The late Pope Francis, at various times, drew attention to the problems associated with a system that fosters inequality, drives individualism and hinders the common good.
Dr Justin Thacker
Dean of Studies and Academic Tutor, St Hild Theological College.
In March 2020, during the first wave of Covid-19 and in an interview with the Italian newspaper La Repubblica, the late Pope Francis described tax fraudsters in these terms: “It has become evident that those who do not pay taxes not only commit a felony but also a crime [Italian: delitto]: if there are not enough hospital beds and artificial respirators, it is also their fault.”97 The UK tax justice organisation, TaxWatch, pointed out how delitto can also be translated ‘murder’ and so headlined their story: ‘Pope says tax avoiders have committed “murder”’.98
Whether or not that is what he meant, it is certainly clear that Pope Francis spoke out on issues of tax justice more than any other pope. As far back as 2007, the then Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio oversaw (if not largely wrote) the so-called Aparecida Document which, amongst other things, highlighted the lack of “truly efficient, progressive, and equitable tax systems.”99
Since then, Pope Francis continued, at various times, to draw attention to the problems associated with a system that fosters inequality, drives individualism and hinders the common good. Given his own ministry in the villas miseria (shanty towns) of Argentina, it is no surprise that he called to task an industry that is estimated to cost the global economy $600 billion each year and the Global South, in particular, $200 billion annually, which is more than is received in aid.
Arguably, the most comprehensive description of his views can be found in the May 2018 Vatican document Oeconomicae et pecuniariae quaestiones: Considerations for an ethical discernment regarding some aspects of the present economic-financial system (hereafter, OPQ). This document was produced by two of the most significant bodies within the Vatican and was published with the explicit endorsement of Pope Francis. Within the document, three principles are highlighted as generating “a world that is more equitable and united”,100 and they will be used as a framework for this reflection. They are: integral promotion of the human person; the universal destination of goods; and the preferential option for the poor.
Anyone reading Pope Francis will not get far before they encounter the theme of individualism. He uses it as a lens to interrogate a wide range of issues from the environment to homelessness to tax evasion. He views the individualistic mindset as causing a disruption in our relationship with the planet, with one another, and with our true selves. In his second encyclical Laudato Si’ (2015), he commented that “the analysis of environmental problems cannot be separated from… how individuals relate to themselves, which leads in turn to how they relate to others and to the environment” (Laudato Si’ 141). This is what he meant by an “integral ecology”: an environmental concern that includes the social dimensions of life. For this reason, in his more recent book Let Us Dream (2020), he wrote: “Laudato Si’ is not a green encyclical. It’s a social encyclical. The green and the social go hand in hand. The fate of creation is tied to the fate of all humanity.”101 He referred to “the myth of self-sufficiency, that whispering in our ears that the earth exists to be plundered; that others exist to meet our needs; that what we have earned or what we lack is what we deserve; that my reward is riches, even if that means that the fate of others will be poverty.”102
Such individualism is also expressed in our separation from one another. He talked of “feverish consumerism” breaking “the bonds of belonging”.103 At the same time, perhaps paradoxically, such a relentless focus on the self also creates a diminution in our own anthropology. OPQ comments: “our contemporary age has shown itself to have a limited vision of the human person, as the person is understood individualistically and predominantly as a consumer, whose profit consists above all in the optimization of his or her monetary income” (OPQ 9). And so it concludes: “Money must serve, not rule!” (OPQ 6).104
It is in this god of mammon that we find an explicit link to tax injustice. In Evangelli Gaudium, Pope Francis had made reference to “widespread corruption and self-serving tax evasion” in which we are “defenseless before the interests of a deified market, which become the only rule” (Evangelli Gaudium 55, 56). If, as Pope Francis argues, the integrated human person is one who relates well to the planet, to others, and to their true selves (as well as to God), then the tax haven represents the antithesis of all this. For in hiding one’s money in a jurisdiction that is designed and defined by its severing of economic and social relationships, one stands against all that it means to be human. In this way, he imagines the God of profit taking captive the individual soul, and views tax fraud as the manner in which this idolatry is practised.
In a speech in February 2020, Pope Francis made a plea for “new ethics [that] presupposes being aware of the need for all to commit to working together to eliminate tax havens, avoiding the tax evasion and money laundering that rob society, as well as to inform nations of the importance of defending justice and the common good above the interests of the most powerful companies and multinationals.”105 His language of robbing society is particularly interesting here for it echoes a point that he has made on a number of occasions: namely that when the wealthy refuse to provide for the poor, their actions can be described as theft.
In the first place, he has described working for a fair distribution of resources not as charity but as our obligation as Christians. He describes such philanthropic efforts as ‘about giving to the poor and to peoples what is theirs by right’. But he has gone even further than this. He quoted St Ambrose saying: “It is not anything of yours that you are bestowing on the poor; rather, you are giving back something of his”.106
Similarly, in his encyclical, Fratelli Tutti (2020), he wrote:
“[I]f one person lacks what is necessary to live with dignity, it is because another person is detaining it. Saint John Chrysostom summarizes it in this way: ‘Not to share our wealth with the poor is to rob them and take away their livelihood. The riches we possess are not our own, but theirs as well’. In the words of Saint Gregory the Great, ‘When we provide the needy with their basic needs, we are giving them what belongs to them, not to us’.” (Fratelli Tutti 119)
Of course, all this is an expression of classic Catholic social teaching regarding the universal destination of goods. Private property is not absolute but should be held to serve the common good and not merely our own private good: “We are administrators of the goods, not masters. Administrators. ‘Yes, but the good is mine’: that is true, it is yours, but to administer it, not to possess it selfishly for yourself.”107
Once again, we see the clash of this idea with the ideology of neo-liberalism and, more explicitly, the reality of tax fraud. OPQ notes:
“Today, more than the half of the commercial world is orchestrated by noteworthy persons that cut down their tax burden by moving the revenues from one site to another according to their convenience, transferring the profits into fiscal havens, and the costs into the countries of higher taxation. It appears clear that all these have removed decisive resources from the actual economy and contributed to the creation of economic systems founded on inequality.” (OPQ 30)
It adds:
“What is morally unacceptable is not simply to profit, but rather to avail oneself of an inequality for one’s own advantage, in order to create enormous profits that are damaging to others; or to exploit one’s dominant position in order to profit by unjustly disadvantaging others, or to make oneself rich through harming and disrupting the collective common good.” (OPQ 17)
It is no surprise then that Pope Francis called the system that facilitates this a “structure of sin”.108
Finally, Pope Francis also framed his concerns about tax injustice in light of the preferential option for the poor. He defines this in Let Us Dream in these terms: “When the Church talks of the preferential option for the poor, it means that we need always to keep in mind how any decision we make might impact the poor. But it also means we need to put the poor at the center of our thinking.”109
The problem, of course, with the tax haven industry is that the poor are very much not at the centre of considerations. In theory, tax systems could be a vehicle of redistribution. However, in practice, they function in precisely the opposite way. In the UK, we are well aware that income tax is progressive, and, for this reason, the government likes to draw attention to it when any challenge is offered regarding the fairness of the tax system. However, income tax is just one tax that the UK citizen pays and, when we include all taxes (National Insurance, VAT, Council Tax, Corporation Tax, Capital Gains Tax, etc.), then overall the UK system is rather less progressive. And some people are able to reduce their tax to very low rates through aggressive tax avoidance. Thus, it was noted in OPQ:
“Certainly, the tax system prepared by the various nations does not seem to be always equal. In this regard, it is relevant to keep in mind how such inequity often disadvantages the economically weaker persons and favors the more endowed, and is capable of influencing even the normative systems that regulate the same taxes.” (OPQ 31)
At a global level, such inequities are even more stark. In light of this, Pope Francis commented:
“Read the statistics: how many children today are dying of hunger because of a non good [sic] distribution of riches, because of the economic system… and how many children today do not have the right to education for the same reason. May this image of children in want due to hunger and the lack of education help us understand that after this crisis we must come out of it better.”110
It is in this statement that we see the significance of the $200 billion each year that should be received by the Global South but which ends up in the offshore accounts of the wealthy. No wonder Pope Francis came close to – and possibly did – describe as murderers those guilty of tax fraud.
The one thing that seems clear from all this is that, compared with other popes, Pope Francis did not merely seek some tinkering around the edges of capitalism but rather advocated a fundamental overhaul – at least in respect of the tax haven industry. At the same time, however, it is not entirely clear that he was confident that such transformation would happen:
“Right now I see a lot of digging in. The people most invested in the current way of doing things are doing just that. There are leaders talking about making a few adjustments here and there, but they’re basically advocating for the same system as before. When they talk of ‘recovery’ they mean putting a bit of varnish on the future, touching up the paintwork here and there, but all to make sure that nothing
changes. I’m convinced that this will lead to an even greater failure, one that could ignite a huge social explosion.”111
While I share the rest of his analysis, I do at least hope he is wrong about this.
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97. ‘Pope Francis on Coronavirus crisis: “Don’t waste these difficult days. While at home re-discover the
importance of hugging kids and relatives”’, La Repubblica (18/3/2020).
98. Tax Watch, ‘Covid 19 – Pope says tax avoiders have committed “murder”’ (25/3/2020) (accessed
12/9/2023).
99. Fifth General Conference of the Bishops of Latin America and the Caribbean Bishops, Concluding
Document (2007) 68.
100. Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith and the Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human
Development, Oeconomicae et pecuniariae quaestiones: Considerations for an ethical discernment regarding some aspects of the present economic-financial system (2018) 10.
101. Pope Francis, Let Us Dream: The Path to a Better Future (2020) p. 32.
102. Ibid p. 14.
103. Ibid p. 68.
104. See also Pope Francis, Evangelii Gaudium (2013) 58.
105. Pope Francis, Address of His Holiness Pope Francis to Participants at the Workshop on: “New Forms Of Solidarity, Towards Fraternal Inclusion, Integration And Innovation” Organized by the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences (5/2/2020).
106. Ibid.
107. Pope Francis, General Audience: Catechesis “Healing the world”: 4. The universal destination of goods and the virtue of hope (26/8/2020).
108. Pope Francis, Address of His Holiness Pope Francis to Participants at the Workshop on: “New Forms Of Solidarity, Towards Fraternal Inclusion, Integration And Innovation” Organized by the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences (5/2/2020).
109. Pope Francis, Let Us Dream: The Path to a Better Future (2020) p. 52.
110. Pope Francis, General Audience: Catechesis “Healing the world”: 4. The universal destination of goods and the virtue of hope (26/8/2020).
111. Pope Francis, Let Us Dream: The Path to a Better Future (2020) p. 44.
All individuals, families, civil society organisations and corporations, as well as the state, are responsible for promoting the common good and solidarity.
As with many other questions in Catholic social thought and teaching, a logical starting point is the work of St Thomas Aquinas.
What a just and loving approach to taxation might look like.
