Pope laments refugee crisis, shrinking middle class

May 16, 2016

The refugee crisis, poverty, and youth unemployment point to the need for an economic vision inspired by the Church’s social doctrine, Pope Francis told participants in a conference on St. John Paul II’s social encyclical Centesimus Annus.

“The fight against poverty is not merely a technical economic problem, but above all a moral one, calling for global solidarity and the development of more equitable approaches to the concrete needs and aspirations of individuals and peoples worldwide,” the Pope said on May 13.

The Pope added:

An economic vision geared to profit and material well-being alone is – as experience is daily showing us – incapable of contributing in a positive way to a globalization that favors the integral development of the world’s peoples, a just distribution of the earth’s resources, the guarantee of dignified labor and the encouragement of private initiative and local enterprise.

An economy of exclusion and inequality has led to greater numbers of the disenfranchised and those discarded as unproductive and useless. The effects are felt even in our more developed societies, in which the growth of relative poverty and social decay represent a serious threat to families, the shrinking middle class and in a particular way our young people. The rates of unemployment for the young are not only a scandal needing to be addressed first and foremost in economic terms, but also, and no less urgently, as a social ill, for our youth are being robbed of hope and their great resources of energy, creativity and vision are being squandered.

 

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Further information:

• Udienza ai partecipanti alla Conferenza Internazionale della Fondazione “Centesimus Annus - Pro Pontifice” (Holy See Press Office)
• Vatican conference on 25th anniversary of Centesimus Annus (CWN, 5/12)