Serving, not ruling
Our economy reduces life to consumption and a shallow pursuit of pleasure, isolating individuals in self-interest and leaving no room for others—especially the poor. This closed people's hearts to God's voice, he said, robbing them of the joy of His love and the drive to do good. "Money must serve, not rule," he said. Societies' relationship with money was misaligned. In short, we had allowed it to dominate.
Throughout his papacy, Pope Francis condemned capitalism as destructive and immoral, and called for the reinvigoration of human dignity in economic life. Unregulated markets inevitably produce injustice, he warned, becoming engines for concentrating income and wealth, thus spreading inequality across the globe.
He cited the distinction drawn by Austrian economist Joseph Schumpeter between capitalism and the market economy. Capitalism, he explained, is marked by the concentration of decision-making power in the hands of capital, focused on maximising profit, while a market economy is merely a system of exchange between supply and demand. According to Pope Francis, the market price will never be just if there is a significant imbalance of power among its participants, and if the aim becomes infinite accumulation (rather than meeting actual human needs).
Exclusion and inequality
In his apostolic exhortation Evangelii Gaudium (The Joy of the Gospel), issued soon after his inauguration on 26 November 2013, Francis delivered a scathing critique of what he called the "economy of exclusion and inequality," calling it a "deadly economy." He said the idea that economic growth powered by free markets results in greater justice and social inclusion was "naive and crude," and that it was unsupported by evidence.
As the wealth of a small minority skyrocketed, the well-being of the majority grew increasingly distant. This imbalance, he argued, was fuelled by those advocating for free markets and financial speculation, while neglecting the state's role in safeguarding the public interest. The result is a form of invisible tyranny that imposes its rules without compassion or negotiation, he said.
Blind faith in market forces and the "invisible hand" was no longer tenable, the pope argued. Prioritising profit over people and selfishness over cooperation undermines equitable growth. True fairness requires more than economic expansion; it demands policies, systems, and choices aimed at improving income distribution, job creation, and comprehensive support for the poor that goes beyond mere handouts.
He rejected populist economic approaches that resulted in job cuts or mass layoffs in the name of profit, and opposed the restrictive immigration policies of the US and Europe. He led "a borderless Church" that served all people like a mother. Rather than fear the loss of national identity, he urged nations to embrace openness and turn integration into a driver of development.
Consider the poor
The pope acknowledged that entrepreneurship can be noble when directed toward the common good by expanding global prosperity and making it accessible to all, but condemned monopolies, especially in intellectual property, which he felt obstructed access to life-saving technologies and medicines, urging then US President Joe Biden to waive intellectual property rights for COVID-19 vaccines. His message was clear: human lives must take precedence over corporate profits.
Pope Francis called on the world to see life through the eyes of the poorest, much like the Franciscans and the early solidarity banks, Monte di Pietà (literally 'Mount of Piety,' an institutional pawnbroker) did in the Middle Ages. He renewed this call during a lunch for hundreds of poor, homeless, unemployed, and migrant individuals at the Vatican on World Day of the Poor on 19 November 2023.
In this context, he popularised the phrase "globalisation of indifference" in a homily delivered during Mass in Lampedusa, Italy (where thousands of migrants arrive on small boats from North Africa). He lamented that people had grown desensitised to others' suffering, becoming morally detached, and believed that the cry of the poor and the cry of the Earth are inextricably linked—just as pollution harms the planet, social inequality is a form of pollution that destroys human lives. Environmental and social challenges must be addressed in tandem, he said.
The gentleness of plants
At the Economy of Francesco, a global economic forum launched in 2020, Pope Francis cited the example of plants, which cooperate with their ecosystems—even in competition—for the benefit of the whole. He urged humanity to emulate the "gentleness of plants" in economic life. He warned that discussing environmental transformation while clinging to 20th-century economic models that deplete natural resources would always yield inadequate outcomes. He called for bold decisions to abandon fossil fuels, accelerate the development of zero- or positive-impact energy sources, and commit to repairing environmental damage so as not to burden future generations.
Among the gravest indicators of the global economy's ethical collapse, he said, is the build-up of sovereign debt, which places a crushing burden on indebted nations. Both debtor and creditor governments, as well as private lenders and international financial institutions, should share responsibility, especially those that delayed essential debt restructuring, he argued, calling for bold action to cancel big portions of sovereign debt not out of charity, but in the name of justice and solidarity.
Pope Francis's economic views drew criticism on both sides of the Atlantic. Investor's Business Daily (IBD) ran an editorial titled Pope Francis Is Wrong: The Free Market Is Not A Tyrant, asking if he preferred dictatorships or oligarchies instead, and citing a 163% rise in the global economic development index between 1999 and 2012. Germany's Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung accused the Church under Francis of "despising the rich". Others branded him a "pure Marxist" or "neo-socialist".
