MADISON, Wis. (7/10/09)--Love and credit unions function in the same manner, said Pope Benedict XVI Tuesday in his third encyclical, "Charity in Truth," which focused on the economy, business and finance.
"If love is wise, it can find ways of working in accordance with provident and just expediency, as is illustrated in significant ways by much of the experience of credit unions," he wrote (The Wall Street Journal Blogs July 9).
The encyclical is widely seen as being directed at G-8 world leaders gathering in Italy this week.
The Pope speaks about the need to use the economy to help the poor and care for the environment. He also supports globalization as a way to lessen poverty, and he supports the idea of a free market.
The pope is from Germany, where the first credit society in the world was established in 1849 by Frederick Raiffeisen, the mayor of a small town. Raiffeisen devised a credit society to help people help themselves instead of relying on charity from land barons. In 1852, Raiffeisen and Hermann Schulze-Delitzsch established the first true credit unions in Germany (Credit Union National Association).
65. Finance, therefore — through the renewed structures and operating methods that have to be designed after its misuse, which wreaked such havoc on the real economy — now needs to go back to being an instrument directed towards improved wealth creation and development. Insofar as they are instruments, the entire economy and finance, not just certain sectors, must be used in an ethical way so as to create suitable conditions for human development and for the development of peoples. It is certainly useful, and in some circumstances imperative, to launch financial initiatives in which the humanitarian dimension predominates. However, this must not obscure the fact that the entire financial system has to be aimed at sustaining true development. Above all, the intention to do good must not be considered incompatible with the effective capacity to produce goods. Financiers must rediscover the genuinely ethical foundation of their activity, so as not to abuse the sophisticated instruments which can serve to betray the interests of savers. Right intention, transparency, and the search for positive results are mutually compatible and must never be detached from one another. If love is wise, it can find ways of working in accordance with provident and just expediency, as is illustrated in a significant way by much of the experience of credit unions.
You go, you big German bastard!!!
