A strong statement from the head of the U.S. bishops domestic justice committee offers five conditions to guide any rescue/bailout package. In the Sept. 26 statement (it didn't get much press; I just found it now via ZENIT), Bishop William Murphy of Rockville Centre (Long Island) stressed "responsibility, accountability, awareness of advantages and limitations of the market, solidarity, subsidiarity and the common good, in the search for just and effective responses to the economic turmoil, while considering its human impact and ethical dimensions."
Murphy's statement contains some powerful and welcome language (and should give pause to those who want to enlist the Catholic Church as an arm of the GOP). He spoke of "the scandalous search for excessive economic rewards even to the point of dangerous speculation that exacerbates the pain and losses of the more vulnerable are egregious examples of an economic ethic that places economic gain above all other values." He said "Those who directly contributed to this crisis or profited from it should not be rewarded or escape accountability for the harm they have done." And he invoked Catholic social teaching to argue for greater regulation and intervention when needed.
He concludes with a quote from John Paul II's encyclical, Centesimus Annus, written to mark the 100th anniversary of Leo XIII's great social encycical, Rerum Novarum:
Our Catholic tradition calls for a "society of work, enterprise and participation" which "is not directed against the market, but demands that the market be appropriately controlled by the forces of society and by the state to assure that the basic needs of the whole society are satisfied."
Good for the bishops, and good guidance for an economic culture that is changing before our eyes.
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This statement is fine, but I really wish the Bishops would do much more to take care of their own house. From things I've read and heard, some Catholic seminaries are rife with an underground or overtly open and militant gay and feminist culture. Orthodox seminarians are persecuted while more politically correct or even heretical teachings abound. And sometimes one has to look hard on our Catholic campuses of higher education to find anything Catholic. These conditions in our seminaries and on our campuses have been going on for years and I really, really wish the Bishops would concentrate on these things before they have any more synods on Iraq or issue further statements on the government's business.
Yes, the Bishops are correct "Greed, bad!". Thanks for sharing!
I suspect that defaulted mortgages is only one small piece of this economic boondoggle.
Once upon a time in this country there was a clear distinction between investment banks (banks that could take depositors' money and invest it in stocks and bonds) and commerical banks (invested depositors' money in business loans and, yes, mortgages). Up until the past twenty years, commerical banks had to be strictly monitored and their investments had to follow strict guidelines. The division between commercial and investement banking was put into place after the Great Depression to prevent banks from taking savings and checking accounts and gambling with them in the stock market. Investment banks were allowed to do that and people who put their money into such banks knew the risks they were taking.
Today banks can do both. I suspect (can't prove it) that much of the bailout has to do with bailing out investment banks from bad investments and the commerical bank bailout due to risky mortgages is probably just a small piece of the problem it is estimated that about $100-200B could cover all mortgages at risk of default). In other words, it's the excuse for the bailout, not the real reason.
The real reason for the bailout and the real money behind it is more likely to bail out bad investments by the commerical banks. Just before the bailout was proposed, Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley which had investment bank status applied to gain commerical bank status (9/28/08). I assume they did that to get in the correct line for the bailout. Henry Paulson, the US Treasury Secretary who proposed the bailout, was the former COO of Goldman-Sachs.
Yes, Bishops, greed is bad. But when it comes to financial decisions, remember it was the Bishops who decided that sweeping the priest scandal under the rug was the intelligent fiscal thing to do. How did that work out for you?
We faithful will absolutely listen to you when you speak on moral matters. We will absolutely agree with you when you declare greed to be bad. We did manage to read somewhere that the love of money was the root of all evil. We got that part! (Though it never hurts to hear it again) When it comes to financial issues, I hope you forgive us if we are bit more skeptical about your pronouncements.
B Olenick has stated what I have been saying for years. It is not the neighboring country responsibility it is the home country that needs to improve education and job training.
Feed a man you feed him once. Teach a man to fish you feed him for life.
I believe that there's a wisdom to be found in this statement of the United States Catholic Conference of Bishops. The people of this country should not be asked to foot a bailout, rescue plan, whatever you want to call it without appropriate checks, balances, and most important oversight. As previous commentators have mentioned, accelerated deregulation got us into this mess in the first place. The people's representatives---Congress---will be playing a fine game of Russian Roulette if they don't proceed with caution with the people's money, e.g. the Treasury. $ 700 billion is alot to ask for, especially for a government that engages heavily in deficit spending. It is likely that future taxpayers will be paying for it, along with our $ 11 trillion debt.
When i read the article i nearly fell out of my chair laughing, As Moraly the Bishops dont have a leg to stand on, To offer views on any thing, For a start if they had followed Christs teaching from the bible there would have never been any abuse scandal,
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