During his trip to South America in July 2015, Pope Francis appealed to
world leaders to seek a new economic model to help the poor, and to shun
policies that "sacrifice human lives on the altar of money and
profit."[1] This
line reminds me of the ancient Greco-Roman religious practice of sacrificing
animals on altars just outside temples dedicated to particular deities.
Doubtless no thought went into the animals’ suffering. In the Jewish Bible, God
spares Isaac just before Abraham implements Yahweh’s command to sacrifice
Isaac. Like the ancient Greeks and Romans, Abraham constructs an altar for the
purpose. In Christianity, Jesus Christ is sacrificed on an altar, which
typically doubles as a table given the institution of the Eucharist in the Last
Supper. This sacrificed lamb personifies God as agape, or selfless divine love,
which manifests as benevolentia
universalis, or neighbor-love. Sacrificing the needs of others is antipodal
to serving them; hence the Roman Catholic pope’s preachment. Missing, however,
was the subtle bias within Christian theology ironically in favor of money.
The full essay is at “Pope
Francis on the World’s Economy Idolizing Profit.”
[1]
Philip Pullella and Daniela Desantis, “Pope
Francis Condemns Corruption and ‘Unbridled Capitalism,’ in South America,”
Reuters, July 12, 2015.
