VATICAN CITY — Pope Francis is asking Catholics to pray throughout May for the regulation of financial markets to “protect citizens from its dangers.”

“How far is the world of big finance from most people’s lives. Finance, if not regulated, becomes pure speculation animated by monetary policies. This situation is unsustainable. It’s dangerous,” Pope Francis said in a video message released May 4.

“To prevent the poor from paying the consequences again, financial speculation must be strictly regulated.”

The Vatican released a video message to present the pope’s prayer intention for May. 

The pope is asking Catholics to pray “that those responsible for finance will collaborate with governments to regulate financial markets and protect citizens from its dangers.”

Each month, the Pope’s Worldwide Prayer Network produces a video to spread the pope’s prayer intention. In 2021, these intentions have ranged from prayer for women who are victims of violence to prayer that more people will return to the sacrament of confession.

Jesuit Fr. Frédéric Fornos, president of the network, said that “this prayer intention must be understood in the context of the crisis we’re living through, which has made evident the great inequality there is in the world.”

In 2020, global Gross Domestic Product (GDP) recorded its largest drop since the end of World War II, with millions of job losses as a result of restrictions imposed in response to the coronavirus pandemic.

“The pope said it again recently,” Fr. Fornos said. “We cannot be content with ‘a return to an unequal and unsustainable model of economic and social life, where a tiny minority of the world’s population owns half of its wealth.’”

In this month’s video, Pope Francis stressed that “finance is a tool” to be put at the service of people and to “take care of our common home.”

He said: “We still have time to start a process of global change to put into practice a different, more just, inclusive, sustainable economy that leaves no one behind. Let’s do it.”