Finances must be used to develop nations, Argentinean archbishop says

Buenos Aires, Argentina, Feb 24, 2009 / 18:05 pm

This week, Archbishop Hector Aguer of La Plata, Argentina remarked that the current financial crisis is due to people looking only at the short-term, when instead, the purpose of finances should be used for "the concrete development of nations."

"This touches upon a fundamental point of the Church’s Social Teaching: finances should be at the service of the production, work and concrete development of the nations," the archbishop said in his program "Keys to a Better World," as he referred to Pope Benedict XVI’s message for the World Day of Peace.

Speaking about the current financial crisis, Archbishop Aguer warned that attention has not been paid "to the fundamental teachings of the Church’s Social Doctrine." The Pope, he said, "correctly points out that the short-sightedness of financial profit has been the problem," as well as not looking at "the relationship between financial investments and truly productive processes that provide work and create development and progress for nations."

Archbishop Aguer noted that just as the Pope said, the short-sighted vision of finances has led us to go from "a phase of financial euphoria" to "a phase of financial depression that has resulted in immeasurable ruin not only in the financial markets" but also in many families who are going to wind up in extreme poverty.

"I hope the voice of the Church, which has resounded for decades - and I would say, for centuries, because this has its basis in the Sacred Scriptures - will someday be heeded," the archbishop concluded.