 us please proceed your invitation. The Church's social teaching, stretching back to the first modern encyclical about the industrial economy, rewrote the variant in the 1891. To St. Pessimus, us, the Pope Francis-inspiring encyclical, La Balto City, this past year, have grappled with the challenges of the modern economy. There are a few places in modern thought that rival the depth and insight of the Church's moral teachings of the modern era. Over a century ago, Pope Leo XIII highlighted economic issues and challenges in Riro, La Balto, that continue to haunt us today, such as what he called, I quote, the enormous wealth of a few, as opposed to the poverty of the many, end quote. And let us be clear. That situation is worse today. In the year 2016, the top 1% of the people on this planet, the wealthiest 1%, own more wealth than the bottom 99%, while the wealthiest 85 people own more than the bottom half. Three and a half billion in time when so few have so much and so many have so little, we must reject the foundations of this contemporary economy as immoral and unsustainable. The words of St. Pessimus and us likewise resonate with us today, one striking example, quote, furthermore society in the state must ensure wage levels adequate for the maintenance of the worker and his family, including a certain amount for savings. This requires a continuous effort to improve workers' training and capability so that their work will be more skilled and productive, as well as careful controls and adequate legislative measures to block shameful forms of exploitation, especially to the disadvantage of the most vulnerable workers of immigrants and of those on the margins of society. The role of trade unions in negotiating minimum salaries and working conditions is decisive in this area, that's paragraph 15. Paragraph 43, the sexual wisdom of St. Pessimus and us is this, a market economy is beneficial for productivity and economic freedom. But if we let the quest for profits dominate society, if workers become disposable cogs of the financial system, if vast inequalities of power and wealth lead to marginalization of the poor and the powerless, then the common good is squandered and the market economy fails us. Pope John Paul II puts it this way, profit that is the result of illicit exploitation, speculation or the raking of solidarity among working people has not justification and represents an abuse in the sight of God and man. We are now 25 years into the fall of communist rule in East Europe, yet we have got to acknowledge that both John's, John Paul's warning about the excesses of untraveled finance were deeply pressured. 25 years after St. Pessimus on us, speculation, illicit financial flows, environmental destruction, and the weakening of the rights of workers is following what appeared today that it was a quarter century ago. Financial excesses, indeed widespread financial criminality on Wall Street, playing a direct role in causing the world's worst financial crisis since the Great Depression. We need a political analysis as well as a moral and anthropological analysis to understand what has happened since 1991. We can say that with unregulated globalization, a world market economy built on speculator finance burst through the legal, political and moral constraints that had once served to protect the common good in my country, home of the world's largest financial markets. Globalization was used as a pretext to deregulate the banks and in decades of legal protections for working people and small businesses. Politicians joined hands with the leading bankers to allow the banks to become quote unquote, too big to fail. The result eight years ago, the American economy and much of the world was plugged into the worst economic decline since the 1930s. Untold numbers of working people lost their jobs, their homes and their life savings and the government bailed out the banks. Inexplicably, the US political system doubled down on this reckless financial deregulation, but our Supreme Court in a series of deeply misguided decisions unleashed an unprecedented flow of money into American politics. These decisions culminated in the infamous Citizens United case, which opened the financial spigots for huge campaign contributions by billionaires and large corporations to turn the United States political system to their narrow and greedy advantage. It has established a system in which billionaires today can buy elections. Rather than an economy aimed at the common good, we have been left with an economy operated for the top 1% who get wealthier and wealthier as the working class, the young and the poor, fall further and further behind. The billionaires and banks have reaped the returns of their campaign investments in the form of special tax privileges in balanced trade agreements that favor investors over workers and that even give multinational companies extra judicial power over governments that are trying to regulate them. But as both John Paul II and Pope Francis have warned us and the world, the consequences have been even more dire than the disastrous effects of financial bubbles and falling living standards of working class families. Our very soul, our very soul as a nation has suffered as the public has lost faith in political and social institutions. As Pope Francis has stated, I quote, profoundly stated, man is not in charge today, money is in charge, money rules, end of quote. And the Pope has also stated, and I quote, very profoundly, we have created new idols. The worship of the golden calf of old has found a new and heartless image in the cult of money and the dictatorship of an economy which is faceless and lacking any truly humane gold, end of quote, and further from the point. While the income of a minority is increasingly, is increasing exponentially, that of the majority is crumbling. This imbalance results from ideologies which uphold the absolute autonomy of markets and financial speculation and thus deny the right of control to states which are themselves charged with providing for the common good, end of quote. Pope Francis has called on the world to say, and I quote, and how profound, how important this is. Know to a financial system that rules rather than serves. And he called upon financial executives and political leaders to pursue financial reform that is informed by ethical considerations. He stated plainly and powerfully that the role of wealth and resources in a moral economy must be that of serves, not master. The widening gap between the rich and the poor, the desperation of the marginalized, the power of corporations or the politics is not a phenomenon of the United States alone. The excesses of the unregulated global economy has caused even more damage in the developing countries. They suffer not only from the moon bus cycles on Wall Street, but from a world economy that puts profits over pollution, oil companies over climate safety, and arms trade over peace. And as an increasing share of new wealth and income goes to a small fraction of those at the top, fixing this gross inequality has become a sexual challenge. The issue of wealth and income inequality is the great economic issue of our time. It is the great political issue of our time. It is the great moral issue of our time. It is an issue that we must confront in the United States and across the world. Paul Francis has given the most powerful name to the predicament of modern society. He calls it the globalization of indifference. Quote, almost without being aware of it, he noted. We end up being incapable of feeling compassion and the outcry of poor. Weeping for other people's pain and feeling the need to help them is the all of this where someone else's responsibility and not our own at all. We have seen on Wall Street that financial fraud became not only the norm in many ways, but the new business model, business as usual. Top bankers, major executives of Wall Street firms have shown no shame, no shame at all, for their bad behavior, for their illegal behavior. They have made no apologies to the public. The billions and billions of dollars of fine they are paying for financial fraud are just another cost of doing business, another short cut to unjust profits. Some might feel that it is hopeless to fight the economic juggernaut, that once the market economy escaped the boundaries of morality, it would be impossible to bring the economy back under the dictates of morality and the common good. I am told time and time again by the wealthy and the powerful and the mainstream media that so often represents their interests, that we should be practical, that we should accept the status quo, that a truly moral economy is beyond our reach. Yet Pope Francis himself is surely the world's greatest demonstration against such a surrender to despair and cynicism. He has opened the eyes of the world once again to the claims of mercy, justice, and the possibilities of a better world. He is inspiring the world to find a new global consensus for our common home. I see that hope every day and that sense of possibility among America's young people which gives me an enormous sense of optimism. Our youth are no longer satisfied with corrupt and broken politics and an economy of stark inequality and injustice. They are not satisfied with the destruction of our environment by a fossil fuel industry whose greed has put short-term profits ahead of climate change and the future of our planet. They want how young people want to live in harmony with nature as part of nature, not destroy nature. They are calling out for a return to fairness for an economy that defends the common good by ensuring that every person rich or poor has access to quality health care, nutrition, and education. As Pope Francis made powerfully clear last year and though not those seen, we have the technology and we have the know-how to solve our problems from poverty to climate change to health care to the protection of biodiversity. We also have the best wealth to do so, especially if the wealthy pay their fair share of taxes rather than hiding their funds in the world's tax and secrecy havens as the Panama Papers have shown us. The challenges facing our planet are not mainly technological or even financial because as a world we are rich enough to increase our investments in skills, infrastructure, and technological know-how to meet our needs and protect the planet, our challenge is mostly a moral one to redirect our efforts and vision to the common good. Contestimus Aras, which we celebrate and reflect on today and Laudato Si are powerful, eloquent and hopeful messages of this possibility. It is up to us to learn from them and to move boldly toward the common good in our time. Thank you very much.