Catholic social teaching has always acknowledged a role for government regulation of the economy. The economy is to promote the common good, not benefit owners and investors alone.
Ten people are on trial in the Vatican, facing multiple charges regarding the Vatican Secretariat of State’s investment in a property on Sloane Avenue in London. The Vatican lost more than $200 million on the deal.
The pope said that cardinals and senior Vatican officials will now have to pay "ordinary" rent payments on the apartments owned by the Vatican in Rome.
“I do not condemn capitalism in the way some attribute to me. Nor am I against the market [economy],” Pope Francis stated in El Pastor, a new book by two Argentine journalists.
I introduced students to a worldview completely at odds with the one expressed by Pope Francis. In doing so, I rationalized greed and dismissed the idea of a common good.