THE poor should be invited to participate in discussions about creating a “different economic narrative,” Pope Francis said at the weekend.

In a video message to a forum of young people in Assisi, Italy, on Saturday, Francis said that once the coronavirus pandemic ends the worst reaction would be to “fall even more deeply into feverish consumerism and forms of selfish self-protection.”

He said that the future will be a “time that reminds us that we are not condemned to economic models whose immediate interests are limited to profit and promoting favourable policies, unconcerned with their human, social and environmental cost.”

More must be done than “meeting the most essential needs of our brothers and sisters,” the Pope said.

“We need to accept structurally that the poor have sufficient dignity to sit at our meetings, participate in our discussions and bring bread to their own tables.”

Such an approach goes beyond welfare, he said.

“We are speaking of a conversion and transformation of our priorities and of the place of others in our policies and in the social order.”

It’s time to shun economic models focused immediately on profit, Francis said.