John Cornwell Francis Quotations

Pope Francis emphatically does not buy the argument that poverty can be alleviated by the 'trickle down' effects of wealth creation. He is deaf to arguments that the global economy has brought a billion people out of poverty. He is convinced, in short, that the best and only way to expel poverty is fairer distribution of the world's goods.

The issue of the environment as seen by Pope Francis is not a matter of purely scientific or, indeed, theological debate: it involves economic and political views on how the world's poor can be brought out of poverty while protecting the environment.