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Sanders preaches income inequality in visit to Vatican

by Jesse Byrnes - 04/15/16 11:05 AM ET

Democratic presidential hopeful Bernie Sanders used his speech at the Vatican on Friday to make the case for the “common good” and viewing economic inequality around the world in moral terms.

Sanders said global wealth inequality, a subject championed by Pope Francis, has only become worse.

“Our very soul as a nation has suffered as the public lost faith in political and social institutions,” he said in his speech, which he followed up with comments to reporters in Vatican City, hours after Thursday night’s Democratic debate in New York.

{mosads}Sanders argued that big money in politics and powerful financial interests led to more than financial bubbles and falling living standards but broader cynicism in the United States and around the world.

The Vermont senator made his remarks during a workshop at a conference on social, economic and environmental issues hosted by The Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences.

Sanders is not expected to meet with Francis himself during the visit, though he is reportedly staying at the hotel where Francis lives on Friday night.

The decision by the Democratic candidate to leave New York days before that state’s primary was seen as a political risk.

Sanders faces an uphill battle for delegates to secure the Democratic nomination and is hoping to rally economic progressives and shore up support from Catholics with a trip to Vatican City.

There were days of speculation over whether Sanders would meet with the pope himself during his trip, though spokesmen for the pontiff had ruled out such a meeting ahead of his speech.

Bishop Marcelo Sánchez Sorondo, chancellor of the academy who had invited him to speak at the workshop, read a message from the pontiff shortly before Sanders delivered his remarks in which Francis apologized for not being able to attend the workshop later in the day, noting preparations for a trip to the Greek island of Lesbos on Saturday.

During his speech, Sanders argued that the “illicit financial flows, environmental destruction and the weakening of the rights of workers is far more severe than it was a quarter century ago,” when Pope John Paul II released his encyclical Centesimus Annus, the focus of the workshop.

Still, Sanders argued that the biggest challenges facing humanity don’t revolved around finances or technology, since investments in both can be increased.

“Our challenge is mostly a moral one, to redirect our efforts and vision to the common good,” he said.

His remarks touched on mainstay campaign issues such as criticizing Wall Street and unlimited spending by super-PACs in the presidential campaign, though he also sought to draw parallels between his view of economics around the world and those advocated by the pope.

“Some might feel that it is hopeless to fight the economic juggernaut, that once the market economy escaped the boundaries of morality it would be impossible to bring the economy back under the dictates of morality and the common good,” said the self-described democratic socialist.

“I am told time and time again by the rich and powerful, and the mainstream media that represent them, that we should be ‘practical,’ that we should accept the status quo; that a truly moral economy is beyond our reach,” Sanders continued. “Yet Pope Francis himself is surely the world’s greatest demonstration against such a surrender to despair and cynicism. He has opened the eyes of the world once again to the claims of mercy, justice and the possibilities of a better world.”

Tags 2016 Democratic primary Bernie Sanders Catholics Vatican