Addressing members of the Centesimus Annus – Pro Pontifice Foundation on the theme ‘New policies and lifestyles in the digital age’, Pope Francis said: “The current difficulties and crises within the global economic system have an undeniable ethical dimension: they are related to a mentality of egoism and exclusion that has effectively created a culture of waste blind to the human dignity of the most vulnerable.

“We see this in the growing ‘globalisation of indifference’ before obvious moral challenges confronting our human family. I think especially of the manifold obstacles to the integral human development of so many of our brothers and sisters, not only in materially poorer countries but increasingly amid the opulence of the developed world. I think too of the urgent ethical issues associated with global movements of migration.”

Ethics and business

In the same address, the Pope said: “All too often, a tragic and false dichotomy – analogous to the artificial rift between science and faith – has developed between the ethical teachings of our religious traditions and the practical concerns of today’s business community. But there is a natural circularity between profit and social responsibility. There is, in fact, an indissoluble connection […] between an ethics respectful of people and the common good, and the actual functionality of every economic financial system. In a word, the ethical dimension of social and economic interaction cannot be imported into social life and activity from without, but must arise from within.”

Task of every baptised

Last Sunday the Pope said: “Therefore, the feast of the Most Holy Trinity makes us contemplate the mystery of a God that creates incessantly, redeems and sanctifies, always with love and for love, and to every creature that receives Him, He gives the gift to reflect a ray of His beauty, goodness and truth. He has always chosen to walk with humanity and forms a people that are a blessing for all the nations and for every person, none excluded. Therefore, the task of every baptised person is the same as that entrusted by Jesus to his disciples: “Go… and make disciples of all nations, baptising them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.” (Matt. 28:19)

(Compiled by Fr Joe Borg)

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