Vatican Pontifical Council Issues Global Banking and Finance Paper - Ignorant Reaction Takes Place (UPDATE)

Updates At Bottom

I really knew this was coming when I first heard of this last week. See Full Text: Note on financial reform from the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace No matter what we can be rest assured that 99 percent of the people that go on a tantrum about this document will never read it.

Catholic Vote has a initial post on this , that I think rightly gives some criticism to Father Reese, at Pope Benedict Calls For “Central World Bank” … Only He Didn’t. Here’s Why. To be fair I am going to have a rare criticism of the wonderful Father Z. Though I agree with what he is saying here in part I am not sure the tone is helpful.

To be honest the "white paper" as Father Z calls it is not nearly as radical as was advertised. Of course it should be noted that anyone is free to disagree with the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace on if there should some of sort of Global watchdog Bank. However the concerns there are valid. Also besides the proposal itself the Christian issues that this proposal hopes to address are Orthodox Christian thought.

For instance I think it's hard to say that there is Catholic worldview that a Country can do economic wise whatever it wants though it might cause drastic harm to another country.

Now in reality this will in likely hood operate in the world of theory. What is missed in the rants against the document is all those "conditions" such a bank must have to be effective and to be moral. Note for instance the talk of the need to safe guard subsidiarity . Also the big "elephant" in the room is how to give those "underdeveloped" countries a real voice. Especially when many of these places don't exactly resemble Plato's Republic in governance. Finally even if the West signed on I have huge doubts that China would sign on

Whatever one might think of this paper by the Pontifical Council it does point out real issues.

(1) Unfetteredunregulated capitalism is not the same as Christianity. Though capitalism and the Church do not have to be opposed to each other.

(2) Globalization is a real issue. The Church in the document recognizes the good of globalization. However when a part of the world's financial system hiccups it can cause real damage to real human beings elsewhere in the world. Often in areas that don't have a good social safety net to help their citizens during the crisis. Further there needs to be efforts to ensure that globalization does not unfairly hurt the underdeveloped counties.

No matter what you think of this proposal those real issues are out there. If one does like this the idea proposed in the document , then it's incumbent on Christians to offer alternatives .

Anyway I am anxious to see the interesting discussion that will take place over this document. Contrary to what people might think the Church often puts things like this out there to start the discussion. So we shall if that develops or if this will be forgotten by the end of the week.

Update-
The Action Institute has a reaction up at Vatican Economic Analysis Incomplete, Says Gregg

Hey THREE CHEERS for the Vatican's position paper!! This is actually pretty good and is a must read. Pope Benedict: Neither Power Hungry Nor Naive