The House of Representatives today voted 263-171 in favor of a $700-million bill to shore up the American financial system.

The Senate passed the bill on Wednesday. Immediately after the House vote, President George W. Bush signed it into law.

The law authorizes the Treasury Secretary to purchase up to $700 billion in non-performing loans from financial institutions to help revive the nation’s loan market.

In a Sept. 26 letter to Congress and the White House, the U.S. bishops outlined their recommendations for a moral approach to dealing with the U.S. debt crisis.

“Our Catholic tradition calls for a ‘society of work, enterprise and participation’ which ‘is not directed against the market, but demands that the market be appropriately controlled by the forces of society and by the state to assure that the basic needs of the whole society are satisfied’ (Centesimus Annus),” Bishop William Murphy of Rockville Centre, N.Y., the chairman of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Committee on Domestic Justice and Human Development, wrote in the letter.

Said Bishop Murphy, “These words of John Paul II should be adopted as a standard for all those who carry this responsibility for our nation, the world and the common good of all.”

— Tom McFeely