“When I give food to the poor, they call me a saint. But when I ask why the poor have no food, they call me a communist.”
—Hélder Câmara, Archbishop of Recife
Today we also have to say “thou shalt not” to an economy of exclusion and inequality. Such an economy kills. How can it be that it is not a news item when an elderly homeless person dies of exposure, but it is news when the stock market loses two points? . . .
Some people continue to defend trickle-down theories which assume that economic growth, encouraged by a free market, will inevitably succeed in bringing about greater justice and inclusiveness in the world. This opinion, which has never been confirmed by the facts, expresses a crude and naïve trust in the goodness of those wielding economic power and in the sacralized workings of the prevailing economic system. Meanwhile, the excluded are still waiting.1
It took a few sentences, a handful of words, a few scant paragraphs in a large and complex document dedicated to evangelization, or rather to the “joy of the gospel.” Pope Francis, eight months after his election to the papacy, after publishing the exhortation Evangelii Gaudium, was branded a Marxist by conservative commentators from the United States. And some time later, The Economist even called him a follower of Lenin for his diagnosis of capitalism and imperialism. Jorge Maria Bergoglio, the Argentinian Jesuit, who—as superior of the Society of Jesus in his country and then as archbishop of Buenos Aires—was known for never having adopted certain extreme theses of liberation theology to the point of being accused of conservatism, found himself compared to the philosopher of Trier and to his many followers—including the architect of the Bolshevik revolution. But even more striking than the crude allegations of Marxism and Leninism are the criticisms and caveats on this issue that began before the publication of the pope’s apostolic exhortation and have persisted ever since. This pope “speaks too much of the poor,” the marginalized, the underprivileged. This “Latin American” pope does not know much about economics. This pope coming “from the end of the world” demonizes capitalism—that is, the only system that allows the poor to be less poor. Not only does this pope make politically incorrect decisions (as when he went to the island of Lampedusa to pray in front of the sea that had become the graveyard of thousands of migrants, desperately searching for hope in Europe, and who instead drowned off the coast of the island), but he also interferes in matters that are none of his business, thus revealing himself to be a “pauperist.”2 The Italian newspaper Il Foglio, which during Benedict XVI’s pontificate was known as Il Soglio (The See of Peter), even went so far as to call the Argentinian pope’s words “heretical” and find him “guilty” of referring to the poor and the suffering as “the flesh of Christ.” This was after embracing and blessing, for an hour and in silence, seriously ill children and young people in Assisi.
However, what is most surprising is not so much the shallowness of the allegations, but rather the apparent oblivion in which a substantial part of the great tradition of the church has fallen—a tradition that spans the church fathers to the magisterium of Pope Pius XI, born Achille Ratti, hardly a modernist or progressive.
For certain establishments and in certain circles, it is acceptable to speak of the poor, as long as it is done infrequently and especially as long as it is done in ways that are welcome in certain spheres. A bit of charity mixed with good feelings is fine. It helps to appease the conscience. Just do not overdo it. And, above all, do not dare to question the system—a system that, according to many Catholics, is the best of all worlds for the marginalized because it teaches the “right” theories. The wealthier the rich become, the better it is for the poor. This system has even become dogma in some Catholic circles, like other truths of faith. As a certain adage goes: Christianity is freedom, freedom is free enterprise (and, therefore, capitalism); hence, capitalism is Christianity in action. And of course we should not quibble about the fact that we live in an economy that has little or nothing to do with capitalism, as its connection with the so-called “real economy” is almost nil. The financial bubble, speculation, the stock market indices, the fact that the oscillation of those indices can hurl entire populations below the poverty line as it suddenly pushes up the price of some raw materials—all these are realities that we are asked to accept in the same way as the “side effects” of the “smart” wars of this last generation. Not only do we have to accept them, we also have to stay silent. Dogma is dogma, and whoever calls it into question is, at best, an idealist—or, worse, a dissident. Yes, because even before the catastrophe of the economic and financial crisis of recent years, all that the church, and Catholics more generally, are allowed to do is to make some appeals for more ethics. True, finance needs ethics! Those who operate in those spheres ought to have well fixed in mind the principles of natural morality, better still, of Christian morals. Without ethics, the world, we can see it for ourselves, is falling apart. But be careful not to go any further. Never try to lift a finger or to say that the emperor is naked; never put into question the sustainability of the current system. Never wonder whether it is right that those who die of hunger or cold, whether in Africa or in the streets below our houses, make less news than when the stock market loses two points, as it has often been observed by the man who sits on the throne of Peter today. Then you are called a “Marxist,” a “pauperist,” a poor dreamer from the end of the world, who needs to be “catechized” by those who, here in the West, know everything of how the world and the church go, and are just waiting to be able to teach it to you.
That certain comments are made by financial commentators and journalists, or members of the tea party movement in the United States, is not surprising, and in fact does not surprise anyone. We could almost say that it is normal. Much more surprising, however, is that their comments are endorsed in some sectors of the Catholic world. The same sectors that in recent decades have been nothing short of selective in looking at the heritage of the church’s magisterium, carefully picking and choosing what values to embrace also in the public arena. The issues of poverty, social justice, and marginalization, have become the competence of the “Catholic-communists” and the “pauperists,” to use two denigratory labels. Or “statists,” a label which in some circles defines those who still believe that politics should have a regulating and supervisory role, so that those who have less are protected. Thus, not only the theological value of love of the poor, as attested in Jesus’ words, is ignored, but a whole tradition of social teaching is dismissed; a tradition that in past years had been far more extreme and radical on these issues than the feeble voice of some contemporary Catholic groups.
In this context, certain allusions and tones hit a wrong note, or are considered even subversive, as those in the following passage:
Do you want to honor Christ’s body? Then do not scorn him in his nakedness, nor honor him here in the church with silken garments while neglecting him outside where he is cold and naked. For he who said: “This is my body,” and made it so by his words, also said: “You saw me hungry and did not feed me” and “inasmuch as you did not do it for the least of my brothers, you did not do it for me.” What we do here in the church requires a pure heart, not special garments; what we do outside requires great dedication.
Let us learn, therefore, to be men of wisdom and to honor Christ as he desires. For a person being honored finds greatest pleasure in the honor he desires, not in the honor we think best. Peter thought he was honoring Christ when he refused to let him wash his feet; but what Peter wanted was not truly an honor, quite the opposite! Give him the honor prescribed in his law by giving your riches to the poor. For God does not want golden vessels but golden hearts.
Or like this other one:
In the first place, it is obvious that not only is wealth concentrated in our times but an immense power and despotic economic dictatorship is consolidated in the hands of a few, who often are not owners but only the trustees and managing directors of invested funds which they administer according to their own arbitrary will and pleasure. This dictatorship is being most forcibly exercised by those who, since they hold the money and completely control it, control credit also and rule the lending of money. Hence they regulate the flow, so to speak, of the lifeblood whereby the entire economic system lives, and have so firmly in their grasp the soul, as it were, of economic life that no one can breathe against their will.”
These words were written neither by liberation theologians from Latin America nor by their European inspirers. Neither were they written by heretical thinkers targeted by the former Holy Office for their revolutionary ideas. They are not an expression of postconciliar progressivism, Catholic communism, or theological “pauperism.”3 Nor are they words spoken by rebel Sandinista priests. The first is a quotation from a homily on the Gospel of Matthew by the church father St. John Chrysostom, also known as John of Antioch, second patriarch of Constantinople, who lived from 344 to 407 CE, is venerated as a saint by both Catholics and Orthodox, and is recognized as one of the thirty-five Doctors of the Church. The second is a quote from Pope Pius XI’s encyclical Quadragesimo Anno, published during the Great Depression in 1931, in which the courageous pontiff from Brianza railed against the “deadly and accursed internationalism of finance or international imperialism.”
Why do these words sound so upsetting, to the point of being considered, at least from an Italian political perspective, too far to the left even for today’s leftists? Why do assessments as clear and precise as the one formulated in Pius XI’s encyclical—albeit tied to a specific historical moment, but nevertheless clearly prophetic and very suitable also to the present situation—sound light-years away from the proliferation of words repeated by those who are engaged in politics on the basis of certain Catholic values and affiliations? Why have so many experts, those engaged in the “defense of Christian values” in contemporary Italy after the end of the Christian Democratic party—the universal party of Italian Catholics built at the end of the war from the ashes of the People’s Popular Party and active until the beginning of the 1990s—not been able to do anything more than to continue to propose new versions of the antiquated “Gentiloni Pact,” thus completely conceding to certain other political parties in exchange for the promise that some values would not be put into question? Why has the tradition of the social teaching of the church, and of post-war political Catholicism, been so readily dismissed? What happened? What made the words of great saints and popes, certainly beyond any suspicion of Marxism, so upsetting to some contemporary Catholic groups?
These are some of the questions that emerge in light of the criticisms directed toward Pope Francis. His insistence on these issues, his repeating that the “protocol” on which we will be judged is to be found in Jesus’ words in Matthew 25, and his reference to the poor as “flesh of Christ” has upset many. And they have angered not only some well-meaning proponents of a law-and-order type of religion but also some self-appointed teachers of orthodoxy, so well-informed and knowledgeable as to feel more than qualified to judge sarcastically every comma of the pope’s magisterium. Francis’s words have also questioned the supposed certainties of those who have grown up believing that to talk about fighting poverty—and to be concretely committed to end poverty—is essentially “not very Catholic.” These are the same people who have been raised thinking that the fight against poverty is, after all, a pauperistic or old Marxist inclination. In other words, they think that the fight against poverty has to do with a certain ideology, a legacy of the last followers of Marx and communism, or something good only for Christian idealists out of touch with reality and still fascinated by wolves (strictly red) in sheep’s clothing. In short, they see this fight against poverty as something good only for those poor dreamers of fair trade or ethical banks.
The impression that one gets from Francis’s words is that one of the most important aspects of his pontificate will be decided on these issues. Another impression is that there are specific interests at work to make people believe that the discussion, debate, and at times the confrontation are on other issues—for example, on doctrinal matters. And so we squabble, counting on our fingers how many times the pope spoke of the defense of the life of the unborn, or taking account of the possibility, under certain conditions, of readmission of the divorced and remarried Catholics to the sacraments.
The fact that to the See of Peter has been elected a pope who has never professed the ideology of liberation theology but who knows firsthand the disasters of a certain type of capitalism has been extraordinary in itself. Many are troubled when Francis speaks so often of poverty and criticizes the idolatry of money on which our societies, with ever more limited sovereignty, seem increasingly founded. The extreme reaction with which certain circles, including Catholic ones, intervene to quell the debate and sometimes ridicule—for example, in the United States—bishops who dare to raise their voice on social issues, immigration, and poverty give a glimpse of the anxiety that possible change can create. An anxiety emerging from the election of a pope who is reaffirming the social doctrine of the church and whose words seem to call into question the supposed “holy alliance” with certain forms of capitalism, which many thought was by now indisputable.
What, then, do these allegations against the pope mean? What are the reasons for his interventions on these issues? And what does his biography, his episcopate in Buenos Aires—the capital of a country that has experienced a dramatic financial depression at the dawn of the third millennium—tell us? Do his words, and those of the social doctrine of the church, have something to say to our economic and financial systems? These are some of the questions that we seek to address in depth within the pages of this book. A book that, in our humble intent, attempts to open new questions rather than provide answers in the hope that the pope’s words—here gathered and examined—will inspire everyone to question the world in which we live, its rules, and its systems; to ask what can concretely be done, without unrealistic utopian visions or old ideologies; and to try to change it at least a little—and perhaps for the better.