veritate, a fundamental document for the evangelization of society, which offers valuable guidelines for the presence of Catholics in society, in institutions, in the economy, in finance and in politics. Caritas in Veritate,” continued Francis, “called attention to the benefits but also the dangers of globalization, when it is not oriented to the good of peoples. If globalization has notably increased the aggregate wealth of the whole and of numerous individual States, it has also exacerbated the gap among the various social groups, creating inequality and new poverty in the very countries considered the wealthiest.”
“One of the aspects of today’s economic system,” added the pope, “is the exploitation of the international disparity in labour costs, which weighs on thousands of people who live on less than two dollars a day. This imbalance not only fails to respect the dignity of those who provide low-cost labour, but it destroys the sources of employment in those regions in which it is the most protected. This raises the issue of creating mechanisms for the protection of the right to employment, as well as of the environment, in the presence of a growing consumerist ideology, which does not show responsibility in conflicts with cities and with Creation.” In other words, welfare and labor protection are not variables to be abolished in times of crisis, as is often asserted by some spheres of financial capitalism.
“The growth of inequality and poverty,” said Francis, “undermines inclusive and participatory democracy at risk which always presupposes an economy and an equitable and nonexclusive market. It is a question, therefore, of overcoming the structural causes of inequality and poverty.” Francis then pointed out the “three fundamental instruments for the social inclusion of the most needy: education, access to health care, and employment for all.”
“In other words,” added Francis, “the social state of right and, in particular, the fundamental right to employment should not be dismantled. This cannot be considered a variable dependent on financial and monetary markets. It is a fundamental good in regard to dignity, to the formation of a family, to the realization of the common good and of peace. Education, work and access to health care for all are key elements for development and the just distribution of goods, for the attainment of social justice, for membership in society, and for free and responsible participation in political life.”
Then, Francis stated: “Views that claim to increase profitability, at the cost of restricting the labour market, thereby creating new exclusions, are not in conformity with an economy at the service of man and of the common good, with an inclusive and participatory democracy.”
The pope also addressed the issue of “the persistent inequalities in economic sectors, in wages, in commercial and speculative banks, including institutions and global problems,” adding that “It requires, on one hand, significant reforms that provide for the redistribution of the wealth produced and universalization of free markets at the service of families, and, on the other, the redistribution of sovereignty, on both the national and supranational planes.”
Finally, Pope Francis recalled that Caritas in Veritate called us “to regard the present social issue as an environmental question. In particular, it remarked on the link between environmental ecology and human ecology, between the former and life’s ethics.”
“The principle of Caritas in Veritate is extremely relevant today. A love full of truth,” added Francis, “is in fact the foundation on which to build the peace that is particularly desired and necessary today for the good of all. With this principle, dangerous fanaticisms, conflicts over the possession of resources, migrations of biblical dimensions, unrelenting epidemics of hunger and poverty, human trafficking, social and economic injustices and disparities, and unequal access to collective goods can be overcome.”
These are clear words that leave no room for misunderstandings of interpretation. Bishop Mario Toso, secretary of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, clarifies the proposal launched by Francis in Evangelii Gaudium for “a more inclusive economy.”2 “Globalization,” observed Toso, “has set in motion a process of convergence between the average income of the poorest countries and the richest countries, but at the same time, it has increased the inequalities between different parts of the world population. The two phenomena are the product of the same revolution. The market is becoming globalized while increasing the gaps in schooling levels, and by bringing about intense competition between low cost workers in low-income countries with workers with high wages in high-income countries.” Therefore, we are “going through a long transition that is promising, although problematic and complex, which will hopefully lead from the old world, segmented within national borders, to a new world populated by a single human family.” For this reason, Toso believes that “the economic problem that economists have traditionally dealt with is only one of the dimensions of the problem. We have to ensure that the creation of economic value is environmentally sustainable.”
There is therefore an environmental dimension, in addition to the economic. Francis wants to ensure that there are no “dramatic financial crises” as well as “no disparity between GDP and well-being.” “The apostolic exhortation Evangelii Gaudium,” reiterated Toso, “offers really exciting perspectives, but it should be studied and translated into an economic plan, because distorting interpretations have emerged accusing the pope of Marxism.” Toso added that it is necessary to explain that “the proposal of a ‘more inclusive economy’ does not imply a rejection of the market economy; if anything, it means the valorization of it and of its positive aspects. . . . The ‘economy that kills’ to which Francis alluded—and unfortunately there were many cases of entrepreneurs and laid off workers who committed suicide—is not the whole economy, but one that idolizes money; one that considers work a variable dependent on financial and monetary mechanisms.”3
Andrea Riccardi, founder of the Community of Sant’Egidio and a historian of the modern church and contemporary art, is convinced that Francis wants to “elicit, through preaching, a change in lifestyle and consumption.” Thus “as bishop of Buenos Aires, and now that he is in Rome, the pope opposes the culture of waste.” For Francis “the poor are the heart of Christianity and not an appendage of the Gospel.” As a case in point, at the Angelus of Sunday, August 5, 2014, the pope said that to turn away and feel uncomfortable in the presence of the poor means to follow “the logic of the world.”
“Francis’s gospel is evangelical, not social. Often, in the two thousand year history of the church, the poor and the social question were considered as appendages of Christianity,” says Professor Riccardi. “On the contrary, Pope Francis reiterates that the poor are at the heart of Christianity; so to look the other way is like giving up one’s heart. For Francis, to look to the poor is not exclusivist, but rather the premise of a universal outlook. It is something that we must begin to understand. Not only is war the mother of many forms of poverty, but hunger and poverty are mothers of war and violence.”4
It is an underlying theological choice. “In the poor, Francis sees the presence of Jesus,” claims Riccardi. “To carry out his mission, Francis starts from the poor in a very concrete and not ideological way, and in so doing lashes out against the economic, political, and social systems with prophetic power. In the storm of the crisis in Argentina, he never experienced the ideological temptation of revolutionary Marxism. At the same time, however, Jorge Mario Bergoglio never fell into line with that wing of the church in Argentina that justified inequality and exploitation. Francis is placing a sensitive and compassionate church of Rome on the frontiers of the discomfort.”
Besides, “even before he became bishop, Bergoglio was very sensitive to the poor,” emphasizes the founder of the community of Sant’Egidio. “That stems from the centrality of the gospel message in his life. In the gospel, in fact, the poor, the hungry, have a very significant role,” points out Riccardi. “Francis is the key to understanding the primacy of the human over the economic. Bergoglio has always judged capitalism by its fruits, and it is from this absence of prejudices that Bergoglio gets his freedom from ideology. Through his preaching, he intends to elicit a movement against the consumer culture of waste. In short, as Father Joseph Wresinski titled one of his books, the poor are the church.”
In this way, “Francis demonstrates to an often distracted world public opinion, that the fight against poverty and hunger is a decisive fact and a reality that we constantly have to face. Not only is it an emergency, but, unfortunately, a dramatic constant in the history of our time.”