In Rome, during a speech to UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon and other UN agency heads, Pope Francis called for a “legitimate redistribution of economic benefits” using government and the private sector. The AP reports that Francis asked the United Nations to promote “a worldwide ethical mobilization” through the “legitimate redistribution of economic benefits by the state, as well as indispensable cooperation between the private sector and civil society”:
Francis had a similar message to the World Economic Forum in January and in his apostolic exhortation “The Joy of the Gospel.” That document, which denounced trickle-down economic theories as unproven and naive, provoked criticism in the U.S. that he was Marxist.
Francis has denied he’s Marxist, and spent years in Argentina battling Marxist excesses of liberation theology. But he has said from the outset that he wants a church that “is poor and for the poor” and ministers to the most marginal of society.
On Friday, he urged the U.N. to promote development goals that attack the root causes of poverty and hunger, protect the environment and ensure “dignified” labor for all.
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