Globalization and the Church” “

In the age of the globalization of markets and the hegemony of the neoliberal theory, the gulf between rich and poor has further widened over these last few years. Global inequality has in fact grown very rapidly: at least by 5% according to the most recent figures published by the World Bank’s “Economic Journal” (January 2002). In spite of the desire of several to place the struggle against poverty at the centre of the discussions at the World Economic Forum (WEF), which met in New York in recent days, the fact is that the current world recession does not favour the generosity of the rich countries, paralyzed among other things by the fight against terrorism. Simultaneously, more than 40,000 people – including numerous Christians and also many bishops – attended the World Social Forum (FSM) at Porto Alegre in Brazil and firmly rejected the neoliberal globalization that favours only an already privileged minority. The president of the national Conference of the bishops of Brazil, Msgr. Jayme Henrique Chemello, found it scandalous that in his country, the ninth ranking economic power in the world, 53 million people should be living below the poverty threshold. Msgr. Luciano Pedro Mendes de Almeida denounced the fact that in Brazil the repayment of the foreign debt is considered more important that the fight against poverty. In this country, which applies to the letter the neoliberal prescriptions of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), food is produced for export with the most modern techniques, while millions of Brazilians are starving. Privatization is not only an economic phenomenon: people privatize values and put self-interest in first place to the detriment of social and collective ideals. We even go so far as to privatize faith, as some religious movements have done, privileging the personal relation with God, in an affective and subjective way, and totally abandoning the community’s mediation. But not all the winds are blowing in the same direction. Throughout the world, and in particular in Latin America, the debate on “globalization with a human face” is spreading in the Church. This is also thanks to the mobilization of civil society. In some world Forums emphasis is placed on the cancellation of the debt, the creation of restrictive rules to curb the money laundering of the proceeds of every kind of illegal trafficking, the exodus of capital from the developing world, and the damaging results of financial speculation at the world level. In this process of awareness-raising, Christians assume a leading role in some countries. It is especially the grassroots movements, the religious congregations, the Justice and Peace Commissions that participate in the discussion on the “world disorder” caused by neoliberal globalization. The debate on globalization, with its positive aspects – such as the increased facility of communication and trade at the world level – and its negative effects, is spreading in various spheres of the Church. However, a lot still remains to be done before all Christians can be persuaded that “another world is possible” (to adopt the WSF’s slogan) and take appropriate action as a consequence. Beginning, for example, with the sharing of property… What needs to be done in particular is to develop Christian social thinking by taking into consideration the financial character of the economy. This logic, that increasingly separates the sphere of production from the financial (or speculative) sphere, subordinates everything to the expectations of shareholders. The latter exert pressure to obtain high income from their shares; they want the maximalization of the “share value”. The Church is called to enter into dialogue with contemporary thought on the real challenges posed to Christian social teaching by globalization and the financial character of the economy. Here is a whole field of research waiting to be tilled.