One of Pope Francis’s closest advisors has said the world’s economic system is founded on a new idolatry.
Speaking in Washington on June 2, Honduran Cardinal Oscar Rodriguez Maradiaga also defended Pope Francis’s critiques of free market capitalism.
Cardinal Maradiaga was speaking at an event titled “Erroneous Autonomy: The Catholic Case Against Libertarianism”.
The cardinal, who heads the so-called “C8” papal advisory panel, critiqued global inaction in the face of poverty around the world.
“A system has been built now as a new idolatry and it’s only the true God that has to be served and not worshipping idols, even if that idol is called market economy . . . or the idol of libertarianism,” the cardinal said.
“The libertarianism deregulation of the market is much to the disadvantage of the poor,” Cardinal Maradiaga continued.
“This economy kills. This is what the Pope is saying.”
Repeatedly citing Pope Francis’s Evangelii Gaudium, Cardinal Maradiaga said the pontiff “analyses the economy from the point of view of the poor, which is in line with Jesus’ perspective”.
The cardinal said the main point of this apostolic exhortation is that a wrong anthropology is creating a wrong distribution of wealth.
As someone who has lived with the poor, Francis “does not let himself be deceived by trickle down economics”, the cardinal added.
“Elimination of the structural causes of poverty is a matter of urgency that can no longer be postponed,” he continued.
“The hungry or sick child of the poor cannot wait.”
The cardinal argued that personal charity was insufficient to solve global problems.
“Solidarity is more than a few sporadic acts of generosity,” he said.
The cardinal stressed that the Church “by no means despises the rich”, and he said Francis “is also not against the efforts of business to increase the goods of the earth”.
“The basic condition, however, is that it serves the common good,” he said.
Cardinal Maradiaga called on Catholics to “hold the government responsible and accountable in the years between the elections”.
The cardinal also called on Catholics to educate their children in the principles of Catholic social teachings at a young age, and not to wait until teenage years or later.
Sources