As the church closes out the liturgical year in preparation for Advent, Pope Francis has been busy addressing some of his concerns about the state of the world — and of our country in particular — over the past few days.
First, he participated in an online international conference arguing for what the Vatican officially termed a “new people-oriented economy.” The three-day event, called The Economy of Francesco, allowed thousands of young people from around the world to hear from figures as widely varied as Nobel Prize winner Muhammad Yunus, Jeffrey Sachs, Cardinal Peter Turkson, Kate Raworth and Jennifer Nedelsky. Also included were Stefano Zamagni and Luigino Bruni, two figures especially renowned for their contributions to advising the Vatican on global economic trends and possibilities.
As with so many of Francis’s recent gestures and decisions — and really of his whole pontificate — there was a Franciscan orientation to the conference, as it had originally been scheduled to take place physically in Assisi, and was co-coordinated by the diocese there and the Serafico Institute, a local ecclesiastical organization inspired by the work of the 13th century saint.
In his remarks to the conference, Francis returned again to one of the cornerstones of his pontificate, the idea that too many resources, gifts and human persons are today deemed disposable.
This time, critiquing the excesses of globalization and a throw-away economy, he claimed “the social and economic crisis that many people are experiencing first hand, and that is mortgaging the present and the future by the abandonment and exclusion of many children, adolescents and entire families, makes it intolerable for us to privilege sectorial interests to the detriment of the common good.”
He went on to diagnose the current moment as not only weighed down by obvious threats to global well-being, but also pregnant with immense opportunities: “Each of you, starting from the places in which you work and make decisions, can accomplish much. Do not seek shortcuts, however attractive, that prevent you from getting involved and being a leaven wherever you find yourselves (cf. Lk 13:20-21). No shortcuts! Be a leaven! Roll up your sleeves! Once the present health crisis has passed, the worst reaction would be to fall even more deeply into feverish consumerism and forms of selfish self-protection. Remember: we never emerge from a crisis unaffected: either we end up better or worse.”
As in Laudato Si, the pope consistently condemned the injustice of addictive consumption, where a minority of people believe they have the right to consume in a way that could never be universalized, since the planet would be absolutely destroyed in the process if that were the case (cf. LS, 50). We undoubtedly need to have our consciences probed around these issues in a country where we make up 5% of the world’s population but produce 40% of its waste.
But it was not only in this speech that the United States was seemingly on the pope’s mind. Understanding that the church cannot live divorced from or somehow “above” the cultural trends of any given epoch, news broke on Monday morning in America that the pope had personally welcomed a contingent of NBA players and executives in an unprecedented meeting in Rome to discuss social justice in the American context. The conversation is reported to have centered on the players’ “individual and collective efforts addressing social and economic injustice and inequality occurring in their communities.”
Former 76er Kyle Korver, himself a product of Jesuit education at Creighton University, was in attendance and commented afterward: “[The pope’s] openness and eagerness to discuss these issues was inspiring and a reminder that our work has a global impact and must continue moving forward.”
Later this week, Pope Francis will name Wilton Gregory as the first African American cardinal in history. There would be no way to read this nomination as anything other than a repudiation of the metastatic racism that has wracked the Catholic Church in this country since its founding. In giving a new heightened platform to one of the most eminent Black church leaders, the pope knows well the consequential import of such a decision and the practical realities that will be affected by it, including reportedly eventually even perhaps a greater say in the naming of bishops across the nation.
All of these events and decisions prove that the pope is watching what is unfolding in the United States very closely. What is less clear is whether he unqualifiedly likes what he is witnessing.
Originally from Collingswood, Michael M. Canarish, Ph.D., teaches at Loyola University, Chicago.
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