Sunday, September 22, 2013

A Pope Who Knows His Priorities

I do not know how many spin doctors prepare Papal addresses. However, those driven by dogma are probably wringing their hands in agony when Pope Francis decides to go "off script" and start improvising. Consider some of the off-the-cuff remarks he made to the faithful today in Sardinia (where the youth unemployment rate happens to be 51 percent), as reported by Al Jazeera English:
I find suffering here... it weakens you and robs you of hope.
Excuse me if I use strong words, but where there is no work there is no dignity.
We don't want this globalised economic system which does us so much harm. Men and women have to be at the centre [of an economic system] as God wants, not money.
The world has become an idolator of this god called money.
Now regular readers should know by now that I am a "devout atheist." However, that is just the point. None of the above text says anything about turning to the Catholic Church or any other organized religion. The Pope just decided to be "frank and open" about the current state of poverty and how the world got into it. Perhaps it is time for him to say a thing or two to the World Economic Forum.

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