Pope Attacks Capitalism—Again

FILIPPO MONTEFORTE/AFP/Getty Images

Pope Attacks Capitalism—Again

Pope Francis called for a bold cultural revolution Thursday to correct the “structurally perverse” economic system of the rich exploiting the poor that is turning Earth into “an immense pile of filth.”

The 191-page manifesto took aim at the fossil fuel-based industrial model in what some analysts are calling an indictment on the capitalist system. Citing Scripture, the pope urged people of all faiths and no faith to undergo an awakening to save God’s creation for future generations. However, some have dismissed the Argentine pope as pushing what they call Latin American-style socialism.

Pope Francis’s encyclical on the environment comes nearly two years after he labeled free market capitalism a “new tyranny” and condemned it as a “financial system which rules rather than serves.”