20/11/2008
Press release
Issued by the Catholic Communications Network
Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O'Connor reflects on the credit crunch in L'Osservatore Romano
Our common bond: a fragile global financial system
Within a few weeks what began as a "credit crunch" turned into a financial crisis and has now become a global recession.
Religious leaders are not normally economists, however, they cannot ignore the damaging human consequences of the rise and fall of economic indicators.
Behind the gloomy headlines are cities, neighbourhoods, families, individuals deeply affected by the economic breakdown; and the hardest hit will be the poor: those already struggling to survive.
Christians have a paramount concern for the poor. This "preferential option for the poor" is a constant theme in Catholic social teaching. The biblical concept of justice implies that the justice of a community is measured by how it treats the powerless. And a "globalised" world, must consider not only the poor and marginalised in the West, but also the eight hundred million people outside it who are living in absolute poverty, together with the half a billion who are chronically hungry."
More to follow.
An online spiritual resource has been launched to support people in England and Wales who are living with uncertainty and hardship. Click here for more details...