Newsgroup: it.politica.internazionale
Titolo: The Vatican's Calls for Global Financial Reform

 
The Vatican's Calls for Global Financial Reform
The Future of the Church in the Financial Order
Samuel Gregg
February 7, 2012
 
Last October, a bold proposal to reform the global financial system came 
from an unexpected source: the Catholic Church. As the eurozone teetered 
on the brink of economic chaos, the Pontifical Council for Justice and 
Peace -- a body of the Roman Curia that advises the pope on economic 
justice, peace, and human rights -- issued "Towards Reforming the 
International Financial and Monetary Systems in the Context of Global 
Public Authority" (more simply called the "Note"). The Council's goal in 
publishing it was explicit: the Church wanted to attract the attention 
of world leaders as they assembled to discuss ongoing turmoil in 
financial markets at the G-20 Summit in Cannes and to add its voice to 
those arguing for capital controls (such as the "Tobin tax") to 
discourage international financial speculation. Then, early last month, 
during his keynote speech for the New Year to diplomats accredited to 
the Holy See, Pope Benedict XVI reinforced the call for ethics in the 
global economy. The Pope's words echoed the Note's urgent call for new, 
even radical thinking about the rules and institutions governing the 
global economy.
 
The Note argued that the root cause of today's economic woes is the 
growth of excessive credit and monetary liquidity in the past few 
decades, which, in turn, inflated asset bubbles and set off a succession 
of debt and confidence crises. It also held that the lack of regulatory 
controls on international finance exacerbated the problem -- in other 
words, that the pace of economic globalization has been out of control. 
The resulting instability and economic inequality means that the world 
now requires "a system of government for the economy and international 
finance." Once world leaders recognize, the Council argued, that 
increasing global interdependence is forcing countries to move beyond a 
Westphalian, or state-based, international order, they will be more 
prepared to cede their own sovereignty in the interests of global 
humanity's common good.
 
On the one hand, the Church advocates a world authority that manages 
globalization in the interests of economic justice. Yet it is equally 
committed to open markets, also as a matter of economic justice. 
Reconciling these two commitments will be a major test for Catholic 
social doctrine.
Considering the Church's history and its social doctrine, its call for a 
supranational authority is hardly a surprise. The Church has long viewed 
nation-state sovereignty as a challenge to its autonomy. Historically, 
it was far more comfortable operating in more fluid internationalized 
settings, such as during the Holy Roman Empire or Medieval Christendom. 
The devastation of World War II convinced senior European Catholics that 
the power of nation-states had to be tamed. This helps to explain why 
the Church was such an advocate of European unification. Indeed, 
prominent Catholics such as the former French Prime Minister Robert 
Schuman were central players in the processes set in motion by the 1957 
Treaty of Rome. Six years later, Pope John XXIII endorsed the idea of a 
world authority, a call reiterated in all subsequent popes' social 
teachings. The Church has avoided identifying such a body specifically 
with the United Nations. And it has tended to describe such an 
authority's functions in very general terms such as "coordination." But 
the logic is that if the conditions that facilitate human flourishing 
increasingly transcend national boundaries, the modern state's claim to 
be the highest political authority capable of coordinating such 
conditions is unwarranted. In practical terms, some Church officials 
calculate that a world authority would be easier for the Church to 
navigate than a global order of sovereign nation-states.
 
Yet a world authority could pit the economic interests of Catholics in 
developed countries against those in developing nations, creating 
challenges for how the Church presents its teachings about economic 
issues to Catholics throughout the world. Many countries throughout 
Latin America, Africa, and Asia are in a fundamentally different 
economic and geopolitical place from those of the ailing EU. The Church 
must thus deepen its appreciation of how the global operation of 
economic factors such as comparative advantage, incentives, and 
tradeoffs has different impacts upon Catholics living in very dissimilar 
economic circumstances. But this also has implications for the Church's 
position concerning the economic functions to be assumed by a world 
authority. Such responsibilities, for example, could primarily concern 
promoting greater economic integration through removing obstacles to 
trade. This, however, would be incompatible with the Note’s theme that a 
world authority’s economic functions should be focused upon securing 
greater control over the pace of change through international 
regulations that, if implemented, would significantly impede the free 
movement of people, goods, and capital.
 
While the Church's senior leadership is disproportionately European in 
composition, the Catholic Church's epicenter in raw numbers has shifted 
to the developing world. According to statistics contained in the 
Vatican's 2011 Annuario Pontificio, European Catholics now account for 
just 24 percent of the world's 1.18 billion Catholics. In 1948, the 
equivalent was about 49 percent. Today, almost 50 percent of all 
Catholics live in the Americas, and most of them south of the Rio 
Grande. Demographically, the European Church has stagnated for three 
decades. But its expansion in Africa, Asia, and Latin America in the 
same time period has been staggering. Between 2005 and 2009 alone, the 
number of African Catholics grew from 135 million to approximately 158 
million.
 
http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/137082/samuel-gregg/the-vaticans-calls-for-global-financial-reform?cid=rss-rss_xml-the_vaticans_calls_for_global-000000
 
-- 
Sostieni Rete ECO
 
http://rete-eco.it/it/sostienici.html
 
 

The Vatican's Calls for Global Financial Reform
 
ah, adesso trasferire i soldi dello IOR in Germania si chiama riforma economica
globale? AHAHAHAHAHAHH.
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uomo bianco parla con lingua biforcuta.
 
il Diamat è la spiegazione di tutte le cose

 il Diamat è la spiegazione di tutte le cose
 
 
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