Abstract
‘Are you, or have you ever been, a member of the Communist Party?’ It is as well that Pope Francis was not an American citizen living in the McCarthy era. As Martin Schlag’s book admits, some American Catholics are finding it difficult to embrace, and many are turning away from, his teaching concerning business and the economy. Social justice, rather than doctrine, has been the theme of his papacy. Many Americans, for whom this book was primarily written, find such talk uncomfortably radical. For centuries popes were Italians, but in modern times they have had a range of national backgrounds that have influenced their priorities. According to Schlag, Pope Francis must be understood in his Latin American context. In the English-speaking Western world, he notes, capitalism generally has positive connotations; in the Latin American tradition, capitalism is seen quite differently and often not in a positive light.
The book is careful to set Pope Francis’s message within the context of traditional Catholic teaching. In the Gospels, Jesus admonished the rich. The love of money, said St Paul, is the root of all evil, and the Church has consistently taught that finance is fraught with moral peril. In tandem with consumerism, avarice, greed and envy result. However, Francis, says Schlag, attacks consumerism with a new passion. He talks of a whirlwind of needless buying and the self-centred culture of instant gratification. Yet Pope Francis does not condemn business and money outright. Selecting quotes from the pope’s public statements, Schlag shows that Francis recognizes the realities of the modern world: money and investment are necessary, but must be shaped by justice. When he lectures the business community on economics, he speaks of a moral framework within which the financial world should operate. Modern business and banking are dependent for growth and profit on interest being charged – usury – and Pope Francis has spoken of the victims of usury. ‘When a family has nothing to eat, because it has to make payments to usurers, this is not Christian, this is not human. This dramatic scourge in our society harms the inviolable dignity of the human person’ (p. 130).
Readers are reminded, however, that it was the Franciscans, the followers of the saint from whom the pope takes his name, though bound by vows of personal poverty, who recognized that money and property could be put to good use. The poor, among whom they lived, could be empowered by the right use of money. Early Franciscans became lenders to the poor and enabled small businesses to prosper. ‘Business is a noble vocation,’ Pope Francis has said (p. 103). The entrepreneur who serves others is on a path to holiness. To many people around the world, the pope’s teaching on social justice and the need for morality in business will be regarded as a restatement of the obvious. It is significant that a book was felt necessary to reassure those, in particular in the US, who regard the present pope’s agenda with suspicion.