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Vatican offices urge re-calibration of financial markets

May 17, 2018 CNA Daily News 3

Vatican City, May 17, 2018 / 12:20 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- Two Vatican offices called Thursday for the development of new forms of economy and finance with  regulations directed to the common good and respect for human dignity.

“It is especially necessary to provide an ethical reflection on certain aspects of financial transactions which, when operating without the necessary anthropological and moral foundations, have not only produced manifest abuses and injustice, but also demonstrated a capacity to create systemic and worldwide economic crisis,” read Oeconomicae et pecuniariae quaestiones, (Economic and financial issues), a document of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith and of the Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development presented May 17.

The document, signed Jan. 6, presents considerations for an ethical discernment of economics and finances, and argues that profit should not be an end in itself, but must be pursued with the goal of achieving greater solidarity and a more equitable distribution of wealth.

It presents fundamental considerations, such as the need for ethics for the economy to function correctly, and treats at length of specific ethical issues in financial and economic markets.

It was presented during a press conference by Archbishop Luis Ladaria, prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, and Cardinal Peter Turkson, prefect of the Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development.

Sitting alongside the prefects were professors Leonardo Becchetti from Rome’s Tor Vergata University and Lorenzo Caprio, from the Catholic University of Milan.

Archbishop Ladaria said the aim of the document is to provide a correct anthropological vision for the current market, since “the common good has disappeared” from many areas of economics and finance.

According to Becchetti, the document also identifies a major problem in the global economy: “we have a growing global wealth, which is a good thing, but we have a huge problem of distribution.”

“Regulation is key” to bringing more balance, he said, citing the need to be attentive to a growing dependence on technology while also ensuring people have work. The main problem, he said, “is fiscal,” and he stressed the need to give attention to areas with fewer resources.

The document frequently cites Pope Francis and Benedict XVI, but also includes citations from Pius XI, the Second Vatican Council, and the subsequent magisterium.

Oeconomicae et pecuniariae quaestiones cites the growing influence of financial markets, saying there is a need for “appropriate regulation of the dynamics of the markets and, on the other hand, a clear ethical foundation that assures a well-being realized through the quality of human relationships; rather than merely economic mechanisms, which by themselves cannot attain it.”

The recent global financial crisis, the text read, is an invitation to “develop a new economy, more attentive to ethical principles, and a new regulation of financial activities that would neutralize predatory and speculative tendencies and acknowledge the value of the actual economy. ”

What is at stake is the well-being of men and women throughout the planet who risk being excluded and marginalized from true well-being, while a small minority, “indifferent to the condition of the majority, exploits and reserves for itself substantial resources and wealth.”

The document said the time has come to begin recovering “what is authentically human,” and to expand minds and hearts to they recognize what is both true and good, “without which no social, political and economic system could avoid bankruptcy, failure, and, in the long term, collapse.”

Competent and responsible authorities, the text read, have the duty “to develop new forms of economy and of finance, with rules and regulations directed towards the enlargement of the common good and respect for human dignity along the lines indicated by the social teachings of the Church.”

The text flagged erroneous and misguided approaches to the economic and financial markets such as consumerism, materialism, and an over-emphasis on profit, citing them as mentalities which endanger the common good and increase inequalities throughout the world.

“Our contemporary age has shown itself to have a limited vision of the human person, as the person is understood individualistically and predominantly as a consumer, whose profit consists above all in the optimization of his or her monetary income. The human person, however, actually possesses a uniquely relational nature and has a sense for the perennial search for gains and well-being that may be more comprehensive, and not reducible either to a logic of consumption or to the economic aspects of life.”

“No profit is in fact legitimate when it falls short of the objective of the integral promotion of the human person, the universal destination of goods, and the preferential option for the poor,” the text said, stressing that a legitimate economic system “thrives not merely through the quantitative development of exchange but rather by its capacity to promote the development of the entire person and of every person.”

On this basis, the document urged that universities and business schools provide as a foundation an education by which students will “understand economics and finance in the light of a vision of the totality of the human person”, avoiding “a reductionism that sees only some dimensions of the person.”

Well-being has to be measured by more than just Gross Domestic Product but must also take into account safety and security and “the quality of human relationships and of work. Profit should be pursued but not ‘at any cost’, nor as a totalizing objective for economic action.”

Profit and solidarity “are no longer antagonists,” the document said. However, “where egoism and vested interests prevail, it is difficult for the human person to to grasp the fruitful interchange between profit and gift, as sin tends to tarnish and rupture this relationship.”

“It is impossible to ignore the fact that the financial industry, because of its pervasiveness … is a place where selfishness and the abuse of power have an enormous potential to harm the community.”

The documented lamented that “Capital annuity can trap and supplant the income from work, which is often confined to the margins of the principal interests of the economic system. Consequently, work itself, together with its dignity, is increasingly at risk of losing its value as a ‘good’ for the human person and becoming merely a means of exchange within asymmetrical social relations.”

It pointed out an inversion between means and ends, in which work has become an instrument, and money an end.

Oeconomicae et pecuniariae quaestiones said that credit has an “irreplaceable social function,” but that “applying excessively high interest rates, really beyond the range of the borrowers of funds, represents a transaction not only ethically illegitimate, but also harmful to the health of the economic system. As always, such practices, along with usurious activities, have been recognized by human conscience as iniquitous and by the economic system as contrary to its good functioning.”

Instead, financial activities are called to serve the real economy, “to create value with morally licit means, and to favour a dispersion of capital for the purpose of producing a principled circulation of wealth.”

“What is morally unacceptable is not simply to profit, but rather to avail oneself of an inequality for one’s own advantage, in order to create enormous profits that are damaging to others; or to exploit one’s dominant position in order to profit by unjustly disadvantaging others, or to make oneself rich through harming and disrupting the collective common good.”

The text then highlights the need for greater communion, collaboration, and solidarity in the market, and offers suggestions for ways in which these can be implemented.

In a healthy market “it is easier to respect and promote the dignity of the human person and the common good,” the Vatican offices wrote.

The experience of recent decades has demonstrated the need for both ethics and regulation, the document states.

With an increased globalization of financial markets, the system “requires a stable, clear and effective coordination among various national regulatory authorities,” allowing them to share binding decisions when necessary, especially when it comes to threats against the common good.

“Where massive deregulation is practiced, the evident result is a regulatory and institutional vacuum that creates space not only for moral risk and embezzlement, but also for the rise of the irrational exuberance of the markets, followed first by speculative bubbles, and then by sudden, destructive collapse, and systemic crises,” Oeconomicae et pecuniariae quaestiones states.

The text condemned the tendency of business managers to establish policies which aim “not at increasing the economic health of the companies that they serve, but at the mere profits of the shareholders, damaging therefore the legitimate interests of those who are bearing all of the work and service benefiting the same company, as well as the consumers and the various local communities (stakeholders).”

The document suggested that ethical committees be established in banks to support the administration, and to help cushion them from the impact of losses.

The text then pointed to financial instruments such as derivatives and credit default swaps, which going  unchecked, can lead to “unacceptable” consequences from an ethical point of view, essentially gambling with a person’s future.

Use of offshore accounts as tax havens was also condemned, though it was noted that tax systems throughout the world are not always equal, which can damage weaker parties in favor of wealthier ones.

Despite the fact that more nations are cracking down on offshore accounts, penalties have not been enforced and norms have either not been applied or they have not proved effective due to the political powers pulling the strings.

All of these problems are “not only the work of an entity that operates out of our control,” but are “in the sphere of our responsibilities.”

Oeconomicae et pecuniariae quaestiones states that it is “therefore quite evident how important a critical and responsible exercise of consumption and savings actually is.”

As an example, the text said shopping is a daily task by which we can choose to avoid purchasing products produced by chains which violate “the most elementary human rights,” such as sweat-shops.

“Through the gesture, apparently banal, of consumption, we actually express an ethics and are called to take a stand in front of what is good or bad for the actual human person.”

Likewise, persons are called to direct their savings to “those enterprises that operate with clear criteria inspired by an ethics respectful of the entire human person, and of every particular person, within the horizon of social responsibility.”

“Each one is called to cultivate procedures of producing wealth that may be consistent with our relational nature and tend towards an integral development of the human person.”

The document concludes with a call to hope in light of the challenges of the economy, saying, “every one of us can do so much, especially if one does not remain alone.”

“Today as never before we are all called, as sentinels, to watch over genuine life and to make ourselves catalysts of a new social behavior, shaping our actions to the search for the common good, and establishing it on the sound principles of solidarity and subsidiarity.”

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Nigeria’s bishops call for processions to honor those killed in church attack

May 16, 2018 CNA Daily News 2

Abuja, Nigeria, May 16, 2018 / 05:09 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- Nigeria’s Catholic bishops have called on each of the nation’s dioceses to organize peaceful processions May 22 in solidarity with the funeral for two priests and 17 others killed in an attack by Fulani herdsmen on a parish church.

The herdsmen stormed a daily Mass at Saint Ignatius Church on the morning of April 24, killing Fathers Joseph Gor and Felix Tyolaha, along with others in the congregation.

Last Sunday’s Mass announcements throughout Nigeria encouraged Catholics and all “men and women of goodwill” to join in these upcoming rosary processions and prayer rallies around the country.

The state governor of Benue, where the attack took place, has also declared May 22 as a work holiday to honor those who died, according to Nigeria’s PM News.

Last year, nomadic Fulani herdsmen killed more than 140 Christians in central Nigeria’s Benue state, a World Watch report by Open Doors found.

Nigeria’s bishops have been vocal critics of President Muhammadu Buhari’s response to the violent attacks by nomadic herdsmen.

In a statement issued in response to the April 24 attack, the Nigerian bishops’ conference called on Buhari to step down because “he has failed in his primary duty of protecting the lives of the Nigerian citizens.”

“How can the Federal Government stand back while its security agencies deliberately turn a blind eye to the cries and wails of helpless and armless citizens who remain sitting ducks in their homes, highway and now, even in their sacred places of worship?” the bishops continued.

The northern Fulani herdsmen have been moving south due to the desertification of the soil in northern Nigeria, and have violently clashed with the farmers in the region, as the cattle have overtaken some farmed fields.

Some, including the bishops, have asserted that terrorist groups are embedded among the nomadic herdsmen.

The bishops met with Buhari Feb. 8, urging him to address the deadly violence, as well as the kidnappings in Nigeria.

“Herdsmen may be under pressure to save their livestock and economy, but this is never to be done at the expense of other people’s lives and means of livelihood,” the bishops told Buhari.

The bishops concluded, “As the voice of the voiceless, we shall therefore continue to highlight the plight of our people.”

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Judge rules California assisted suicide law was wrongfully ‘rushed’

May 16, 2018 CNA Daily News 2

Sacramento, Calif., May 16, 2018 / 04:42 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- California’s assisted suicide law was wrongly passed in a special legislative session, ruled a California judge this week.

Though the ruling might only be temporary, one terminally ill woman at the May 15 hearing was grateful for it.

“The bill’s proponents tout dignity, choice, compassion, and painlessness. I am here to tell you that nothing could be further from the truth. Choice is really an illusion for a very few,” Stephanie Packer said, according to the Los Angeles archdiocese’s Angelus News. “For too many, assisted suicide will be the only affordable ‘treatment’ that is offered them.”

Packer said that her insurance company would not fund potentially life-saving chemotherapy treatments for her lung cancer, but instead offered her “aid-in-dying” drugs that would cost her $1.20. The action made the married mother of four a vocal opponent of assisted suicide laws, including California’s the End of Life Option Act.

Judge Daniel Ottolia of the Riverside County Superior Court ruled on Tuesday that lawmakers had unconstitutionally passed the law in a 2015 special session of the legislature dedicated to health care funding. The judge has postponed his judgment for five days to allow the state to file an emergency appeal.

California Attorney General Xavier Becerra voiced strong disagreement with the ruling and said he plans to appeal it.

The judge’s decision drew support from other foes of the legislation.

“The act itself was rushed through the special session of the legislature, and it does not have any of the safeguards one would expect to see in a law like this,” Stephen G. Larson, head counsel for a group of doctors who filed a legal challenge to the law, told the Sacramento Bee.

The bill lacked an adequate definition of terminal illness and a provision exempting from legal liability the doctors who prescribe the drugs, according to Larson’s clients.

However, Larson challenged the bill specifically on the fact that the special session was called “to address funding shortages caused by Medi-Cal.”

“It was not called to address the issue of assisted suicide,” he said.

Under the law, lethal prescriptions may be given to adults who are able to make medical decisions if their attending physician and a consulting physician have diagnosed a terminal disease expected to end in death within six months.

The initial legislative effort to pass an assisted suicide bill failed in committee during the 2015 regular season, following months of media attention to the case of Brittany Maynard, a 29-year-old woman with an aggressive brain tumor who moved from California to Oregon in order to take advantage of legal physician-assisted suicide there.

Assemblywoman Susan Talamantes Eggman, who backed the bill, charged that the judge’s decision interfered with Californians in the process of securing the lethal drugs under the law.

“It’s a reminder for all of us that there are those out there who would like to take our rights away,” she said. “When we move forward, there are those who would like to drag us back.”

Harry Nelson, a healthcare attorney in Los Angeles who represents several doctors who have prescribed lethal prescriptions, told the Los Angeles Times he thinks it is unlikely the law will be permanently overturned. He believes the legislature will be able to reinstate the law with any changes the court believes to be necessary.

Matt Valliere, executive director of the New York-based Patients Rights Action Fund, applauded the ruling. He said it affirmed that assisted suicide advocates “circumvented the legislative process.”

“It represents a tremendous blow to the assisted suicide legalization movement and puts state legislatures on notice regarding the political trickery of groups like Compassion and Choices,” he said.

In the first seven months after the law took effect in June 2016, there were 111 people who chose to end their lives under it, according to the Sacramento Bee.

Including California, seven states and the District of Columbia have legal provisions allowing assisted suicide, National Public Radio reports.

In January 2018, the California Catholic Conference reiterated its opposition to assisted suicide and criticized the lack of data collected and the lack of transparency of the law’s implementation.

“There is far too much still not known about how this law is put into practice – especially as it pertains to disabled, elderly and other populations,” the conference said Jan. 24. “California is failing to properly investigate some very fundamental questions such as whether patients were coerced into the procedure or somehow influenced and, especially for Medi-Cal patients, whether they had the option of good, effective palliative care.”
 

 

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Church-mediated dialogue to overcome Nicaraguan crisis begins

May 16, 2018 CNA Daily News 0

Managua, Nicaragua, May 16, 2018 / 04:01 pm (ACI Prensa).- Talks to overcome several weeks of anti-government protests and riots in Nicaragua which have been met harshly by security forces began Wednesday under the mediation of the Catholic Church.

President Daniel Ortega and his vice-president and wife, Rosario Murillo, attended the dialogue May 16 at Our Lady of Fatima national seminary in Managua. Other stakeholders present included business owners, students, and farmers.

Protests began April 18 after Ortega announced social security and pension reforms. The changes were soon abandoned in the face of widespread, vocal opposition, but protests have only intensified after more than 40 protestors were killed by security forces.

Demonstrators have called for freedom of expression, an end to violent repression, and for Ortega to step down from office.

The Nicaraguan bishops’ conference issued a statement May 15 saying: “We hope that the dialogue will structurally address the issue of  the country’s institutions with the aim of paving the way for its democratization. Through the good will of the parties, attentively listening to one other, and the proposals to be made, we hope to reach important agreements which will translate into concrete decisions.”

The prelates asked that all sectors of society, including the government, “strive to maintain an atmosphere conducive to tolerance, respect and especially when peaceful demonstrations are held.”

The Church is acting as a mediator in the dialogue “after listening to the outcry of a large majority of society and conscious of the gravity of the situation we are undergoing in the country,” while acknowledging that “the circumstances for this dialogue are not the most suitable.”

Nicaragua’s bishops asked the faithful to “persevere in prayer so that the Lord may grant to us all, as we approach the feast of Pentecost, the assistance of the Holy Spirit ‘who leads us into all truth.’”

The Church in Nicaragua was quick to acknowledge the protestors’ complaints.

Bishop Silvio José Baez Ortega, Auxiliary Bishop of Managua, thanked a group of some 2,000 students taking refuge in the Managua cathedral April 21 for being “the moral reservoir” of the Church and assured them of the Church’s support for their cause. “You have woken the nation up,” he said.

Bishop Baez has continued to voice his support for the protestors.

The AP’s Christopher Sherman reported that during a more recent homily, the bishop said that “to denounce and publicly demonstrate against the actions, historic processes, political decisions that go against the great majority is also to love,” and that, moreover, for those whose presence causes instability, “to relinquish, to leave can be an act of love.”

Bishop Rolando José Alvarez Lagos of Matagalpa has said, “We hope there would be a series of electoral reforms, structural changes to the electoral authority – free, just and transparent elections, international observation without conditions … Effectively the democratization of the country.”

According to the AP, a priest of the Diocese of Matagalpa was wounded by shrapnel May 15 while trying to separate protestors and security forces.

The bishops’ conference has asked that the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights be allowed to enter Nicaragua and investigate the violence.

They have also called on the government “to hear the cry of the young Nicaraguans,” adding: “There are social sins that no human being can ignore, but rather must denounce, above all if they desire to restore the violated rights of the most vulnerable: our retirees.”

The reforms which triggered the protests were modest – the plan would have required retirees to pay 5 percent of their pension into a medical expenses fund, the social security withdrawal from employees’ salaries would have increased from 6.25 to 7 percent, and employers would have had to increase contributions as well – but protests quickly turned to Ortega’s authoritarian bent.

Ortega has been president of Nicaragua since 2007, and oversaw the abolition of presidential term limits in 2014.

He was a leader in the Sandinista National Liberation Front, which had ousted the Somoza dictatorship in 1979 and fought US-backed right-wing counterrevolutionaries during the 1980s. Ortega was also leader of Nicaragua from 1979 to 1990.

 

This article was originally published by our sister agency, ACI Prensa. It has been translated and adapted by CNA.

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