Vatican City, 12 September 2015 (VIS)
“The Church knows the value of cooperatives. Many of them
originated from priests, committed lay faithful, and communities
inspired by the spirit of Christian solidarity … and in the
encyclical 'Laudato si'' I have underlined their value in the fields
of renewable energy and agriculture”, said the Pope this morning as
he received in audience in the Vatican's Paul VI Hall more than seven
thousand people, including directors, employees and their families,
from the Cooperative Credit Bank of Rome (BCC).
In his address Francis reiterated the
suggestions he made in February to the Confederation of Cooperatives,
adding that each one should dedicate itself to its specific mission:
“Continue to be a motor for the development of the weakest part of
local communities and of civil society, thinking especially of the
young unemployed and aiming at the birth of new cooperative
enterprises. Be agents in proposing and implementing new welfare
solutions, starting in the field of healthcare. Occupy yourselves
with the relationship between the economy and social justice, keeping
the dignity and value of the person at the centre. The person must
always be at the centre, not the god of money. Facilitate and
encourage family life, and propose cooperative and mutual solutions
for the management of common goods, that cannot become the property
of the few or the object of speculation. Promote a fraternal and
social use of money, in the style of the true cooperative, in which
people are not guided by capital, but instead capital is guided by
people. Favour the growth of an economy of honesty”.
“The economy of honesty – in this
age in which the wind of corruption blows in all places. You are
required not only to be honest – this is normal – but to spread
and entrench honesty everywhere. A struggle against corruption”,
remarked the Pope, suggesting as a final point “active
participation in globalisation so that it may be a globalisation of
solidarity”.
“You are the largest Cooperative
Credit Bank in Italy”, he recalled. “The most important challenge
you face is to grown while continuing to be truly cooperative,
rather, becoming even more so. This means promoting the active
participation of your members. Work together and work for others. …
Banking is delicate enterprise that requires great rigour. But a
cooperative bank must have something more: it must seek to humanise
the economy, uniting efficiency with solidarity”.
In social doctrine there is an
important word: “solidarity. As cooperative credit banks you have
put the principle of subsidiarity into practice when you faced the
difficulties of the crisis with your means, joining forces and not at
the expense of others. This is subsidiarity: not placing a burden on
institutions and therefore on the country when it is possible to face
problems with one's own strengths, responsibly”. It is also
important for cooperatives to allocate resources to charity and
mutual funds and to be aware of where income is produced, “with
attention to keep people, the young and families, at the centre”.
“At the origin of rural savings banks
it was expected that the credit cooperative would be able to
stimulate further initiatives of cooperation”, observed Francis.
“This spirit remains valid. The BCC can be the nucleus around which
a large network can be built, allowing the birth of businesses that
create employment … there are many people without work. Businesses
that create work in order to support families, and to experiment with
microcredit and other ways of humanising the economy, and above all
to give every man and woman the opportunity to have the dignity of
work”, he concluded.
No comments:
Post a Comment