By Wendy Faunce
While visiting the Mediterranean
island Sardinia on Sunday, Pope Francis spoke to numerous people suffering the
consequences of unemployment. This crowd of 20,000, young and old, was
cynically juxtaposed with an area populated with the mansions of public
officials and Hollywood stars. Pope Francis set aside his prepared speech after
listening to crowd member Francesco Mattana, a 45-year-old father of three who lost
his job with an alternative energy company four years ago. This story of
struggle prompted the Pope to eventually say, "The world has become an
idolator of this god called money."
Articles like this one paint the Pope as
a controversial critic of the global economy. But is what he said really that
radical?
Generally speaking, our economic system does seem to prefer what's fast, cheap, and easy over
what's beneficial, fair, and well-crafted. This is evident in our culture: fast food,
oppressive labor, etc.
"We don't want
this globalized economic system which does us so much harm. Men and women
have to be at the center (of an economic system) as God wants, not
money," Pope Francis said. Who can argue with this? Of course harm is done when money is deemed more important than the people in an economic system. This is the ideology that
made the crash of ’08 possible.
Yes, Pope Francis was harsh on the economy.
But shouldn’t we all be?
No comments:
Post a Comment