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(Vatican Radio)  Cardinal Peter Turkson, the President of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, on Wednesday spoke on the moral challenges to business and society at the Conference of the International Academy of Management, at the University of the Andes in Chile.

The conference is entitled The Future of the Corporation: From Best in the World to Best for the World and runs from the 5-7 of January 2016. 

Key points of Cardinal Turkson's speech: 

* When he speaks to the business community, Pope Francis encourages a broadened sense of vocation, which gives rise to a deepened exercise of responsibility. He sees business as a noble vocation. The Holy Father is not anti-business, but he decries an obsession with profit and the deification of the market.

* Business leaders pursue their vocation when they focus on the twin aspects of respecting human dignity and pursuing the common good.

* Businesses contribute to the common good by producing goods that are truly good and services that truly serve. This is hindered, says Pope Francis, when the market promotes consumerism and when people are caught up in a “whirlwind of needless buying and selling”. It is also hindered when technological development is not guided by moral wisdom.

* Businesses make a contribution to the community by fostering the special dignity of human work. Employment, just like business, is a noble and essential vocation—in the words of Pope Francis, it is "part of the meaning of life on this earth, a path to growth, human development and personal fulfilment”. It is the duty of business to prioritise this goal of stable and secure employment.  This means that business must always subordinate profits to generating employment. Human beings are not inter­changeable with machines as mere factors of production.

* Another business objective is ‘good wealth’, which means generating sustainable wealth and distributing it justly. Businesses should therefor ensure that their activities do not befoul the environment and violate human dignity. This calls a shift from a short-termist to a more sustainable perspective. Pope Francis calls for the economic and social costs of using up shared environmental resources  to be fully borne by those who incur them, not by other peoples or future generations - only then can business activities be seen as ethical. Those who have contributed most to greenhouse gas emissions must be ever more honest about so-called externalities or spill-over effects, since finally nothing is outside of the accounts of our one shared common household.

* Business is called upon to harness its creativity to solve pressing human needs. This is especially important in the wake of the Paris Agreement, in which the nations of the world pledged to move away from fossil fuels as soon as possible, with the goal of reaching net-zero greenhouse gas emissions in the second half of the century. It is the role of business to deploy the finance, re-organization and technology needed to decarbonize the global economy.

The full text of Cardinal Turkson's address may be found below:

Conference of the International Academy of Management, at the ESE Business School, Universidad de los Andes, Chile [1]

Moral Challenges to Business and Society

6 January 2016

Thank you for your invitation. Let me begin by making a rather basic point: the world needs leadership in all its fields of endeavour, and the various fields need to work together in pursuit of the common good of humanity. Everyone must play a role, and Pope Francis speaks to everyone. He exhorts those in high station in politics, business and science, and he encourages those who live and work in very humble circumstances—all must commit to meeting the needs of all who live on this planet and of the planet itself. We are all in this together, each of us responsible for the other.

Following the Pope’s example, I will implore you to approach others whom you consider utterly different and therefore distant from yourselves. They are, nevertheless, your brothers and sisters. And they live in the same, one-and-only common home with you. The Holy Father has also vigorously proclaimed the necessity for leadership and participation by those on the periphery, not only in the centres of power. Here is what he said at a World Meeting of Popular Movements in Bolivia last July:

You, the lowly, the exploited, the poor and underprivileged, can do, and are doing, a lot. I would even say that the future of humanity is in great measure in your own hands, through your ability to organize and carry out creative alternatives, through your daily efforts to ensure the three “T’s” of trabajo, techo y tierra—that is, of work, housing, land and food—and through your proactive participation in the great processes of change on the national, regional and global levels. [2]

Can you listen to them? Can you work with them and for them? From such an approach can flow dialogue, new perspectives for you, and crucial challenges for us all.

A. Introduction

When he speaks to the business community, Pope Francis encourages a broadened sense of vocation, which gives rise to a deepened exercise of responsibility. Two years ago, he wrote these words to the World Economic Forum: "Business is - in fact - a vocation, and a noble vocation, provided that those engaged in it see themselves challenged by a greater meaning in life." [3]

These are scarcely the words of someone who misunderstands or disparages business, as some would have you believe. Indeed, the Pope’s message to the Davos forum was highly appreciative. With reference to improvements in people’s welfare in such areas as health care, education and communications, he complimented “the fundamental role that modern business activity has had in bringing about these changes, by stimulating and developing the immense resources of human intelligence.”

At the same time, he asked the world’s economic leaders to recognize that “the successes which have been achieved, even if they have reduced poverty for a great number of people, often have led to a widespread social exclusion. Indeed, the majority of the men and women of our time still continue to experience daily insecurity, often with dramatic consequences.”

Since then, of course, Pope Francis has given the world his wonderful encyclical Laudato si’, on Care for our Common Home. In its light, we could add another regret, another warning to his Davos statement. Not only is there poverty and social exclusion in the midst of plenty; economic activity is also degrading the natural environment, even to the point of threatening future human life.

In my remarks, I wish to bring two documents to bear on these issues. One is Laudato si’, the other is a text addressed specifically to business leaders. I will give you a brief overview of both documents, and then examine several key principles of business in their light.

B. Vocation of a Business Leader: a Guide to True Success

Nearly four years ago, the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace (PCJP) brought out a guidebook called Vocation of the Business Leader (VBL). It is addressed to executives, managers and owners—to all who make decisions of any scope that shape and carry out the myriad activities we call “business”.

VBL applies the essentials of Catholic Social Teaching to the business world. It arose from reflections on the great social encyclical of Pope Benedict XVI, Caritas in Veritate. “Every Christian,” he affirmed – and we add every business leader – “is called to practice charity in a manner corresponding to his vocation and according to the degree of influence he wields in the polis.” [4]

The guidebook aims to help Christian business leaders develop the habit of discernment, the process of discovering the good and deliberately pursuing it. In particular, the second part of the volume prepares entrepreneurs to make sound judgments within the complex realities of business by focusing on the twin aspects of respecting human dignity and pursuing the common good. These are the foundations of the Church’s social teaching. Being made in the image of God, every human possesses the dignity of a person, “who is not just something, but someone”.[5] People are ends in themselves, not mere instruments available for their utility. Furthermore each aspect of man’s social and economic life finds its fulfilment when it places itself in service of the common good—the good of the social and economic body and all its individual members in pursuing their fulfilment as human beings. Thus, as the Pope declared in Bolivia, the common good must be the overriding concern of economic policies:

A just economy must create the conditions for everyone to be able to enjoy a childhood without want, to develop their talents when young, to work with full rights during their active years and to enjoy a dignified retirement as they grow older. [6]

In addition to its exposition of Catholic social teaching in the context of business, VBL is also a very practical guide. It ends with checklists to help business leaders and managers develop in their vocation. Looking outwards, it helps them think about business as a genuine contribution to the common good, not an exercise of self-interest. Looking inwards, they are encouraged to pursue their career in a whole, integrated manner, without separating work from faith and family—an unnatural division that upends so many lives.

This guide is available in many languages. The Spanish title is La vocación del líder empresarial. [7]

C. Humanity’s Vocation to Care for our Common Home

The second core document is of course the encyclical Laudato si’, which was released in June 2015. Laudato si’ teaches that the way we interact with the natural world is deeply related to how we interact with our fellow human beings. In fact, there is no valid way to separate these two aspects. Therefore all decisions about the natural environment are ethical decisions. This is inescapable, and it has important implications.

It means that technology and commerce must be held to transcendental standards of the meaning of life and of the moral outlook. They must be defined by solidarity—both with all people alive today and with those not yet born—and be oriented toward the common good. It is not enough to be a business innovator and a producer of surpluses—these are worthwhile only if they serve integrated, ecological citizenship. And in this era of grave environmental crisis—actually of linked crises in the natural and social environments—Pope Francis asks us to hear, and respond to, the cry of the earth and the cry of the poor. Not only are we grievously damaging our common home, but—in doing so—we are wounding the poor and excluded of the world.

The path of the encyclical is detailed and rich. Here are some of its key takeaways:

All human beings are affected, and everything in nature too, by climate change, misuse of natural resources, waste and pollution.
Everything is interconnected; we cannot understand the social or natural world or any parts of them in isolation.
Everyone must act responsibly to save our world—from individuals recycling to enterprises reducing their ecological footprints to world leaders setting and enforcing ambitious carbon reduction targets.
We must be truthful, not hide or distort facts in order to gain selfish advantage.
We must engage in dialogue; genuine, trusting and trustworthy engagement of all parties is required to succeed where all is at risk.
Beyond the industrial age’s short-sighted confidence in technology and commerce, [8] we must transcend ourselves in prayer, simplicity and solidarity.

With this brief glimpse at Laudato si’, I turn now to its interplay with VBL. The guidebook presents a checklist of Six Practical Principles for Business that I will use as a framework. As you listen, please ask yourself: What does each principled mean to me? Can I let each challenge of Pope Francis touch me? Is a broadened and radical sense of responsibility somehow “at home” inside me? Are these challenges echoed in my deepest truth and aspirations as a business executive, professor, student or citizen?

D. Six Practical Principles for Business

VBL captures the vocation of business in practical principles. They serve as points for review or self-examination, they serve as guidelines for planning. They can be remembered under the broadest of business objectives: to produce Good Goods, to provide Good Work and to achieve Good Wealth ... three specifications of “good”, three ways of contributing to the “common good”.

Let us look now at each objective and its two practical principles.

To produce GOOD GOODS

1. Businesses contribute to the common good by producing goods that are truly good and services that truly serve. This is the first way that businesses can meet the needs of the world through the development of goods and services.

The Vocation guidebook spells out our ability – and responsibility - to make objective moral judgments about the genuine usefulness of what a business offers or produces. [9]

Needs ought to be contrasted with mere wants, which might be characterised as those desires that are not essential to human well-being. In extreme cases, satisfying mere wants may even be detrimental to human well-being as, for example, in the sale of non-therapeutic drugs, pornography, gambling, violent video games, and other harmful products. This preoccupation with wants, often called “consumerism,” severs production and consumption from the common good and impedes the development of the person. Goods that are truly good serve the needs of consumers in a hierarchical order; the need for nutritious goods, for example, clearly outweighs the wants of gambling entertainment. This is an objective order, which is why the production of goods and services must abide by truth instead of mere pleasure or utility. (VBL §42)

This concern is echoed by Pope Francis in Laudato si’. “Since the market tends to promote extreme consumerism in an effort to sell its products,” he says, “people can easily get caught up in a whirlwind of needless buying and spending… When people become self-centred and self-enclosed, their greed increases. The emptier a person’s heart is, the more he or she needs things to buy, own and consume.” (§203,204)

Laudato si’ deals with another level of this concern. We must reflect on the true value of technologies themselves, the products and services that they enable, and also on the manner in which technological power is wielded. The encyclical gratefully acknowledges the tremendous contribution of technologies to the improvement of living conditions. Yet it also issues a warning about the misuse of technology, especially when it gives “those with the knowledge, and especially the economic resources to use them, an impressive dominance over the whole of humanity and the entire world” (§104).

It is precisely the mentality of technocratic domination that leads to the destruction of nature and the exploitation of vulnerable people. “The technocratic paradigm also tends to dominate economics and political life” (§109), keeping us from recognizing that “by itself the market cannot guarantee integral human development and social inclusion” (§109). We need a different standard, one in which technological development is guided by moral wisdom.

2. Businesses maintain solidarity with the poor by being alert for opportunities to serve deprived and underserved populations and people in need. This is the second way that businesses can meet the needs of the world through the development of goods and services.

In his Davos message, Pope Francis called for this “concern that ought to shape every political and economic decision, but which at times seems to be little more than an afterthought. Those working in these sectors have a precise responsibility towards others, particularly those who are most frail, weak and vulnerable...,” for example, hunger in a world of more than sufficient production, or refugees forced to flee but with nowhere secure to settle.

And yet, as the Vocation text points out, the real needs of the poor and the vulnerable, including people with special needs, are often overlooked by business. A positive approach is to seek opportunities to serve neglected populations, not only as a proper social responsibility but also as a great business option. At the huge “bottom of the pyramid”, new products and services—such as microenterprises, microcredit, social enterprises and impact investment—have played an important role insofar as they help the poor to address their own needs. These innovations will not only help people to lift themselves from extreme poverty but also spark their creativity and entrepreneurship and help launch a dynamic of inclusive development. (§43) In this spirit, the Pope urged the social movements to be creative: “You are social poets: creators of work, builders of housing, producers of food, above all for people left behind by the world market.” I am happy that, as leaders in the world market, you hear the Holy Father’s appeal.

In Laudato si’, Pope Francis speaks with great compassion of how easily the poor are driven from their land when wealthy corporations wish to extract resources; and how they lose access to clean water because of industrial processes and wasteful practices (§30). Their “life on this earth is brief and [they] cannot keep on waiting” (§162). Can we become as impatient for their needs, as we would be if our own relatives were expropriated or deprived of drinking water?

Pope Francis embraces all people, those living now and those who will come after us. We must accept responsibility for justice between generations: “we can no longer speak of sustainable development apart from intergenerational solidarity” (§159). His key question for humanity is put in those very terms: “What kind of world do we want to leave to those who come after us, to children who are now growing up?” (§160).

To provide GOOD WORK

3. Businesses make a contribution to the community by fostering the special dignity of human work. That is one dimension of the business objective of organising good and productive work.

Laudato si’ includes a whole section on employment (The need to protect employment, §124-29). This is no accident, and it highlights the importance of this issue not only for this pontificate, but for the entire social magisterium of the Church. At the heart of the matter is the notion that employment, just like business, is a noble and essential vocation. It is not just about earning your daily bread, feeding your family, and accessing the basic material conditions needed for flourishing. These are all important, yes, but employment is also much more. In the words of Pope Francis, “work is a necessity, part of the meaning of life on this earth, a path to growth, human development and personal fulfilment” (§128). Work is how human dignity unfolds in everyday practical life:

Work should be the setting for this rich personal growth, where many aspects of life enter into play: creativity, planning for the future, developing our talents, living out our values, relating to others, giving glory to God. It follows that, in the reality of today’s global society, it is essential that “we con­tinue to prioritize the goal of access to steady employment for everyone,” [10] no matter the limited interests of business and dubious economic reasoning. (§127)

St. John Paul II argued that men and women share by their work in the activity of the Creator. [11] Pope Francis adds that they “become the instrument used by God to bring out the potential which he himself inscribed in things” (§124).

It is the duty of business to prioritise this goal of stable and secure employment. As St. John Paul II said, ownership of the means of production is just and legitimate to the extent that it serves useful work. [12] This means that business must always subordinate profits to generating employment — affirming, as he put it, the priority of labour over capital. One example given by Pope Francis is when machines take the place of work. This is often defended on grounds on efficiency and utility. Doing so suggests that human beings are interchangeable with machines as mere factors of production. But this denies the dignity of the human person. It is a perfect embodiment of what Pope Francis calls the technocratic paradigm, and its motivation usually boils down to profit.

We should think seriously about the consequences of ever more reliance on machines and robots to make work more ‘efficient’, and about the trend to ‘rationalize’ production and distribution. Clearly, the benefit is profit, but at the cost of less and less decent work. Do individuals thrive from being unemployed or precariously hired? Of course not. Does society benefit from unemployment? Of course not. In fact, we now witnesses far too many people who cannot find worthwhile and fulfilling work. We should not be surprised when unscrupulous people with demented fantasies recruit such idle individuals into violence and criminality.

Economics is rooted in the idea of the successful and harmonious household. If we want healthy and harmonious living in our common household, we need to make sure that those who are capable of working can actually find employment. “To stop investing in people, in order to gain greater short-term financial gain, is bad business for society.” (§128) The creation of jobs is an essential service for the common good. For this reason “it is imperative to an economy which favours productive diversity and business creativity”, and “civil authorities have the right and duty to adopt clear and firm measures in support of small producers and differentiated production”. (§129)

4. Businesses that embrace subsidiarity provide opportunities for employees to exercise their gifts as they contribute to the mission of the organisation. Here the business objective of organising good and productive work goes a big step further. (§47-50). Managers should allow employees the chance to develop themselves fully in realistic but challenging assignments; with appropriate training and tools and resources; and the full backing of the firm, so that workers learn and grow from experience rather than fearing punishment for any deficiency.

God has exercised subsidiarity by entrusting the earth to humans to keep, till and care for it; this makes human beings co-creators with God. Owners, business leaders, managers and supervisors should exercise the same subsidiarity and uphold the full human dignity, the integral human development, of those they employ and guide as a sacred trust. Indeed, the good entrepreneur is one who “gives first thought to service and second thought to gain, who [...] employs workingmen for the creation of goods of true worth; who does not wrong them by demanding that they take part in the creation of futilities, or even harmful and evil things …” [13] The principle of subsidiarity, a mirror of God’s relationship to humanity, requires restraint and a humble acceptance of the role of a servant leader.

To achieve GOOD WEALTH

5. Businesses model stewardship of the resources—whether capital, human, or environmental—under their control. The business objective of ‘good wealth’ focuses on generating sustainable wealth and distributing it justly.

For business, the stewardship role centres around adopting sustainable practices: to have an enterprise that endures for many years, and to ensure that its activities do not befoul the environment and violate human dignity. The problem, Pope Francis notes clearly, is that the logic of competition promotes short-termism, which leads to financial failure and devastation of the environment. “We need to reject a magical conception of the market, which would suggest that problems can be solved simply by an increase in the profits of companies or individuals”, he says (§190).

Instead, Laudato si’ calls for “the economic and social costs of using up shared environmental resources” to be “recognized with transparency and fully borne by those who incur them, not by other peoples or future generations” (§195). Only then can business activities be seen as ethical. This will not happen when short-term profit maximization is seen as the unquestionable goal.

The Holy Father is not anti-business; he decries an obsession with profit and the deification of the market. But when it comes to the challenges of sustainable development, he calls upon business to lead by harnessing its creativity to solve pressing human needs. And this does not mean forsaking the profit motive. “More diversified and innovative forms of production which impact less on the environment can prove very profitable,” says Pope Francis (§191).

This is especially important in the wake of the Paris Agreement, in which the nations of the world pledged to move away from fossil fuels as soon as possible, with the goal of reaching net-zero greenhouse gas emissions in the second half of the century. This ambitious goal is what our common home requires—to make sure that our children and those who come after us inherit a habitable planet. Governments can come up with agreements, laws, and regulations, but the implementation falls to many social forces. If business is to lead, then let’s deploy the finance, re-organization and technology needed to decarbonize the global economy. The Holy Father, I am sure, is confident that businesses, like those represented here, are up to the task.

6. Businesses are just in the allocation of benefits to all stakeholders: employees, customers, investors, suppliers, and the community. As I mentioned, the business objective of ‘good wealth’ focuses on generating sustainable wealth and distributing it justly.

God is the Creator of all—we can think of the entirety of creation, we can think of all people, we can think of the gift of all goods to all of humanity. Catholic social teaching articulates this as the universal destination of goods. It goes hand in hand with the fundamental principle of the common good. The Vocation text makes this point clearly:

While property and capital should as a rule be privately held, the right to private property should be “subordinated to the right to common use, to the fact that goods are meant for everyone”. [14] … Denying people legitimate access to the fruits of the earth, especially the means to sustain life, amounts to a negation of God’s command to humanity to discover, cultivate and use its gifts. (§56)

Pope Francis points out that this is a moral obligation, even a commandment. In Bolivia, he said:

Working for a just distribution of the fruits of the earth and human labour is not mere philanthropy. It is a moral obligation. For Christians, the responsibility is even greater: it is a commandment. It is about giving to the poor and to peoples what is theirs by right. The universal destination of goods is not a figure of speech found in the Church’s social teaching. It is a reality prior to private property. Property, especially when it affects natural resources, must always serve the needs of peoples. [15]

This, Pope Francis wrote to the WEF two years ago, “calls for decisions, mechanisms and processes directed to a better distribution of wealth, the creation of sources of employment and an integral promotion of the poor which goes beyond a simple welfare mentality.” [16]

With the Paris Agreement, it is not only generated wealth that should be distributed justly. Justice must also reign over the distribution of the burden of environmental rehabilitation. Those who have contributed most to greenhouse gas emissions and have benefitted most from the industrial period, should now take the lead and contribute more to the solution than those whose standard of living is just beginning to rise. As a first step, they must be ever more honest about so-called externalities or spillover effects, since finally nothing is outside of the accounts of our one shared common home.

E. Conclusion

As a business leader, one of your roles is to be a good steward. We would expect to hear this in Laudato si’, yet the word “steward” is used only twice, “administrador” only once. Instead, Pope Francis talks about care, cuidar and custodiar. It is in the title, “Care for our Common Home, el Cuidado de la casa común,” and is repeated dozens of times. Care goes further than “stewardship”. Good stewards take responsibility and fulfil their obligations to manage and to render an account. But one can be a good steward without feeling connected. If one cares, however, one is connected. To care is to allow oneself to be affected by another, so much so that one’s path and priorities change. Good parents know this. They care about their children; they care for their children, so much so that parents will sacrifice enormously—even their lives—to ensure the safety and flourishing of their children. With caring, the hard line between self and other softens, blurs, even disappears.

I urge you to think of your relationship with the world and with all people in terms of caring. Jesus guides us in this vocation with images from the world of work. He says:

I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. The hired hand, who is not the shepherd and does not own the sheep, sees the wolf coming and leaves the sheep and runs away—and the wolf snatches them and scatters them. The hired hand runs away because a hired hand does not care for the sheep. I am the good shepherd. I know my own and my own know me, just as the Father knows me and I know the Father. And I lay down my life for the sheep. (John 10:11-15)

So, how can private corporations become “a force of social improvement and flourishing”? By exercising a “renewed, profound and broadened sense of responsibility”. Not waiting for ‘the market’ to decide, but taking the risk of doing what is right because it is right and so changing the market for the better.

Caring for our common home requires, as Pope Francis says, not just an economic and technological revolution, but also a cultural spiritual revolution—a profoundly different way of approaching the relationship between people and the environment, a new way of ordering the global economy. And this in turn, places a great responsibility on the shoulders of business leaders and also popular leaders. But I am confident that you are up to the task!

In this Year of Mercy, let compassion and caring guide your creativity and business prowess to make this a better world.

Cardinal Peter K.A. Turkson

[1] Conference of the International Academy of Management, at the ESE Business School, Universidad de los Andes, Chile.

[2] Pope Francis, Address to the Second World Meeting of Popular Movements, Santa Cruz de la Sierra, Bolivia, 9 July 2015, § 1.

[3] Pope Francis, Message to World Economic Forum, 17 Jan 2014, quoting Evangelii Gaudium §203 http://w2.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/messages/pont-messages/2014/documents/papa-francesco_20140117_messaggio-wef-davos.html

[4] Caritas in Veritate, §7.

[5] Catechism of the Catholic Church, 1992, § 357.

[6] Pope Francis, Address to the Second World Meeting of Popular Movements, Santa Cruz de la Sierra, Bolivia, 9 July 2015, § 3.1.

[7] Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, La vocación del líder empresarial: Una reflexión,2014 http://www.iustitiaetpax.va/content/dam/giustiziaepace/VBL/VBL_Castellano.pdf,

[8] “Short-sighted confidence in technology and commerce” is what Pope Francis sums up under “technocracy” in Laudato si’.

[9] Pius XI speaks of the importance of businesses “producing really useful goods” for others in Quadragesimo Anno, 1931, § 51.

[10] Caritas in Veritate, §32.

[11] John Paul II, Laborem Exercens, 1981, §25.

[12] John Paul II, Centesimus annus, 1991, §43.

[13] Oswald von Nell-Breuning, Reorganization of Social Economy, (Milwaukee: The Bruce Publishing Co., 1936), 115-116. Quoted in VBL, §42.

[14] John Paul II, Laborem Exercens, §14).

[15] Pope Francis, Address to the Second World Meeting of Popular Movements, Santa Cruz de la Sierra, Bolivia, 9 July 2015, § 3.1

[16] Pope Francis, Message to World Economic Forum, 17 Jan 2014.

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(Vatican Radio)  British Prime Minister David Cameron is visiting Hungary on Thursday amid tensions over his plans to cut benefits for Eastern Europeans in Britain, including Hungarians, though he is expected to agree with his Hungarian counterpart on limiting the power of the European Union.

Listen to Stefan Bos' report:

British Prime Minister David Cameron visits snow covered Budapest amid tight security at a time of wrangling with Hungary and other Eastern European member states ahead of a British referendum, on whether Britain should remain in the EU. The vote is scheduled to be held before the end of next year.

Several government leaders have condemned his attempts to limit welfare benefits to hundreds of thousands of Eastern Europeans, including Hungarians, now in Britain.

The British leader is seeking to cut benefits as part of his efforts to renegotiate Britain's relationship with the 28-nation EU.

Hungarians targeted

Among other groups, the proposal would cover the hundreds of thousands of Eastern Europeans, including Hungarians, now in Britain. He also has made it clear he wants to end the possibility of Eastern European migrants to receive benefits as soon as they arrive. 

However Hungary's government has already objected to the term migrants saying Hungarians are in Britain as part of a general freedom of movement agreements within the EU.    

On Wednesday, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán met Jaroslaw Kaczynski, leader of Poland’s ruling Law and Justice Party, which also opposes Britain's plan to cut benefits. 

Ahead of his trip to Hungary, Cameron also visited countries such as Poland and Romania last month where he acknowledged differences remain between Britain and newer EU member states. "We also discussed how we can reform the EU to make it more competitive. And address the concerns of the British people about our membership," he told reporters.

Difficult areas

"But I recognize that some areas are more difficult than others, particularly the reforms I have proposed on welfare," Cameron added.    

Yet, Cameron and his Hungarian counterpart Orbán are expected to agree that they reject the notion that the EU should become a United States of Europe. Both men favour a Europe composed of nation-states. Analysts say they are also expected to agree that there should be less in reference by Brussels in their domestic affairs. 

They also demand that EU members which are not part of the euro zone should have a given a bigger say in influencing decisions within the zone that could impact them.

The influential far right Jobbik party urged Orbán to strike an alliance with Cameron to in its words “recover Hungary’s national sovereignty”. 

British referendum

Jobbik has repeatedly proposed amending the European Union’s basic treaties and Hungary’s accession treaty, but the ruling Fidesz has rejected this.

Cameron's trip comes ahead of a British scheduled before the end of 201S on whether Britain should remain in the EU. 

He also arrives amid wider concerns in Britain and Hungary over the influx of refugees in Europe. 

Hungary has been building fences along its borders with Croatia and Serbia to halt the flow of hundreds of thousands of migrants fleeing war and poverty. 

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(Vatican Radio)  Pope Francis on Thursday (7 Jan) erected the Syro-Catholic Apostolic Exarchate in Canada with the Eparchal seat in Montréal (Québec), nominating as its first Apostolic Exarch Rev. Antoine Nassif.

The new Apostolic Exarchate consists of the Canadian territory taken from the Syro-Catholic Eparchy of Our Lady of Deliverance of Newark.

The Holy Father also assigned Father Antoine Nassif, the Apostolic Exarch-elect, the titular seat of Zenobia.

Fr. Nassif was born in Beirut, Lebanon, ordained a priest in 1992, and is currently the Rector of Al-Charfet Patriarchal Seminary in Lebanon.

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(Vatican Radio) Revealing his prayer intention for January, Pope Francis says he is praying so that “sincere dialogue between men and women of different religions may yield fruits of peace and justice”.

For the first time the Pope’s traditional monthly prayer intention is available on video, thanks to a new initiative launched by the worldwide Apostleship of Prayer.

The video-message is in Spanish, with subtitles in 10 different languages.

It shows Pope Francis together with believers of other religions – Jewish, Muslim, Buddhist - each of whom professes his or her faith and all together declare they believe in love.     

You can watch the video here.

“Most of the planet's inhabitants declare themselves believers – says Pope Francis - This should lead to dialogue among religions”.

 “Sólo con el diálogo, eliminaremos la intolerancia…”
“Only through dialogue – he says – will we be able to eliminate intolerance and discrimination”. Interreligious dialogue is “a necessary condition for world peace”. “We must not cease praying for it or collaborating with those who think differently”.

 “Confío en vos para difundir mi petición…”
“I hope that you – the Pope says – will spread my prayer request for this month: that sincere dialogue between men and women of different religions may produce the fruits of peace and justice”. There are many people – he continues – “who think and who feel differently. They search for God or meet God in different ways”. “Some declare themselves to be agnostic, they do not know whether God exists. Others say they are atheists”.

 “En esta multitud, en este abanico de religiones…”
“Within this multitude – Pope Francis concludes – in this wide range of religions and lack of religious, there is one certainty: we are all children of God”.

“I have confidence in your prayers”.

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Sacramento, Calif., Jan 7, 2016 / 02:19 am (CNA/EWTN News).- California’s Catholic bishops rallied opponents of the state’s assisted suicide law on Tuesday to continue their efforts to correct lawmakers’ “grave mistake.” Though opponents failed to collect enough signatures for a state referendum, the bishops encouraged further work to defend the vulnerable.

The petition drive seeking to overturn the bill showed a strong commitment to protecting life “at all its stages,” Sacramento’s Bishop Jaime Soto, president of the California Catholic Conference, said Jan. 5. He said tens of thousands of Californians were “demanding the right to have a public voice in one of the most dangerous public policies ever enacted in California.” 

“Physician-assisted suicide is one of the many ways our society is gradually placing individual autonomy as the ultimate measure of public policies,” the bishop continued. “This is a grave mistake and a trend that we as Catholics must consistently and firmly question.”

He cited Pope Francis’ criticism of ideologies that weaken social bonds and fuel a “throwaway” mentality that “leads to contempt for, and the abandonment of, the weakest and those considered ‘useless’.” 

On Oct. 5, 2015 Gov. Jerry Brown signed into law an assisted suicide bill that enabled doctors to prescribe drugs that will end the lives of patients whom doctors diagnose as having six months to live. The bill had been withdrawn from the State Senate but was revived in a special legislative session. The Senate passed the bill by a vote of 23-14, while the State Assembly passed the bill by a vote of 42-33.

Bishop Soto said that assisted suicide opponents’ efforts during the regular session had stopped the advance of the bill.

“It was only through the manipulation of the legislative process that the bill eventually passed,” he said. “The initial defeat of the law – as well as the thousands of signatures gathered in the referendum effort – demonstrate that when the dangers of physician-assisted suicide are allowed to be properly aired, the concept is soundly rejected.”

“Advocates for the elderly, the disabled and the disadvantaged, physicians and other health care providers as well as many others understand the long-term menace of this law,” the bishop added.

He said the Catholic bishops would continue to work with the anti-assisted suicide coalition and with others “to explore ways of protecting the most vulnerable Californians from the pressure created by this new policy.”
 
California bishops are committed to explaining “the richness and love” of Catholic teaching on end-of-life issues, the bishop said. 

“As Christians, we are morally and ethically committed to promoting solidarity at all stages of life. We will continue to question this misguided libertarian push to make personal autonomy the ultimate arbitrator. We must help each other.”

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Washington D.C., Jan 7, 2016 / 03:01 am (CNA/EWTN News).- Executions in the United States fell to the lowest number in decades in 2015, and recent Popes may have helped spur the drop in public support for capital punishment.

“I think that there is continued erosion of support for the death penalty, and that’s manifested across the board,” explained Robert Dunham, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center in Washington, D.C., in an interview with CNA. The center gathers and tracks information on the death penalty in the United States.

“So you see it in fewer executions, fewer capital prosecutions, fewer jury verdicts of death, and then states that are seeking death are doing so in questionable ways,” he added, noting that it is the “continuation of a long-term pattern.”

The number of executions in the U.S. fell to 28 in 2015, continuing its overall decline since the peak of 98 in 1999. It is the lowest number in 24 years, according to the Death Penalty Information Center.



The number of death sentences also fell from 73 in 2014 to 49 in 2015, the lowest number since the 1970s when states began re-enacting death penalty statutes.

Only six states actually conducted executions in 2015. Four states have accounted for 90 percent of the executions in past two years – Texas, Missouri, Georgia, and Florida. They were clearly “outlier states,” Dunham said, “out of step with what the rest of the country is doing.”

Public approval of the death penalty for convicted murderers has fallen along with the number of executions and death sentences. It peaked in 1996, according to the Pew Research Center, when 78 percent of Americans supported the death penalty for someone convicted of murder. That number has fallen to 56 percent in 2015.

And among Catholics the death penalty has similarly lost support. 53 percent of Catholics support its use now for convicted murderers, down from 59 percent in 2011. A 2004 Gallup poll showed its approval among Catholics at 66 percent.



However, the polls may not distinguish between faithful Mass-going Catholics and Catholics who do not practice their faith, Joshua Mercer, co-founder of CatholicVote.org, said. He suggested that the support for the death penalty may be significantly lower among practicing Catholics who take seriously the teaching of the Magisterium and recent papal statements against the use of capital punishment.

“Amongst Catholic voters, I think since Pope John Paul II spoke about the death penalty, we’ve seen the support for death penalty in the United States amongst faithful Catholics decline,” Mercer told CNA.

Controversies haunted several 2015 executions and the public has taken notice, Dunham added.

More than two-thirds of the executions involved convicts “who exhibited symptoms of severe mental illness, intellectual disability, or the effects of trauma or some combination of those,” he said.

For instance, Georgia executed Andrew Brannan in January for killing a sheriff’s deputy 17 years ago. Brannan was a decorated Vietnam War veteran whom the Department of Veterans Affairs considered 100 percent disabled because of posttraumatic stress disorder.

Also, some states resorted to illegal or questionable means of execution because they were unable to procure the normal drugs for lethal injection. Many pharmaceutical companies have stopped providing drugs for executions, and the European Union, which strongly opposes the death penalty, has banned the export of drugs for capital punishment.

Nebraska, Arizona, and Texas tried to import drugs for execution that were not approved by the Food and Drug Administration. The drugs were seized, and in one case Federal Express refused to transport them to Nebraska.

Some states then approved other means of execution – Utah brought back the firing squad and Oklahoma approved the use of nitrogen gas as a back-up method. Oklahoma saw a botched execution in January, and an autopsy later revealed that the wrong lethal drug had been administered.  



All this undermined confidence in the states' authority to execute criminals, Dunham said. “The level of incompetence that was involved in that administratively botched execution was astounding,” he said of the January execution of Charles Warner in Oklahoma. “Can you trust the states to carry this out in a fair, humane, and competent way?”

Dunham noted that while there are multiple factors behind the drop in support, the shift in moral sensibilities cannot be overlooked, along with the influence of the papacy.

Pope Francis made a “very strong statement against the death penalty in a very public setting,” he said of the Pope’s Sept. 24 address to a joint meeting of Congress, in which he called for a “global abolition of the death penalty” and offered “encouragement to all those who are convinced that a just and necessary punishment must never exclude the dimension of hope and the goal of rehabilitation.”

Francis talked in a “graceful and humane way” that “appealed to our better nature,” Dunham added.

The drop in public support “is not something new,” explained Monsignor Stuart Swetland, president of Donnelly College in Kansas, saying that recent Popes have led the way in calling for its abolition. He cited St. John Paul II’s homily in St. Louis in 1999, in which he urged Catholics to be “unconditionally pro-life” and called for an end to the death penalty.

“A sign of hope is the increasing recognition that the dignity of human life must never be taken away, even in the case of someone who has done great evil. Modern society has the means of protecting itself, without definitively denying criminals the chance to reform,” St. John Paul II said.

And in 2011, Benedict XVI expressed his hope for further abolition of capital punishment in countries worldwide.

Monsignor Swetland believes that these recent papal statements represent a development in the Church’s teaching on the state’s legitimate use of capital punishment.  

“My theological opinion, as someone who teaches moral theology and social ethics in particular, is that we’re undergoing a development of doctrine here,” he told CNA.

When the Church’s teaching has developed over time on issues such as the morality of slavery and torture, “we go from the more permissive to the less permissive,” he said, “meaning that we come to recognize that the demands of charity and mercy and justice are more demanding than we thought before.”

“And so while for a while Catholic teaching permitted slavery under some specific, restricted conditions, it came to see through faith and time – same thing with torture – through faith and time that it was always and everywhere wrong.”

Monsignor Swetland believes a similar shift is happening in the Church’s teaching on the use of the death penalty. But he clarified that it fundamentally differs from other uses of force, such as just war or the defense of innocent life.

“The state and the actors for the state have to intend death as the end in death penalty,” he said, but in the case of a just war or a policemen defending innocents, the actor intends to “stop the assailant from doing harm” and death is accepted as a “side consequence” and a “last resort.”

Once the threat to innocent life is neutralized, they do what they can to preserve the life of the assailant.

“We have to stand strongly and say death is never a solution to our problems,” he continued. “Modern society is tempted to say death is a solution to our problems … but what the Church is coming to recognize is that we have to be consistent and say death is never a solution. To intend death is always wrong.”

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Vatican City, Jan 7, 2016 / 04:40 am (CNA/EWTN News).- The Pope’s first-ever video message on his monthly prayer intentions was released Tuesday, highlighting the importance of interreligious dialogue and the beliefs different faith traditions hold in common, such as the figure of God and love.

“Many think differently, feel differently, seeking God or meeting God in different ways. In this crowd, in this range of religions, there is only one certainty that we have for all: we are all children of God,” Pope Francis said in his message, released Jan. 6, the feast of the Epiphany.

At the beginning of the video, a minute-and-a-half long, the Pope cites the fact that the majority of the earth’s inhabitants profess some sort of religious belief.

This, he said, “should lead to a dialogue among religions. We should not stop praying for it and collaborating with those who think differently.”

The video goes on to feature representatives of Buddhism, Christianity, Islam and Judaism, who proclaim their respective beliefs in God, Jesus Christ, Allah and Buddha.

Later on, after the Pope affirms that all, regardless of their religious profession, are children of God, the faith leaders state their common belief in love.

Pope Francis closes the video by expressing his hope that viewers “will spread my prayer request this month: that sincere dialogue among men and women of different faiths may produce fruits of peace and justice. I have confidence in your prayers.”

An initiative of the Jesuit-run global prayer network Apostleship of Prayer, the video was filmed in collaboration with the Vatican Television Center (CTV) and marks the first time the Pope’s monthly prayer intentions have been featured on video.

The Apostleship of Prayer was founded by Jesuit seminarians in France in 1884 to encourage Christians to serve God and others through prayer, particularly for the needs of the Church. Since the late 1800s the organization has also received a monthly intention from the Pope. In 1929 an additional, missionary intention was added by the Holy Father, aimed at the faithful in particular.

Referred to on the organizations’ website as the Pope’s “universal” and “evangelization” intentions, this month’s prayer requests focus on Francis’ desire for Interreligious Dialogue and Christian Unity.

Francis offers his universal petition so that “sincere dialogue among men and women of different faiths may produce the fruits of peace and justice,” and expresses his evangelistic prayer that “by means of dialogue and fraternal charity and with the grace of the Holy Spirit, Christians may overcome divisions.”

The Apostleship of Prayer has called the new videos on the intentions “The Pope Video.” While there are two intentions, the videos are centered on the first, universal intention.

This month’s video also features old friends of the pontiff from his time in Buenos Aires. Namely, Rabbi Daniel Goldman, Fr. Guillermo Marco, a Catholic priest, and Islamic leader Omar Abboud.

Released on various social media sites such as YouTube, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, the video shows Pope Francis speaking in his native Spanish, with subtitles available in a total of 10 different languages.

Papal prayer intentions for the rest of the year are listed on the organization’s website, displaying themes close to Francis’ heart, such as prayers for creation, families in difficulty, small farmers, indigenous peoples, countries receiving refugees, an end to child-soldiers, solidarity and respect for women.

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