Pope Francis and the Economy of Communion

Abstract

As leader of the global Catholic Church, Pope Francis, like his predecessors, has offered critical reflection on what it might take to help move the world toward greater attentiveness to economic justice and sustainable development. One of the obstacles that stands in the way of broader reception of this message is the tendency to interpret his proposals through a divisive ideological lens. This essay considers how Pope Francis’s proposals might best be understood through the lens of reconciliation, and most specifically, of the paradigm of the unity of opposites. It then explores how the Economy of Communion project exemplifies promising dimensions of the unity of opposites in action.|Keywords: Pope Francis, Economy of Communion, Jorge Mario Bergoglio, unity of opposites, tension