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 In one of the longest, most passionate and sweeping speeches of
his pontificate, the Argentine-born pope also asked forgiveness for
the sins committed by the Roman Catholic Church in its treatment of
native Americans during what he called the "so-called conquest of
America."
Quoting a fourth century bishop, he called the unfettered pursuit of
money "the dung of the devil," and said poor countries should not be
reduced to being providers of raw material and cheap labor for
developed countries.
Repeating some of the themes of his landmark encyclical "Laudato Si"
on the environment last month, Francis said time was running out to
save the planet from perhaps irreversible harm to the ecosystem.
Francis made the address to participants of the second world meeting
of popular movements, an international body that brings together
organizations of people on the margins of society, including the
poor, the unemployed and peasants who have lost their land. The
Vatican hosted the first meeting last year.
He said he supported their efforts to obtain "so elementary and
undeniably necessary a right as that of the three “L’s”: land,
lodging and labor."
 His speech was preceded by lengthy remarks from leftist Bolivian
President Evo Morales, who wore a jacket adorned with the face of
Argentine revolutionary Ernesto "Che" Guevara. He was executed in
Bolivia in 1967 by CIA-backed Bolivian troops.
"Let us not be afraid to say it: we want change, real change,
structural change," the pope said, decrying a system that "has
imposed the mentality of profit at any price, with no concern for
social exclusion or the destruction of nature."
'INTOLERABLE' SYSTEM
"This system is by now intolerable: farm workers find it
intolerable, laborers find it intolerable, communities find it
intolerable, peoples find it intolerable … The earth itself – our
sister, Mother Earth, as Saint Francis would say – also finds it
intolerable," he said in an hour-long speech that was interrupted by
applause and cheering dozens of times.
Since his election in 2013, the first pope from Latin America has
often spoken out in defense of the poor and against unbridled
capitalism but the speech in this Bolivian city was the most
comprehensive to date on the issues he has championed.
Francis' previous attacks on capitalism have prompted stiff
criticism from politicians and commentators in the United States,
where he is due to visit in September.
The pontiff appeared to take a swipe at international monetary
organizations such as the IMF and the development aid policies by
some developed countries.
"No actual or established power has the right to deprive peoples of
the full exercise of their sovereignty. Whenever they do so, we see
the rise of new forms of colonialism which seriously prejudice the
possibility of peace and justice," he said.
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"The new colonialism takes on different faces. At times it appears
as the anonymous influence of mammon: corporations, loan agencies,
certain 'free trade' treaties, and the imposition of measures of
'austerity' which always tighten the belt of workers
and the poor," he said.
Last week, Francis called on European authorities to keep human
dignity at the center of debate for a solution to the economic
crisis in Greece..
He defended labor unions and praised poor people who had formed
cooperatives to create jobs where previously "there were only crumbs
of an idolatrous economy".
In one of the sections on colonialism, he said: "I say this to you
with regret: many grave sins were committed against the native
peoples of America in the name of God."
He added: "I humbly ask forgiveness, not only for the offences of
the Church herself, but also for crimes committed against the native
peoples during the so-called conquest of America.
"There was sin and an abundant amount of it."
The audience gave Francis a standing ovation when he put on a yellow
miner's hat that was given to him at the end of his speech.
The pope made his speech at the end of his first full day in
Bolivia, where he arrived on Wednesday. On Thursday morning he said
a Mass for hundreds of thousands of people and said that everyone
had a moral duty to help the poor, and that those with means could
not wish they would just "go away."
Francis praised Bolivia's social reforms to spread wealth under
Morales. On Friday, he will walk into Bolivia's notoriously violent
Palmasola prison.
The pope looked bemused on Wednesday night when Morales handed him
one of the more unusual gifts he has received: a sculpted wooden
hammer and sickle - the symbol of communism - with a figure of a
crucified Christ resting on the hammer.
Francis leaves on Friday for Paraguay, the last stop on his
"homecoming" trip.
(Editing by Richard Lough and Grant McCool)
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