Pope Francis endeavoured not just to evaluate the burning global issues; he strove to mobilise decisive action to transform our world to improve living standards and well-being for everyone. He spoke as a voice from the Third World, challenging the conscience of the richer countries.

Francis was propelled onto the global stage in 2013 to revitalise the Catholic Church and to renew its mission to bring the good news of God’s solidarity with everyone, especially the poor and distressed.

He insisted that the Church must engage more closely with the great issues of our time, joining others in earnest conversation about our human future on this fragile planet, and developing networks of collaboration not just with other Christians, but also with followers of other world religions or philosophical traditions, and indeed with all people of good will.

In addition to his efforts to mediate conflicts in various parts of the world, his determined advocacy for refugees and asylum seekers, his achievements in connecting with leaders of other world religions — particularly Islam — and steering the Catholic Church into more participatory processes through synodality, perhaps his most important legacy will stem from his strenuous efforts to transform recent globalisation so that it genuinely promotes the well-being of everyone. He insisted that this is not a utopian dream, but — given our resources and opportunities — a demand of the Gospel itself.

Sharpening the critique of neoliberalism

Francis was particularly critical of neoliberal philosophies and their effect on economic policies. He did not claim to speak as an economist, but highlighted the values of the Gospel focused on the dignity of every person and the Samaritan call to care especially for the “poor” –people in distress or facing great hardship. He told a conference in Bolivia in July 2015 not to expect a “recipe” from the Church for solutions to social problems. He said it was up to each generation to work out solutions “as it seeks its own path and respects the values which God has placed in the human heart”.

Nevertheless, Francis was influenced — among others — by prominent scholars who were members of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences and the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences, including Professors Joseph Stiglitz from Columbia University and Jeffrey Sachs (who had helped co-ordinate the UN Millennium Development Goals). They were both involved with designing the Sustainable Development Goals.

In a series of books, Stiglitz warned about “market fundamentalism” and the dominance of corporate and financial interests at the expense of poorer countries. He rejected the ideological insistence on small government, deregulation of markets, rapid liberalisation of trade and finance and privatisation of government assets, which neglected issues of employment and social equity. “For much of the world, globalisation as it has been managed seems like a pact with the devil,” undermining fundamental values, he wrote in Making Globalisation Work (2006). He also blamed the economics profession for bowing to political and other economic interests. Stiglitz, Sachs and others warned that the current neoliberal version of globalisation was unsustainable.

All were appalled at the Global Financial Crisis in 2008, which exposed systemic corruption and hubris at the heart of the global financial system. Yet Stiglitz also pointed to corrosion in “a society in which materialism dominates moral commitment”, and where “rugged individualism and market fundamentalism have eroded any sense of community” (Freefall: America, Free Markets and the Sinking of the World Economy, 2010).

The developing social views of Pope Francis

Francis brought his own experiences in Argentina of the terrible “dirty war” during the 1970s and the economic collapse of Argentina in 2002, the largest sovereign default in history until that time, which plunged half its citizens below the poverty line. Bergoglio was closely involved in organising efforts to feed and support people through the crisis. He was shocked at the devastating consequences for so many people, and took closer interest in economics and international finance, particularly neoliberalism with its exaggerated role for unregulated free markets.

The Latin American Church had strongly endorsed the social justice message of the Second Vatican Council, especially in the continent-wide conference at Medellín in Colombia in 1968. Similar conferences took place every 10 years, leading up to the conference in Aparecida, Brazil, in May 2007. A cardinal since 2001, Bergoglio was elected president of the conference and supervised the drafting of the final 160-page Aparecida Document, which highlighted the situation of Indigenous and other marginalised people, in the context of “a process of concentration of power and wealth in the hands of a few”.

Prefigured in this document are the key themes Pope Francis later developed: the incisive critique of inequality; gross failures in economic systems and neoliberal ideology; the environmental crisis and climate change; the need for wider participation, particularly of women; and promoting collaboration among all people of good will.

Francis soon set his team to produce The Joy of the Gospel (Evangelii Gaudium) in November 2013, to “make explicit… the inescapable social dimension of the Gospel message” (#258). It sharply attacked neoliberal economics and the power of special interests, and rejected “an economy of exclusion and inequality. Such an economy kills… Today everything comes under the laws of competition and the survival of the fittest, where the powerful feed upon the powerless.” (#53). He said “the idolatry of money” had replaced the ancient golden calf, resulting in the dictatorship of an inhumane economy (#55). He appealed to business leaders: “Money must serve, not rule… I exhort you to generous solidarity and a return of economics and finance to an ethical approach that favours human beings” (#28).

Encouraged by his friend, the Orthodox Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew of Constantinople, Francis expanded his views in his social encyclical, Laudato Si’: On Care for Our Common Home, in May 2015, warning of “catastrophic” climate change. He called on the expertise of leading climate scientists and economists in the consultation process, including Stiglitz, Sachs, and Hans Joachim Schellnhuber from the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (also a member of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change), who was on the platform at the launch of Laudato Si’. The encyclical was timed to help marshal maximum global support behind efforts to approve the proposed UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and the UN Climate Change Conference COP21 due to meet in Paris in December. Many other religious groups published statements similar to Laudato Si’, including from Buddhist, Hindu, Muslim, Jewish and other Christian traditions.

Without explicitly naming neoliberalism, Laudato Si’ deplored the unjust results of recent forms of globalisation that resulted in acute poverty and extreme inequality. He blamed assumptions in certain forms of economics “grounded in a utilitarian mindset (individualism, unlimited progress, competition, consumerism, the unregulated market)” (#210). Francis said “the ideology of the market” assumed that the market would simply ensure the best outcomes without adequately considering questions of social and distributive justice. He accused powerful interest groups of undue influence over financial policy, making the rules to suit themselves (#123). The world could not solve problems without development “in human responsibility, values and conscience” (#105). Laudato Si’ was generally very well received, including by most economists. It generated enormous interest and helped spur popular concern and action to address global warming.

At the time, hopes were high that the proposed SDGs, learning from the relatively successful Millennium Development Goals (2000–2015), could provide a detailed roadmap to a more equitable and sustainable world. Throwing his moral support behind the SDGs, Pope Francis addressed the UN General Assembly on 25 September 2015, highlighting the problems of inequality and global warming. Almost immediately after his address, the UN delegates from more than 190 nations voted to endorse the SDGs in the resolution Transforming our World: the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.

Opposition to the economic views of Pope Francis

To undermine the political impact of Church statements critiquing extreme inequality and unjust economic policies, vested interests in the United States — particularly since the 1970s — have been organising to discredit or attack them. Sharon Beder, in her 2006 book, Free Market Missionaries: The Corporate Manipulation of Community Values examined how neoconservative networks like the American Enterprise Institute, with enormous funding from wealthy patrons, spread their neoliberal philosophy and politics through a prodigious network of print, radio and TV media, think-tanks and conferences.

The Catholic neoconservatives, including the late Michael Novak and Richard John Neuhaus, contested the major social documents of the US bishops and of Pope Paul VI and John Paul II, reinterpreting Church teaching in a way more acceptable to political and financial interests.

In Australia, one of the most severe critics of Laudato Si’ was Paul Kelly, editor-at-large of The Australian, who on 24 June 2015 declared the Pope’s language “almost hysterical. Profound intellectual ignorance is dressed up as honouring God”. Pope Francis and his advisers were “environmental populists and economic ideologues of a quasi-Marxist bent”. The editorial in The Weekend Australian added that Francis “appears to have swallowed a new pernicious dogma”. Kelly strongly rejected warnings of catastrophic climate change. Several other writers in that issue followed suit.

Pope Francis faced growing opposition in the US and elsewhere, particularly for his views on protecting immigrants and refugees. One opponent was Steve Bannon, former editor of the online magazine Breitbart and later strategic adviser to Donald Trump until 2017. Bannon went to Europe in 2019 and tried to set up an institute to mobilise populist movements. He became closely allied with Matteo Salvini, leader of the Northern League and, for a time, Minister of the Interior after the Italian elections in March 2018.

Reprinted with slight edit from _Eureka Street_ magazine of 21 May 2025.

The views expressed in this article may or may not reflect those of Pearls and Irritations.