Pope Francis launched a sweeping attack on the world’s economic system yesterday, saying it discarded the young, put money before people and survived on the profits of war.

The leader of the world’s 1.2 billion Roman Catholics said some countries had a youth unemployment rate of over 50 per cent, with millions in Europe seeking work in vain.

“It’s madness,” the Pope said.

“We discard a whole generation to maintain an economic system that no longer endures, a system that to survive has to make war. But since we cannot wage the third world war, we make regional wars. And what does that mean? That we make and sell arms.

“And, with that, the balance sheets of the idolatrous economies — the big world economies that sacrifice man at the feet of the idol of money — are obviously cleaned up.

“I think we are in a global economic system that is not good.”