Vatican Offices Decry Profoundly Amoral Culture Global Financial System

https://www.ncronline.org/news/vatican/vatican-offices-decry-profoundly-amoral-culture-global-financial-system

..."The central argument of the document is that the economic system should "aim above all to promote the global quality of life that, before the indiscriminate expansion of profits, leads the way toward the integral well-being of the entire person and of every person."

"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," it states.

While the document acknowledges that many financiers and stock traders are "animated by good and right intentions," it says global markets have become "a place where selfishness and the abuse of power have the potential to harm the community beyond match."

It says that although some modern wealth creation techniques are not "directly unacceptable from an ethical point of view," they can be "instances of proximate immorality, that is, occasions that readily generate the kind of abuse and deception that can damage less advantaged counterparts."

"Money in itself is a good instrument ... and is a means to order one's freedom and to expand one’s possibilities," it continues. "Nevertheless, the means can easily turn against the person."

"Likewise, the financial dimension of the business world, focusing business on the access of money through the gateway of the world of stock exchange, is as such something positive," it states. "Such a phenomenon, however, today risks accentuating bad financial practices concentrated primarily on speculative transactions of virtual wealth..."