POPE

Pope to entrepreneurs: Spiritual capital more important than success

Pope Francis greets a delegation of businessmen and women from Mexico, and urges them to help support the formation of good and holy priests as well as people in need.

By Devin Watkins

A group of around 60 Mexican entrepreneurs met with Pope Francis in the Vatican on Friday, accompanied by a representative of the Archdiocese of Mexico City.

In his address, the Pope welcomed the businesswomen and men with a Spanish-language expression often heard in Mexico: “mi casa es su casa” (my home is your home).

The Vatican, he added, is like a home for all Catholics and a place where “the children of the Church can meet and praise God as a family.”

Importance of the family

Picking up the theme of the family, Pope Francis lamented the loss of the sense of family in many societies around the world, including from the destructive power of war.

He said individualism and isolationism have infected our cultures, as our consciences become sedated by creature comforts that blind us to those who suffer.

“We are forgetting that in a family, difficulties are settled with patience, love, and dialogue, as we share our opinions and discuss each other's needs, in order to help one another.”

Caring for those in need

The Pope went on to recall the importance of our relationship with God, no matter our economic status or form of employment.

Jesus, he said, can help us open our eyes to the many people around us who are in need, as well as the importance of caring for Creation.

“We become able to put the common good above everything else, to put the ‘we’ of the family above the worldly logic of the ‘I’, of success, power, and money,” he said.

“Spiritual capital is the most important capital we can obtain.”

Supporting formation of good priests

Pope Francis noted that every person can help make society more peaceful to become a place of encounter.

He also urged the Mexican entrepreneurs to assist the Church’s mission to form good priests.

“The faithful enjoy a right to have well-trained priests who joyfully nourish the community of believers with the bread of the Word and the Eucharist, and who bear witness to a life dedicated to others.”

Priests need our prayers in the midst of their daily duties and trials, said the Pope. We should therefore thank God for the charisms with which He enriches the Church.

“I invite you to be near to them and help them, so that they may focus their energy and creativity on their pastoral activity,” he said.