Leading Vatican official says free-market economics legitimized greed
VATICAN SECRETARY of State Tarcisio Bertone said free-market economics legitimised greed. “Greed market has substituted free market,” Cardinal Bertone said yesterday in a speech to Italian senators in Rome.
In his speech, the cardinal cited Pope Benedict XVI’s encyclical calling for a new financial order. The 82-year-old pontiff on July 7th published the 150-page Caritas in Veritate (Charity in Truth). The pope’s reflections on capitalism were two years in the making and publication was held up by the credit crunch. “Once profit becomes the exclusive goal, if it is produced by improper means and without the common good as its ultimate end, it risks destroying wealth and creating poverty,” the pontiff wrote in the encyclical.
Cardinal Bertone, the second-highest official in the Vatican, underscored the pope’s message to Italy’s legislators. Since the 1970s, he said, developed nations had “exposed their real economies to the whims of finance” and convinced consumers to spend beyond their purchasing power.
Benedict has been outspoken in denouncing globalisation. In an October 7th speech, he reflected on crashing markets and concluded that “money vanishes, it is nothing” and warned that “the only solid reality is the word of God”. – ( Bloomberg )
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I agree.
How many infomercials selling "flip houses" for a living went off the air and how many "bad loans" were about third, fourth and fiftieth home loans on properties being "renovated".
How many YOU FIX homes were off the air when the Greed of people caught up with the Need of Money and no one was there to "pay the piper".
We can pretend it was margins, banks, the other guy, the Republicans or even the weather, but it was GREED.
Your's and Mine. Since no one confessed it, but accused each other, I hope we fail, and continue to fail till we confront the real issue on economic woes we have:
You; Me. Greed.
Having been poor often, The economy did not affect me. Having faith, I was saddened for others, but I had not been duped into confusing Greed for NEED and lived by my means. We will recover as a Nation, but I fear the Christian has sold his soul for what he Wants rather than What God would have us "need" from Him.
We failed God, that is the Economic forecast.
Michael James Stone
