“In today’s world, democracy — let’s be honest — is not in good health,” the pope told some 1,200 people. This was at an event in Trieste held during Italian Catholic Social Week.
He’s likely worried about right-wing leaders in Italy, Austria, Argentina, Netherlands, and Germany. They want to close the borders and protect their unique countries.
Pope Francis said that “just as the crisis of democracy cuts across different realities and nations,” Christians everywhere are called to develop an “attitude of responsibility toward social transformation.”
He also talked of “inclusion.”
The pope compared the modern “crisis of democracy” to a wounded heart that has suffered a heart attack, manifested by “various forms of social exclusion” that “limit participation.”
“The throwaway culture generates a city where there is no place for the poor, the unborn, the fragile, the sick, children, women, the young, the old,” he said. And in this throwaway culture, “power becomes self-referential,” incapable of listening to and serving people.
“The very word ‘democracy’ does not simply mean people voting,” he said. “It is not only the vote of the people. But it requires that conditions be created for everyone to express themselves and participate.”
Participation “cannot be improvised,” he added. “It is learned as children, as young people, and must also be ‘trained’ to a critical sense with respect to ideological and populist temptations.”
His Vision
Unfortunately, the notion of “the people” is often misinterpreted and “could lead to the elimination of the very word ‘democracy’ (‘government of the people’),” he said. “Nevertheless, in order to affirm that society is more than the mere sum of individuals, the term ‘the people’ is necessary, but this is not populism.”
“Ideologies are seductive,” he declared. “Someone compared them to the Pied Piper of Hamelin; they seduce you, but then they drown you.”
“Democracy always requires the transition from taking sides to participating, from ‘cheerleading’ to dialogue,” he said.
Collectivism
As long as our economic-social system still produces one victim and there is only one person discarded, there can be no celebration of universal fraternity,” Francis cautioned. “A human and fraternal society is able to strive to ensure in an efficient and stable way that everyone is accompanied on the path of their lives.”
The pope warned that the welfare state is not the solution and easily becomes an obstacle to solidarity.
Pope Francis frequently criticizes populism and nationalism as selfishness.
Nationalism and Populism are Selfish and Egotistical?
Solidarity is “the most effective antidote to modern forms of populism,” Pope Francis told European Union leaders in 2017, and only a stronger, consolidated Europe can stem the rising tide of populist movements.
He compared solidarity, which draws us “closer to our neighbors,” with populism, which is “the fruit of an egotism that hems people in and prevents them from overcoming and ‘looking beyond’ their own narrow vision.”
“There is a need to start thinking once again as Europeans,” Francis said. He said this union [collectivism] will only be lasting and successful if the common will of Europe “proves more powerful than the will of individual nations.”
He seems afraid right-wing leaders will get into power in some European countries. They will close the borders and restore their nation’s sovereignty.
France succumbed to the hard left as he gave his latest politicized speech.
