Unbridled capitalism is the 'dung of the devil', says Pope Francis
The pontiff condemns the impoverishment of developing
countries by the world economic order and apologised for the church’s treatment
of native Americans Pope
Francis has urged the downtrodden to change the world economic order,
denouncing a “new colonialism” by agencies that impose austerity programs and
calling for the poor to have the “sacred rights” of labor, lodging and land.
In one of the longest, most passionate and sweeping speeches
of his pontificate, the Argentine-born pope used his visit to Bolivia to ask
forgiveness for the sins committed by the Roman Catholic church in its treatment
of native Americans during what he called the “so-called conquest of America”.
The pontiff also demanded an immediate end to what he called
the “genocide” of Christians taking place in the Middle East and beyond,
describing it as a third world war. “Today we are dismayed to see how in the Middle East and
elsewhere in the world many of our brothers and sisters are persecuted,
tortured and killed for their faith in Jesus,” Pope Francis said. “In this third world war, waged piecemeal, which we are now
experiencing, a form of genocide is taking place, and it must end.” Quoting a fourth century bishop, he called the unfettered
pursuit of money “the dung of the devil”, and said poor countries should not be
reduced to being providers of raw material and cheap labour for developed
countries.
Repeating some of the themes of his landmark
encyclical Laudato Si on the environment last month, Francis said time
was running out to save the planet from perhaps irreversible harm to the
ecosystem. Francis made the address in the city of Santa Cruz to
participants of the second world meeting of popular movements, an international
body that brings together organisations of people on the margins of society,
including the poor, the unemployed and peasants who have lost their land. The
Vatican hosted the first meeting last year. He said he supported their efforts to obtain “so elementary
and undeniably necessary a right as that of the three “Ls”: land, lodging and
labour”.
His speech was preceded by lengthy remarks from the
left-wing Bolivian president Evo Morales, who wore a
jacket adorned with the face of Argentine revolutionary Ernesto “Che” Guevara.
He was executed in Bolivia in 1967 by CIA-backed Bolivian troops. “Let us not be afraid to say it: we want change, real
change, structural change,” the pope said, decrying a system that “has imposed
the mentality of profit at any price, with no concern for social exclusion or
the destruction of nature”.
“This system is by now intolerable: farm workers find it
intolerable, labourers find it intolerable, communities find it intolerable,
peoples find it intolerable. The earth itself – our sister, Mother Earth, as
Saint Francis would say – also finds it intolerable,” he said in an hour-long
speech that was interrupted by applause and cheering dozens of times. Since his election in 2013, the first pope from Latin
America has often spoken out in defence of the poor and against unbridled
capitalism but the speech in Santa Cruz was the most comprehensive to date on
the issues he has championed.
Francis’ previous attacks on capitalism have prompted stiff
criticism from politicians and commentators in the United States, where he is
due to visit in September. The pontiff appeared to take a swipe at international
monetary organisations such as the IMF and the development aid policies by some
developed countries. “No actual or established power has the right to deprive
peoples of the full exercise of their sovereignty. Whenever they do so, we see
the rise of new forms of colonialism which seriously prejudice the possibility
of peace and justice,” he said.
“The new colonialism takes on different faces. At times it
appears as the anonymous influence of mammon: corporations, loan agencies,
certain ‘free trade’ treaties, and the imposition of measures of ‘austerity’
which always tighten the belt of workers and the poor,” he said. Last week, Francis called on European authorities to keep
human dignity at the centre of debate for a solution to the economic crisis in
Greece.
He defended labor unions and praised poor people who had
formed cooperatives to create jobs where previously “there were only crumbs of
an idolatrous economy”. In one of the sections on colonialism, he said: “I say this
to you with regret: many grave sins were committed against the native peoples
of America in the name of God.” He added: “I humbly ask forgiveness, not only for the
offences of the church herself, but also for crimes committed against the
native peoples during the so-called conquest of America. “There was sin and an abundant amount of it.”
The audience gave Francis a standing ovation when he put on
a yellow miner’s hat that was given to him at the end of his speech. The pope made his speech at the end of his first full day in
Bolivia, where he arrived on Wednesday. On Thursday morning he said a mass for
hundreds of thousands of people and said that everyone had a moral duty to help
the poor, and that those with means could not wish they would just “go away”. Francis praised Bolivia’s social reforms to spread wealth
under Morales. On Friday, he will visit Bolivia’s notoriously violent Palmasola
prison.
The pope looked
bemused on Wednesday night when Morales handed him one of the more
unusual gifts he has received: a sculpted wooden hammer and sickle – the symbol
of communism – with a figure of a crucified Christ resting on the hammer. Francis leaves on Friday for Paraguay, the last stop on his “homecoming” trip.
