Vatican Denounces “Idolatry of the Markets”, Releases 16-Page Guide to Fixing the Economy

The Vatican has called for the overhaul of the global financial system and a “central world bank” for a global authority to police the market.

The authors of the Vatican proposal have hammered the values of the financial world, arguing that “the crisis has revealed behaviors like selfishness, collective greed and the hoarding of goods on a great scale.” At fault, they say, is “an economic liberalism that spurns rules and controls.”

The Vatican has called for the overhaul of the global financial system and a “central world bank” for a global authority to police the market.

The authors of the Vatican proposal have hammered the values of the financial world, arguing that “the crisis has revealed behaviors like selfishness, collective greed and the hoarding of goods on a great scale.” At fault, they say, is “an economic liberalism that spurns rules and controls.”

The 16-page document, “Towards Reforming the International Financial and Monetary Systems in the Context of Global Public Authority,” can be seen as a practical extension of Pope Benedict XVI’s 2009 encyclical Caritas in Veritate. In that document, Pope Benedict argued that there is “an urgent need of a true world political authority” to address problems of economic inequality both within and between countries. Writing in the wake of the financial meltdown, Pope Benedict identified the roots of the crisis as economic, financial, and also moral. It is not possible, he suggested, to pursue the common good while also glorifying the values of utilitarianism and individualism.

The same document from the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace also calls for a “central world bank” to regulate the “flow and system of monetary exchanges similar to the national central banks,” such as the U.S. Federal Reserve.

Existing financial situations such as the World Bank and International Monetary Fund were outdated and no longer able to deal with the scale of the global financial crisis, which had exposed “selfishness, greed and the hoarding of goods on a grand scale”.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, according to the Vatican, riddled with injustice and failure to address that would lead to “growing hostility and even violence”, which would undermine democracy.

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. At a Vatican press conference to present the document, Turkson said that the document was timed to appear before the next meeting of the leaders of the G20 nations, who will be discussing the global economy in Cannes, France, on Nov. 3-4.

Turkson and other Vatican officials emphasized that the document was not the work of Benedict himself but merely a “note” from the Council for Justice and Peace, and declined to say whether the pope had even read it.

However, the Vatican hardly has an exemplary record on financial transparency and propriety.

The Telegraph recounts that 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.