Mirror of Justice

A blog dedicated to the development of Catholic legal theory.
Affiliated with the Program on Church, State & Society at Notre Dame Law School.

Monday, October 24, 2011

Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace's Note on Financial Reform

This is a powerfully expressed statement by the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace on the current financial maladies facing the world and the need for top-down reform.  All of the recommendations warrant sustained thought, and most are well beyond my capacity to assess.

One thing that I did not remember is the call of Pope John XXIII in Pacem in Terris for a "true world political authority" to emerge to serve the common good of humanity.  This vision is taken up by the Council, which talks about the need for "a supranational Authority" to take charge of these matters in light of what is seen as a movement toward greater globalization.  The Council's recommendations are cautious in this respect, but they are striking nevertheless.  It also seemed to me, especially after reading Mark Movsesian's post here, that thoughts about a truly transnational, global authority reflect a perhaps distinctively Catholic way to envision the problem of human authority, to be contrasted with the more Protestant view of state sovereignty described and championed by Vattel and others.  These perennial differences never really are resolved.

UPDATE: Sorry, I see Rob is a step ahead of me below.

https://mirrorofjustice.blogs.com/mirrorofjustice/2011/10/pontifical-council-for-justice-and-peaces-note-on-financial-reform.html

DeGirolami, Marc | Permalink

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With all due respect, Catholics believe that both Peace and Justice require respect for the inherent dignity of all persons, which is why The United Nations, which does not respect the inherent dignity of the human person nor recognize that our UNalienable Rights have been endowed to us from God, could never be a global authority in a distinctly Catholic way.

Posted by: Nancy D. | Oct 24, 2011 11:51:56 PM

This note is a badly argued piece of ideology. Let's not even mention the finger prints on this document of the ambitious (in Italy I don't know about elsewhere) charities of Foccolare and sant'Egidio.

Posted by: Katie | Oct 25, 2011 11:30:14 AM