Foreword: Something to consider as you look at the candidates in the upcoming elections:
THE HOLY FATHER FRANCIS
ON THE PROCLAMATION OF THE GOSPEL
IN TODAY’S WORLD
ON THE PROCLAMATION OF THE GOSPEL
IN TODAY’S WORLD
No. 53. Human beings are themselves considered consumer goods to be used and then discarded. ...Those excluded are no longer society’s underside or its fringes or its disenfranchised – they are no longer even a part of it....
54. In this context, some people continue to defend trickle-down theories which assume that economic growth, encouraged by a free market, will inevitably succeed in bringing about greater justice and inclusiveness in the world. This opinion, which has never been confirmed by the facts, expresses a crude and naïve trust in the goodness of those wielding economic power and in the sacralized workings of the prevailing economic system.
Meanwhile, the excluded are still waiting.
Afterword: Emphases not in the original.
Paragraph numbers are provided to help you find the quotes for further study and to place these ideas in their original context, should you wish to do so. To read the text in full, click here: http://w2.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/apost_exhortations/documents/papa-francesco_esortazione-ap_20131124_evangelii-gaudium.html#II.%E2%80%82Mary,_mother_of_evangelization
