Pope Urges Bishops to Minister to the Rich
By Alessandra Stanley
MEXICO CITY -- John Paul II urged the bishops of North and South America gathered here to take better care of the poor. But sounding a new and somewhat uncharacteristic note, the pope also instructed them to minister to the rich.
"Love for the poor must be preferential, but not exclusive," the pope said in an Apostolic Exhortation, his definitive answer to the questions raised in a 1997 synod of bishops of the Americas.
"The leading sectors of society have been neglected and many people have thus been estranged from the church," he said.
Noting that secularization is sweeping unions, the military, politicians and other better-off social groups, the pope warned that, "If this evangelization of society's leaders is neglected, it should come as no surprise that many who are a part of it will be guided by criteria alien to the Gospel and at times openly hostile to it."
Since communism collapsed, John Paul II has devoted much of his attention to the moral failings of capitalism. This document, like previous ones, lashed out at the inequities of an unbridled free-market system.
"More and more in countries of America, a system known as 'neo-liberalism' prevails; based on a purely economic conception of man, this system considers profit and the law of the market as its only parameters," he said. But now, the pope is also raising the spiritual needs of a wealthier flock.
"Frankly, I'm surprised," said George Weigel, a theologian who is writing a biography of John Paul II. "But it sounds like good news. It is a new recognition of a new social reality in Latin America, that it is moving beyond an oligarchy and impoverished masses, and developing a middle class."
Others see it as the pope's concern that the church in Latin America, having rejected the Marxism embedded in liberation theology, but not the message, has overemphasized the poor and alienated the rich.
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Carl Remick