Kyando, Eusebius2023-01-092023-01-09http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.12424/4263348On the eve of the New Year 2023, the Catholic Church and the world lost a great and brilliant man, Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI. He was known for among many things, in his writings on the Catholic faith, economic and social life. One of the Encyclicals touching economic lives is the so called Caritas in Veritate of 2009. In memory of his academic contributions, this paper attempts to marry the Encyclical with microfinance as a tool of poverty alleviation. The reason for this is to justify that business is not bad in all its respects. However, money when is taken in absolute terms it tends to reduce man as an instrument and puts him to a certain social role and it becomes the instrument of its own destruction (refer to the financial crisis of 2007/2008). Therefore, the author attempts to bring together business and charity in truth for the expected results of genuine human development as a common good. This is what to be expected from services and products of microfinance institutions (MFIs) wherever they operate in poor countries. The paper explores also the current trend of some MFIs being involved in capital markets. It is clear today that Microfinance has become a very potential investment opportunity for private and institutional investors as well. The question which the author would like to put forward is whether microfinance institutions will remain in their original mission of poverty alleviation by serving the financial excluded marginalised households or are drifting away from this mission in order to meet the goals of private investors and clients who can absorb larger loans even at the sacrifice of outreach to the poorest segments in a community for the sake of commercial viability. The principle of subsidiarity as employed by the Holy Father Emeritus Benedict XVI, who passed away on the 31 December 2022, has been explored contributing to good values that can be used in microfinance institutions which intend to be at the service of the poor.1 online resource (17 pages)engAll rights reservedmicrofinancepoverty alleviationCaritas in VeritateHuman DevelopmentPrinciple of SubsidiarityDevelopment ethicsBusiness ethicsSocial ethicsRoman CatholicPreprint