Pope Francis compares financial speculators to mercenaries

The ever popular Pope Francis was applauded at a steel factory in Italy as he lashed out at financial speculators and called for working people's dignity to be restored.

“The progressive transformation of the entrepreneur into a speculator is an economic illness. The speculator is the same as a mercenary who has no company and sees workers only as a means to make profits," The Local reports the pontiff as saying.

Workers responded to Francis’ words with applause and cheers of “Francesco, Francesco.”

© Giorgio Perottino © Reuters

The pontiff also highlighted the ongoing jobless crisis, saying it was “mortgaging the future” of an entire generation, adding, “without work one can survive, but to live you need work.”

Pope Francis, now 80, stressed the need to embrace “technological transformations of the economy and of life, without resigning ourselves to the ideology that seems to be gaining a foothold wherever one looks, and which envisions a world in which only half or maybe two-thirds of employable people actually work and the others maintained with a welfare cheque,”according to Vatican Radio.

Pope Francis has been known to criticize the rich and those who crave power in the past. During a recent TED Talk, he warned of the dangers of wielding too much power saying,

“Power is like drinking gin on an empty stomach."

“You feel dizzy, you get drunk, you lose your balance, and you will end up hurting yourself and those around you if you don’t connect your power with humility and tenderness,” he added.   

Though born in Argentina, the Pope traces his family origins to Genoa, from where many Italians emigrated in the early 20th century to the Americas. His father, Mario Jose Bergoglio, left Italy for Argentina with his mother in 1929.