An institutional analysis comparing the World Bank and Vatican’s discursive and ideological orientations on their anti-poverty activities : how different are they really?

Abstract

Two of the most influential global institutions that pursue the eradication of poverty are the World Bank and the Vatican (Banchoff 2015). Both the World Bank and the Vatican have a tremendous political and economic influence, with the World Bank having projects in over 170 countries, Caritas is the largest Catholic development and relief organization, operating in over 160 countries, beyond this, 17% of the World identifies as Catholic (World Bank 2024d; Caritas 2024b; Llywelyn, 2022). These institutions appear very different on the surface, with the World Bank presenting itself as a rational and economically grounded institution, dedicated to macro- economic policy on the basis of purportedly objective, scientific, and dispassionate analysis. The Vatican, on the other hand, presents itself as an explicitly religious and ideological institution, combining a deeply personal and emotional Christian mission, aimed at winning hearts and souls, with pragmatic pursuits aimed at bottom-up social change. Given this, they also differ greatly in their discourse, with the World Bank using technical, financial, language filled with data, whereas Vatican discourse is religious, Christian moral language. I will argue that despite stated differences in their approaches, the often-held difference between the World Bank and the Vatican along the lines of rational/economic and ideological/social are much less significant than they first appear.