Cardinal Bergoglio, now Pope Francis: Against liberalism, critic of the IMF and foreign debt [View all]

[Catherina]

I posted this in GD but that was a mistake lol. It's not going to get any traction there but may interest some folks here.

This article is very badly written. You can tell it's written by a Spanish speaker but it still makes perfect sense. And the document can't possibly be called “Episcopal Conference of Argentina”, that sounds more like the authorship heading.

Against liberalism, critic of the IMF and foreign debt

By Carlos Burgueño
Ambito Financiero staff

Harsh critic of free-market liberalism, the IMF and adjustment policies, and defender of the debt restructuring processes, Jorge Bergoglio, now Pope Francis, never refused to define where he stands when it comes down to economics, even in the most difficult moments. Adept to the most classical conceptions of the Social Doctrine of the Church, he openly confronted adjustment policies during the 2001 crisis, and then, in 2011, he battled those same remedies when intended to solve debt problems in Europe.

Bergoglio took an active stance against liberal policies since his early years, but it became public in 2001 when Argentina went into a terminal crisis. In his sermons, he used to openly condemn the social situation, even with former President Fernando de la Rua sitting right in front of him and hearing his Sunday Mass.

It was in August 2001 when he submitted a document known as “Episcopal Conference of Argentina”, where the Church indicated its stance on the delicate situation the country was going through.

The document said that "some of the most serious social ills we suffer are a reflection of the raw liberalism.” Likewise, it indicated the State as “an instrument created to serve the common good, and to be the guarantor of equity and solidarity of the people.”

The communiqué also condemned the fact of not having created a “social network” in order to contain the expelled from the system. To conclude, it also remarked the existence of “two diseases: tax evasion and squandering of State funds, which are funds obtained with the sweat and sacrifice of the people.”

...

http://www.buenosairesherald.com/article/126381/against-liberalism-critic-of-the-imf-and-foreign-debt

"economic liberalism with no rules or controls whatsoever is one of the causes of the current economic crisis since it creates speculative financial markets, thus damaging the real economy, especially in weak countries." -- Archbishop Boroglio, now Pope Francis