Vatican City, May 17, 2018 / 12:20 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- Two Vatican offices called Thursday for the development of new forms of economy and finance with regulations directed to the common good and respect for human dignity.
“It is especially necessary to provide an ethical reflection on certain aspects of financial transactions which, when operating without the necessary anthropological and moral foundations, have not only produced manifest abuses and injustice, but also demonstrated a capacity to create systemic and worldwide economic crisis,” read Oeconomicae et pecuniariae quaestiones, (Economic and financial issues), a document of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith and of the Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development presented May 17.
The document, signed Jan. 6, presents considerations for an ethical discernment of economics and finances, and argues that profit should not be an end in itself, but must be pursued with the goal of achieving greater solidarity and a more equitable distribution of wealth.
It presents fundamental considerations, such as the need for ethics for the economy to function correctly, and treats at length of specific ethical issues in financial and economic markets.
It was presented during a press conference by Archbishop Luis Ladaria, prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, and Cardinal Peter Turkson, prefect of the Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development.
Sitting alongside the prefects were professors Leonardo Becchetti from Rome’s Tor Vergata University and Lorenzo Caprio, from the Catholic University of Milan.
Archbishop Ladaria said the aim of the document is to provide a correct anthropological vision for the current market, since “the common good has disappeared” from many areas of economics and finance.
According to Becchetti, the document also identifies a major problem in the global economy: “we have a growing global wealth, which is a good thing, but we have a huge problem of distribution.”
“Regulation is key” to bringing more balance, he said, citing the need to be attentive to a growing dependence on technology while also ensuring people have work. The main problem, he said, “is fiscal,” and he stressed the need to give attention to areas with fewer resources.
The document frequently cites Pope Francis and Benedict XVI, but also includes citations from Pius XI, the Second Vatican Council, and the subsequent magisterium.
Oeconomicae et pecuniariae quaestiones cites the growing influence of financial markets, saying there is a need for “appropriate regulation of the dynamics of the markets and, on the other hand, a clear ethical foundation that assures a well-being realized through the quality of human relationships; rather than merely economic mechanisms, which by themselves cannot attain it.”
The recent global financial crisis, the text read, is an invitation to “develop a new economy, more attentive to ethical principles, and a new regulation of financial activities that would neutralize predatory and speculative tendencies and acknowledge the value of the actual economy. ”
What is at stake is the well-being of men and women throughout the planet who risk being excluded and marginalized from true well-being, while a small minority, “indifferent to the condition of the majority, exploits and reserves for itself substantial resources and wealth.”
The document said the time has come to begin recovering “what is authentically human,” and to expand minds and hearts to they recognize what is both true and good, “without which no social, political and economic system could avoid bankruptcy, failure, and, in the long term, collapse.”
Competent and responsible authorities, the text read, have the duty “to develop new forms of economy and of finance, with rules and regulations directed towards the enlargement of the common good and respect for human dignity along the lines indicated by the social teachings of the Church.”
The text flagged erroneous and misguided approaches to the economic and financial markets such as consumerism, materialism, and an over-emphasis on profit, citing them as mentalities which endanger the common good and increase inequalities throughout the world.
“Our contemporary age has shown itself to have a limited vision of the human person, as the person is understood individualistically and predominantly as a consumer, whose profit consists above all in the optimization of his or her monetary income. The human person, however, actually possesses a uniquely relational nature and has a sense for the perennial search for gains and well-being that may be more comprehensive, and not reducible either to a logic of consumption or to the economic aspects of life.”
“No profit is in fact legitimate when it falls short of the objective of the integral promotion of the human person, the universal destination of goods, and the preferential option for the poor,” the text said, stressing that a legitimate economic system “thrives not merely through the quantitative development of exchange but rather by its capacity to promote the development of the entire person and of every person.”
On this basis, the document urged that universities and business schools provide as a foundation an education by which students will “understand economics and finance in the light of a vision of the totality of the human person”, avoiding “a reductionism that sees only some dimensions of the person.”
Well-being has to be measured by more than just Gross Domestic Product but must also take into account safety and security and “the quality of human relationships and of work. Profit should be pursued but not ‘at any cost’, nor as a totalizing objective for economic action.”
Profit and solidarity “are no longer antagonists,” the document said. However, “where egoism and vested interests prevail, it is difficult for the human person to to grasp the fruitful interchange between profit and gift, as sin tends to tarnish and rupture this relationship.”
“It is impossible to ignore the fact that the financial industry, because of its pervasiveness … is a place where selfishness and the abuse of power have an enormous potential to harm the community.”
The documented lamented that “Capital annuity can trap and supplant the income from work, which is often confined to the margins of the principal interests of the economic system. Consequently, work itself, together with its dignity, is increasingly at risk of losing its value as a ‘good’ for the human person and becoming merely a means of exchange within asymmetrical social relations.”
It pointed out an inversion between means and ends, in which work has become an instrument, and money an end.
Oeconomicae et pecuniariae quaestiones said that credit has an “irreplaceable social function,” but that “applying excessively high interest rates, really beyond the range of the borrowers of funds, represents a transaction not only ethically illegitimate, but also harmful to the health of the economic system. As always, such practices, along with usurious activities, have been recognized by human conscience as iniquitous and by the economic system as contrary to its good functioning.”
Instead, financial activities are called to serve the real economy, “to create value with morally licit means, and to favour a dispersion of capital for the purpose of producing a principled circulation of wealth.”
“What is morally unacceptable is not simply to profit, but rather to avail oneself of an inequality for one’s own advantage, in order to create enormous profits that are damaging to others; or to exploit one’s dominant position in order to profit by unjustly disadvantaging others, or to make oneself rich through harming and disrupting the collective common good.”
The text then highlights the need for greater communion, collaboration, and solidarity in the market, and offers suggestions for ways in which these can be implemented.
In a healthy market “it is easier to respect and promote the dignity of the human person and the common good,” the Vatican offices wrote.
The experience of recent decades has demonstrated the need for both ethics and regulation, the document states.
With an increased globalization of financial markets, the system “requires a stable, clear and effective coordination among various national regulatory authorities,” allowing them to share binding decisions when necessary, especially when it comes to threats against the common good.
“Where massive deregulation is practiced, the evident result is a regulatory and institutional vacuum that creates space not only for moral risk and embezzlement, but also for the rise of the irrational exuberance of the markets, followed first by speculative bubbles, and then by sudden, destructive collapse, and systemic crises,” Oeconomicae et pecuniariae quaestiones states.
The text condemned the tendency of business managers to establish policies which aim “not at increasing the economic health of the companies that they serve, but at the mere profits of the shareholders, damaging therefore the legitimate interests of those who are bearing all of the work and service benefiting the same company, as well as the consumers and the various local communities (stakeholders).”
The document suggested that ethical committees be established in banks to support the administration, and to help cushion them from the impact of losses.
The text then pointed to financial instruments such as derivatives and credit default swaps, which going unchecked, can lead to “unacceptable” consequences from an ethical point of view, essentially gambling with a person’s future.
Use of offshore accounts as tax havens was also condemned, though it was noted that tax systems throughout the world are not always equal, which can damage weaker parties in favor of wealthier ones.
Despite the fact that more nations are cracking down on offshore accounts, penalties have not been enforced and norms have either not been applied or they have not proved effective due to the political powers pulling the strings.
All of these problems are “not only the work of an entity that operates out of our control,” but are “in the sphere of our responsibilities.”
Oeconomicae et pecuniariae quaestiones states that it is “therefore quite evident how important a critical and responsible exercise of consumption and savings actually is.”
As an example, the text said shopping is a daily task by which we can choose to avoid purchasing products produced by chains which violate “the most elementary human rights,” such as sweat-shops.
“Through the gesture, apparently banal, of consumption, we actually express an ethics and are called to take a stand in front of what is good or bad for the actual human person.”
Likewise, persons are called to direct their savings to “those enterprises that operate with clear criteria inspired by an ethics respectful of the entire human person, and of every particular person, within the horizon of social responsibility.”
“Each one is called to cultivate procedures of producing wealth that may be consistent with our relational nature and tend towards an integral development of the human person.”
The document concludes with a call to hope in light of the challenges of the economy, saying, “every one of us can do so much, especially if one does not remain alone.”
“Today as never before we are all called, as sentinels, to watch over genuine life and to make ourselves catalysts of a new social behavior, shaping our actions to the search for the common good, and establishing it on the sound principles of solidarity and subsidiarity.”
[…]
Pope Francis attributes anti-LGBTQ attitudes to cultural backgrounds, and says bishops in particular need to undergo a process of change to recognize the dignity of everyone. Change?! God’s attitude does not change when He calls the LGBTQ life an “abomination” (Lev 18:22). LGBTQ sin and crime should be unrelated in today’s world; but giving it a dignity when God calls it an abomination!? Compromising thousands of years of God-given moral values is not on the side of God, but of men.
I think its a shame that the pope is so soft on homosexuality.
I used to and to some etent still do, love the catholic church and it’s church fathers immensely but this is very disheartening the church shouldn’t be changing with the times but staying firmly on the truth. I love all the ancient churches and I fear that this is a bad precedent that we might not get out of and it’s got me leaning towards eastern orthodoxy (no offence intended).
Homosexuality is unnatural, disgusting and immoral and should not be encouraged or taken lightly.
It is a psychological aberration and people with an inclination to it should be enhoined to chastity not.
I hope that I’m misunderstanding something or that popes words are being taken out of context by the media and magnifying what he said unjustly but if not I have to admit I’m very dissapointed.
edit didn’t mean to say “not” at the end of sentence preceded by chastity. pardon my error
Between yesterday and today Pope Francis rushed to intervene on the homosexualism questions, because, it appears to me, it matters to him that these should coincide with today’s Gospel, “This is fulfilled in your hearing.”
The positive “Homosexuality is not a crime”, is misleading. Homosexuality is an inherent evil like abortion and when acted upon it is crime. It is one of those evils that by nature can not be separated from moral content.
Something further is happening. The Pope is not a day philosopher, he is a shepherd of souls and of shepherds. It is not his role to parse moral content for positivism. Were he to do it can form ecclesial sin and ecclesiastic crime.
I am not trying to prosecute Pope Francis but what he says and does would fall short of integrated faith. Simultaneously he adds a cameo of Benedict XVI, his “dad” whom he “lost”; and stresses how joy is the hallmark of faith.
Sorry for pressing this but it seems to me they made this the Gospel for today combining it with so many other things being stressed to overshadow St. Paul.
https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/253456/pope-francis-unpacks-jesus-good-news-today-this-scripture-has-been-fulfilled
No, it is not a crime. Neither is it something to be emulated. I have known some gay men and they have been perfectly nice. However from a religious point of view this is a disorder. When the Pope continues to soft pedal this stuff he creates confusion and sends peoples beliefs down the wrong road. I am sure that many an adulterer is also “nice”. Some people behave as prostitutes. Maybe they just need the money. Yet even that does not make it ok. Jesus did not repeal the 10 Commandments, several of which deal with sex. His word to the woman taken in adultery was go and sin no more. It was NOT ” it’s ok”. Ditto people who find their kicks in other sexual manners. The answer is no. Period.
God cannot bless sin…
But He can also recognize (as per the face-value meaning of Amoris Laetitia and the Argentine Bishops’ Letter) that I might not be able to abstain from sin without falling into a greater sin? The human condition is what it is, but if straight couples in irregular unions can live more uxorio (because they are not subjectively culpable, as a step along the path to greater holiness, because there are positive aspects to their relationship, etc.) why can’t gay couples? One way or another, justice demands that the same standard be applied to both.
Pope Francis is correct that homosexual acts are a sin, not a crime. Why does he insist on appointing and surrounding himself with people who believe they are neither? The only reason I can imagine for why he seems to want an escape clause for straight couples but not for gay couples is that he emotes more than he thinks, and he has an easier time emotionally identifying with straight couples than gay couples. Emotion and charity (let alone truth in charity) are not the same thing.
Correction to Bergoglio: if you said “homosexuality is a sin” you are wrong. Homosexual acts are sins. But being burdened with a perverse and unnatural inclination toward one’s sex is NOT a sin. Acting on those inclinations IS a sin. Bergoglio needs to consult a good moral theologian. I think Cardinal Mueller is available.
It’s very confusing. Being attracted to others of the same sex is only a sin if acted upon. Or I suppose if dwelt upon unnecessarily.
It’s hard to know what the Pope was thinking. Maybe the translation was faulty?
What prompted the conversation in the first place?
There’s an old saying “Least said, soonest mended “…
The simple reading of scripture or the Catechism before bedtime does much to improve one’s moral theology.
I agree meiron.
Someone once said unconfessed sins, usually those of a sexual nature, are often a source of bad theology.
Exactly right. There is no such thing as a natural inclination for homosexuality. It is learned behavior arrived at through some level of moral compromise, although in some cases culpability might be minimal due to tragic abuse. Like the state of alcoholism is arrived at through episodes of willful glottony. Francis is not a man of wisdom, so we need not scratch our heads trying to sort through the confusion every time he embarrasses the Church that embarrasses him.
Statutory law often exists even with the understanding that it can not be enforced to protect society and to express meaningful values.
Separation between a homosexual orientation and homosexual acts is very important. Those with a homosexual attraction that are living a chaste life are not committing sin. This is often overlooked. This is because the LBGT movement, that dominates the news, is only infested in those
living an active homosexual life.
Pope Francis seems to be discriminating against sinners and criminals. By going so far out of his way to state that same sex attraction is not a sin or a crime and thus they deserve dignity and respect, gives the feeling that, if it were a sin and a crime, then they would not deserve dignity and respect. Does Pope Francis not believe that even the worst criminals and sinners deserve human respect and dignity as well?
I try to cut His Holiness some slack and make allowances for translation problems, but his statements in this instance seem confusing. Saying that homosexuality is not a crime but a sin is more than a little vague.
Being homosexual is no more sinful than being murderous or greedy or anything else. The belief that a sinful tendency or inclination is in and of itself sinful instead of a cross or trial to be borne is a modernist belief that shifts right and wrong from reason to faith, changing the basis of natural law where reason guided and illuminated by faith, not faith alone, is preeminent.
Whether someone is homosexual, greedy, murderous, or anything else, is a matter of subjective opinion or personal faith and cannot be sinful. Committing homosexual acts, theft, murder, or anything else is a matter of objective fact, determined by empirical evidence and logical consistency — reason — and may be sinful under the usual conditions. In human terms, we cannot judge anyone a sinner because of our opinion of them, only by their proven acts.
That is why in both civil and canon law the principle is that someone is innocent until proven guilty. To condemn someone without proof (real proof, not opinion, even popular opinion) is calumny, a mortal sin, and one “that cries to Heaven for vengeance” and for which reparation must be made.
As for homosexuality (or, probably more accurately, homosexual acts) not being a crime, that depends on a particular code of laws. If the law says it is a crime, it is a crime . . . just as robbing a bank, praying outside an abortion clinic, or helping a runaway slave are or have been crimes. A law that declares something a crime need not be just or moral, it need only be a law. Human positive law should be just and moral, but that doesn’t mean it is.
How much longer, Lord, on a papacy who ‘wants to mess things up’?
Where has Francis’s battle cry improved the Church in the last decade?
Brother I am with you. Every day I am calling to Jesus for help for the faithful so that we may not be put to the test of being forced to accept the Woke Agenda; To the Holy Spirit for patience; To the Saints for wisdom for the Church and to Our Lady of Sorrows for help to me bear this sense of doom. And thank God for this Magazine where I can express my fears and know that I am not alone in just trying to be a good Christian man. And thank you Pope Francis for braving these storms.
God loves us as we are is the premier loaded comment. Yes, let us be tender rather than criminalize, let us lovingly abet disorded sexual morality. Our issue, acknowledging sin and acknowledging the liceity to sin.
Recently reported in multiple sources the UK Catholic Herald, here the Daily Compass 1.9.2023, “if we see that there is no intention to repent, we must forgive all. We can never deny absolution, because we become a vehicle for an evil, unjust, and moralistic judgment” (Francis allegedly to Barcelona Spain seminarians Dec 10).
His Holiness believes compassion has no limits and eclipses judgment and repentance, the two standards a priest must employ in the confessional. Earlier I said ‘it’s clear this pontificate intends to reform the Church from a doctrinal to an all embracing pastoral body’. Perhaps saying it’s clear is not justified, that indications are is better. Although at this rate, with a plethora of like remarks, the Synod on Synodality and homosexual advocate Card Hollerich’s appointment as relator, must the judgment it’s clear be withheld until it becomes fact?
As quoted by CNA’s Courtney Mares the Catechism instructs that our mission, inclusive of the sacraments, is to assist those who have homosexual inclinations, attraction to transform their lives to the Christian image. Vatican policy is moving in a different, paradigmatic, one may correctly say opposite direction. We in order to remain faithful must acknowledge this and call it out. Yes, with due propriety.
I wonder if James Martin left his two audiences with Francis convinced and convicted that homosexuality is a sin. I don’t remember it unfolding in quite that way. Francis doublespeak, true to form.
Now I’m confused. Homosexuality is a sin? Those, including bishops, who resist the LGBetc. lobby do so out of their backward, unenlightened cultures?
Lord, help us.
Sins are crimes against God, against the Gospel Word of God, and against God’s people. Homosexual acts are horrendous sins against nature. The word ‘sod’ (dirt) derives or is associated with ‘sodomy.’ Neither are clean and one only is natural.
Justice demands that man worship God. The First Commandment comes first. Man justly owes allegiance first to God. As the supreme lawgiver and enforcer, God will in due course apply justice no matter what linguistic distinctions man applies to acts of injustice. Man may call sins by whatever names he chooses, but it prudently behooves man to seek God’s Word when man reasons about his own. Francis surely understands.
Scripture describes a homosexual act as a sin which cries, from the ground, for God’s vengeance.
Sins are crimes against God, against the Gospel Word of God, and against God’s people. Homosexual acts are horrendous sins against nature. The word ‘sod’ (dirt) derives or is associated with ‘sodomy.’ God destroyed Sodom once and surely may do so again.
Was not disappointed to find one or two commenters planting their flag on the side of people who like to stone gays to death, in order to prevent ‘moral confusion’ among the faithful.
Not satisfied with your usual slandering, you now resort to overt lies. Nicely played.
Dear Joe:
We are not to stone anyone. It has been stated that Jesus died for our sins, whatever those may be! Repentance starts the process. We are saying to God, Lord you are right and we seek your forgiveness. It is not hard to do. All men can ask for forgiveness. God not only saves us, He changes us, conforming us into His image. If a man wants salvation thru confession and forgiveness, all he needs to do is ask.
The other side of the coin is that a man is wedded to his sin and wants nothing to do with God. God offers the hand of friendship and it is up to the individual to accept it or reject it.
1 John 1:9 If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
Psalm 32:5 I acknowledged my sin to you, and I did not cover my iniquity; I said, “I will confess my transgressions to the Lord,” and you forgave the iniquity of my sin. Selah
Proverbs 28:13 Whoever conceals his transgressions will not prosper, but he who confesses and forsakes them will obtain mercy.
Jeremiah 33:8 I will cleanse them from all the guilt of their sin against me, and I will forgive all the guilt of their sin and rebellion against me.
God bless you,
Brian
Sex between a man and a woman in a marriage is the only licit sex allowed by the Roman Catholic Church. If you have any questions, please re-read that statement.
The very word “crime” used to be associated with (mortal) sin. Of course, that was when civil law reflected Christendom. As the State moves further from God (objective truth and natural law), its legal codes become increasingly chaotically liberating with respect to human behavior. However, then reason in light of Faith must be concurrently suppressed and those who challenge unbridled conscience must be even oppressed. Thus we have such inane prosecutions as against Mark Houck and persons in the UK arrested for mental prayer.
“It is a human condition.”
It is NOT a human condition. It is a condition of a fallen-ness in humanity that is at the same time perverse. It’s presence is for UNDOING. You furthermore never address dignity in any person, or society, by saying “homosexuality is not a crime”.
In addition, propagating homosexuality is a crime, subversion of society; and defending it is a subversion of law. It is antithetical for the Pope to be doing such things and having the faithful vilified “neo-Pelagian” for it “in the name of the Church”.
Or “Jansenist”. The idea being professed is that truth may not be spoken or held to firmly at any time. It is patently false, the problem is that the error is being imposed and inverting the sequence and consequences multiplies corruption.
The Church separates herself from such things and she knows very well that truth itself is its own message in mercy and mercifulness. It names homosexuality for what it is and calls man out of any and all degradation and taint without exception.
If homosexuality is not acted on, why should we even know who is indeed homosexual?
This pope displays a little too much interest in the alphabet people for my personal comfort. One would think the vicar of Christ would have a slightly different itinerary but I’d like to set him down in the middle of the Castro District, in San Fransicko, during a Pride festival, and hear just what he has to say, upon exiting.
Between his stance on the WEF, the CCP, bunko vaccines, Latin Mass, and the gay lobby, I honestly have no interest in what he thinks, says, or does, at this point. I pray for protection from his intentions.
Up until the late 60’s sodomy was against the law in all states. That was changed and since then it has taken over society. If you follow the Popes train of thought, we should not have laws against pedophilia. It is a sin, but some people have a proclivity to it so maybe there should not be a law against it. Seriously? Shouldn’t laws reflect the commandments?
A two minded approach pleases no one.
James 4:8 Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded.
1 Timothy 3:2 Therefore an overseer must be above reproach, the husband of one wife, sober-minded, self-controlled, respectable, hospitable, able to teach,
2 Timothy 1:7 For God gave us a spirit not of fear but of power and love and self-control.
Romans 8:6 For to set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace.
James 1:8 He is a double-minded man, unstable in all his ways.