Page 9 - Reflexions of African Bishops and Priests
P. 9
It is Urgent to End
the Scandal of Poverty
Correcting the Financial System
is Society’s most Urgent Reform
by Alain Pilote “In the 40th Year”, May 15, 1931, n. 109.) That was
in 1931! We are in this audience hall named after
No one can remain indifferent to the problems of Paul VI, and it was Paul VI who, some fifty years
poverty and hunger in the world today. Every day, ago, denounced the “new and abusive form of eco-
an estimated 40,000 children die from hunger and nomic domination on the social, cultural and even
disease simply because there is a lack of money. political level.” (Octogesima Adveniens, “The 80th
Over 1.7 billion people sort through garbage heaps Anniversary”, May 14, 1971, n. 44.)… The entire
in order to survive. Over 100 million children have social doctrine of the Church and the magisterium
been abandoned to live on the streets because par- of my predecessors rejects the idolatry of money
ents could no longer support them. that reigns rather than serves,
The examples abound, but we which tyrannizes and terrorizes
need not go far to see poverty. humanity.”
The problem exists in developed Pope Francis ended his speech
countries and even in our own at the United Nations with com-
backyards. For example, in a large ments taken from his 2013 apostol-
city such as Montreal, Canada, one ic exhortation, Evangelii Gaudium
out of three children go to school (“The Joy of the Gospel”, para-
without having eaten breakfast. graph 202): “As long as the prob-
The Church is not indifferent lems of the poor are not radically
to problems that jeopardize the resolved by rejecting the absolute
salvation of souls, such as world autonomy of markets and finan-
hunger and indebtedness. Espe- cial speculation and by attacking
cially since Pope Leo XIII, and his the structural causes of inequal-
1891 encyclical, Rerum Novarum ity, no solution will be found for
(“Of the New Things”), the Church Pope Francis the world’s problems or, for that
has given us a set of principles we matter, to any problems. Inequal-
have come to know as The Social Doctrine of the ity is the root of social ills.”
Church. Among its many objectives, the Social Doc- In June 2013, Pope Francis wrote to the president
trine calls for reforms of the financial and economic of the G8 Summit, British Prime Minister, David
systems, so that they serve the human person. Hap- Cameron: “Every economic and political theory or
piness in every nation would result from the appli- action must set about providing each inhabitant of
cation of these principles. the planet with the minimum wherewithal to live
Successive pontiffs have drawn our attention in dignity and freedom, with the possibility of sup-
to similar concerns. Pope Francis condemned the porting a family, educating children, praising God
idolatry of money and the rule of the money-god. and developing one’s own human potential. This
In a speech at the third World Meeting of Popular is the main thing; in the absence of such a vision,
Movements, held at the Vatican on November 5, all economic activity is meaningless.”
2016, he said: Other pontiffs wrote similarly concerning the
“There is a basic terrorism that is born of the present economic order. For example, in his first
global control of money on earth, and threatens encyclical, Redemptor Hominis (“The Redeemer of
the entire humanity… Almost a hundred years Man”, March 4, 1979), Pope St. John Paul II points
ago, Pope Pius XI foresaw the rise of a global eco- to: “the indispensable transformations of the
nomic dictatorship that he called the “internation- structures of economic life”, to “poverty amidst
al imperialism of money”. (Quadragesimo Anno, plenty that brings into question the financial and
Louis Even
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