Honduran cardinal rues economic inequality, links free market to ‘social exclusion’
September 24, 2014
Honduran Cardinal Oscar Rodríguez Maradiaga lamented the widening economic inequality he has observed during the years since the financial crisis of 2008.
“For six years now, the economic crisis has cast a long shadow over people’s hopes and possibilities,” he wrote on the website of Caritas, the Church’s confederation of relief and development agencies.
“In this time the free market has produced one sector which is booming: social exclusion,” he added. “The 85 richest people in the world hold as much wealth as half the world’s population.”
He concluded:
Above all, we must value the families in our society and help them to realize that they’re an enormous resource of hope for us all and that they are the building blocks with which our societies are made.
With this thought, we can build a future where we embrace our one human family and where the doors of society are open to everyone. In this future, capitalism would be made redundant and love and compassion would become the global currency.
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Posted by: bernie4871 -
Sep. 24, 2014 9:04 PM ET USA
So what does the Cardinal think these 85 richest people do with their money? They invest it directly or indirectly in employment and factories and growth. Of course,some think that governments could do this better than the private side. Ask the Russians about that.
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Posted by: dover beachcomber -
Sep. 24, 2014 8:12 PM ET USA
I've got a suggestion for the Cardinal: work in the area for which you've (presumably) been well-trained -- moral suasion, leading to more Christlike behavior among the rich. Then you might save a soul or two, instead of paving the way for the arrival of economic and political oppression in the name of equality.
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Posted by: Minnesota Mary -
Sep. 24, 2014 7:50 PM ET USA
"The poor you will always have with you." --Jesus Christ
