Yes, it is exactly what it sounds like.[PJMedia] On Easter Sunday, Pope Francis sent a letter to leaders of social movements promoting "structural changes" to the "economy of exclusion and inequality." Among other things, he encouraged these activists to use the coronavirus crisis as an opportunity to spur radical change and launch a "humanistic and ecological conversion." He also endorsed the idea of a universal basic income (UBI), championed by former Democratic presidential candidate Andrew Yang.
Pope Francis addressed his letter to the World Meeting of Popular Movements (WMPM), an alliance of Roman Catholic Church leadership and "grassroots organizations working to address the 'economy of exclusion and inequality' by working for structural changes that promote social, economic and racial justice."
In the letter, the pope argues that these activists are "invisible to the system. Market solutions do not reach the peripheries, and State protection is hardly visible there." Rather than encouraging philanthropy to reach these peripheries, Francis writes to encourage "you who are looked upon with suspicion when through community organization you try to move beyond philanthropy or when, instead of resigning and hoping to catch some crumbs that fall from the table of economic power, you claim your rights."
In this context, Francis endorses a UBI. "I know that you have been excluded from the benefits of globalization. You do not enjoy the superficial pleasures that anesthetize so many consciences, yet you always suffer from the harm they produce," he argues. "Street vendors, recyclers, carnies, small farmers, construction workers, dressmakers, the different kinds of caregivers: you who are informal, working on your own or in the grassroots economy, you have no steady income to get you through this hard time ... and the lockdowns are becoming unbearable. This may be the time to consider a universal basic wage which would acknowledge and dignify the noble, essential tasks you carry out. It would ensure and concretely achieve the ideal, at once so human and so Christian, of no worker without rights."
Will no one rid me of this meddlesome priest!?!