VaticanNews portal reports on a global meeting titled “Restarting the Economy” scheduled for 28-30 November 2025 at Castel Gandolfo. Promoted by “The Economy of Francesco” initiative, the event claims to seek “social justice, care for the Earth, and freedom from debt” while redefining work through concepts of “dignity” and resistance to “exhaustion.” The article by Tracey Freiberg laments modern work conditions while advocating worker autonomy and corporate “social responsibility” – all framed through secular humanist lenses devoid of supernatural reference.
Naturalism Disguised as Social Concern
The entire premise reduces man’s labor to purely material terms, ignoring Rerum Novarum‘s teaching that work exists “to procure the eternal salvation of souls” (Leo XIII, 1891). While decrying “exhaustion,” it remains silent on the primary purpose of human labor as participation in God’s creative order and means of sanctification. Pius XI condemned this reductionism in Quadragesimo Anno: “It is an injustice, a grave evil and a disturbance of right order to assign to a greater and higher association what lesser and subordinate organizations can do” (79). The article’s solution – corporate “social responsibility” – constitutes the very socialist centralization condemned as “utterly foreign to Christian truth” (Quas Primas 18).
Freiberg’s complaint about “undermeasured” economic variables reveals modernist subjectivism. The Church teaches economic systems must be judged by immutable moral principles, not shifting metrics. Pius XI warned against “false teachers who are not in agreement with the Church” who “take no account of the chief thing, which is individual sanctification” (Quadragesimo Anno 136). Nowhere does the article mention justice toward God as the foundation of social order – the fatal omission exposing its naturalistic core.
Relativistic “Dignity” Versus Objective Truth
The deliberate substitution of UN-promoted “decent work” standards with subjective “dignified work” constitutes theological rebellion. The article claims:
“we prefer the idea of dignified work, which allows the worker autonomy over deciding if a job is ‘good’ or ‘bad’.”
This echoes the modernist heresy condemned by Pius X: “Truth changes with man, because it develops with him, in him, and through him” (Lamentabili, prop. 58). The Church has always taught work’s dignity derives from conformity to God’s eternal law, not personal whim. Leo XIII’s Libertas Praestantissimum declares: “To abandon the rule of life and to give up being under any law is not freedom, but a descent into slavery” (6). By making workers “autonomous” judges of morality, the article promotes the “cult of man” denounced in Pascendi as replacing divine authority with human will.
Blasphemous Jubilee Distortion
The article weaponizes the Jubilee concept – divinely instituted for Israel’s spiritual renewal (Leviticus 25) – to promote materialist economics:
“The Jubilee reminds us that the economy should focus on social justice, care for the Earth, and freedom from debt.”
This perverts Scripture’s teaching. Christ proclaimed the true Jubilee as liberation from sin (Luke 4:18-19), not debt abolition. Pius XI’s Quas Primas explicitly condemned secularized jubilees: “When once men recognize, both in private and in public life, that Christ is King, society will at last receive the great blessings of real liberty, well-ordered discipline, peace and harmony” (19). The article’s silence on Christ’s kingship proves its agenda serves not God’s kingdom but what Pius IX called “the great perversity of our age” (Quanta Cura 3).
Technocratic Servitude Masquerading as Liberation
The uncritical embrace of AI and gig economy platforms ignores Pius XII’s warning about technology becoming “a weapon aimed at attacking religious life” (Address to IBM, 1957). While lamenting worker replaceability, the article promotes the very digital systems enslaving mankind. Contrast this with Pius XI’s teaching that economic systems must facilitate man’s ultimate end: “For God alone is the true end of man; in Him alone can man find true happiness” (Divini Redemptoris 27). The proposed “human flourishing” excludes supernatural beatitude – the hallmark of naturalist heresy.
Conciliar Apostasy’s Poisoned Fruit
This event epitomizes the conciliar sect’s abandonment of Catholic social doctrine. The article’s fixation on “care for the Earth” echoes Laudato Si’‘s pantheistic tendencies, condemned by Pius IX: “There exists no Supreme, all-wise, all-provident Divine Being, distinct from the universe” (Syllabus of Errors, prop. 1). By reducing work to material transactions and environmental concerns, the “Economy of Francesco” manifesto constitutes what St. Pius X called “the synthesis of all heresies” (Pascendi 39). Its omission of Christ’s sovereignty fulfills Leo XIII’s prophecy: “When God and Jesus Christ are removed from laws and states… the entire human society had to be shaken” (Humanum Genus 18).
Source:
Truly Free: Rethinking work in the age of exhaustion (vaticannews.va)
Date: 14.11.2025