Bergoglio’s Pendulum, Between Capitalism and Revolution

[Disir]

ROME, December 19, 2014 – Another of the mysteries of Pope Francis concerns his vision of the global economy.

There are some who have placed him among the impenitent Marxists, after having read the agenda-setting document of his pontificate, the apostolic exhortation "Evangelii Gaudium.” And there are those who have drawn the opposite conclusion from the same document, depicting a Jorge Mario Bergoglio who is a great friend of the free market.

The pope has repeatedly distanced himself from the first of the two definitions, that of being a communist, to the point of joking about it. From the second, that of pro-capitalist, he has not. But it is not at all sure that this corresponds to his thinking.

*

Francis has been identified as a champion of the free economy not by some isolated eccentric spirit, but by the Acton Institute, a “think tank” of the United States whose core idea is that capitalism flourishes all the more to the extent to which the society in which it works is free and religiously inspired.

Last December 4, the Acton Institute awarded its highest annual recognition, the 2014 Novak Award, to a brilliant young Finnish economist, Oskari Juurikkala, who delivered his acceptance speech on the theme: “A Free-Market Appreciation of Pope Francis.”

The prize was awarded in Rome, at the Pontifical University of the Holy Cross, the academy of Opus Dei, a few steps from the Vatican.

Juurikkala’s thesis is that the message of Bergoglio, with its emphasis on the poor, not only is not in contradiction with the free market, but enhances it, because it helps to “purify and enrich it.”

Juurikkala’s speech was counterbalanced, at the same event, by Carlo Lottieri, a philosopher of law and a member of the Istituto Bruno Leoni, another strongly libertarian think tank.

Lottieri, who teaches at the University of Siena and in Switzerland at the theological faculty of Lugano, continues to see Francis not as a friend but as an adversary of economic liberties, not least because of the “Peronist” experience that he assimilated in Argentina, “never truly concluded and disastrous on the whole.”

*

Bergoglio rsquo s Pendulum Between Capitalism and Revolution

And that explains the PR. Neoliberal it is then.

 

[Flopper]

ROME, December 19, 2014 – Another of the mysteries of Pope Francis concerns his vision of the global economy.

There are some who have placed him among the impenitent Marxists, after having read the agenda-setting document of his pontificate, the apostolic exhortation "Evangelii Gaudium.” And there are those who have drawn the opposite conclusion from the same document, depicting a Jorge Mario Bergoglio who is a great friend of the free market.

The pope has repeatedly distanced himself from the first of the two definitions, that of being a communist, to the point of joking about it. From the second, that of pro-capitalist, he has not. But it is not at all sure that this corresponds to his thinking.

*

Francis has been identified as a champion of the free economy not by some isolated eccentric spirit, but by the Acton Institute, a “think tank” of the United States whose core idea is that capitalism flourishes all the more to the extent to which the society in which it works is free and religiously inspired.

Last December 4, the Acton Institute awarded its highest annual recognition, the 2014 Novak Award, to a brilliant young Finnish economist, Oskari Juurikkala, who delivered his acceptance speech on the theme: “A Free-Market Appreciation of Pope Francis.”

The prize was awarded in Rome, at the Pontifical University of the Holy Cross, the academy of Opus Dei, a few steps from the Vatican.

Juurikkala’s thesis is that the message of Bergoglio, with its emphasis on the poor, not only is not in contradiction with the free market, but enhances it, because it helps to “purify and enrich it.”

Juurikkala’s speech was counterbalanced, at the same event, by Carlo Lottieri, a philosopher of law and a member of the Istituto Bruno Leoni, another strongly libertarian think tank.

Lottieri, who teaches at the University of Siena and in Switzerland at the theological faculty of Lugano, continues to see Francis not as a friend but as an adversary of economic liberties, not least because of the “Peronist” experience that he assimilated in Argentina, “never truly concluded and disastrous on the whole.”

*

Bergoglio rsquo s Pendulum Between Capitalism and Revolution

And that explains the PR. Neoliberal it is then.

As the Pope, I think it would be pretty hard for him to embrace true capitalism while championing society’s rejects, the “homeless, the addicted, refugees, indigenous, the elderly, migrants, the unemployed, and the destitute.

 

[Disir]

ROME, December 19, 2014 – Another of the mysteries of Pope Francis concerns his vision of the global economy.

There are some who have placed him among the impenitent Marxists, after having read the agenda-setting document of his pontificate, the apostolic exhortation "Evangelii Gaudium.” And there are those who have drawn the opposite conclusion from the same document, depicting a Jorge Mario Bergoglio who is a great friend of the free market.

The pope has repeatedly distanced himself from the first of the two definitions, that of being a communist, to the point of joking about it. From the second, that of pro-capitalist, he has not. But it is not at all sure that this corresponds to his thinking.

*

Francis has been identified as a champion of the free economy not by some isolated eccentric spirit, but by the Acton Institute, a “think tank” of the United States whose core idea is that capitalism flourishes all the more to the extent to which the society in which it works is free and religiously inspired.

Last December 4, the Acton Institute awarded its highest annual recognition, the 2014 Novak Award, to a brilliant young Finnish economist, Oskari Juurikkala, who delivered his acceptance speech on the theme: “A Free-Market Appreciation of Pope Francis.”

The prize was awarded in Rome, at the Pontifical University of the Holy Cross, the academy of Opus Dei, a few steps from the Vatican.

Juurikkala’s thesis is that the message of Bergoglio, with its emphasis on the poor, not only is not in contradiction with the free market, but enhances it, because it helps to “purify and enrich it.”

Juurikkala’s speech was counterbalanced, at the same event, by Carlo Lottieri, a philosopher of law and a member of the Istituto Bruno Leoni, another strongly libertarian think tank.

Lottieri, who teaches at the University of Siena and in Switzerland at the theological faculty of Lugano, continues to see Francis not as a friend but as an adversary of economic liberties, not least because of the “Peronist” experience that he assimilated in Argentina, “never truly concluded and disastrous on the whole.”

*

Bergoglio rsquo s Pendulum Between Capitalism and Revolution

And that explains the PR. Neoliberal it is then.

As the Pope, I think it would be pretty hard for him to embrace true capitalism while championing society’s rejects, the “homeless, the addicted, refugees, indigenous, the elderly, migrants, the unemployed, and the destitute.

And yet, it seems to be what he is doing. I am not so sure that it is too far off from true capitalism.