By Frank Wessling
“For the love of money is the root of all kinds of evil” (1 Tim. 6:10).
Pope Francis may have been meditating on this line of Scripture recently. It was the theme of a passionate short appeal against unregulated capitalism in his speech to ambassadors at the Vatican in mid-May.
“We have created new idols,” he said. “The worship of the golden calf of old has found a new and heartless image in the cult of money and the dictatorship of an economy which is faceless and lacking any truly humane goal.”
Such strong language would ordinarily attract attention, but that papal talk seems to have slipped by the notice of news media. Or Francis may already be slotted as predictably “liberal,” even “socialist” in his view of economic life. His remarks on May 16 then had little power to penetrate the buzz of usual news and gossip.
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