From Rev. Robert A. Sirico’s “Pope Francis, Without the Politics”:
If one wants to understand Francis’ thinking about the poor, it would be good to look objectively at his much talked about, but little-read Apostolic Exhortation, “The Joy of the Gospel.” It soon becomes apparent that much of this Exhortation is an extension of a keen insight that Jorge Bergoglio had when he was Archbishop of Buenos Aires:
We cannot respond with truth to the challenge of eradicating exclusion and poverty if the poor continue to be objects, targets of the action of the state and other organizations in a paternalistic and aid-based sense, instead of subjects, where the state and society create social conditions that promote and safeguard their rights and allow them to be builders of their own destiny.
As one who has promoted a free economy as a normative way to assisting people out of poverty, I find two innovative challenges in these words which could go a long way to depoliticizing the debate about wealth and poverty.
Imagine if all of those presently engaged in the debate on these matters began to ask questions such as, “What excludes the poor from the process of prosperity?” or “What would a society look like that no longer considers the poor as objects of paternalistic aid but rather as potential shapers of their own destiny?”
The particular details of policy prescriptions are not the heart and soul of Francis’ incredible attraction on the part of people throughout the world. It is not his political motivation that moves us as we witness his embrace by — and of — frail human life.
More than worth reading in full. The topic of non-overlapping magisteria is just as true for the Catholic Church and biological evolution as it is for the Catholic Church and economics. What ought to be emphasized from Pope Francis’ teachings is therefore not a discussion of the cause-and-effect explanation of current poverty, but how we morally view the person within that cause-and-effect explanation. Pope Francis cannot teach us whether cutting the corporate tax rate would be a good thing for, say, the American economy, but he can teach us about how we can appreciate dignity of a human being, and how institutions should respect that. The point of Catholic social teaching is not to provide technocratic advice for accomplishing political goals, but to provide a witness for the Gospel within the context of human interactions within society at large.