Francis and the world: poverty

COL. Pat Lang, a blogger and a Catholic with whom many Zenpundit readers will also be familiar, liked what he saw in early reports from the Vatican after the new pope’s choice of name was announced, and he had given his first blessing from the balcony:

The name choice is significant. This man rode the bus back to the clerical hotel last night. He rode the bus with his former colleagues and let his limo follow along behind. Once at the hotel, he went to his room, collected his things and went down to the front desk to pay his bill in person. When reminded that he was now the proprietor and need not pay the bill, he said that he wanted to make sure that they all pay their bills. It will be interesting to see how he has the papal apartments decorated or if he lives there at all. Vatican City is a big place, he could live anywhere within it.

COL. Lang also noted that a new pope, inspired by Francis of Assisi, might have a profound impact on the world as a whole:

The possibilities for this man to lead by example on issues of poverty and the spread of the Good News of the gospels is virtually unlimited.

It’s that “virtually unlimited impact” I’d like to investigate here.

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Let’s take a look at some of the things our man has said which may throw further light on his current thinking.

In 2007, the then cardinal archbishop of Buenos Aires said:

We live in the most unequal part of the world, which has grown the most yet reduced misery the least. The unjust distribution of goods persists, creating a situation of social sin that cries out to Heaven and limits the possibilities of a fuller life for so many of our brothers.

As the Australian Lowy Institute for International Policy recently noted:

As a Latin American, he represents the region with the most practising Catholics but also one with vast experience of poverty. A Vatican that is much more vested in addressing poverty might see more concerted Church pressure on developed countries to improve their aid and trade policies and provide more opportunities to developing countries. In a world still beset by financial crises, this kind of advocacy from the leader of the world’s largest faith could prove decisive.

In 2009, the archbishop said:

human rights are violated by unfair economic structures that create huge inequalities

And here’s a little more nuance, from the BBC report of the pope’s first press opportunity since he became pope:

The Pope said he had been inspired to take the name Francis by a Brazilian colleague who embraced him and whispered “don’t forget the poor” when it was announced that he had been elected Pope.

He said he immediately thought of St Francis of Assisi, the Italian founder of the Franciscan Order who was devoted to the poor.

As well as representing poverty and peace, he said St Francis “loved and looked after” creation – and he noted that humanity was “not having a good relationship with nature at the moment”

So there’s a real possibility here that we might see the Catholic Church under the guidance of Pope Francis throwing its not inconsiderable influence behind the teaching of his predecessor’s encyclical on social justice, Caritas in Veritate, in which he declared “Every economic decision has a moral consequence” and “The market is not, and must not become, the place where the strong subdue the weak.”

Could the senior bishops and princes of the church do without their limousines, as Pope Francis himself appears to have done while a cardinal archbishop? I am trying to suggest that there almost certainly are cuts that could be made, and good works of the kind commanded by Christ facilitated as a result:

I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you clothed me, I was sick and you visited me, I was in prison and you came to me. … Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to me.

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Thus far we have been discussing hopes and possibilities in the realm of ideas and ideals. That’s the realm in which good thing begin, but then they have to get grounded, which is where all manner of details — obstacles and irritations, foibles and fumbles and sheer human nature — come in.

And that’s when things begin to get interesting.

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