MESSAGE OF HIS HOLINESS POPE FRANCIS TO THE EXECUTIVE CHAIRMAN OF THE “WORLD ECONOMIC FORUM” ON THE OCCASION OF THE ANNUAL GATHERING IN DAVOSKLOSTERS

[…]
The recurring financial instabilities have brought new problems and serious
challenges that governments must confront, such as the growth of unemployment,
the increase in various forms of poverty, the widening of the socio-economic gap and
new forms of slavery, often rooted in situations of conflict, migration and various
social problems. “Together with this, we encounter certain rather selfish lifestyles,
marked by an opulence which is no longer sustainable and frequently indifferent to
the world around us, and especially to the poorest of the poor. To our dismay we see
technical and economic questions dominating political debate, to the detriment of
genuine concern for human beings. Men and women risk being reduced to mere cogs
in a machine that treats them as items of consumption to be exploited, with the result
that – as is so tragically apparent – whenever a human life no longer proves useful
for that machine, it is discarded with few qualms” (Address to the European
Parliament, Strasbourg, 25 November 2014). […]