Finance ministers from France, Argentina, Mexico, Paraguay, and El Salvador; a Nobel economics laureate; and the director of the International Monetary Fund are among global leaders who took part in a Vatican workshop on Wednesday.
The event – entitled “New Forms of Solidarity” – was held at the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences. It provided a forum for key players in the global financial system to discuss rising inequality through “inclusion, integration, and innovation”. In his address to participants, Pope Francis laid out several dangers lurking behind prevailing economic models, as well as several ways to build bridges between the rich and the poor.
“The world is rich, and yet the number of poor people is swelling all around us.” Hundreds of millions of people, said the Pope, is struggling in extreme poverty, and are lacking food, housing, healthcare, schooling, electricity, and drinkable water. Around 5 million children will die this year of causes related to poverty, he said.
Pope Francis added that rising income inequality has also left millions of people as victims of forced labor, prostitution, and organ trafficking.
These facts should impel us to take action, and not to fall into despair. “These are solvable problems,” he said. “We are not condemned to global inequality.” Poverty can be overcome, said the Pope, if an economic system is put in place that includes, feeds, cures, and dresses those left behind by society. “We have to choose what and who to prioritize,” he said. Our choice will lead either to increased social injustice and violence or to “humanizing socio-economic systems”. Vatican News
