4.
Remedying that problem necessitates
government interference in the marketplace.
5.
. . . based on an ethics of solidarity taking its
lead from the poor and prioritizing human welfare and the common good over
untargeted economic growth.
6.
Solidarity ethics find their origin
in God who calls all humans to liberation from slaveries and idolatries of all
kinds.
7.
So governments must overcome their
reluctance to correct the wealth-concentrating tendencies of free markets,
8.
. . . and the attitude which sees
ethical and theological concerns as counter-productive when they prioritize the needs of the poor
over the profits of financiers and the moneyed classes.
9.
Avoidance of these responsibilities
makes governments complicit with the crimes of robbery from the poor who (rather
than the rich) are the true owners of the resources of God's creation.
10. Economics
and social justice should not be understood as standing in opposition to one
another, but as mutually nourishing.
I find the pope's words encouraging
and quite promising. True, most popes (even J.P.II and Ratzinger) made isolated
statements in tune with the comments just quoted. And taken as a body, the
social teachings of the Catholic Church from Leo XIII's Rerum Novarum (1891) to Vatican II's "Church in the Modern World" (Gaudium et Spes, 1965) are progressive enough though they remain the church's "the
best kept secret."
Yet, the words I've quoted come from
a new pope who (as Boff notes) has demonstrated his concern for the poor in
practical ways, and has embodied a preference for simple living, And that might
be sufficient reason for hope the pope's words will define his papacy rather than
simply being more papal "blah, blah."
The jury's still out.
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