Pope calls on G20 to back ‘humane’ development

VATICAN City—Pope Benedict XVI on Wednesday called on G20 leaders meeting in Cannes for a summit this week to promote “authentically humane and integral development” in the world economy.

“I hope that the meeting will help overcome the difficulties that impede an authentically humane and integral development,” he told pilgrims after one of his weekly audiences in the Vatican.

The Vatican last month called for a new UN-like global body based on “the ethics of solidarity” that would encourage growth in the developing world and rescue member states in financial danger.

In August, the pope said that the economy must work for people, not profit.

“Man must be at the economy’s center, which is not profit but solidarity,” he told journalists on his way to crisis-struck Spain.