(Vatican Radio) Pope Francis has sent a message to hundreds of faith and community leaders taking part in a national meeting of popular movements in Modesto, California, in the United States.
The encounter, taking place from February 16th to 18th, has been organised with the support of the Vatican’s new Dicastery for the Promotion of Integral Human Development, the U.S. Catholic Campaign for Human Development and the National Network of People Improving Communities through Organizing (PICO).
In the message, the Pope encourages participants to persevere with their commitment to fight for social justice, to work for environmental protection and to stand in solidarity with refugees and migrants.
Please find below the full English language text of Pope Francis’ message :
Dear Brothers and Sisters,
First of all, I would like to congratulate you for your effort in replicating on a national level the work being developed in the World Meetings of Popular Movements. By way of this letter, I want to encourage and strengthen each one of you, your organizations, and all who strive with you for “Land, Work and Housing,” the three T’s in Spanish: Tierra, Trabajo y Techo. I congratulate you for all that you are doing.
I would like to thank the Catholic Campaign for Human Development, its chairman Bishop David Talley, and the host Bishops Stephen Blaire, Armando Ochoa and Jaime Soto, for the wholehearted support they have offered to this meeting. Thank you, Cardinal Peter Turkson, for your continued support of popular movements from the new Dicastery for the Promotion of Integral Human Development. It makes me very happy to see you working together towards social justice! How I wish that such constructive energy would spread to all dioceses, because it builds bridges between peoples and individuals. These are bridges that can overcome the walls of exclusion, indifference, racism, and intolerance.
I would also like to highlight the work done by the PICO National Network and the organizations promoting this meeting. I learned that PICO stands for “People Improving Communities through Organizing”. What a great synthesis of the mission of popular movements: to work locally, side by side with your neighbors, organizing among yourselves, to make your communities thrive.
A few months ago in Rome, we talked at the third World Meeting of Popular Movements about walls and fear, about bridges and love. Without wanting to repeat myself, these issues do challenge our deepest values.
We know that none of these ills began yesterday. For some time, the crisis of the prevailing paradigm has confronted us. I am speaking of a system that causes enormous suffering to the human family, simultaneously assaulting people’s dignity and our Common Home in order to sustain the invisible tyranny of money that only guarantees the privileges of a few. “In our time humanity is experiencing a turning-point in its history.”
As Christians and all people of good will, it is for us to live and act at this moment. It is “a grave responsibility, since certain present realities, unless effectively dealt with, are capable of setting off processes of dehumanization which would then be hard to reverse.” These are signs of the times that we need to recognize in order to act. We have lost valuable time: time when we did not pay enough attention to these processes, time when we did not resolve these destructive realities. Thus the processes of dehumanization accelerate. The direction taken beyond this historic turning-point—the ways in which this worsening crisis gets resolved—will depend on people’s involvement and participation and, largely, on yourselves, the popular movements.
We should be neither paralyzed by fear nor shackled within the conflict. We have to acknowledge the danger but also the opportunity that every crisis brings in order to advance to a successful synthesis. In the Chinese language, which expresses the ancestral wisdom of that great people, the word “crisis” is comprised of two ideograms: Wēi, which represents “danger”, and Jī, which represents “opportunity”.
The grave danger is to disown our neighbors. When we do so, we deny their humanity and our own humanity without realizing it; we deny ourselves, and we deny the most important Commandments of Jesus. Herein lies the danger, the dehumanization. But here we also find an opportunity: that the light of the love of neighbor may illuminate the Earth with its stunning brightness like a lightning bolt in the dark; that it may wake us up and let true humanity burst through with authentic resistance, resilience and persistence.
The question that the lawyer asked Jesus in the Gospel of Luke (10:25-37) echoes in our ears today: “Who is my neighbor?” Who is that other whom we are to love as we love ourselves? Maybe the questioner expects a comfortable response in order to carry on with his life: “My relatives? My compatriots? My co-religionists? …” Maybe he wants Jesus to excuse us from the obligation of loving pagans or foreigners who at that time were considered unclean. This man wants a clear rule that allows him to classify others as “neighbor” and “non-neighbor”, as those who can become neighbors and those who cannot become neighbors.
Jesus responds with a parable which features two figures belonging to the elite of the day and a third figure, considered a foreigner, a pagan and unclean: the Samaritan. On the road from Jerusalem to Jericho, the priest and the Levite come upon a dying man, whom robbers have attacked, stripped and abandoned. In such situations the Law of the Lord imposes the duty to offer assistance, but both pass by without stopping. They were in a hurry. However, unlike these elite figures, the Samaritan stopped. Why him? As a Samaritan he was looked down upon, no one would have counted on him, and in any case he would have had his own commitments and things to do—yet when he saw the injured man, he did not pass by like the other two who were linked to the Temple, but “he saw him and had compassion on him” (v. 33). The Samaritan acts with true mercy: he binds up the man’s wounds, transports him to an inn, personally takes care of him, and provides for his upkeep. All this teaches us that compassion, love, is not a vague sentiment, but rather means taking care of the other to the point of personally paying for him. It means committing oneself to take all the necessary steps so as to “draw near to” the other to the point of identifying with him: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” This is the Lord’s Commandment.
The economic system that has the god of money at its center, and that sometimes acts with the brutality of the robbers in the parable, inflicts injuries that to a criminal degree have remained neglected. Globalized society frequently looks the other way with the pretence of innocence. Under the guise of what is politically correct or ideologically fashionable, one looks at those who suffer without touching them. But they are televised live; they are talked about in euphemisms and with apparent tolerance, but nothing is done systematically to heal the social wounds or to confront the structures that leave so many brothers and sisters by the wayside. This hypocritical attitude, so different from that of the Samaritan, manifests an absence of true commitment to humanity.
Sooner or later, the moral blindness of this indifference comes to light, like when a mirage dissipates. The wounds are there, they are a reality. The unemployment is real, the violence is real, the corruption is real, the identity crisis is real, the gutting of democracies is real. The system’s gangrene cannot be whitewashed forever because sooner or later the stench becomes too strong; and when it can no longer be denied, the same power that spawned this state of affairs sets about manipulating fear, insecurity, quarrels, and even people’s justified indignation, in order to shift the responsibility for all these ills onto a “non-neighbor”. I am not speaking of anyone in particular, I am speaking of a social and political process that flourishes in many parts of the world and poses a grave danger for humanity.
Jesus teaches us a different path. Do not classify others in order to see who is a neighbor and who is not. You can become neighbor to whomever you meet in need, and you will do so if you have compassion in your heart. That is to say, if you have that capacity to suffer with someone else. You must become a Samaritan. And then also become like the innkeeper at the end of the parable to whom the Samaritan entrusts the person who is suffering. Who is this innkeeper? It is the Church, the Christian community, people of compassion and solidarity, social organizations. It is us, it is you, to whom the Lord Jesus daily entrusts those who are afflicted in body and spirit, so that we can continue pouring out all of his immeasurable mercy and salvation upon them. Here are the roots of the authentic humanity that resists the dehumanization that wears the livery of indifference, hypocrisy, or intolerance.
I know that you have committed yourselves to fight for social justice, to defend our Sister Mother Earth and to stand alongside migrants. I want to reaffirm your choice and share two reflections in this regard.
First, the ecological crisis is real. “A very solid scientific consensus indicates that we are presently witnessing a disturbing warming of the climatic system.” Science is not the only form of knowledge, it is true. It is also true that science is not necessarily “neutral”—many times it conceals ideological views or economic interests. However, we also know what happens when we deny science and disregard the voice of Nature. I make my own everything that concerns us as Catholics. Let us not fall into denial. Time is running out. Let us act. I ask you again—all of you, people of all backgrounds including native people, pastors, political leaders—to defend Creation.
The other is a reflection that I shared at our most recent World Meeting of Popular Movements, and I feel is important to say it again: no people is criminal and no religion is terrorist. Christian terrorism does not exist, Jewish terrorism does not exist, and Muslim terrorism does not exist. They do not exist. No people is criminal or drug-trafficking or violent. “The poor and the poorer peoples are accused of violence yet, without equal opportunities, the different forms of aggression and conflict will find a fertile terrain for growth and will eventually explode.” There are fundamentalist and violent individuals in all peoples and religions—and with intolerant generalizations they become stronger because they feed on hate and xenophobia. By confronting terror with love, we work for peace.
I ask you for meekness and resolve to defend these principles. I ask you not to barter them lightly or apply them superficially. Like Saint Francis of Assisi, let us give everything of ourselves: where there is hatred, let us sow love; where there is injury, let us sow pardon; where there is discord, let us sow unity; where there is error, let us sow truth.
Please know that I pray for you, that I pray with you, and I ask God our Father to accompany and bless you. May He shower you with his love and protect you. I ask you to please pray for me too, and to carry on.
Vatican City, 10 February 2017
(from Vatican Radio)…
(Vatican Radio) War begins in a person’s heart, for this reason we are all responsible for caring for peace. This was Pope Francis’ message during his morning Mass at the Casa Santa Marta. Pope Francis at Mass spoke about the sufferings of so many people whose lives are upset by wars waged by the powerful and arms traffickers. The dove, the rainbow, and the Covenant. The Holy Father spoke about these three images, present in the day’s First Reading from the Book of Genesis, in which Noah releases a dove after the flood. This dove, which returns with an olive branch, is “a sign of what God desired after the flood: peace, that is, that all would live in peace.” He said, “The dove and the rainbow are fragile. The rainbow is beautiful after a storm, but then a cloud comes and it disappears.” Even the dove, he added, is fragile. The Pope said he was reminded of when at a Sunday Angelus two years ago a seagull swooped in and killed the two doves he and two children had just released from a window of the Apostolic Palace. People die in wars promoted by the powerful and arms traffickers Pope Francis said, “The Covenant which God makes is strong, but we accept it in weakness. God makes peace with us but it is not easy to care for peace. It is a daily task, because within each of us is that seed of original sin, that is, the spirit of Cain which – for envy, jealousy, greed, and the desire to dominate – leads to war.” In this way, the Holy Father observed that, when speaking of the Covenant between God and humanity, reference is made to “blood”. As the First Reading states, “For your own lifeblood, too, I will demand an accounting: from every animal I will demand it, and from one man in regard to his fellow man.” We, the Pope said, “are our brothers’ keeper, and when there is blood spilt, there is sin, and God will demand an accounting.” “In today’s world there is blood being spilt. Today the world is at war. Many brothers and sisters are dying, even innocent people, because the great and powerful want a larger slice of the earth; they want a little more power, or they want to make a little more money on arms trafficking. And the Word of the Lord is clear: ‘For your own lifeblood, that is of your life, I will demand an accounting: from every animal I will demand it, and from one man in regard to his fellow man.’ Even of us –it seems peaceful here – the Lord will demand an accounting of the blood of our brothers and sisters who are suffering war.” Both caring for peace and a declaration of war begins within each of us “How do I care for the dove?”, Pope Francis asked himself, “What do I do so that the rainbow is always a guide? What do I do so that more blood is not spilt in the world?” All of us, he said, “we are involved in this.” Prayer for peace “is not a formality; work towards peace is not a formality.” He noted with bitterness that “war begins in the heart of a person; it begins at home, in the family, among friends and then goes out into the whole world.” What do I do, he asked, “when I feel that something enters my heart that wants to destroy peace?” “War begins in here and finishes out there. The news we see in the papers or on television… Today so many people die, and that seed of war, which breeds envy, jealousy, and greed in my heart, is the same – grown up, become a tree – as the bomb which falls on a hospital, on a school, and kills children. It is the same. The declaration of war begins in here, in each of us. For this reason the question arises: ‘How do I care for peace in my heart, in my interior, and in my family?’. Care for peace; not only care for it but make it with your hands every day. Just so will we succeed in spreading it throughout the whole world.” The Pope’s childhood memory of the end of the war Pope Francis said, “The blood of Christ is that which makes peace, but not that blood which I make with my brother or which arms traffickers make, or that of the earth’s powerful in the great wars.” The Pope then recalled an anecdote from his childhood about peace. “As I recall, the alarm at the Fire Brigade began to sound, and then those on the television and the city… This usually happened to draw attention to a tragedy or something else. And immediately I heard our neighbor call my mother: ‘Mrs. Regina, come here, come here, come here!’ My mother went out a little afraid: ‘What’s happened?” And the lady from the other side of the garden told her: ‘The war is over!’ and she cried.” Francis then recalled the hug the two women shared, their crying and joy because the war had ended. “May the Lord,” he concluded, “give us the grace to say: ‘War is finished, crying. War is finished in my heart; war is finished in my family; war is finished in my neighborhood; war is finished in my workplace; war is finished in the world.’ In this way shall the dove, rainbow, and Covenant be strengthened.” (from Vatican Radio)…
(Vatican Radio) Pope Francis on Thursday meeting with a delegation from the Special Olympics International in the Vatican, said they were “a sign of hope for all who commit themselves to a more inclusive society.”
Listen to Lydia O’Kane’s report
This March the Special Olympics World Winter Games, takes place in Styria, Austria and on Thursday Pope Francis met a delegation from the Special Olympics International telling them “you will be, as the theme of this year’s event says, a “heartbeat for the world”.
In a way, the Pope told those gathered, “at the heart of all sporting activity is joy: the joy of exercising, of being together, of being alive and rejoicing in the gifts the Creator gives us each day. He continued, “the sweetest victory is when we surpass ourselves – we realize what true and well-deserved joy feels like.”
Sport, the Holy Fathered noted, “helps us to spread a culture of encounter and solidarity.”
Together, he added, athletes and helpers show us that there are no obstacles or barriers which cannot be overcome.
Pope Francis told the delegation, made up of athletes, organizers and representatives, that they were, “a sign of hope for all who commit themselves to a more inclusive society. Every life is precious, he said, every person is a gift and inclusion enriches every community and society.”
This is your message for the world, the Pope underlined, “for a world without borders, which excludes no one.”
The Special Olympics World Winter Games 2017 will take place between March 14th and 25th.
(from Vatican Radio)…
(Vatican Radio) Pope Francis is set to visit a Rome parish which aims to encourage young thespians and is committed to serving the poor.
The Holy Father will celebrate Mass on Sunday at the parish of Santa Maria Josefa del Cuore di Gesù at Ponte di Nona, a district in the east of Rome.
Before Mass, the pope will speak to young people in a newly-launched parish theatre and will also meet Caritas volunteers who distribute food parcels to more than 200 families in the area.
The parish, which suffers from high unemployment, consists mainly of young couples with small children and numbers about 20,000 people.
Describing the moment he announced the visit to parishioners, pastor Fr Francesco Rondinelli said: “For a few seconds they looked at me dumbfounded – then there was an explosion of joy.
“The aspect that most moved me is that everyone, even those who have a small physical ailment, have offered their help to prepare the perfect welcome.
“Every parish priest dreams that his community receives a visit from the Holy Father, but I would never have hoped for one. It seemed to me an impossible desire to achieve, let alone a few months since my appointment.”
He said that when Cardinal Agostino Vallini, the Cardinal Vicar of Rome, called him about the visit, “my legs started to shake and I felt the joy difficult to put into words.”
Santa Maria Josefa del Cuore di Gesù is a newly built church dedicated to Saint Maria Josefa Sancho de Guerra, the Spanish foundress of the Congregation of the Servants of Jesus of Charity. She was canonised by Pope Saint John Paul II on October 1, 2000.
The first Mass in the Church was celebrated by the then Cardinal Vicar Camillo Ruini on January 27, 2001. In December of that year, Pope John Paul II celebrated Mass there and gave the community a precious crucifix, which is today placed on the altar, as well as a statue of the pietà.
The parish has a Catechesis programme attended by more than 200 children who also have the use of football and basketball courts.
Fr Rondinelli, aged 39, who took up the parish appointment only five months ago, grew up with drama and thinks it is an important part of a teenager’s formation.
“I would like, then, to organise courses in theatre for young people and adults to bring in more participants and protagonists.
“We have a beautiful theatre, fully equipped, which can accommodate 200 people, but remains unused up until now. ”
As well as meeting the youth and Caritas volunteers, Pope Francis will also speak to families and the sick of the parish. He will hear four confessions of parishioners.
T he visit, beginning at about 4pm, will be the 13th of his pontificate to a parish in the Diocese of Rome.
(Richard Marsden)
(from Vatican Radio)…
(Vatican Radio) The Centesimus Annus – Pro Pontifice Foundation on Wednesday announced the three winners of the third edition of the “Society and Economy” award.
The International “Society and Economy” Award went to Markus Vogt for his work Prinzip Nachhaltigkeit. Ein Entwurf aus theologisch-ethischer Perspektive .
Two new awards were given to journalists, to show the Foundation’s recognition of the importance of journalists in disseminating the Church’s social doctrine.
The first of the two journalists is French Father Dominique Greiner whose prize-winning blog “La doctrine social sur le fil “, is published on the “La Croix” website. German radio host Burkhard Schäfers is the second winner, for his radio show “Oswald von Nell-Breuning – Was von der katholischen Soziallehre geblieben ist “.
The announcement was made at a press conference featuring Cardinal Reinhard Marx, Archbishop of München und Freising, and Dr. Domingo Sugranyes Bickel, President of the Centesimus Annus – Pro Pontifice Foundation.
The full text of their interventions are below
Intervention by Cardinal Reinhard Marx
As chairman of the jury of the International “Society and Economy” award of the Centesimus Annus – Pro Pontifice Foundation, I am happy to communicate at this press conference the names of the three winners of the third edition of the award.
Among more than 57 works submitted from 12 countries and 5 continents and written in 6 different languages, it is my special pleasure to announce that the jury this time, has chosen a German text as winner of the prestigious International Award:
Markus Vogt, Prinzip Nachhaltigkeit. Ein Entwurf aus theologisch-ethischer Perspektive , Monaco, oekom in 2013.
This third edition of the International Award also includes two new prizes for journalists. These two awards show the Foundation’s recognition of the importance of journalists in disseminating the Church’s social doctrine. The jury chose the following two from among the nominations from seven countries:
The first of the two journalists is French Father Dominique Greiner whose prize-winning blog “La doctrine social sur le fil “, is published on the “La Croix” website.
Burkhard Schäfers the second prize winner is German, and received the award for his radio show “Oswald von Nell-Breuning – Was von der katholischen Soziallehre geblieben ist “.
Now a few words about the winners. Markus Vogt, born in 1962 in Freiburg, is married with 3 children. After studying theology and philosophy in Munich and Jerusalem, he worked for some years as an ecology expert for the German government. Then from 1998 to 2007 he was professor of Christian Social Ethics at the Salesian philosophical-theological University in Benediktbeuern. Since 2007 he has been professor of Christian Social Ethics at the University of Munich.
Vogt has been studying sustainability for more than 20 years and can be considered one of the leading experts on this subject, which is also the focus of Pope Francis’s recent Encyclical Laudato si. His book contains, so to speak, the range of Professor Vogt’s research to date. It was first published in 2009 with a third edition in 2013. This circumstance, quite exceptional for a book on the social doctrine of the Church,
demonstrates the importance of the text.
The principle of sustainability is no stranger to traditional economics. Throughout the centuries there have been principles that take into account the consequences of human action on the environment, for example by regulating the use of woods and forests. Modern technologies however have increased our possibilities and therefore the consequences of our actions on the world with the result that today’s problems have a much broader range requiring a global rethink.
Markus Vogt suggests we reconsider the connections between the three essential interdependent facets of human life: the economy, ecology and the social dimension. In the long run, the economy will not flourish without a healthy environment and without resolving the problem of poverty. But this is equally true for the two other dimensions: it will be impossible to safeguard the environment without a functioning economy and without offering everyone the opportunity to develop their gifts while the problem of poverty cannot be tackled with a weak economy and without proper care of the environment.
According to Vogt an example of a society where ecology, economy and social affairs were well coordinated was the Old Testament Jewish society. This was a society where men, respecting certain rules concerning the environment and the poor (for instance the sabbatical year in which the fields were kept fallow and debts were forgiven), were able to extract even from poor soil enough food to avoid famines which recurred elsewhere over several centuries.
We cannot resolve unaided the enormous problems facing today’s world. Vogt rejects the view that would make ecology a new doctrine of salvation. The person, not the environment, is at centre of the Church’s social doctrine and the environment becomes crucial depending on the person’s needs. What is required therefore is a discerning process capable of spelling out the connections between the various issues. Vogt’s book addresses the issue of sustainability from different ethical, theological, scientific, sociological and even political perspectives. The challenge here is to find new ways of thinking which also for example shoulder responsibility for future generations (the “solidarity” principle) that considers nature as creation, that is a gift, and not merely as the embodiment of resources to be used for industrial production.
Vogt does not simply present a solution which has dropped from on high. It is true that politics play a key role in addressing the ecological issue and yet the competences of international institutions must also be strengthened. At the same time, it is not entirely a political problem. Indeed, Vogt underlines the importance of the subsidiarity principle, pointing out that many steps must be taken at local level by the intermediary bodies that form society.
What is the role of the Church in the search for sustainability? Vogt suggests that it accepts sustainability as one of the fundamental principles of its social doctrine alongside personality, solidarity and subsidiarity. In fact, he considers sustainability a modern-day development of the traditional principle of the common good.
To sum up: reading Vogt’s book is an enriching experience. He does not wish to endorse a unilateral way of thinking, but knows how to take even-handed and unbiased positions in the face of radical attitudes. Nonetheless, he also indicates some concrete ways to improve our world.
The first of the two award winning journalists is Father Dominique Greiner. Born in 1963 in Toul (Meurthe et Moselle). Father Greiner studied economics and theology and teaches moral, social and political theology at the Theological Faculties of the Catholic Institute of Lille and Paris. He is a member of the Assumptionist Order (Augustinians of the Assumption) and editor-in-chief of the “La Croix” newspaper.
Fr. Dominique Greiner’s award-winning blog ” La doctrine sociale sur le fil ” was started in 2013 and its speciality is the Church’s social doctrine. It includes more than one hundred articles published in “La Croix” in recent years. The blog articles can be subdivided into six main areas: 1) Ecology and ways of life; 2) The poor and migrants; 3) Economics, market, enterprise and employment; 4) Politics and the common good; 5) War, peace, terrorism and 6) Miscellaneous. The blog uses the Internet to offer those wishing to widen their interest in the Church’s social doctrine, a rich and invaluable tool vis-à-vis “a more just, more fraternal and more supportive society”.
The second award-winning journalist is Burkhard Schäfers who studied political science, communication sciences and European ethnology in Freiburg and Munich. Today he works in Munich as a journalist for public radio (Deutschlandfunk and Deutschlandradio Kultur), for various newspapers and some online media. He is director of the Institutzur Förderung publizistischen Nachwuchses ( Institute for the advancement of new generations of publicists ).
The 15-minute award-winning radio show shows the qualities of Oswald von Nell-Breuning (1890-1991), one of the major protagonists of the Church’s twentieth century social doctrine. Von Nell-Breuning was one of the main authors of Pius XI’s 1931 Quadragesimo Anno . During his long life, he recognised the need to start from facts rather than from rules and regulations, in order to understand the social reality. During Schäfers’s broadcast, several interviewees illustrate the principles of subsidiarity, personality and solidarity. The contribution concludes with some reflections on the relevance of the Church’s social doctrine in today’s Germany.
Intervention by Dr. Domingo Sugranyes Bickel
The annual CAPP international conference will be held at the Vatican on May 18-20, 2017 on the following subject:
CONSTRUCTIVE ALTERNATIVES IN AN ERA OF GLOBAL TURMOIL
Job Creation and Human Integrity in the Digital Space – Incentives for Solidarity and Civic Virtue
The conference will attract around 250 professionals, business persons, workers’ representatives, politicians, academics and specialists in Catholic Social Teaching. The conference receives reports from several regional meetings and international expert consultations, as well as reports from its local chapters and members in 19 countries.
During the last 24 months, the Foundation’s work focused on:
Business Initiative in the Fight against Poverty, with contributions presented at its May 2016 international conference at the Vatican and at the CAPP-USA/Fordham University conference held in New York City in September, 2016.
A Digital Economy at the Service of the Common Good, with a special focus on the future of work (CAPP Italian conference, held at the headquarters of the ‘La Civiltà Cattolica’ review in November, 2016) and the cultural, organizational and ethical effects of digitization (CAPP/Universidad Pontificia Comillas/BBVA fourth ‘Dublin Process’ expert consultation, Madrid, January 2017)
New alliances and ethical dialogue in the search for Inclusive Economic Reforms (May 2016 CAPP International conference at the Vatican).
All the papers are made available for further research and debate on the CAPP website www.centesimusannus.org and through other publications.
These activities aim at complying with the CAPP Foundation’s purpose, as defined by founder St. John Paul II: “to promote informed knowledge of the social teachings of the Church and of the activity of the Holy See among qualified and socially motivated business and professional leaders”. 1 It also tries to take up the challenging message addressed to the Foundation by Pope Francis: “ It is my hope that your conference will contribute to generating new models of economic progress more clearly directed to the universal common good, inclusion and integral development, the creation of labour and investment in human resources.” 2
By adhering to the CAPP Foundation, members commit themselves to acquire knowledge of Catholic social teachings and to broadcast the conclusions reached within the Foundation in their professional circles. They must be Catholic. In addition, the Board has established a group of friends of the CAPP Foundation to allow non-Catholics to collaborate in its work. The Foundation has always tried to maintain rigorous standards in its work, whereby academic and ethical research is confronted with direct management experience. The Board is assisted by an international Scientific Committee and by ecclesiastical counsellors.
The CAPP Foundation has established the biennial international ‘Economy and Society’ Awards. His Eminence Cardinal Marx, Chairman of the Jury, will comment on this years’ award winners.
The CAPP Foundation’s activities are supported by members’ fees and donations. The endowment’s revenue allows the Foundation to make a donation every year to the Holy Father’s charities. The amount given to the Holy Father and to Holy See institutions on his indications add to more than 2 million euro since 2010. Fully audited accounts are available on the Foundation’s website.
________________
1 Fondazione Centesimus Annus pro Pontifice, by-laws art. 3.
2 Address to the Centesimus Annus pro Pontifice Foundation,May 13 th 2016.
(from Vatican Radio)…