Ed Krayewski on Pope Francis' Condemnation of "Unfettered" Capitalism
Chill
In the Evangelii Gaudium, the first apostolic exhortation of his papacy, Pope Francis focused on the church's mission of evangelization, urging clergy and the laity to "recover the original freshness of the Gospel." In the new pope's missionary church, the "doors should always be open," he wrote. The 84-page document spanned Catholic topics from social justice to interfaith dialogue, but Francis' criticisms of free markets, hardly new ground for him or for the Catholic Church, opened the door for supporters of aggressive market intervention by government to claim the pope as their own. But such attempts, writes Ed Krayewski, rely on decontextualizing Pope Francis' words, which are inexorably intertwined with his religious worldview, one that would benefit from and be strengthened by an embrace of free market principles.