Wednesday, March 13, 2013

Erik Kain — The World Has Its First Jesuit Pope. Will He Really Help the Poor?

"With the election of Pope Francis, we are certain that this Papacy will strongly state that our economy exists for the common good," Eric LeCompte, executive director of Jubilee USA, said of the new pope. "Clearly, with Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio's history, Pope Francis will be a strong voice that our economy must serve and protect the most vulnerable. This Pope will stand up for the rights of poor people, migrants, and workers." 
While that remains to be seen, there is reason to believe that Pope Francis could align with progressives more than conservatives when it comes to global economic issues. That would be in the tradition of the Jesuit wing of the Catholic church, which historically aligns with the left on matters of social justice while maintaining a more orthodox social conservatism. Pope Francis already appears to be more committed than most to issues of poverty and economic justice.
And that seems particularly relevant now: In an era defined by economic hardship and collapse in which the fires of austerity have burned their way across Europe, it might be a very good thing—not only for the world's poorest nations—to have a pope who, at least at first blush, appears to be an opponent of the politics of austerity.
Mother Jones | Political MoJo
The World Has Its First Jesuit Pope. Will He Really Help the Poor?
Erik Kain

3 comments:

Matt Franko said...

I was looking for this.... We'll see how this goes...

Benedict had recently turned towards economic justice as a paramount issue (at least in my view)....

This could be a positive development within Christendom Tom....

RSP,

Tom Hickey said...

Long overdue, Matt. I credit the popes and RCC of being on the right side of the issue since the release of Rerum Novarum, but the rise of communism and the reaction to it blunted the force of the social justice message. In addition, the conservative hierarchy allied with the national elites in Third World countries suppressed liberation theology there. Maybe we'll see a change.

Matt Franko said...

Here is search and date sort on "Vatican" which results in a history here at MNE related to this issue... goes back a ways....

http://mikenormaneconomics.blogspot.com/search?q=vatican&max-results=20&by-date=true

rsp,