Vatican City, May 14, 2016 / 05:04 am
Economic worldviews based only on material well-being cannot contribute to dignified labor and new models of economic progress are needed, Pope Francis told a gathering of business experts on Friday.
"An economic vision geared to profit and material well-being alone is – as experience is daily showing us – incapable of contributing in a positive way to a globalization that favours the integral development of the world's peoples, a just distribution of the earth's resources, the guarantee of dignified labour and the encouragement of private initiative and local enterprise," Pope Francis said May 13 to the members of the Centesimus Annus pro Pontifice Foundation.
The foundation is in the midst of its international conference on "Business initiative in the fight against poverty: the refugee emergency, our challenge." The foundation was founded in 1993 by St. John Paul II to study and promote Catholic social teaching.
Pope Francis addressed the conference participants in the Vatican's Clementine Hall, where he expressed his gratitude for their "readiness to bring your expertise and experience to the discussion of these critical humanitarian issues and the moral obligations that they entail."