Wealth and Corruption

This week Pope Francis spoke once again about corruption and its relationship to wealth. It is remarkable how many times this Pope has addressed the subject, because he is very clear that it is one of the gravest problems in today’s world. And worst of all, the corrupt think they are “good,” and do not realize the great harm they do to themselves, to their families and to society.

Below, in my own words, are some of the things the Pope said in his homily at Mass in the chapel of the Casa Santa Marta. The Gospel was the passage of the rich young man, whom Jesus Christ calls to leave everything and follow him, but who says no because he does not want to give up his “riches,” and goes away sad. When Christ tells him the last step he must take to be good, to sell his possessions, give to the poor and follow him, “joy and hope” immediately vanish from the young man, because he does not want to give up his wealth.

It is surely one of the saddest and most beautiful Gospels in the New Testament, because it shows how those who say No to God live in sadness, and how those who leave everything for Him find a happiness on this earth beyond any wealth or anything anyone could imagine.

The Pope said that attachment to riches is the beginning of every kind of corruption, everywhere: personal corruption, corruption in business, even the petty commercial corruption of those who shave 50 grams off the proper weight, political corruption, corruption in education. Why? Because those who live attached to their own power and wealth believe they are in paradise. They are closed in, he said; they have no horizon and no hope. And in the end they will have to leave everything behind.

Yes: “In the end they will have to leave everything behind.” So however powerful the corrupt may feel, however full of riches, things and “trinkets”…, in the end they will die just like the poorest person in the world. They will die exactly the same, but they will have far more to answer for before God!

The Pope said there is a mystery in the possession of wealth, because riches have the power to seduce us and make us believe we are in an earthly paradise. And that earthly paradise, he said, is a place without a “horizon,” like a neighborhood he remembered seeing in the 1970s, where well-off people had fortified the boundaries to protect themselves from thieves.

Living without a horizon, he went on, is a sterile life, and living without hope is a sad life. Attachment to riches makes us sad and sterile. He stressed that he was speaking of attachment, not of managing wealth well, because riches are meant for the common good, for everyone; if the Lord gives them to someone, it is so that they may be used for the good of all, not hoarded in one’s heart, which makes a person corrupt and sad.

The Holy Father insisted that wealth without generosity makes us believe we are powerful, like God, and in the end robs us of the best thing we have, which is hope. But Jesus, he said, shows us in the Gospel the right way to live with an abundance of goods: the first Beatitude, “Blessed are the poor in spirit,” which means stripping oneself of that attachment and making the riches the Lord has given serve the common good. That, he said, is the only way.

Open your hand, open your heart, open your horizon, the Pope urged. If your hand is closed, your heart is closed too, like the man who threw banquets and dressed in luxury; you have no horizon, you don’t see others in need, and you will end up like that man: far from God.

Wise words from this great Pope. God has given us a Pope who knows what corruption is, because he saw it in his homeland. And he knows it is one of the great misfortunes suffered by our peoples, where injustices beyond words are being lived.

Venezuela is a prime example of the misuse of wealth by the corrupt. A country destroyed by the greed of a few corrupt people. A few corrupt people who will have a great deal to answer for before God!