While some religious leaders call upon everyone to abandon comfort and leave prosperity behind, others, on the contrary, regard prosperity and well-being as a noble purpose and urge the rich to help the poor. Speaking at the Vatican conference on the global economy, Pope Francis recalled that "the world is rich, but the number of poor people continues to grow." The Pope openly criticized the IMF, stating that “we have to help developing countries to achieve debt sustainability, through coordinated policies which should finance debt and reschedule debt, in order to find a solution for the very indebted countries and to alleviate the suffering of people.” “You have to remember your responsibility to aid the poorest countries,” Francis appealed to the audience, especially to IMF Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva. Growing financial and social inequality as well as high debts in many countries are becoming a serious problem. Pope Francis is confident that developed countries should change their policies towards developing countries and come to their rescue. He called the tax cuts for the richest people of various countries “structures of sin,” noting that “every year, hundreds of millions of dollars which should be paid in taxes to finance medical care and education accumulate in tax haven accounts”.
