By Mark Esposito, Guest Blogger
Hey guys, just back from my trip to San Francisco and what do I find on my return? Well it looks like that most calcified of religious institutions has gone California, too? The first Pope from South America seems to have veered the church leftward with two recent messages to the faithful that said, in essence, that capitalism isn’t all that. First, in a scathing speech on Wednesday, Pope Francis slammed the type of predatory capitalism that results in the tragedy of the Bangladesh sweatshop collapse. Catering to western desires for cheap but swanky department store clothing, the human mill in Bangladesh cranked out fashion for consumers at a feverish pace. The shortcut to achieve this profit was a thrown-together building constructed of toothpicks and sealing wax. Not really — but close enough for 400 people to die and scores of others to be maimed when the structure fell. Francis took dead aim at the greed and the greedy that caused these deaths calling it “slave labor”:
“Not paying a just (wage), not providing work, focusing exclusively on the balance books, on financial statements, only looking at making personal profit. That goes against God!”
Second, on Thursday, this thoroughly modern pontiff took to social media to hammer the point. Tweeting his message, Pope Francis said “My thoughts turn to all who are unemployed, often as a result of a self-centred mindset bent on profit at any cost.” Two and a half million followers on Twitter and over one billion Catholics got the message. Five thousand of them re-tweeted.
