In interview, Pope says he's unconcerned about security because he doesn't have much to lose
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Pope Francis in a newspaper interview said that the world's economy is fueled by war, as the world's biggest nations "sacrifice man at the feet of the idol of money," to "obviously keep their balance sheets in the black." The pontiff was searing in his criticism about the callousness of world governments. He also livened the interview with a touch of wit. When asked if he had any security concerns, Pope Francis replied, "at my age I don't have much to lose."
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LOS ANGELES, CA (Catholic Online) - The interview was published this week in the Spanish-language daily newspaper La Vanguardia.
"We are in a world economic system that is not good," Pope Francis said. "A system that in order to survive must make war, as great empires have always done. But since you cannot have a Third World War, you have regional wars. And what does this mean? That arms are made and sold, and in this way the idolatrous economies, the great world economies that sacrifice man at the feet of the idol of money, obviously keep their balance sheets in the black."
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Pope Francis also reiterated one of his signature themes, that globalization's failings are not only material but cultural, since it "cancels differences." The pontiff called for an economic system that preserves each person's "particularity, richness, identity."
The Pope also addressed violence and killing done in the name of religion, citing the 17th-century Thirty Years' War.
Christianity, Judaism and Islam all "have our fundamentalist groups, small in relation to the rest", he said. "A fundamentalist group, even if it doesn't strike anyone, is violent. The mentality of fundamentalism is violence in the name of God."
The interview was conducted that day after Pope Francis presided over an "invocation for peace" at the Vatican with Israeli President Shimon Peres and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas. The Pope said that event took place in spite of skepticism from his own subordinates.
"It was not easy," the Pope said. "Here in the Vatican, 99 percent said it would not happen and afterward the one per cent grew."
The Pope also defended the record of his predecessor Pope Pius XII. He said that opening Vatican archives relating to the Holocaust "will shed much light" on that subject. Pope Pius, critics maintain did not say or do all he could to oppose the Nazi genocide.
"They have dumped everything on poor Pius XII. But you have to remember that once he was seen as the great defender of the Jews," he said. "I am not saying that Pius XII did not make mistakes - I myself make a lot - but you have to interpret his role in the context of the time. Was it better, for example, that he not speak in order to avoid the killing of more Jews, or that he speak?"
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Pope Francis Prayer Intentions for June 2014
Unemployed: That the unemployed may receive support and find the work they need to live in dignity.
Faith in Europe: That Europe may rediscover its Christian roots through the witness of believers.
