Calling for solidarity with the neediest in society, the pope concluded his homily by urging his listeners to “see our brothers and sisters with the gaze of the Madonna, she who invites us to be true brothers.”
“May our childlike heart defend it from so many windbags who promise illusions, from those who avidly look for an easy life, from promises that cannot be fulfilled.”
See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the wilderness and streams in the wasteland.”
— Isaiah 43: 19
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“We don’t want this globalized economic system that does us so much harm. At its center there should be man and woman, as God wants, and not money.”
— Pope Francis
So I started an ongoing series of “Noon Wine” reflections on what the bible says about poverty and the poor some time ago–before Pope Francis started prophetically calling attention to the poor–and longtime readers here know that my calling to ordained ministry has always been primarily about ministry with the poor.
It’s one reason I moved to Belize last year–to live a simple life among very simple people in a country where unemployment runs about 50 percent and the minimum wage for the scarce number of real jobs is $3.10 U.S. an hour.
It’s a country where–on the other side of its paradise of landscapes and seascapes that attract the rich and famous–only 35 percent of the children who start primary school graduate from high school. Most families simply cannot afford to send their children on to high school, which is not mandatory.
That 35 percent figure figures, since about a third of the country’s people are professionals and business owners and privileged people who do well in life and can get their kids through school and on to college or work in the family business. But the vast majority of Belizeans can’t afford the high cost of required tuition, fees, books, supplies and uniforms to send their kids on to high school, much less to college or trade school.
It’s a country where the ministers in charge of government live in luxurious castles–one powerful politico here patterned his house on a mountaintop after America’s White House. A former Prime Minister robbed the treasury, literally by the hundreds of millions, without prosecution, and is still the voice of the party that’s on the outs in the two-party system here..
The rich and the powerful get theirs, and enough for their families and supporters, first. There’s not much “trickle-down” to the masses.
Of course, that’s such an old, old story–the rich and powerful get richer and more powerful; the poor get the cake. And we’re seeing that old story played out around the world like never before as the gap between rich and poor, even in the U.S., widens every day.
* * * *
All this is to say that Pope Francis is a man after my own Wesleyan Methodist heart. God is doing a new thing under this servant-leader, who, I’m now convinced, genuinely lives by the gospel and answers only to God–and never mind the critics who don’t understand that the gospel is so largely about sharing power with, not wielding power over, the poor.
Pope Francis is in no way concerned about what’s politically correct; only about what is “gospelly correct.”
It seems to me that God, who always seems to send prophets and saints just when the world needs them, has sent him to speak to the greedy world just in time. We can only hope and pray that the rich and powerful and all of us in an age of Global, I-Me-Mine Economics will pay heed.
Pope, in Sardinia, denounces globalization and unemployment
By Francis X. Rocca
Catholic News Service
VATICAN CITY (CNS) — Visiting an Italian region especially hard hit by the European economic crisis, Pope Francis blamed high unemployment on globalization driven by greed and said those who give charitable aid to the poor must treat their beneficiaries with dignity.
“We want a just system, a system that lets all of us get ahead,” the pope said Sept. 22, in his first address during a full day on the Italian island of Sardinia. “We don’t want this globalized economic system that does us so much harm. At its center there should be man and woman, as God wants, and not money.”
Sardinia has an overall unemployment rate of nearly 20 percent, rising to nearly 50 percent among young adults.
Before speaking to a crowd of about 20,000 near the Cagliari city port, Pope Francis heard a series of speeches in greeting, including one from an unemployed father of three, who spoke of how joblessness “wears you out to the depths of your soul.”
In response, the pope discarded his prepared remarks and told his audience what he said “comes to me in my heart seeing you in this moment.”
Pope Francis recalled the struggles of his immigrant Italian father in 1930s Argentina.
“They lost everything. There was no work,” he said. “I was not born yet, but I heard them speak about this suffering at home. I know this well. But I must tell you: courage.”
The pope emphasized the need for “dignified work,” lamenting that crisis had led to an increase in “inhumane work, slave labor, work without fitting security or without respect for creation.”
The pope said he knew that his preaching alone would mean little to those in difficulty.
“I must do everything I can so that this word ‘courage’ is not a pretty fleeting word, not only the smile of (a) cordial church employee,” he said. “I want this courage to come out from inside and push me to do all I can as a pastor, as a man. We must all face this historic challenge with solidarity and intelligence.”
The pope said that the current economic crisis was the “consequence of a global choice, of an economic system that led to this tragedy, an economic system centered on an idol, which is called money.”
In his undelivered remarks, which the pope said should be considered “as if they had been spoken,” he thanked those entrepreneurs who, “in spite of everything, have not ceased to commit themselves, to invest and take risks to guarantee employment.”
The pope emphasized the need for “dignified work,” lamenting that that crisis had led to an increase in “inhumane work, slave labor, work without fitting security or without respect for creation.”
Pope Francis said that a commitment to the natural environment could actually stimulate job creation in fields such as energy, environmental protection and forestry.
The pope celebrated Sunday Mass in a square outside the Sanctuary of Our Lady of Bonaria, the namesake of his native city of Buenos Aires. Pope Francis originally announced his trip to Sardinia to venerate the statue of Mary there.
Calling for solidarity with the neediest in society, the pope concluded his homily by urging his listeners to “see our brothers and sisters with the gaze of the Madonna, she who invites us to be true brothers.”
He prayed to Mary to “give us your gaze, may no one hide it from us. May our childlike heart defend it from so many windbags who promise illusions, from those who avidly look for an easy life, from promises that cannot be fulfilled.”
“Charity is not simply welfare, much less welfare to soothe one’s conscience,” he said. “That’s not love, right? It’s business, a transaction. Love is free.
“Sometimes one finds arrogance, too, in those who serve the poor,” the pope said.
At an afternoon gathering with poor people and prisoners who had been taken to the Cagliari cathedral, Pope Francis had strong words for those who practice charity in the wrong spirit.
“Charity is not simply welfare, much less welfare to soothe one’s conscience,” he said. “That’s not love, right? It’s business, a transaction. Love is free.
“Sometimes one finds arrogance, too, in those who serve the poor,” the pope said. “Some make themselves pretty, they fill their mouths with the poor; some exploit the poor in their own interests or those of their group.
“This is a grave sin, because it means using the needy, those in need, who are the flesh of Jesus, for my vanity,” the pope said. “It would be better for these people to stay home.”
In this image from July, Pope Francis embraces a patient at St. Francis of Assisi Hospital in Rio De Janeiro. The pontiff addressed a group of recovering drug addicts, offering them a message of compassion and hope. (photo:CNS/L’Osservatore Romano).
Some of the media reports before his ordination were very wrong. I am becoming more and more impressed with this man’s open mind.
He’s certainly more broad-minded and not so narrow but what’s really impressive is what a great pastor he is to the people first, the pope second. Always hugging or washing the feet of some addict or poor or disabled or elderly person–even Muslims. Just sees everybody as a child of God, which is most impressive and so true to the gospel. He’s already a history maker and has only just begun. Ought to be very interesting.
Melissa and I watched something the other night about the new Pope and he seems to be a breath of fresh air. He thinks outside of the box, which sadly should be inside of it.
Love the blog Paul.
Thanks.