-255x255.jpg "CNA photo")
VATICAN CITY — A new Vatican document that calls for the creation of a new global authority to regulate financial markets and a tax on financial transactions has been praised by some for reminding world leaders to uphold the dignity of the poor.
But it has also been roundly criticized by others for being out of touch with political and economic reality.
The 41-page document, drawn up by the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace and published Oct. 24, was aimed at contributing to the upcoming G-20 Summit Nov. 3-4, which will be devoted to the ongoing global economic crisis.
Titled “Toward Reforming the International Financial and Monetary Systems in the Context of Global Public Authority,” the Vatican said the current global financial crisis has revealed “selfishness, collective greed and the hoarding of goods on a great scale.” It advocated a supranational authority as a possible remedy, one that places the common good at the center of international economic activity.
Although the document drew partly on the teachings of a number of popes, it was not official Church dogma.
Vatican spokesman Father Federico Lombardi stressed that it was not from Pope Benedict, and so it was not “an expression of papal magisterium.” But he did say it was an “authoritative note of a Vatican agency.”
The document said a global authority would include “a kind of central world bank” and a “set of public institutions” that will “guarantee the unity and consistency” of common decisions. The United Nations should help establish such an authority, it said, and do so gradually, without force.
It should operate on the principle of subsidiarity, it added, intervening “only when individual, social or financial actors are intrinsically deficient in capacity.” It should also transcend special interests and not be beholden to the interests of developed nations or lobby groups.
“In this process, the primacy of the spiritual and of ethics needs to be restored and, with them, the primacy of politics — which is responsible for the common good — over the economy and finance,” it said.
Among other measures, the paper proposed a transaction tax to help promote “social justice and solidarity.” It advocated the creation “of a world reserve fund” to support countries suffering from economic crises and called for recapitalization of banks with public funds but conditional on “virtuous” behaviors aimed at developing the “real economy.”
The document warned of an “idolatry of the market” — a term Blessed Pope John Paul II used in 1991 after the fall of Soviet communism — and said this warning “needs to be heeded without delay.” And it claimed the primary cause of the current global crisis was “an economic liberalism that spurns rules and controls” and that relies solely on the laws of the market.
Italy’s main socialist party, Partito Democratico, said the transaction tax had its “full support.”
“We hope the proposal [that has been proposed] elsewhere but with little success can be immediately applied,” said Giuseppe Fioroni, the party’s head of welfare. “The document underlines the necessity to confront the crisis and change the economy with a perspective not only on personal enrichment, but on the growth and welfare of the community.”
Others have praised the Vatican for reminding world leaders to uphold and protect the poor and disenfranchised and to place the human person rather than utilitarian considerations at the center of the economy.
But key points in the document were greeted with criticism.
Kishore Jayabalan, Rome director of the Acton Institute for the Study of Religion and Liberty, a free-market think tank, welcomed the Vatican’s attempt, but said the result was based on “political and economic ignorance rather than experience.”
Jayabalan argued that “the supranational authority” to promote the common good is God, yet the paper “doesn’t speak of God or the natural law, and so neglects this substantial notion of the common good.” The idea of a global authority was a “sentimental hope,” he added, one that has always proved unworkable. It cannot command universal support because of human diversity, and any attempt to empower such an authority to enforce its commands “would most likely be considered tyrannical and, therefore, unjust by a large part of the world,” he said.
Thomas Woods, a Catholic senior fellow at the Von Mises Institute, a libertarian think tank, said he didn’t think the document was “entirely without its merits” and welcomed its warning against “excess credit creation” by central banks and the banking industry. But he said there were “some troubling aspects”: namely that a supranational body would add another layer to a system that instead needs more radical reform.
He argued that the mistakes of the Federal Reserve (such as setting artificially low interest rates that many believe led to the housing bubble that precipitated the current crisis in the United States) show these institutions are harmful and cannot be trusted. And he added that this economic crisis came about despite a threefold increase in spending on regulation of the economy over the past 30 years.
Rather than an idolatry of the market, he said, “we have had an idolatry of the public authorities” — institutions that are “taken for granted and whose indispensability is a myth.” The U.S. banking sector, he added, is a highly regulated cartel dominated by a central bank. “There is a grave misconception about what’s really going on,” he said.
Jayabalan, a former official at the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, said greed and idolatry are permanently recurring temptations that require “constructive ways” to combat them. And, yet, “quite surprisingly for an office of the Roman Curia and from a Catholic perspective, the note does not tell us much about the spiritual battle that must take place.”
Rather than draft this note, Jayabalan said the Vatican should have drawn on the “economic wisdom of the division of labor,” which would have told them “to stick to what it knows and does best.”
Edward Pentin is the Register’s Rome correspondent.
Edward Pentin: Improving Communication of Pope's Early Morning Homilies
Comments
Post a Comment
The Church needs to concentrate on its flock, engaging and spiritually nourishing them. Stay the heck out of politics. This directive was insulting and makes many of us question what the heck goes on in Rome’s multilayer committees. I do not think Jesus would be happy.
As both Vatican II and Pope Benedict made clear, this belongs in the laity’s domain, not the Vatican’s. The PCJP simply lacks the knowledge and competence to dabble in political and economic questions in this way. And it makes the Holy See look ridiculous. Time to disband the PCJP.
I for one welcome this insight. It gives me a lot to think about when it comes to economics. It’s so easy to go simply with what you “feel” is right and just ignoring every other option that it’s nice to hear what the Church believes the right approach is.
Wow- faithful Catholics seem eager to tear apart any advice coming from the Vatican on economic matters as if economic theory and practice existed solely in some amoral realm and had no moral effects on anyone- so the pope and the prelates should just stay out of the boardrooms- sounds suspiciously similar to the viewpoint of those unfaithful Catholics who make the same argument for what takes place in the peoples’ bedrooms. All the ideologues seem to know so much better than Rome on every important issue - why would God give us a Church so ignorant and loud on so many things that allow people to live or cause people to die prematurely- we should just allow the experts direct our lives- not Rome- or so say the faithful Catholics of the Right and the unfaithful Catholics of the Left. I suppose that I am one of those strange orthodox Catholic birds not beholden to the worldly powers and their all-knowing ideologies. I say Go Vatican- keep advising, keep speaking and stirring debate that exposes the Left and Right ideologues within our Church.
I thought the document was great! It supports the other 99%-the Occupy Wall Street people. Social Justice is not dead-Yay!!
Perhaps it is inevitable that churchmen sound naive when they talk about economics. This is because the Church highlights stability and the welfare of the nuclear family in human life, whereas economists see human beings primarily as factors of production to be trained, re-trained, moved around and replaced in accordance with economic contingencies. Both perspectives have their validity so long as they stay within their proper bounds. I don’t want Milton Friedman defining God’s nature based on the needs of capital and labor. But neither do I want the Vatican making pronouncements on the world economy based on theology. By overstepping those bounds, the Vatican’s 24 October document sounds ridiculous. How can any authority, supranational or otherwise, arrange the use of productive factors so as to optimize conditions for family happiness? For one thing, it would require guaranteeing every marriageable man a steady job sufficient to support a wife and kids—-and probably several kids, as Catholics must be “open to life.” Can you imagine an economy that could do that? In reality, advances in science and technology are constantly propelling people into TERRA INCOGNITA, rendering some jobs obsolete while engendering new ones as they continually reshape our lives. It might be nice to stop the clock and just rest a while, but even that’s not going to happen. Thirty years ago, who could have foreseen personal computers and the Internet? Three centuries ago, who could have predicted steamboats, coal-fired factories and railroads? To a degree, the Church’s view of economics still reflects that sense of stability lost with the passage of medieval Europe: it’s more sentimental than realistic. The truth is twofold. First, the demands of modern economies have little respect for the conditions ideal to family life, whatever they may be, and, second, no one knows where humanity is going. Scary, isn’t it? But hey, that’s reality.
A good example of why the EU is kaput; and the welfare state is also finished.!
So many in the Church heirarchy give lip service to subsidiarity but at heart leap again and again for the tired old centralized, European style statist solutions despite all the evidence they do not work and add to the world’s misery.
Power corrupts and we are asked again and again to trust powerful organizations who answer to no one.
Frank
The Catholic laity must engage politics.
The pot calling the kettle black ! Look at the billions mismanaged by the Vatican Bank over the past two decades. Here we go yet again with this “social justice” garbage, COMMUNISM doesn’t work. Welfare is the biggest waste & only begets laziness, crime & more beggars. Look at the hundreds of millions mismanaged by the USCCB, especially through their CCHD which diverts millions to Pro-Abortion, left-wing radical Communist & partisan groups. The Gospels do not say we must reward SLOTH & AVARICE ! Who actually thinks China will spread the wealth, it can’t even provide for its own.
I rather liked this document, but feel it lends itself to much grief. People will read parts of it out of context, as the media has already done, and mock the church unfairly. Section 4, read by itself, seems horrible, but read in conjunction with section 3, it is quite defensible, since section 3 alludes to a timing mechanism, John XXIII’s vision of large-scale global interdependence, and whenever that is realized, calls for subsequent gradual change, which is addressed in section 4. The paper seems to think we are in the infancy stages of that global reality, so it makes sense to start talking ideas.
Just because a World Bank is most likely extremely misguided for the here and now (and perhaps for decades and centuries to come) doesn’t mean this document is bad. The UN is similarly bad, but which of you is calling for the Vatican to leave it? A World Bank is probably more likely to occur than not in our growing global interdependence, no matter what the Vatican’s position. The Vatican should help form its vocabulary, at its infancy stages, advocating for a preferential option for the poor, rather than bury its head in the sand.
This is a statement of the failure of the Church in being able to form the hearts and minds of humans. And so its solution is to create an even bigger institution comprised of even more imperfect humans. Yep - that will get the job done. “Peace and Justice” is a name that as a nice ring to it, but when you look into it, it’s hollow. What they are looking for is a benevolent dictator.
I love hearing from the right wingnuts…..They hate anything that would act as a brake on the unfettered capitalism that rewards the banks on Wall Street and punishes the average Joe on Main Street….I hope they all take the time to watch Frank Capra’s “It’s A Wonderful Life” this Christmas season and figure out what the plot is telling them….Two thumbs up for the Vatican and a warm welcome to the libertarian “think tanks” as they sit down to eat at the Cafeteria Catholics table….
Great! There will now be weeping and gnashing of teeth from the two-hearted reptilian oligarchy and their corrupt political minions. Our Lord came into the world a slave in poverty to announce the Good news to the poor. He upheld and elevated the dignity and holiness of the common man by choosing to labor as a skilled tekton to feed and care for his Holy Mother… can anyone name just ONE wealthy holy person in this post-modern era? Thought so…
Jesus moved mountains with 12 others and simple messages. In my humble opinion, our church leaders should begin with their own flock. Nurture and educate them, inspire and energize them. We are hungry for spiritual leadership. When our our priests become the leaders parishioners hunger for, the rest will take care of itself.
The UN can’t remove a colony of pirates from Somalia….could not stop rapes in Sudan that went on for years….cannot stop rapes now of Somalian women trekking into Kenya as they seek food. And the Vatican sees them as a template for
world rule? Face it….the Vatican fears that now….unlike in 1500….the major powers are non Catholic and predominant Catholic countries are credit problems within Europe: Italy, Spain, Portugal and Ireland.
Unfettered capitalism on Wall Street? Try “crony capitalism.” Big business and big banks kept from going under by gov’t “corporate welfare.”
Jesus taught us the importance of charity and justice, with particular attention to the needs of the poor and downtrodden. He did not teach that the best way to meet those needs was through ever larger, more powerful, and less accountable governmental and transgovernmental agencies. He did not tell us how to structure or run political or governmental entities.
Those who denounce critics of this sad document for lacking the orthodoxy or loyalty they espouse in other areas, miss two points. First, Vatican II, JPII and B16 all called for the laity to take a greater role and lead in the spheres proper to them - while instead, bishops and agencies like PCJP usurp the laity’s role and issue statements on all kinds of matters that are not within their competence or authority.
Second, and it is the best thing about this document, it is explicitly and admittedly NOT part of the papal magisterium but the product of a low-level Vatican agency - a distinction the media characteristically missed and about which the likes of Fr. Thomas Reese, SJ, somehow missed the opportunity to correct them.
It is right that the Church teaches that induced abortion, for example, is gravely immoral in all circumstances - that is a formal teaching of the Church, codified in canon law, and it commands the assent of all the faithful. The same is not true about the opinion of this Vatican agency on the need for a new and more powerful World Bank, now or ever.
While the goals of this recommendation may be admirable, I always maintain a healthy skepticism towards any recommendation that centralizes power and decision making, especially at the international level. Given the depravity of the human condition, one cannot assume that such a body will actually look out for the interests of anyone but themselves. Since when could the United Nations be trusted to establish and support anything other than structures and organizations totally contrary to the dignity of the human person? That is a pipedream not connected to the reality of the fallen world in which we live.
Eighteen pages on the crisis of a collapsing global usury scam.
Not one mention of usury.
Profound disorientation.
Why does Jayabalan get worked up about God “missing” in the PCJP document and then rebukes the Church unjustly by denying its competence even to enter such discussions which, after all, do impact the common good? At the Vatican, God is always at least *implicit* in everything! Jayabalan should have cited psalm 127 as the way God wants to be *explicitly* in-the-loop. In fact God is the ONLY Person who can say to us *respectfully* in the psalm: “it’s MY way or the highway”—for we know whatever HE wants for us IS good for us
.
So, Lesson 1, psalm 127: “Unless the LORD build the house, they labor in vain who build.” (i.e., they/we FAIL) “house” includes all human groups – even bankers and Finance groups.
.
God builds through our labors quite successfully only when we heed His ample guidance during the building process – including finance designing! Yes, “Market Place” operations *are* subject to moral laws. Psalm 127 is what Bishops should be stressing ‘round the Globe, especially in election seasons. Elections have consequences!!! And no, I’m *not* for One-World-Government as that would suffocate indispensible Subsidiarity! Here in the U.S. the American Bishops (USCCB) must stress psalm 127 or we are likely going down the tubes in 2012. Americans can’t build with God if in 2012 they keep a president who shows ZERO empathy toward his own professed savior (via his *facilitating* the killing of Jesus’ new children) and who on April 19, 2011 so botched his “confession” at the White House Easter Prayer Breakfast that Jesus is the “Son of God” that Christians legitimately can and should doubt his being a Christian if that was not already their perception.
.
Beware Lesson 2: Benedict XVI warned the EU not to ignore its Christian heritage in its Constitution – EU didn’t listen. Militant atheists + lukewarm Christians = a terrible crisis. PCPJ is not the Magisterium. Hence the PCPJ document is only partly right for that’s the nature of prudential judgments especially when the crisis is so complex and it takes much more time to even poorly build under lukewarmness of Christians. So, America, how much longer will WE foolishly let our families suffer for lack of Love & Respect *shown* to God?
JMJ Vatican spokesman Father Federico Lombardi explained that the document on economics was not ‘an expression of papal magisterium.”
So whats the point of all the comments?+
Utopia, enforced by a supra-national bureaucracy? Sounds rather like communism, Russian style… Didn’t work then, either.
The point of the comments? Obviously the faithful are having a problem with the busy work these committees are producing. I have a great idea, let’s trim all of this ridiculous fat from the coffers of Mother Church.
Post a Comment
By submitting this form, you give The National Catholic Register permission to publish this comment. Comments will be published at our discretion, and may be edited for clarity and length. For best formatting, please limit your response to one paragraph and don't hit "enter" to force line breaks.