In his first day as archbishop of one of the world's largest Roman Catholic dioceses, the Most Rev. Claudio Hummes criticized the globalized market economy for the "misery and poverty affecting millions around the world."
"Market economy has reinvented poverty in many countries," Hummes said shortly before his investiture as archbishop of Sao Paulo, South America's largest city. "And in many parts of the world, poverty has been aggravated because of neo-liberal policies.""We must find a new alternative - a third way - to guarantee economic growth without sacrificing the poor and causing unemployment," he said.
Hummes, 63, succeeds Cardinal Paulo Evaristo Arns, the Sorbonne-educated Franciscan who stepped down Saturday after 28 years as head of the diocese.
Arns, a leading exponent of the church's progressive wing, has always been a defender of liberation theology, which asserts the poor need social and economic equality to grow spiritually.
Hummes sees it the other way around.
"The fundamental mission of the church is to spread the gospel and bring people in closer contact with Jesus Christ," Hummes said. "And it is through this contact that we can start correcting social injustices."
On April 15, Pope John Paul II accepted Arns' resignation, submitted in September 1996 when he reached the Vatican's usual retirement age of 75.