Cardinal Reinhard Marx of Munich, who is a member of the Council of
Cardinals (C8) that advises the Pope, has come out strongly in defence
of Pope Francis’s criticism of global capitalism made in his recent
apostolic exhortation Evangelii Gaudium.
In a guest contribution in the Vatican newspaper L’Osservatore Romano,
Cardinal Marx calls Evangelii Gaudium a “spiritual government policy
statement” which has triggered a debate on the future of the world.
The Church does not reject the market economy, but as capitalism
today has little regard for individual destinies or for the weak and the
poor, it cannot and must not be held up as a model for society,
Cardinal Marx says.
The Pope’s short, “pithy” sentence, “This economy
kills”, in the exhortation had triggered a worldwide debate on the issue
of economic justice, the cardinal said.
Francis had been openly and often harshly criticised, “which is a good thing, as Christianity is a public concern.”
But this carries responsibilities, the cardinal pointed out:
“[Christianity] must face up to the controversies that ensue and take on
disputes rather than withdraw from the harsh wind of criticism and
contradiction into a sort of separate religious world.”
Explaining Francis’s thinking, he said the Pope was concerned with a
“holistic evangelisation which includes culture, society, politics and
economy” and not one that only concentrated on the catechism and the
sacraments.