{"id":107282,"date":"2020-10-04T17:03:37","date_gmt":"2020-10-05T00:03:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=107282"},"modified":"2020-10-04T17:04:26","modified_gmt":"2020-10-05T00:04:26","slug":"pope-market-capitalism-has-failed-in-pandemic-needs-reform","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2020\/10\/04\/pope-market-capitalism-has-failed-in-pandemic-needs-reform\/","title":{"rendered":"Pope: Market capitalism has failed in pandemic, needs reform"},"content":{"rendered":"

Courtesy BPS News Hour<\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n

ROME \u2014 Pope Francis says the coronavirus pandemic has proven that the magic theories\u201d of market capitalism have failed and that the world needs a new type of politics that promotes dialogue and solidarity and rejects war at all costs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Francis on Sunday laid out his vision for a post-COVID world by uniting the core elements of his social teachings into a new encyclical aimed at inspiring a revived sense of the human family. Fratelli Tutti\u201d (Brothers All) was released on the feast day of his namesake, the peace-loving St. Francis of Assisi.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The document draws its inspiration from the teachings of St. Francis and the pope\u2019s previous preaching on the injustices of the global economy and its destruction of the planet<\/a> and pairs them with his call for greater human solidarity to confront the dark clouds over a closed world.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the encyclical, Francis rejected even the Catholic Church\u2019s own doctrine justifying war as a means of legitimate defense, saying it had been too broadly applied over the centuries and was no longer viable.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is very difficult nowadays to invoke the rational criteria elaborated in earlier centuries to speak of the possibility of a \u2018just war,\u2019\u201d Francis wrote in the most controversial new element of the encyclical.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Francis had started writing the encyclical, the third of his pontificate, before the coronavirus struck and its bleak diagnosis of a human family falling apart goes far beyond the problems posed by the outbreak. He said the pandemic, however, had confirmed his belief that current political and economic institutions must be reformed to address the legitimate needs of the people most harmed by the coronavirus.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The front page of the Vatican newspaper, L\u2019Osservatore Romano shows Pope Francis with his latest encyclical titled Fratelli Tutti\u201d (Brothers All) at the Vatican, October 4, 2020. Photo by Remo Casilli\/Reuters.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Aside from the differing ways that various countries responded to the crisis, their inability to work together became quite evident,\u201d Francis wrote. Anyone who thinks that the only lesson to be learned was the need to improve what we were already doing, or to refine existing systems and regulations, is denying reality.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He cited the grave loss of millions of jobs as a result of the virus as evidence of the need for politicians to listen to popular movements, unions and marginalized groups and to craft more just social and economic policies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The fragility of world systems in the face of the pandemic has demonstrated that not everything can be resolved by market freedom,\u201d he wrote. It is imperative to have a proactive economic policy directed at \u2018promoting an economy that favours productive diversity and business creativity\u2019 and makes it possible for jobs to be created, and not cut.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He denounced populist politics that seek to demonize and isolate, and called for a culture of encounter\u201d that promotes dialogue, solidarity and a sincere effort at working for the common good.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As an outgrowth of that, Francis rejected the concept of an absolute right to property for individuals, stressing instead the social purpose\u201d and common good that must come from sharing the Earth\u2019s resources. He repeated his criticism of the perverse\u201d global economic system, which he said consistently keeps the poor on the margins while enriching the few \u2014 an argument he made most fully in his 2015 landmark environmental encyclical Laudato Sii\u201d (Praised Be).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Francis also rejected trickle-down\u201d economic theory <\/a>as he did in the first major mission statement of his papacy, the 2013 Evangelii Gaudium, (The Joy of the Gospel), saying it simply doesn\u2019t achieve what it claims.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Neo-liberalism simply reproduces itself by resorting to magic theories of \u2018spillover\u2019 or \u2018trickle\u2019 \u2014 without using the name \u2014 as the only solution to societal problems,\u201d he wrote. There is little appreciation of the fact that the alleged \u2018spillover\u2019 does not resolve the inequality that gives rise to new forms of violence threatening the fabric of society.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Francis\u2019 English-language biographer, Austen Ivereigh, said with its two key predecessors, the new encyclical amounts to the final part of a triptych of papal teachings and may well be the last of the pontificate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There is little doubt that these three documents \u2026 will be considered the teaching backbone of the Francis era,\u201d Ivereigh wrote in Commonweal magazine.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Francis made clear the text had wide circulation, printing the encyclical in the Vatican newspaper L\u2019Osservatore Romano and distributing it free in St. Peter\u2019s Square on Sunday to mark the resumption of printed editions following a hiatus during the COVID-19 lockdown.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Much of the new encyclical repeats Francis\u2019 well-known preaching about the need to welcome and value migrants and his rejection of the nationalistic, isolationist policies of many of today\u2019s political leaders.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He dedicated an entire chapter to the parable of the Good Samaritan, saying its lesson of charity, kindness and looking out for strangers was the basic decision we need to make in order to rebuild our wounded world.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That a theme so ancient is spoken with such urgency now is because Pope Francis fears a detachment from the view that we are all really responsible for all, all related to all, all entitled to a just share of what has been given for the good of all,\u201d said Anna Rowlands, professor of Catholic social thought at Britain\u2019s University of Durham, who was on hand to present the encyclical Sunday at the Vatican.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Francis enshrined in the encyclical his previous rejection of both the nuclear arms race and <\/a>the death penalty, which he said was inadmissible\u201d in all cases.<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Francis\u2019 call for greater human fraternity,\u201d particularly to promote peace, is derived from his 2019 joint appeal with the grand imam of Egypt\u2019s Al-Azhar, the revered 1,000-year-old seat of Sunni Islam. Their Human Fraternity\u201d document established the relationship between Catholics and Muslims as brothers, with a common mission to promote peace.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The fact the he has now integrated that Catholic-Muslim document into an encyclical is significant, given Francis\u2019 conservative critics had already blasted the Human Fraternity\u201d document as heretical, given it stated that God had willed the pluralism and diversity of religions.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Vatican encyclicals are the most authoritative form of papal teaching and they traditionally take their titles from the first two words of the document. In this case, Fratelli Tutti\u201d is a quote from the Admonitions,\u201d the guidelines penned by St. Francis in the 13th century.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The title of the encyclical had sparked controversy in the English-speaking world<\/a>, with critics noting that a straight translation of the word fratelli\u201d (brothers) excludes women. The Vatican has insisted that the plural form of the word fratelli\u201d is gender-inclusive.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Francis\u2019 decision to sign the document in Assisi, where he travelled on Saturday<\/a>, and release it on the saint\u2019s feast day is yet further evidence of the outsized influence St. Francis has had on the papacy of the Jesuit pope.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Francis is the first pope to name himself after the mendicant friar, who renounced a wealthy, dissolute lifestyle to embrace a life of poverty and service to the poor.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Courtesy BPS News Hour ROME \u2014 Pope Francis says the coronavirus pandemic has proven that the magic theories\u201d of market capitalism have failed and that the world needs a new type of politics that promotes dialogue and solidarity and rejects war at all costs. Francis on Sunday laid out his vision for a post-COVID world […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-107282","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/107282","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=107282"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/107282\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=107282"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=107282"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=107282"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}