ROME — Pope Francis condemned conservative populists Sunday, accusing them of exploiting people’s real needs with “facile and hasty solutions.”
“Let us not listen to prophets of doom,” the pontiff said in his homily for the World Day of the Poor. “Let us not be enchanted by the sirens of populism, which exploit people’s real needs by facile and hasty solutions.”
“Let us not follow the false ‘messiahs’ who, in the name of profit, proclaim recipes useful only for increasing the wealth of a few, while condemning the poor to the margins of society,” he urged.
Populists exploit people’s fears, the pope suggested, by peddling conspiratorial theories.
“If we think in this way, we let ourselves be guided by fear, and we may end up looking for answers with morbid curiosity in the ever-present chicanery of magic or horoscopes – today many Christians go…
