Pope Francis has reached out to some of the world’s biggest corporations in hopes to partner with them. His goal is to help one of the biggest influential systems on our planet align with a more inclusive, fair, and sustainable economic landscape. The Pope wishes to develop goals with each of these international companies, focused on areas such as climate action, peace, justice, gender equality, and education, reports NBC News. The council that he is forming has 27 core members who represent over $2 trillion in the market with a combined workforce of over 200 million.

This council will be called the ‘Guardians of Inclusive Capitalism’ and, with members such as Johnson & Johnson’s CEO Alex Gorsky, Mastercard’s CEO Ajay Banga, and Bank of America’s CEO Brian Moynihan, this council’s influence will be monumental. On their website, inclusivecapitalism.com, it states that they are committed to action and “seeks real, lasting change for the good.” It goes on to list their values which are trust, fair, responsible, dynamic, sustainable. They tried to create these values based on the fundamental sense of justice according to the Catholic Church. This is not the first time Pope Francis has shocked not only the church but the world.

Since the start of his papacy, Pope Francis has contradicted the Catholic Church’s previous beliefs on abortions, same-sex marriage, contraception and many more issues. He came into a Vatican bureaucracy that had caused the previous pope to resign and decided to increase financial transparency, separating rival groups of Italians with influence on the Roman Curia, and replaced traditionalist seats with moderate clergymen as the church prepared for important debates about the Vatican’s process and nature of the family, the New York Times reported. Pope Francis is a pope with more modern views than most. People speculate that the pope before Francis, Benedict, resigned because he knew the church needed to change and progress with the world and that Benedict could not keep up.

The Guardians of Inclusive Capitalism will meet annually with Pope Francis and the leader of the Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development at the Vatican, Cardinal Peter Turkson, to continue to pursue their vision and values. Ajay Banga stated that he believes that “Faith cannot be used to pull up apart. Faith is meant to bring us together” in the Council’s introduction video. This is exciting news for the world in the year of 2020 where we have seen unparalleled wildfires worldwide, protests across numerous countries for a multitude of reasons, millions out of a job, and a global health crisis. Hopefully this Council has the ability to make some good changes moving forward.