Pope Leo XIV decried economic inequality between rank-and-file workers and corporate titans, referring to the possibility that Elon Musk could become the world’s first trillionaire, according to transcripts from his first formal interview with a journalist since ascending to the papacy.
Leo also referred to the “huge learning curve” of his sudden new role as a world leader, condemned the war in Ukraine and said the church’s practice of synodality can serve as an antidote to the polarization fracturing the church and the wider world, in an excerpt released by the Catholic news website Crux on Sept. 14, the pope’s 70th birthday.
“We live in times when polarization seems to be one of the words of the day, but it’s not helping anybody,” the pope told Crux’s Elise Ann Allen. Allen is writing a biography of the pope to be published in Spanish in Peru.
More broadly, Leo tied the global trend toward polarization to a loss of shared values and an erosion of human dignity.
“In some places, the loss of a higher sense of what human life is about would have something to do with that,” he said, pointing to the declining regard for the family, society and the value of life itself. “If we lose the sense of those values, what matters anymore?”
Leo said synodality “is sort of an antidote” to that polarization. “I think this is a way of addressing some of the greatest challenges that we have in the world today.”
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With thanks to the National Catholic Reporter and Justin McLellan, where this article originally appeared.
