The Church ‘denounces the false impartiality of the market,’ Cardinal Czerny says at press conference

October 10, 2025

At yesterday’s Vatican press conference for the publication of Pope Leo XIV’s apostolic exhortation Dilexi Te (video), Cardinal Michael Czerny, SJ, emphasized that “recent Church teaching understands that poverty results from structures of sin. Selfishness and indifference solidify in economic and cultural systems.”

“The ‘economy that kills’ measures human value in terms of productivity, consumption and profit,” the prefect of the Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development continued. “This ‘dominant mentality’ makes it acceptable to discard the weak and unproductive, and thus deserves the label ‘social sin.’“

Cardinal Czerny added:

Beyond donations and other assistance, the Church’s response denounces the false impartiality of the market, proposes models of development, promotes justice, aims for the conversion of structures. This fosters a form of communal or social repentance that restores dignity to the invisible and helps them to develop more fully.

Cardinal Konrad Krajewski, prefect of the Dicastery for the Service of Charity, spoke about the importance of almsgiving.

“Love for those who are poor is the evangelical guarantee of a Church faithful to the heart of Christ,” said Cardinal Krajewski. Almsgiving “today does not enjoy a good reputation, often even among believers. Not only is it not practiced, it is despised.”

In his presentation, Father Frédéric-Marie Le Méhauté, provincial of the Friars Minor of France/Belgium, summarized the apostolic exhortation. Sister Clémence, a Little Sister of Jesus of the Fraternity of the Three Fountains, recalled the poor Roma women whom she served.

 

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Further information:

• Links to speeches by Cardinal Czerny, Father Le Méhauté, and Sister Clémence (Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development)
• Vatican presents apostolic exhortation 'Dilexi te'. (Omnes, 10/9/25)