Avoid ‘Insatiable’ Profit Thirst, Pope Tells Executives

Pope John Paul II, nearing the end of a two-week South American pilgrimage, advised Argentine businessmen Saturday to be good Christians and avoid the “insatiable thirst for profit.”

Speaking in downtown Luna Park Stadium to about 11,000 industrial executives, the pontiff said that while “businesses are a legitimate expression of freedom,” the “fundamental law of all economic activity is to serve man.”

With Argentina’s annual inflation rate nearing 100%, the Pope asked the business leaders to “get to know God again” and treat their workers well.

He preached against the temptations of “an insatiable thirst for profit, immoral gain . . . the lack of honesty in business dealings and injustice toward your workers.”

John Paul said the Argentine economy is in trouble “because of serious problems in foreign markets,” meaning depressed world prices for many basic commodities, including “your farm and ranch products.”

Argentina is having trouble paying its $52-billion foreign debt, third largest in the developing world behind Brazil and Mexico.

John Paul said, “It is not the Pope’s job to give technical solutions to socioeconomic problems,” and he drew laughs when he said he represents “a superior economy, the divine economy.”

Earlier Saturday, the Pope traveled 200 miles northwest to Rosario and told a crowd of 50,000 at a riverside park that they should use their everyday lives to promote good will among men.

“You are not called to live in segregation, in isolation. You are fathers and mothers, workers, intellectuals, professionals or students,” he said.

As he began speaking during a Mass from an open-air altar platform, a large model of a white-beaded rosary was lifted into the sky by multicolored balloons.

“I bless from my heart all of you here present,” said the Pope. “May we be always united by this rosary that goes drifting through the heavens.”

Compared with the hundreds of thousands of people who attended Masses and rallies in many of the 19 cities on the Pope’s tour, Rosario’s welcome was modest.

Some residents noted that recent political rallies addressed by President Raul Alfonsin and other politicians drew far larger crowds.

“The Pope has faith in the Argentine lay people and expects grand things from all of them for the glory of God and in the service of man,” John Paul said.

The pontiff has convened a bishops synod, or assembly, at the Vatican in October, where lay people’s participation in Roman Catholic Church affairs is to be a major topic.

Gray skies threatened rain in Rosario. There were gaps in the crowd lining the nine-mile route of the motorcade bearing John Paul from the airport to the platform constructed in front of a 255-foot-high concrete monument to the Argentine flag.

The canopied platform faced a two-story-high wooden cross and a flagpole topped by the pale blue-and-white Argentine banner.

Rosario enjoyed an official holiday to mark the visit, and most shops were shuttered.

At one point, loudspeakers announced that a baby was born during the ceremony at one of the first-aid stands. The announcement said the mother, Maria Elena Salcedo, and baby were taken to a hospital.

The orderly, generally quiet crowd applauded politely when the Pope referred to divorce, a touchy topic in this country of 31 million people whose legislature is on the verge of approving legislation to legalize divorce.

“I think above all about the need that Christian couples have to fully live out their marriages like the fertile and indissoluble union of the Church and Christ.”

Earlier in the week, the Pope denounced divorce as an evil that could undermine the moral underpinnings of society.

The Chamber of Deputies has passed a divorce bill. The Senate postponed debate on the measure until after the papal visit but is also expected to approve it.

John Paul is to leave Buenos Aires for Rome today after leading an open-air Palm Sunday Mass.