Is Pope Francis a Marxist? That is one of the questions that has swirled around this pontificate since Francis first walked out onto the loggia overlooking St Peter’s Square on March 13, 2013. In his apostolic exhortation Evangelii Gaudium, released that same year, he said that the global financial system was one that “kills”, and he criticised the “trickle-down theory” associated with laissez-faire capitalism. He has described the unfettered pursuit of profit as the “dung of the Devil”.
As a result, some economists have accused Francis of belonging to the far-Left. Those on the far-Left seem to agree. “I don’t know whether it’s communism,” said Bolivian president Evo Morales, after hearing Francis give an impassioned speech on poverty, “but it is socialism.”
