Pope Francis asked a delegation of Italian bankers to avoid “heart attacks” in the “circulatory system” of the economy, and encouraged them to give hope to people, always helping them to generate “integral human development.”
When receiving an audience this morning with a group of Italian bankers in the Apostolic Palace of the Vatican, the Holy Father highlighted that “finance is a bit of the ‘circulatory system’, so to speak, of the economy: if it is blocked in some points and it does not circulate throughout the social body, heart attacks and ischemias occur that are devastating for the economy itself.”
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In that sense, he continued, “healthy finances do not degenerate into usurious attitudes, pure speculation or investments that damage the environment and favor wars.”
The Pontiff also specified that “without adequate financial systems, capable of including and promoting sustainability, there would be no integral human development.”
For this reason, Pope Francis reminded those present that “banking institutions have great responsibilities to encourage inclusive logics and to sustain an economy of peace. The Jubilee at our doors reminds us of the need to forgive debts.”
“It is the condition to generate hope and a future in the lives of many people, especially the poor. I encourage you to sow trust, do not get tired of accompanying and having a high level of social justice.”
The Holy Father also recalled the so-called “mountains of piety” or montepíos, Church institutions that began to help the poor economically in the mid-15th century in Europe, “opening the doors of opportunities for them,” and how later, among the 18th and 19th centuries, following the teachings of Pope Leo XIII in the encyclical Rerum Novarum, something similar was done in Italy.
When recalling these initiatives of the Catholic Church, Pope Francis compared them with the current financial system, where criteria that are contrary to people often prevail, and where usury is created and an “economic economy” is practiced. uncivil: where civility is lacking.”
Walter Sánchez Silva
I have been a husband since 2008. My wife and I have three children here and one who went to heaven in 2023, before he was born. Since I joined ACI Prensa in 2005, I have had the opportunity to cover various events of the Catholic Church. Among them, the World Youth Days in Cologne, Madrid and Rio de Janeiro and the apostolic trips of Pope Benedict XVI to Mexico and of Pope Francis to South Korea. I have been sent to the Vatican to cover the Family synods, in 2015; of the Amazon, in 2019 and that of Synodality, in 2023. I closely follow the situation of the Catholic Church in Nicaragua, which suffers persecution from the dictatorship of Daniel Ortega, as well as current ecclesiastical events in the region.