Ahead of this month’s G7 meeting in Kananaskis, a coalition of church organizations are hosting a pre-G7 People’s Forum in Calgary to draw attention to global issues such as the international debt crisis, ecological breakdown and climate change.
The semi-retired Cardinal Pedro Barreto, Emeritus Archbishop of Huancayo, Peru, is the star attraction at the event, which runs June 12 to 15.
Barreto, formerly a close ally of Pope Francis and now of Pope Leo XIV, will lead the group’s efforts to remind G7 leaders of the international issues that require their attention.
At a stop in Toronto before the People’s Forum, Barreto made the case against what he called “the systematization of social injustice.” He was referring to the debts that have forced at least 25 poor countries to spend more on debt service payments than on health or education.
“Today we are living in a severe socio-environmental crisis that disconcerts and discourages us. We see no immediate solutions,” Barreto told about 100 people gathered on Monday night at Our Lady of Lourdes, a Jesuit parish in Toronto, while hundreds more watched online.
According to a recent Brookings Institution report, the world’s least developed countries now borrow at interest rates ranging from five to eight per cent, while developed countries borrow at rates around one per cent. This disparity means developing countries spend a far greater percentage of their domestic revenue on interest payments.
Barreto told Canadian Affairs in an interview that he is not attending the People’s Forum in Calgary with a list of policy proposals or specific solutions to hand over to the G7. Rather, he hopes to encourage a better kind of politics.
“Politics that doesn’t help the good of everyone is not an authentic politics. It’s destructive politics, loose in the social web and the international web. The best politics privileges the poor,” he said.
“If there is no hope for the poor, there’s no hope for anyone — including those so-called rich.”
Independence
The day after Barreto’s Toronto appearance, Prime Minister Mark Carney announced Canada would be increasing its defence spending to meet the NATO target of two per cent of GDP. Carney also indicated Canada would start separating itself militarily from the U.S.
“We should no longer send three-quarters of our defence capital spending to America,” Carney said.
In his interview with Canadian Affairs, Barreto said he saw a glimmer of hope in Carney’s message.
“It’s going to make Canada more independent and able to make its own decisions, apart from the United States,” Barreto said through an interpreter, speaking Spanish.
“We’re a human family, but every country’s independence needs to be able to seek the common good, built on fraternity and the importance of the dignity of each country.”
“Going back to the old days, when the United States saw itself as the gentleman … in my way of looking at things, this doesn’t have a future. What Canada is trying to do is take a position, with dignity, being its own country,” he said.
But Barreto also stressed that he is not in favour of massive spending on weapons.
“Canada is trying to reclaim its dignity. It’s a delicate situation,” he said. “There is no future if we’re just going to invest in arms. It’s a contradiction. Countries aren’t founded on arms, but on the dignity of humanity.”
A new order
By claiming some independence from the Americans, Carney and other world leaders may be able to craft a new kind of multilateralism — a rules-based order immune from American whims.
The Vatican may have a role to play in this new order.
Under Pope Francis, the Vatican offered itself as mediator in the wars between Russia and Ukraine, Israel and Hamas, and warring parties within Sudan.
It has also sought to use its diplomatic corps to push for solutions in other areas. At last year’s G7 in Rome, Pope Francis addressed the leaders on the ethics of rapidly developing artificial intelligence systems.
“Pope Francis sought to exercise the soft power of the Vatican’s diplomatic corps consistently and effectively,” said Dr. Michael Higgins, author of The Jesuit Disruptor, a new book about Francis papal career.
“[Francis] made the case for integral human ecology, and that a healthy, human, free market and a geopolitical reality that tended to the needs of the poor and inequality are critical for the survival of the planet.
“So, the geo-political and the ecological and the ethical were all of one piece. They were all connected.”
Higgins says there remains a need for visionary leadership about pressing global issues.
“Given that the issue of the planet has now ceased to be a priority — because of hegemonic security concerns, Canada’s own preoccupation with the madness south of the border and countries reeling from the economic unpredictability generated by our feckless and capricious American president — [G7 leaders] are all scrambling for responses that make sense to quiet the nerves of their constituents, rather than saying, ‘OK, we need to be visionary now and we need to reactivate the means to do that,’” Higgins said.
Carney previously worked with Vatican leadership on the Council for Inclusive Capitalism, a group of business leaders committed to doing business in ways that benefit people, communities and the planet.
Higgins suggests Carney could become the Vatican’s ally, and vice versa.
“I think Pope Leo will see precisely such a figure in Mark Carney,” he said.
Disclosure: As a parishioner at Our Lady of Lourdes, Michael Swan was part of the team with Development and Peace-Caritas Canada that organized and promoted Cardinal Barreto’s Toronto appearance.
