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With a video message from the Pope, this Saturday ended the event “Francis’s Economy”, aimed at young entrepreneurs from around the world. In a long speech, the Pontiff encouraged the world’s youth not to be afraid to get their hands dirty, without shortcuts, in order to transform the economy and, consequently, the entire society. After the crisis, let us not return to feverish consumerism, but rather take the opportunity to put ourselves at the service of the common good.
Bianca Fraccalvieri – Vatican News
“For me, this virtual meeting in Assisi is not a point of arrival, but the initial impulse of a process that we are invited to live as a vocation, as a culture and as a pact.”
Thus, Pope Francis defines the “Economy of Francis”, a virtual event that ended this Saturday and that, starting in Assisi, brought together thousands of participants around the world.
“More human than the other”
The Pontiff thanked the many participants and addressed words of encouragement to the young people, citing the encyclicals Laudato si and Fratelli tutti, but also with references to his predecessors São Paulo VI, São João Paulo II and Benedict XVI.
Francisco gave a voice to young people who, like him, agree that “we need and want change”, without being carried away by the logic of “it has always been like this”.
Today injustices, inequalities and exclusion are no longer tolerated. The culture of elimination must have its days numbered. No one has the right to feel “more human than another”.
If it is urgent to find answers, it is essential to grow and support leading groups capable of developing culture, initiating processes – “don’t forget this word: initiating processes” – tracing paths, expanding horizons and creating belongings.
Mystique of the common good
For this, it is essential to change the lifestyle and the models of production and consumption and return “to the mystique of the common good.” “Hunger does not depend so much on material scarcity, but on scarcity of social resources,” Francis said, citing the Pope Emeritus.
The Holy Father recalled an experience that he had many years ago, still in Argentina, in the 1970s, an experience that can also be lived in Brazil: that of closed condominiums.
Time to dare
That is why it is “time to risk fostering and stimulating models of development, progress and sustainability in which people, and especially the excluded, including Sister Earth, stop being a merely functional presence, to become protagonists of their lives, as well as the entire social fabric. (…) Let’s not think by them but with they”.
In other words, politics and economics must be at the service of life, especially human life. The measure of development is humanity. Without this centrality and orientation, we will be prisoners of an alienating circle that will only perpetuate dynamics of degradation, exclusion, violence and polarization.
By the way, the Pope also said, discrediting, slandering or decontextualizing the interlocutor who does not think like us is “a way of cowardly defending myself against the decisions that I must make to solve many problems.
Get your hands dirty being yeast
The perspective of integral human development is good news to prophesy and apply, the Pope said. and how is it done? There are no shortcuts, but get your hands dirty, be yeast. After this health crisis that we are experiencing, the worst reaction would be to fall into feverish consumerism and new forms of selfish self-protection. Let’s seize the opportunity and put ourselves at the service of the common good. In the end, there are no more ‘others’, but a great ‘us’ “.
Here, then, is Francis’s final exhortation:
