The hungry, homeless, unemployed, underemployed, refugees, and all destitute fellow human beings desperately need and deserve a just and fair sharing of the wealth. But instead, most economies are designed to overwhelmingly benefit the rich while throwing crumbs to the needy and simultaneously wreaking havoc upon the earth.
Now millions of people are not only unemployed, but they are also uninsured. Furthermore, the World Bank is warning that the number of people in extreme poverty–defined as those struggling to survive on less than $1.90 a day–is estimated to increase by at least an additional 88 million people before year’s end.
And during this crisis billionaires are raking in new financial fortunes, while countless workers continue to be mere disposable cogs in the corporate wheel–even during the pandemic.
Amidst all these national and global injustice enters Pope Francis. Our Holy Father has been doing everything he can to inspire the world to undo the immoral unjust economic status quo and create economic systems that work for all–especially the poor.
His most recent effort is the very creative initiative dubbed “The Economy of Francesco.” In a beautifully prophetic letter to young economists and entrepreneurs around the world, Pope Francis extended an invitation to participate in an international gathering designed to lay the foundation of a “pact to change the current economy and give a soul to the economy of tomorrow.”
More than 2,000 young economists and entrepreneurs from 120 countries, along with farsighted experts, kicked-off “The Economy of Francesco” (Nov. 19-21) with a virtual global online conference centered in the historic Basilica of St. Francis in Assisi, Italy.
In their final statement, the young professional participants of the “Economy of Francesco” conference presented to world powers and financial institutions a 12-point human-centered proposal outlining a fresh economic way forward away from greed and death, toward life and dignity for all.
They ended with this very moving final point: “We young people can no longer tolerate resources being taken away from schools, health care, our present, and our future to build weapons and fuel wars needed to sell them. We would like to tell our children that the world at war is finished forever.”
May St. Francis and Pope Francis be an ongoing source of inspiration to each of us that with God’s grace, we can together build a world where all God’s people have a place at the table of plenty!
