Interessante artigo sobre a resposta dos católicos americanos( mas não somente eles) sobre a crise econômica.

How will 2008 be remembered? Certainly for the election of America's first African-American president, but also as the year that the global economy was struck by one of the worst crises in its history. Some commentators are already referring to the upheaval as "the Crisis of 2008", putting it on a historic par with the Wall Street Crash of 1929, which led to the Great Depression.

Economists estimate the crisis has cost two trillion pounds (that is, two followed by 12 noughts). Governments of the world's richest nations have poured billions of pounds into saving banks, which means that taxpayers are likely to bear the costs for years and possibly even decades.

It is notoriously difficult to understand the present crisis. As P J O'Rourke has observed, it's baffling that a poor American "falls behind in his mortgage payments, and the economy in Iceland implodes". The crisis is due, in large part, to the failure of arcane financial mechanisms that even economists struggle to understand. As Dr Samuel Gregg of the Acton Institute has put it: "Numerous economic factors underlie the financial meltdown. These include loose monetary policy, massive bank overleveraging, and the subprime mortgage implosion."

The sheer complexity of the crisis perhaps explains why relatively few Catholic thinkers have engaged with it seriously. One is tempted to play Devil's advocate and ask whether the Church has anything perceptive to say about an event that will affect the lives of millions of people, especially the poorest, for years to come.

Early Catholic responses to the crisis

While the Church as a whole has been slow to react to the crisis, there have been significant isolated responses.

The most notable is the American bishops' letter, dated September 26, to the Bush administration and Congress. The letter noted that the bishops did not "bring technical expertise to these complicated matters", but offered five guiding principles from the treasury of Catholic social teaching:

People come first: The letter said businesses needed to be at the service of Man, rather than the other way round. "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," the letter said. "This ignores the impact of economic decisions on the lives of real people as well as the ethical dimension of the choices we make and the moral responsibility we have for their effect on people."

Be accountable: Those who took the imprudent decisions that led to the crisis should be held responsible for the harm they have caused.

Don't have blind faith in markets: The free market is, in the words of Pope John Paul II, "the most efficient instrument for utilising resources and effectively responding to needs". But markets cannot meet every human need.

Solidarity: We should show solidarity by recognising that "we are in this together". We should pursue the common good during this crisis, rather than "partisan gain or economic advantage".

Subsidiarity: Businesses must take responsibility for their actions. If they fail to do so, "larger entities, including the government, will have to step in to do what private institutions have failed to do".

On November 11 the US bishops issued an additional statement reflecting further on the principle of solidarity.

It said: "This disturbing and complicated situation brings home a universal truth: we are all children of God. We are our brothers' and sisters' keepers. We are all in this together. Hard times can isolate us or they can bring us together. The Catholic community will continue to reach out to those in need, stand with those who are hurt, and work for policies that bring greater compassion, accountability and justice to economic life."

Too little regulation or too much?

The recently revitalised Vatican newspaper L'Osservatore Romano has been at the forefront of Catholic reflection on world market turmoil.

Writing in L'Osservatore, Ettore Gotti Tedeschi, an economist at the Catholic University of the Sacred Heart in Milan, said the crisis resulted from greed and lack of regulation. The western world, he said, continually failed to create "a model of development that is capable of guaranteeing stable wealth". The present model - "inventing a boom in GNP [Gross National Product] through risky financial models that were poorly conceived and badly regulated" - was another spectacular failure.

The article in L'Osservatore was applauded by some as a serious attempt to grapple with the crisis. But others were less impressed. Philip Booth, a director of the Institute of Economic Affairs in London, rejected calls for more regulation.

He said: "The professor [Ettore Gotti Tedeschi] may be right that many people have been irresponsible, but the idea that somehow we can solve these problems by regulation is unfounded. Regulators come from the same human stock as bankers - they are imperfect people who make mistakes. If regulators exist to perfect markets, who is going to perfect the regulator?"

Para ler o resto do artigo clique aqui