Bloomberg View: Pope Francis and the Poor

As Jorge Mario Bergoglio of Argentina assumes leadership for the world’s 1.2 billion Catholics, he’ll have plenty of counsel. But for the sake of world markets, we hope the new pope will act in the best tradition of Catholic economic thought. Since Pope Leo XIII issued the encyclical Rerum Novarum in 1891, the Church’s social teaching has focused intently on ways to impose moral order on economic activity and mitigate the effects of unrestrained commerce on the poor. Concern for the individual—especially for those left behind—has been perhaps its most insistent theme. Pope John Paul II, in his landmark Centesimus Annus in 1991, extended this concern into the “complex network of relationships” making up modern economies. He argued that a just society “is not directed against the market, but demands that the market be appropriately controlled … to guarantee that the basic needs of the whole of society are satisfied.”

His lapses elsewhere notwithstanding, Pope Benedict XVI continued that moral economic framework. He argued correctly that the roots of the financial crisis were human greed and malfeasance, not a flaw in the structure of capitalism. And he was consistent in his concern that climate change—born of unbridled consumption by rich nations—will overwhelmingly affect the poor, even seeking to turn Vatican City into the world’s only carbon-neutral state.