Oh, lookie, lookie, lookie! The REAL quote, IN CONTEXT, promotes FREE-MARKET solutions and INDIVIDUAL CHOICES as to how to invest in a more Christian light:
Impact investors are those who are conscious of the existence of serious unjust situations, instances of profound social inequality and unacceptable conditions of poverty affecting communities and entire peoples. These investors turn to financial institutes which will use their resources to promote the economic and social development of these groups through investment funds aimed at satisfying basic needs associated with agriculture, access to water, adequate housing and reasonable prices, as well as with primary health care and educational services.
Investments of this sort are meant to have positive social repercussions on local communities, such as the creation of jobs, access to energy, training and increased agricultural productivity. The financial return for investors tends to be more moderate than in other types of investment.
The logic underlying these innovative forms of intervention is one which “acknowledges the ultimate connection between profit and solidarity, the virtuous circle existing between profit and gift … Christians are called to rediscover, experience and proclaim to all this precious and primordial unity between profit and solidarity. How much the contemporary world needs to rediscover this beautiful truth!” (Preface to the book of Cardinal Gerhard Müller, Povera per i poveri. La missione della Chiesa [“Poor for the Poor.” The Mission of the Church]).
It is important that ethics once again play its due part in the world of finance and that markets serve the interests of peoples and the common good of humanity. It is increasingly intolerable that financial markets are shaping the destiny of peoples rather than serving their needs, or that the few derive immense wealth from financial speculation while the many are deeply burdened by the consequences.
Advances in technology have increased the speed of financial transactions, but in the long run this is significant only to the extent that it better serves the common good. In this regard, speculation on food prices is a scandal which seriously compromises access to food on the part of the poorest members of our human family. It is urgent that governments throughout the world commit themselves to developing an international framework capable of promoting a market of high impact investments, and thus to combating an economy which excludes and discards.
Central Planning at it's finest.
Yep,I thought so!
“The REAL quote, IN CONTEXT, promotes FREE-MARKET solutions and INDIVIDUAL CHOICES as to how to invest in a more Christian light”
Not really.
“Investments of this sort are meant to have positive social repercussions on local communities, such as the creation of jobs, access to energy, training and increased agricultural productivity. The financial return for investors tends to be more moderate than in other types of investment.”
That in turn means they will LOSE in a free market.
“Christians are called to rediscover, experience and proclaim to all this precious and primordial unity between profit and solidarity.”
I don’t know what that means, and I doubt Francis does either.
“It is increasingly intolerable that financial markets are shaping the destiny of peoples rather than serving their needs, or that the few derive immense wealth from financial speculation while the many are deeply burdened by the consequences.”
In a free market, people make great wealth by doing a very good job of providing people with what they want at a price they are willing to pay. That is the reward for doing something admirable, not something despicable.
“It is urgent that governments throughout the world commit themselves to developing an international framework capable of promoting a market of high impact investments...”
Please explain in what sense government regulation, across borders, constitutes “FREE-MARKET solutions and INDIVIDUAL CHOICES”.
Here the pope quotes Gerhard Ludwig Müller, a pupil and friend of Gustavo Gutiérrez, the “father” of Latin-American liberation theology. [On] a visit to Peru in 1988, when the then Archbishop Müller met Fr Gustavo Gutiérrez OP, regarded as the father of the movement, convinced the him of its orthodoxy. “Liberation theology wants to make God’s liberating actions visible in the Church’s religious and social practice ... It would stop being genuine theology if it were to confuse the Christian message with Marxist or other social analysis,” he explained.
Asked by FAZ if liberation theology was meanwhile recognised as a form of thought on an equal footing with the other traditional forms of theology, Cardinal Müller explained that liberation theology’s basic concern was congruent with the Gospel for the Poor – “for those on the periphery”, as Pope Francis never tired of emphasising, he said.
He also said "the Catholic Magisterium is far from denying an ecclesial character or an ecclesial existence to ‘the separated Churches and ecclesial Communities of the West." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerhard_Ludwig_M%C3%BCller#Peter_Kramer_controversy
It is urgent that governments throughout the world commit themselves to developing an international framework capable of promoting a market of high impact investments, and thus to combating an economy which excludes and discards
I hardly see much clarity here impact investing itself lacks clarity. Though the web is full of its PR evangelists, there seems to be little critical analysis.
Felix Oldenburg, the Europe and Germany director of Ashoka, an association of social entrepreneurs was quoted as saying, "Quite frankly, impact investors are sitting at the end of an oil pipeline, waiting for the riches to gush out, but they are finding few deals. The most common complaint from impact investors is the low deal flow in their industry, since there are so few social enterprises that meet their [often narrow] requirements for investment. Some investors invest anyway, producing not only failing deals but also damaging the investees with their stringent requirements." http://www.fa-mag.com/news/the-dangerous-problem-with-impact-investing-9678.html