VATICAN CITY (CNS): The global financial crisis has been caused in part by greed and is likely to have grave repercussions on the world’s poor, two Vatican officials said.
The Vatican’s representative to United Nations agencies in Geneva, Archbishop Silvano Tomasi, told refugee experts on October 7 that the crashing markets could result in greater displacement of people and a greater uncertainty about richer countries’ ability to protect and assist them.
“The spotlight of public opinion currently is placed on the crisis of financial markets … and on the irresponsibility and greed of some managers that led to it,” Archbishop Tomasi said.
“The consequences of this enormously complicated crisis exert a grave impact on vulnerable groups in society and give concrete evidence of the inter-connectedness and lack of equity in today’s world,” he told the executive committee of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees in Geneva.
At a Vatican news conference on October 8, Cardinal Renato Martino, who is the president of two Vatican departments that deal with migration and social justice issues, said this crisis – like every economic crisis – hits the poor the hardest because they had little or no margin to absorb its effects.
One probable cause of the crisis was “greed and the desire to have more”, which should have been better controlled by public authorities and the market itself, he said.
He said the Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church made it clear that “the market is not just a profit factory”.
The market must be regulated so that all those involved in the economic chain, not only owners and investors, were protected, he said.
Cardinal Martino confirmed that Pope Benedict XVI’s upcoming encyclical on social justice issues was expected to be published before the end of the year.
