Vatican urges ethical solutions to global financial crises

BY CATHOLIC NEWS SERVICE

VATICAN CITY — A leading Vatican diplomat warned that the financial crisis could become a catastrophe unless solutions are found that respect ethics and involve all levels of society.

“It is necessary to recover some basic aspects of finances, such as the primacy of labour over capital, of human relationships over purely financial transactions, and of ethics over the sole criterion of efficiency,” said Archbishop Celestino Migliore.

“For some time we’ve found ourselves in the middle of a financial crisis that could become a catastrophe if its effects are allowed to impact other crises: in economics, food and energy.”

Migliore, the Vatican’s apostolic nuncio to the United Nations, made the remarks in an interview with Vatican Radio Nov. 28.

He echoed the Vatican’s insistence that poor nations have a voice in responding to the crisis. A solution to global economic issues cannot be “subordinated to the decisions of a few.”

He also said the current crisis calls for respect for ethical and legal norms.

“Regulations and ethical codes existed well before the crisis. The problem is that great impunity was given to those who didn’t respect them,” he said.

Protection must be given especially to “the workers, those who save and ordinary people who are not able to understand the complicated financial engineering and who need to be defended against the tricks and abuses of sly people,” he said.

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