As his instrument for reaching this goal, Pope Francis uses the social doctrine of his church. “But he’s close to the people and very believable”. “It gave me goose bumps when the pope arrived”. His apology for the evils of colonial conquest focused on people, not what benefits Spanish occupation may have brought.
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Jubilee USA Network is an alliance of more than 75 U.S. organizations and 400 faith communities working with 50 Jubilee global partners. For the Pope, economic development should not be inevitably associated to diminishing faith or to decreasing social values.
By living this way, Jesus teaches us a have a new mentality and opens up new horizons filled with truth, beauty, life and fulfillment.
“We don’t want young weaklings”. But if, after Bolivian President Morales had presented him with a crucifix superimposed on a hammer and sickle, they agreed about what he was not, they disagreed about what he was.
He said that he was surprised by the invitation.
“The Church is the home of hospitality”, he said, explaining that she is a mother who knows how to welcome and accept with an open heart, particularly those who are in greatest need.
Reproduced from Washington Office on Latin America, originally published July 8 2015. All of us share the encyclical´s impatience at the lack of progress in the United Nations climate negotiations.
“For Bolivians it was a real honor to receive him”, said Trinidad Hurtado, a homemaker in Santa Cruz.
“I could not come to Paraguay without spending time with you here on your land”, Francis noted as he took sides in a conflict that has pegged real-estate developers against Bañado Norte’s poor.
“An unfettered pursuit of money rules”, the pope said.
Pope Francis outlines a moral challenge to all who have power in both production and consumption. The polarization makes the (difference between) rich and the poor big. He called it a “mentality in which everything has a price, everything can be bought, everything is negotiable”.
The current global finance system is “intolerable”, he said.
Francis also made a point to speak against secularism and the growing penetration of capitalism in the region.
The pope is calling for a “social revolution. Cowardice in defending it is a grave sin”.
“And behind all this pain, death and destruction there is the stench of what Basil of Caesarea called ‘the dung of the devil, ‘” Francis added. Francis did not include his native Argentina in this South American tour, reportedly to avoid getting involved in an election year. And some commentators said photos of the pope and Morales show that the pope was actually offended. “For me it wasn’t an offense”. And yet on many other issues – from homosexual marriage to abortion – he is extremely conservative, and that too was apparent in his insistence on the family.
Pope Francis addresses the world on this defining issue as a pastor rather than a politician or a scientist, despite his advanced degree in chemistry and obvious political gifts.
“You ask me what I think”. Yet, his statements against legislative changes that facilitate access to abortion or that promote sexual liberation were considered conservative provocations in societies increasingly more inclined to promote individual freedom and tolerate diversity. “No authority does anything to stop any of this abuse”.
“‘Yes, yes, they are talking, they are talking,”‘ he quoted Parolin as saying. Bolivia’s prison population increased by 158 percent from 2001 to 2013-in part because of the country’s harsh drug law that puts people in jail for up to 25 years. Access to justice is limited, and inmates are forced to pay the transportation costs or give gas money to attend their court days.
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The celebrated diplomat, who served as the French deputy chief of mission at the Vatican from 2001 to 2005, was not confirmed within the first month of his appointment, as is customary. “This is about the future of humanity and how we as human beings live and treat one another and the natural world around us”.
