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Vatican Sides With Anti-Capitalist Protesters And Attacks Global Financial System

Jan 6, 2005
3,450
3,762
Metro-Vancouver, B.C., Canada
Vatican sides with anti-capitalist protesters and attacks global financial system

The Vatican aligned itself with anti-capitalism protesters around the world on Monday when it condemned "the idolatry of the market" and called for a radical shake-up of the global financial system.

By Nick Squires, in Rome
5:23PM BST - 24 Oct 2011

By demanding that the worst excesses of global capitalism be reined in, the Holy See echoed the message of protesters encamped outside St Paul's Cathedral in London, the indignados of Spain and the Occupy Wall Street movement in the US.

In a forthright statement, the Vatican's Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace called for an end to rampant speculation, the redistribution of wealth, greater ethics and the establishment of a "central world bank" to which national banks would have to cede power.

Such an authority would have "universal jurisdiction" over governments' economic strategies.

Existing financial situations such as the World Bank and International Monetary Fund were outdated and no longer able to deal with the scale of the global financial crisis, which had exposed "selfishness, greed and the hoarding of goods on a grand scale".

The global financial system was riddled with injustice and failure to address that would lead to "growing hostility and even violence", which would undermine democracy.

Wealthy countries should not be allowed to wield "excessive power" over poorer nations, the Vatican said.

Cardinal Peter Turkson, the head of the pontifical council, said banks needed to question whether they were "serving the interests of humanity" in the way they operated.

The proposal was short on specific detail, beyond calling for a new tax on international financial transactions.

The Vatican hardly has an exemplary record on financial transparency and propriety.

Last year the Vatican Bank, known officially as the Institute for Religious Works, had €23m (£20m) of its assets frozen by Italian authorities as part of an investigation into suspected money-laundering.

After years of resisting calls for greater openness, the scandal forced the bank to adopt international norms on transparency.

The Holy See's murky financial past has included, most notoriously, its involvement in the bankruptcy of Italy's biggest private bank, the Banco Ambrosiano, in the early 1980s.

Its president, Roberto Calvi, who was nicknamed "God's Banker", was found hanged beneath Blackfriars Bridge, with investigators unable to rule whether he had committed suicide or had been murdered.

Thomas J Reese, a Vatican analyst at Georgetown University in the US, said the "radical" proposals put forward on Monday aligned the Holy See with the Occupy Wall Street movement and meant that the Vatican's views on the economic crisis were "to the Left of every politician in the United States".

He said the proposals reflected many of the encyclicals and addresses issued by Benedict XVI on the global economy during the last six years of his papacy.

source: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/...ters-and-attacks-global-financial-system.html
 

Harry Haller

Panga Master
SPNer
Jan 31, 2011
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If Vatican sides with the Anti- Capitalist protestors, then they should be honest enough and open their coffers which are holding billions of dollars.

Respected Pope- The man of The God. Please practice what you preach.

Tejwantji

I think the billions of dollars are earmarked for the many claims going through at present, and as the actions that caused the claims continue, they need to keep it topped up.
 
Jan 6, 2005
3,450
3,762
Metro-Vancouver, B.C., Canada
Vatican releases ‘strange remedy’ to global financial crisis

Charles Lewis Oct 24, 2011 – 6:48 PM ET | Last Updated: Oct 24, 2011 6:50 PM ET

Pronouncements by the Roman Catholic Church are normally filled with enough nuance to set off great theological debates about what the words might actually mean.

But a statement released Monday with suggestions on how to repair the global “financial crisis” goes the other way. It abandons nuance in favour of concrete economic proposals that put the Church in the new territory of offering advice on creating new global institutions.

Note on Financial Reform from the Pontifical Council for Justice & Peace has quickly set off a debate about whether the Church is on the right track or is in way over its head on matters in which it has no real expertise or competence.

The document warns it would be an error to try to find solutions that are primarily of a technical nature, yet the Vatican offers highly technical solutions. It suggests the setting up of a new global economic authority to oversee relations between nations and a “central world bank” that would regulate the flow of international monetary exchanges.

“The document is schizophrenic,” said Kishore Jayabalan, who used to work for the Pontifical Council for Justice & Peace.

“The Church has always taught that the problems are best solved at the lowest level so this is a strange remedy. This doesn’t even feel like a Catholic document,” added Mr. Jayabalan, who now runs the Rome office of the Michigan-based Acton Institute, which studies the relation between economics and theology.

“I think the first question anybody who knows anything about economics would ask is, ‘On what basis would you think a global authority would work better than a national authority?’ The scope and scale of the global economy is so large that it can’t be managed. It can only be regulated at much more local level where you have some control.”

The Church has always railed against economic injustice through appealing to morality and conscience. But this document goes so far to suggest taxing global financial transactions and subsidizing banks “conditional on virtuous behaviours.”

Mr. Jayabalan and others have pointed out the document is a Vatican “note” and therefore lacks the teaching authority of a papal encyclical.

However, Father Thomas Reese, a senior fellow at the Woodstock Theological Center in Washington, says out the justice and peace department would not issue something that did not agree with Pope Benedict’s thinking. He noted, too, that Cardinal Peter Turkson, the department’s head, is close to the pontiff.
In part, the document blames present economic problems on the myriad speculative financial instruments that have often nothing to do with the real economy of providing goods and services.

“The purpose of the public authority … is first and foremost to serve the common good,” it says.

“This is especially true in a globalized world which makes individuals and peoples increasingly interconnected and interdependent, but which also reveals the existence of monetary and financial markets of a predominantly speculative sort that are harmful for the real economy, especially of the weaker countries.”

Father Oliver Williams, an associate professor of management at University of Notre Dame, in Terre Haute, Ind., said the document is meant to force readers into thinking about the world’s economic problems, especially that of extreme poverty.

Its proposals are just suggestions, he said.

“The goal is to be provocative and challenge people to come up with suggestions of their own.”

William Doyle, associate professor of economic at the University of Dallas, a conservative Catholic school, said the Vatican’s thoughts on a global economic authority and a world central bank make perfect sense, given the reality of the times we live in.

In the history of the world, people have evolved from tribes to feudal states and then nation states. So it is only natural that further evolution take place as the world becomes more complicated, he said.

“International capital mobility is way beyond the scope of any national government to regulate or control in any way, shape or form — yet these international flows play a huge role in determining people’s standard of living. So some sort of supra-national entity seems to be called for to impose some form of order.

“Every other moral principle [in today’s international economy] has gone by the board except that free markets determine what gets done. Implicit in this document is a challenge to that.”

National Post
• Email: clewis@nationalpost.com | Twitter:

source: http://life.nationalpost.com/2011/10/24/vatican-offers-‘strange-remedy’-to-global-financial-crisis/
 

kds1980

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Apr 3, 2005
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As long as Europe and USA were beneficiaries of Capitalism the Vatican had no problem with it.Now with globalised world and manufactoring jobs moving to Asia ,suddenly Vatican find itself against Capitalism .Pure case of Double standard
 

Gyani Jarnail Singh

Sawa lakh se EK larraoan
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Jul 4, 2004
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KUALA LUMPUR MALAYSIA
Kds Ji..everyone follows the same "way" lol....Capitalist WEST is OK..and Capitalist China is not ok (Vatican)....Bhagat Singh is SHAHEED...ok for GOI..but Sukha Jinda are NOT OK (for Goi)....why ?? Becasue BS was against the Brirtish....the latter are against Delhi.. One Man's Terrorist/Traitor/murderer.... is another mans Shaeed/martyr/deshbhagat...mostly
If one looks deep enough...one can find the similarities....sometimes they FLOAT on the surface BUT we cannot "see" (REFUSE to see actually ). vatican is just doing the obvious...ignore its "double standard" which are very COMMON anyway.,
 

Tejwant Singh

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Jun 30, 2004
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As long as Europe and USA were beneficiaries of Capitalism the Vatican had no problem with it.Now with globalised world and manufactoring jobs moving to Asia ,suddenly Vatican find itself against Capitalism .Pure case of Double standard

Kds ji,

Guru Fateh.

I am afraid you have got it totally wrong. There are more Catholics outside Europe and North America than ever before. Asia and Latin America are the best examples. Brazil has the largest Catholic population in the world and has the 5th largest economy in the world with 1/6th of the population of India and with its new find of huge oil reserves, it will even move ahead of India which is the 4th largest economy, in not too distant future.

The number of Catholics is growing in China and in other countries.

In my opinion this a clever slogan from the Vatican because it always enriched itself on the backs of the poor. The towns in the "New World" used to be built around the Catholic Churches, hence they had the most expensive real estate.

So, Vatican is backing the Anti- Capitalist protestors to bring in more capital in their coffers with the help of enlarging their base by enticing new followers.

Tejwant Singh
 

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