Assisi Summit to focus on the Pope's challenge to the "pathological" economy

An Argentine priest and activist says that an important summit set for November in the iconic Italian city of Assisi, the hometown of San Francesco, will show the vision of the pope who took the name of Francesco for a radical reform centered on the person of the "pathological state" ”Of the global economy.

"Pope Francis from Evangelii Gaudium in Laudato The invitation to put in place a new economic model that focuses on the human person and reduces injustice has been extended," said Father Claudio Caruso, head of Cronica Blanca, a civil organization that brings together young men and women to explore the social teaching of the Church.

Caruso organized an online panel to promote the November summit on Monday 27 June, including two key voices in Francesco's struggle against what he calls a "culture to be thrown away": the Argentine colleague Augusto Zampini and the Italian professor Stefano Zamagni. The event is open and will be conducted in Spanish.

Zampini was recently appointed assistant secretary of the Vatican dicastery for integral human development. Zamagni is a professor at the University of Bologna, but he is also the president of the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences, making him one of the high-ranking lay people in the Vatican.

They will be joined by Martin Redrado, former president of the Argentine national bank (2004/2010), and Alfonso Prat Gay, former president of the Pope's country bank, and minister of the economy since 2015/2016.

The panel was designed to be part of the preparation process for the Assisi event, entitled "The Economy of Francis", scheduled for November 19-21, after the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic forced its postponement to March. It is designed to bring together around 4.000 young advanced economics students, social business leaders, Nobel Prize winners and officials from international organizations.

Before the event was postponed, Zampini spoke to Crux about the meaning of the proposal for a new economic model.

"How is a just transition made from an economy based on fossil fuels to one of renewable energies, without the poorest paying for this transition?" churches. “How do we respond to the cry of the poor and the earth, how do we generate a serving economy, centered on people, so that finances serve the real economy? These are things that Pope Francis says and we are trying to see how to put them into practice. And there are many who are doing it. "

Redrado told Crux that "The Francis Economy" is a "search for a new approach, a new economic paradigm that fights injustice, poverty, inequality".

"It is the search for a more humane model of capitalism, which eliminates the inequalities that the world economic system presents," he said, noting that these inequalities are also visible within each different country.

He decided to participate in the panel because, since he studied economics at the National University of Buenos Aires, he has been marked by Christian social doctrine, in particular Jacques Maritain, a French Catholic philosopher and author of over 60 books that have supported a "humanism integral Christian ”based on the spiritual dimension of human nature.

Maritain's book "Integral humanism" in particular pushed this economist to understand what Francis Fukuyama said after the fall of the Berlin wall, in the sense that capitalism is not the end of history, but poses new challenges to continue to seek a more integral economic model.

"That research is what Pope Francis is conducting today with his moral, intellectual and religious leadership, pushing and motivating economists and public policy makers to seek new answers to the challenges that the world poses for us," said Redrado.

These challenges were present before the pandemic but were "highlighted with much more virulence by this health crisis that the world is experiencing".

Redrado believes that a more favorable economic model is needed and, above all, that promotes "upward social mobility, the possibilities of being able to improve, of being able to progress". This is not possible in many countries today, he acknowledged, with millions of people around the world born in conditions of poverty and who do not have infrastructure or help from state or private institutions that allow them to improve their realities.

"Without a doubt, this pandemic has marked social inequalities more than ever," he said. "One of the big post-pandemic issues [is] promoting equality to connect disconnected people, with broadband and with our children who have access to information technology that allows them to access better-paid forms of work."

Redrado also expects post-coronavirus relapses to have lasting, albeit unpredictable, implications for politics.

“I think the actors will have to be evaluated at the end of the pandemic, and each company will have the current authorities re-elected or not. It is still too early to talk about the impact it will have on political and social actors, but we will no doubt have a profound reflection from each of the companies and also from the ruling classes, "he said.

"My impression is that going forward, our companies will be much more demanding with our leaders and those who don't understand it will obviously be out of the way," said Redrado.