Pope Blasts Multinationals: Places Workers' Rights Above Profits

In his third encyclical, titled Laborem Exercens (On Human Work), Pope John Paul I( has flung the papal pen at the corporate Goliaths which control vast empires all over the world. But with 750 million Catholics behind him, it is difficult to call the pope a new David.

By influencing world markets, the pope states, corporations keep widening "the disproportion between national incomes' of rich and poor nations.

"The companies referred to as multinational or transnational fix the highest possible prices for their products, while trying at the same time to fix the lowest possible prices for raw materials or semi-manufactured goods. This is one of the causes of an ever increasing disproportion between national incomes. The gap between most of the richest countries and the poorest ones is not diminishing or being stabilized, but is increasing, more and more to the detriment, obviously, of the poor countries."

The moral the pope is drawing is that worker's rights "must constitute the fundamental criterion for shaping the whole economy." In other words, people come before profits.

The document is "a shot in the arm for all those involved in the social justice cause," says Msgr. Francis P. Lally, Secretary of the U.S. Bishops' Commission on Social Development and World Peace. "It's a psychology or even an ideology of work. He says that capital is the product of labor and that workers should have a say in what happens to it. I haven't seen that before," said Msgr. Lally.

The encyclical, a letter to be circulated within the Church and among all "men of goodwill", represents the considered opinion of a pontiff. As such it lacks the force of infallibility, yet Catholics are duty-bound to "enlighten their consciences" according to papal sentiment.

Asked for comment, representatives of corporations which do business in some of the world's largest Catholic nations were defensive.

Said John Thome, a Latin American spokesperson for the Ford Motor Co., "I don't think the pope has companies like Ford in mind. He's referring more to mining and resources companies." An AMAX spokesperson had this to say: "To tell you the truth, I don't think it's appropriate to comment on the pope's comment, any more than he knows about business."

- Report by Cecilio Morales who works at the National Conference of Catholic Bishops in Washington, DC.