05 December 2013, The Tablet

‘Francis has enhanced his reputation with his critique of consumer capitalism’

by William Keegan

 
What an intriguing coincidence that Pope Francis should have caused a stir with his apostolic exhortation Evangelii Gaudium, while Boris Johnson, the mayor of London, should have come out with a diametrically opposite economic philosophy in what was billed as the Margaret Thatcher Lecture, writes William Keegan.I do not believe that I am alone in thinking that while Pope Francis has enhanced his reputation with what even the right-wing American Catholic commentator Ross Douthat, writing in The New York Times, describes as “a sharp critique of consumer capitalism and financial laissez-faire”, Boris Johnson, the hitherto charismatic mayor of London, has wrecked his political career by proclaiming that “greed” and “envy” are to be encouraged as “a va
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