Promoting common good includes regulating economy, Cardinal says

(July 29,2009): The fastest way to recover from the current economic crisis, and the only way to ensure that a similar financial meltdown does not occur again is for governments to take seriously their role as regulators, the Vatican secretary of State told members of the Italian Senate.
Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, outlined the contents of Pope Benedict XVI's encyclical "Caritas in Veritate" - "Charity in Truth," at a special meeting of the Italian Senate on Tuesday. He said the encyclical was not calling for government control of the economy or the market, but for an awareness of the fact that democratic governments have an obligation to protect and promote the common good of their citizens, including their economic well-being. "If financial authorities would have removed the many restrictions that weigh on subjects of alternative financing over the past few decades, today's crisis would not have had the devastating power we are seeing," Cardinal Bertone said.
The main point in the pope's encyclical, said the Cardinal, is that the crisis is the result of human greed. The Pope recognizes that the market economy is the economic model most respectful of human freedom and democracy, he said, but he also recognizes it is a fallacy to believe that the economy can, or should operate independently of human values.
In calling attention to the moral obligation to promote the common good, Pope Benedict calls for a movement from solidarity to fraternity, said Cardinal Bertone. “Societies need a sense of fraternity in order for all their members to prosper and that value is best learned at home in one's family”.That is why, he added, the Pope calls on governments "to enact policies promoting the centrality and the integrity of the family founded on marriage between a man and a woman, the primary vital cell of society, and to assume responsibility for its economic and fiscal needs, while respecting it’s essentially relational character."