The need to resolve the structural causes of poverty cannot be delayed, not only for the pragmatic reason of its urgency for the good order of society, but because society needs to be cured of a sickness which is weakening and frustrating it, and which can only lead to new crises.
—Pope Francis, Evangelii Gaudium
“Markets and financial speculation cannot enjoy absolute autonomy,” says Pope Francis in the interview published in the preceding pages. “Without a solution to the problems of the poor, we will not be able to find a solution for the world’s problems.” In continuity with the tradition of the social doctrine of the church, and without neglecting some of its most significant and prophetic pages, Francis tells us that if we do not solve the problems of the poor by, on the one hand, giving up the absolute autonomy of markets and financial speculation and, on the other, attacking the structural causes of inequality, “no solution will be found for the world’s problems or, for that matter, to any problems.” Because “inequality is the root of social ills.”
The critical tone of the pope’s exhortation Evangelii Gaudium and that of other documents of his magisterium has had great media coverage and sparked, as we have seen, many reactions.
It is worth mentioning again, at the end of our journey, that at the heart of Francis’s programmatic document there is the “pastoral conversion” of a church struggling for renewal and openness to the outer world in order to proclaim to all the joy of the gospel. Evangelii Gaudium is most of all an exhortation that does not have the intention to systematize a thought, let alone an economic one, but it realistically points to some of the evils that are there for everyone to see, as it wants to promote a transformation of the church and of Christians. Therefore, we cannot separate the social and economic passages of Evangelii Gaudium from its overall message. Examining the homilies of the church fathers with a clear social message, Wendy Mayer notes that beyond the primary recipients there is always an evangelizing purpose in those homilies. “According to the church fathers,” writes Jesuit Fr. Diego Alonso-Lasheras, “a serious engagement of Christians in the social world would not only be advantageous, as it would allow them to live their faith more deeply, but it would also have a missiological and evangelizing effect on non-Christians. With Evangelii Gaudium, Francis is going in the same direction, and to that effect he wants the whole church to experience the joy of evangelizing—in the social sphere and, consequently, in economic relations as well.”1
As it often happens, even in the case of this papal document, most of the attention went to the more openly critical passages—if only because none of today’s world leaders seem really interested in putting their finger on the problem of poverty and inequality and inquiring into its causes and possible solutions—at the expense of the more proactive ones(e.g., those paragraphs that directly call Christians to strive to improve the land they inhabit as part of humanity’s common home). It is for this reason that Francis recalled the statement made by Paul VI’s apostolic letter Octogesima Adveniens, when he says that it is up to Christian communities to speak in their own particular voices as they face different situations, analyzing objectively the social circumstances in which they live in order to look at them in the light of the gospel. It is a much-needed reminder. On many of the most recent issues in the contemporary debate—for example, the problem of speculative finance in relation to the current crisis—we hardly ever hear of reflections and proposals coming from Christian communities. Perhaps this is due, as is the case in Italy, to the increasingly marginal role played by the episcopal heirarchy in the last decades.
“The dignity of each human person and the pursuit of the common good,” as stated in Evangelii Gaudium, “are concerns which ought to shape all economic policies. At times, however, they seem to be a mere addendum imported from without in order to fill out a political discourse lacking in perspectives or plans for true and integral development.” Growth in justice “requires more than economic growth, while presupposing such growth: it requires decisions, programmes, mechanisms and processes specifically geared to a better distribution of income, the creation of sources of employment and an integral promotion of the poor which goes beyond a simple welfare mentality.” In short, it requires men and women who look to the future, who are committed to pursue the common good and whose goal is not just the next election campaign. It requires men and women who not only look at the spread and stock market indices as indicators of the health of a country but inquire whether the younger generations have a job, a future, and hope; whether children have kindergartens and schools that can educate them by introducing them to reality; whether couples have the opportunity to buy a house; whether there are effective welfare programs available for the elderly; and whether those who still bet on the future by putting children into the world are justly taxed, rather than penalized. It requires men and women who are engaged in politics and work in institutions without corrupting themselves or letting others corrupt them, even managing perhaps to revive a minimum of esteem (which has never been so in decline) for that “highest form of charity”—that is, politics—inasmuch as it is exclusively committed to the common good and to the real lives of people, with special attention and dedication to those in difficulty, those left behind, those who are excluded and should instead be included.
We will now recall those principles, already mentioned and discussed at the end of chapter 4, and that Pope Francis has repeatedly mentioned and discussed. First, time is greater than space. This means that we need to work on the long term, focusing on processes rather than occupying spaces of power, giving priority to new social initiatives involving other people and other groups that will make them their own and carry them forward. Second, unity prevails over conflict. This means that conflicts inevitably emerge, and when they do, they should be managed by resolving them in a new synthesis of diversity. Third, realities are more important than ideas. This is a principle as timely as ever in a world that still pays the price of various ideologies that have imposed their categories on reality instead of starting from it. Imposing abstract ideas, models, and strategies can corrupt politics as well as the economy, ending in irrationality, lack of common sense, and being out of touch with the experience of ordinary people. Fourth, and last, the whole is greater than the part. “With this principle,” explained Fr. Alonso-Lasheras, “the pope wants to prevent us from falling into two possible extremes: on the one hand, an abstract and globalized universalism; on the other, a folkloristic localism incapable of being challenged by what is new and different.”2
Francis has proposed these principles in an evangelical key, but they can also apply to the economy and the economic sciences. “The economy and the economic sciences,” continues Fr. Alonso-Lasheras in his reflections on Evangelii Gaudium,
are invited to not lose sight of their ability to initiate processes that can include more and more people in the economy; an economy that must increasingly and more efficiently provide the necessary means for a decent life to as many people as possible. The economy and the economic sciences are invited to see the profound unity of economic processes that must prevail over conflict and competition. The market is not only the place where producers, sellers, and consumers enter into competition. The market is also an expression of a community that enables and supports the economic performance; the community is a moral-ecological niche that sustains the life of a legal and economic institution like that of the market. The economy and the economic sciences are invited to build a discourse in which economic ideas are always in dialogue with reality, instead of concealing it; economic ideas that engage, and not just classify and define; economic ideas that take into account the life and the economic rationality of real people. Finally, the economy and the economic sciences are invited to hold together globalization and localization, sinking the roots of economic activity in the fertile soil of its own history and its own native place, both intended as gifts of God but with an open outlook toward a global economy.
This final invitation questions primarily those dealing specifically with the economy, those who work in the markets, and those who manage them. But it also addresses politicians, who cannot inertly continue to twiddle their thumbs, remaining submissive to economic and financial mechanisms and continuing to be ruled by the markets rather than govern for the good of the citizens and the real people. And, finally, it is a call to all Christians and to all those of goodwill, so they may come out of their “bubbles” of indifference, get involved in the life of their communities, and find the courage to ask their political leaders for commitment and wide-ranging projects in an attempt to build, for those who live today and for future generations, a more just and inclusive society.