AFP — Pope Francis: Global economy ‘sacrifices man at the feet of the idol of money’

Pope Francis launched a sweeping attack on the world's economic system in an interview released Friday, saying it discards the young, puts money ahead of people and survives on the profits of war.

The 77-year-old leader of the world's 1.2 billion Roman Catholics said some countries had a youth unemployment rate of more than 50 percent, with many millions in Europe seeking work in vain.

"It's madness," the pope said....

People's needs should be at the heart of the economic system, the pope said

"But we have placed money in the centre, the god of money. We have fallen into the sin of idolatry, the idolatry of money. The economy moves by the desire to have more and paradoxically it feeds a disposable culture."

Raw Story
Pope Francis: Global economy ‘sacrifices man at the feet of the idol of money’
Agence France-Presse

See also Alexander C. Kaufman, Pope Francis Warns The Global Economy Is Near Collapse, The Huffington Post

Pope Francis denounced the influence of war and the military on the global economy in particular:

“We discard a whole generation to maintain an economic system that no longer endures, a system that to survive has to make war, as the big empires have always done,” he said.

"But since we cannot wage the Third World War, we make regional wars," he added. "And what does that mean? That we make and sell arms. And with that the balance sheets of the idolatrous economies -- the big world economies that sacrifice man at the feet of the idol of money -- are obviously cleaned up."