Pope Leo has criticized the widening corporate pay gap between executives and their workers in his first interview since ascending to the papacy.
The interview was released Sunday on the Catholic news site Crux, and is part of a new biography of the pope titled Leo XIV: Citizen of the World, Missionary of the XXI Century.
“CEOs that 60 years ago might have been making four to six times more than what the workers are receiving … 600 times more (now),” Leo said in the interview.
“Yesterday (there was) the news that Elon Musk is going to be the first trillionaire in the world,” he said, adding: “What does that mean, and what’s that about? If that is the only thing that has value anymore, then we’re in big trouble.”
Later during the interview, Pope Leo expressed his displeasure about the United Nations’ ability to help solve global issues.
“The United Nations should be the place where many issues are dealt with. Unfortunately, it seems to be generally recognized that the United Nations, at least at this moment in time, has lost its ability to bring people together on multilateral issues,” he said.
On a lighter note, when asked which team he will support during next year’s World Cup, the Pope, who was raised in Chicago but spent many years living in Peru, said: “Probably Peru and just because of affective bonds.”
“I’m also a big fan of Italy. People know I’m a White Sox fan, but as Pope, I’m a fan of all the teams,” he said. “Even at home, I grew up a White Sox fan, but my mother was a Cubs fan, so you couldn’t be one of those fans that shut out the other side. We learned, even in sports, to have an open, dialogical, friendly, and not angry competitive stance on things like that, because we might not have gotten dinner had we been.”