EDITORIAL REFLECTIONS

Vatican’s document on global finance worth discussing

Mainstream press seems slow to pick up that Pope Benedict XVI and Vatican officials see that Catholic social teaching and the Occupy Wall Street movement agree the economy should serve people and the gap between rich and poor needs to be reduced, according to a report by Cindy Wooden of Catholic News Service.

A 13-page document on global finance issued on Oct. 24 by the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace indicates that “the basic sentiment” behind the protests is in line with Catholic social teaching. Cardinal Peter Turkson, the council president, said that U.S. protesters are focusing on Wall Street because it is a financial structure whose power extends all over the world, according to Catholic News Service. He said that people who suffer from the way financial markets operate have a right to say, “Do business differently” and to hold corporations and institutions of society accountable as they do with their government.

The Vatican also said it sees need for an international authority to govern the global financial market and for governments that bailed out banks to help the global economy.

That document at http://www.zenit.org/article-33718?l=english offers food for reflection, conversation and action.

Mary Stamp - Editor

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