As the world gets to know Pope Francis, much of the early focus
has been on his humility and simplicity. It’s a counter-intuitive
tale of one of Latin America’s most significant bishops living in
modest lodgings, cooking his own meals, and riding the crowded
public transportation system in Buenos Aires. Even the small but
telling gesture of paying his own hotel bill after the Vatican
conclave drew media attention.
As a priest and archbishop he went into the poorest parts of
Argentina to minister to the people. He said this in a 2008 homily:
“Today the place for Christ is in the street… The Lord wants us
like Him; with an open heart, roaming the streets of Buenos Aires
and carrying his message!”
His vision of engagement with the poor runs deep. Pope Francis
has spoken eloquently about the need to treat poor people as
“subjects” and not mere “objects” of the state or the economy. In a
presentation in September 2009 titled Las
Deudas Sociales (Social Debts/Obligations), Cardinal
Bergoglio said:
[W]e cannot truly respond to the challenge of eradicating
exclusion and poverty if the poor continue to be objects, targets
of action by the state and other organizations in a paternalistic
and aid-based sense (asistencialista), instead of
subjects, [in an environment] where the state and society create
social conditions that promote and safeguard their rights and allow
them to build their own destiny.
Here he identifies a core insight in how we should engage with
the poor — as partners always remembering that they are the
protagonists of their own development. Poor countries are not a
place for experiments by government technocrats or international
agencies. The main question is not how we can solve poverty, but
instead, what are the foundations that allow people in the
developing world to create prosperity for their families and
communities so they can flourish as human beings.
Pope Francis has also emphasized the moral foundations of the
economy. As Cardinal Archbishop of Buenos Aires, he spoke about the
social nature of the economy and stressed that it must be grounded
in morality that puts the human person, and not profit or economic
growth, at the center:
The Church’s social doctrine holds that it is possible to live
in authentic human relationships of friendship and sociability, in
solidarity and reciprocity within economic activity, and not only
outside it or “after” it. The economic sector is not ethically
neutral, inhumane or antisocial by nature. It is an activity of
man, and precisely because it is human, it has to be articulated
and institutionalized ethically.
Here Francis underscores a truth too often obscured. People tend
to think of economics in mathematical terms, divorced from ethical
concerns. But this is a misunderstanding. Economics is the study of
human interaction in the marketplace, and human beings are moral
agents, thus economics has an intrinsic moral dimension. When
economic decisions and policies are made in an ethical vacuum, when
economic thinking is guided by the simplistic fiction of man as a
radical individual or a utility maximizer (homo
economicus), when the moral and psychological complexity of
homo sapiens is thus eclipsed, it is bad for society in
general, and acutely bad for the poor in particular.
It is also noteworthy how Francis highlighted the social nature
of markets. We can be inclined to equate markets with images of
pinstriped bankers on Wall Street smoking cigars, but markets are
much more than that. Markets are networks of human relationships
where people come together to meet needs and solve the problems
nearest to them, and support their families and communities.
Thus, the goal of development as it’s understood by the Catholic
Church is not simply boosting GDP but, as Benedict XVI and John
Paul II emphasized, human flourishing — growth that allows people
to live according to their dignity as persons created in the image
of God, with an eternal destiny.
And this is the vision of Pope Francis, which rejects any path
that reduces the poor to “objects” or “targets.”
(The translation of Francis’ works are by the Acton
Institute.)
Photo: UPI
