At 12:15pm today, in the Paul VI Hall at the Vatican, His Holiness, Pope Francis received in audience the Directors and Employees of the Bank of Cooperative Credit in Rome along with their family members.
Dear brothers and sisters, good morning and welcome!
I greet and thank your President, the members of the Board of Directors, the cooperative members, employees and many members of your families who are present. Last February, I met the representatives of the Confcooperative and Federcasse; today I meet you, in the sixtieth year of the foundation of your Bank of Cooperative Credit.
The reason for this meeting is that the Church knows very well the value of cooperatives. The origins of many of them involve priests, committed lay people and communities enlivened by the spirit of Christian solidarity. This movement has never failed. In the social documents of the Church, there are many references to cooperatives. Even in the Encyclical Laudato si' I pointed our their value in the fields of renewable energy and agriculture (cf LS, 179-180).
I want to repeat to you some words of encouragement which I spoke in February to the entire Confederation. Here they are:
Every cooperative is called to apply these points to their specific mission. You are a credit cooperative, and you are the largest Bank of Cooperative Credit in Italy. It can happen that a cooperative becomes too large of an enterprise, but this is not the most important challenge. The most important challenge is continued belief that you are a true cooperative, indeed, becoming even more of one. This is really a challenge! It means that you must encourage the active participation of all your members. Working together and working for others.
Of course, sound and prudent management is always for the good of all. Running a bank is a delicate craft that requires great attention. But a cooperative bank must have something more: it must seek to humanize the economy, unite efficiency with solidarity.
There is another important word in social doctrine: the word subsidiarity. As a cooperative credit bank, you have put subsidiarity into practice when you faced the difficulty of crises with your abilities, joining forces and not at the expense of others. This is true subsidiarity: not relying on institutions and therefore on countries when you can responsibly face problems with your own strengths. This is why it is important that you continue the journey of integration of the cooperative credit bank of Italy. Not only because, as they say, unity creates strength, but because you must think bigger, broaden your horizons.
Some have spoken about the important resources that you intend for charity and to promote mutuality. This is typical of the cooperative good. I also encourage you to be careful about how your resources are produced, with attention to remaining focused always on people, the young and on families.
In the beginnings of rural banks, it was hoped that credit cooperatives would stimulate other cooperative initiatives. This spirit is still valid. The BCC can be the internal nucleus around which a large network can be built to give birth to companies that provide employment: there are so many unemployed people ... Companies that provide jobs to support families, to experience micro-credit and other ways to humanize the economy and above all to provide opportunities for every man and every woman to have dignity, the dignity that comes with work!
I encourage you to participate actively and generously in the life of the entire cooperative movement. You are the BCC of Rome, but I know that your presence extends also to the Lazio and even to Abruzzo. In all this territory, you can faithfully and creatively exercise the mission of a credit union. I wish you luck with doing this with consistency and with the joy that comes from working for the common good. May the Lord bless you and may Our Lady accompany you. Please don't forget to pray for me.
Speech of the Holy Father, Pope Francis
addressed to the Directors and Employees
of the Bank of Cooperative Credit in Rome
Dear brothers and sisters, good morning and welcome!
I greet and thank your President, the members of the Board of Directors, the cooperative members, employees and many members of your families who are present. Last February, I met the representatives of the Confcooperative and Federcasse; today I meet you, in the sixtieth year of the foundation of your Bank of Cooperative Credit.
The reason for this meeting is that the Church knows very well the value of cooperatives. The origins of many of them involve priests, committed lay people and communities enlivened by the spirit of Christian solidarity. This movement has never failed. In the social documents of the Church, there are many references to cooperatives. Even in the Encyclical Laudato si' I pointed our their value in the fields of renewable energy and agriculture (cf LS, 179-180).
I want to repeat to you some words of encouragement which I spoke in February to the entire Confederation. Here they are:
- First. Continue to be an engine that develops the weakest parts of local communities and civic society, considering above all unemployed youth and pointing out possibilities for the creation of new cooperative enterprises;
- Second. Be protagonists in proposing and implementing new solutions for welfare, beginning in the field of health;
- Third. Be concerned about the relationship between the economy and social justice, upholding the dignity and the value of people. Keep the people always as the focus; don't let money become a god;
- Fourth. Facilitate and encourage family life, and propose cooperative and mutual solutions for the management of common goods, which cannot become the property of a few or the subject of speculation;
- Fifth. Promote shared and social use of money, in the fashion of a true cooperative, where capital does not rule over human beings, but rather, human beings rule control capital;
- Sixth. As the fruit of all this, help an economy of honesty to grow. An economy of honesty in this time when the air of corruption is everywhere. You are asked not only to be honest - this is normal - but to diffuse and defend honesty throughout the environment. A fight against corruption.
- Seventh. Finally, participate actively in globalization, so that it can become a globalization of solidarity.
Every cooperative is called to apply these points to their specific mission. You are a credit cooperative, and you are the largest Bank of Cooperative Credit in Italy. It can happen that a cooperative becomes too large of an enterprise, but this is not the most important challenge. The most important challenge is continued belief that you are a true cooperative, indeed, becoming even more of one. This is really a challenge! It means that you must encourage the active participation of all your members. Working together and working for others.
Of course, sound and prudent management is always for the good of all. Running a bank is a delicate craft that requires great attention. But a cooperative bank must have something more: it must seek to humanize the economy, unite efficiency with solidarity.
There is another important word in social doctrine: the word subsidiarity. As a cooperative credit bank, you have put subsidiarity into practice when you faced the difficulty of crises with your abilities, joining forces and not at the expense of others. This is true subsidiarity: not relying on institutions and therefore on countries when you can responsibly face problems with your own strengths. This is why it is important that you continue the journey of integration of the cooperative credit bank of Italy. Not only because, as they say, unity creates strength, but because you must think bigger, broaden your horizons.
Some have spoken about the important resources that you intend for charity and to promote mutuality. This is typical of the cooperative good. I also encourage you to be careful about how your resources are produced, with attention to remaining focused always on people, the young and on families.
In the beginnings of rural banks, it was hoped that credit cooperatives would stimulate other cooperative initiatives. This spirit is still valid. The BCC can be the internal nucleus around which a large network can be built to give birth to companies that provide employment: there are so many unemployed people ... Companies that provide jobs to support families, to experience micro-credit and other ways to humanize the economy and above all to provide opportunities for every man and every woman to have dignity, the dignity that comes with work!
I encourage you to participate actively and generously in the life of the entire cooperative movement. You are the BCC of Rome, but I know that your presence extends also to the Lazio and even to Abruzzo. In all this territory, you can faithfully and creatively exercise the mission of a credit union. I wish you luck with doing this with consistency and with the joy that comes from working for the common good. May the Lord bless you and may Our Lady accompany you. Please don't forget to pray for me.
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