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Pope Francis and the Governor of the Bank of England have both stressed that the human person must be at the centre of the global economy.
Pope Francis addressed a closed-door conference organised by the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace held in Rome on July 11-12.
Bank of England governor Mark Carney was one of almost 70 financial experts who signed a joint statement echoing the Pope’s call.
“We must put people and their wellbeing at the centre of our economic and political life,” the statement proclaimed.
The statement noted “substantial agreement” between signatories that, “as a human community, we must recover our moral compass . . .”.
While acknowledging the positive aspects of the global economy, the signatories noted that “many people experience a severe loss of value and morals in political and economic life”.
The statement added that money is “accorded more importance than the proper end or goal of that same economy, that is, sustaining a good life for the human community”.
The signatories called for a re-examination of the “assumptions of our economic theory to be more realistic and based on a more complete view of the human being and of the world”.
Among reforms they advocated was the creation of rules to stimulate the development of civic and corporate virtue.
The conference was entitled “The Global Common Good: Towards a More Inclusive Economy” and was based on Pope Francis’ ideas in his Apostolic Exhortation Evangelii Gaudium.
Among those who attended were Nobel Prizewinner Muhammad Yunus, US economist Jeffrey Sachs and Caritas Internationalis head Michel Roy.
Pope Francis joined the participants for lunch one day.
He urged them to help reverse the current “throwaway” culture and put people at the centre – not the fringes – of monetary strategies and policies.
The joint statement acknowledged the Holy Father’s words: “If the human person is not at the centre, then something else gets put there, which the human being then has to serve.”
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