The document of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace is ponderously titled – «Towards reforming the international financial and monetary system in the context of global public authority» -  and its remarks were the most specific. The Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace calls for the advent of a new world centered on a universal political authority. The idea is not unprecedented – it was previously evoked in the 1963 encyclical Pacem in Terris of John XXIII. The document also proposed taxation measures on financial transactions (and suggested that revenues could contribute to the creation of a “world reserve fund” to support the economies of countries hit by crisis); forms of recapitalization of banks with public funds that make support conditional on “virtuous” behavior aimed at developing the real economy; more effective management of financial shadow markets that are largely uncontrolled today. Such moves would be designed to make the global economy more responsive to the needs of the person, and – the document says – less «subordinated to the interests of countries that effectively enjoy a position of economic and financial advantage».

The path to the document had been long and transparent. In May, after a media briefing with journalists to announce a conference about the Mater et Magistra, mons. Mario Toso, secretary of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, announced the journalist that another media briefing was up to come, and it would have been about a future note for the reform of the monetary system. The Vatican Secretary of State was obviously informed. There had been several sketches of the document, as usual. The first sketch was drawn down by Michel Camdessus, former president of the International Monetary Fund, consultant of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace and  part of the French delegation at the last G20 meeting. Then, document passed through several hand, bankers like Antonio Fazio – former governor of the Bank of Italy – and Ignazio Musu – economist and part of the advisory board of the Bank of Italy. The document shields itself with many citations from previous social encyclicals, and actually there is nothing so new.

In the Caritas in Veritate there is also a paragraph – the so-called «world authority paragraph» – in which it is stated that

«in the face of the unrelenting growth of global interdependence, there is a trongly felt need, even in the midst of a global recession, for a reform of the United Nations Organization, and likewise of economic institutions and international finance, so that the concept of the family of nations can acquire real teeth. One also senses the urgent need to find innovative ways of implementing the Principle of the responsibility to protect and of giving poorer nations an effective voice in shared decision-making. This seems necessary in order to arrive at a political, juridical and economic order which can increase and give direction to international cooperation for the development of all peoples in solidarity. To manage the global economy; to revive economies hit by the crisis; to avoid any deterioration of the present crisis and the greater imbalances that would result; to bring about integral and timely disarmament, food security and peace; to guarantee the protection of the environment and to regulate migration: for all this, there is urgent need of a true world political authority. . . »

Even Caritas in veritate had been sketched by many hands. An encyclical is such an important text – it is addressed to all the men of good will, and it is inspiration and part of the diplomatic work of the Holy See – that everybody would like to stress it to its own part. Among the people that glossed the Caritas in veritate,  there were economist like Stefano Zamagni and Luigino Bruni, but also the then governor of the Bank of Italy Mario Draghi and the then Italian minister of Economy Giulio Tremonti. Even Ettore Gotti Tedeschi had been involved in “glossing” the encyclical. He was still not president of the IOR (Institute for Religious Works), but he was already sure that the economical collapse came from the lack of children. No children, no creativity, no hope for the future, no economy: this simple four-words-speech-scheme is the Gotti Tedeschi’s favorite one.

After the release of the encyclical, there had been a sort of split on how to consider Caritas in veritate. Laissez-faire theorists were critical about some economical analysis, but always underlined how good was the “make more sons” line. Social economy theorists loved more the part that evoked the tunes of Populorum Progressio, the Paul VI social encyclical, in which the Pope claimed that «the new name of peace is development». The fight of interpretations was – and still is – intense. Ettore Gotti Tedeschi was invited to talk to the meeting about Caritas in veritate without either informing  the Pontifical Council Justice and Peace. And the medias were in some way divided between these two lines of the encyclical, and were totally unaware that the truth is in the middle.

The most prophetical part of the encyclical was the so-called “world authority” paragraph. In fact, this has been interpreted by many Catholics a sort of “big leviathan”. But there is a deeper reason why the Holy See has been doing this proposal. And one can find these reason looking back in history to see when this world order had been stated. The Peace of Westphalia was a series of peace treaties signed between May and October of 1648 in Osnabrück and Münster. The treaties resulted from the big diplomatic congress, thereby initiating a new system of political order in central Europe, later called Westphalian sovereignty, based upon the concept of a sovereign state governed by a sovereign. In the event, the treaties’ regulations became integral to the constitutional law of the Holy Roman Empire. It was there that the Holy See began to the fight not to be ejected from the concert of nations. It was there that the Holy See became to be subjected to the secularizing process. An increasing lack of influence that brought the Vatican State to be attacked and then defeated by national States, and to sign agreements with the States – which are the various Concordats.

Peace of Westphalia is quoted in the last document released by the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, and it is not a case. In the last years, many have talked about a New World Order. This new world order had been theorized in several think-tanks all over the world – from the Trilateral Commission to Bildeberg Group – and in the mean time finance prevailed on policy. The new world order will be an economic-based one. This seems to be the time for the change to come. So, while the Holy See was going on in signing Concordats with the national States, the world governance got always more supranational. The scenario is similar to the one of the Peace of Westphalia times. Within the Holy See, many are aware of the risk for the Church – and religions as well – to be put aside. This is the sense of the call for common rules and a world authority with universal competences.

When the document of Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace had been released, there had been a slight disagreement within the Vatican Curia. Ettore Gotti Tedeschi, president of the IOR, complained to have not been even consulted during the preparation of the document. No consulation was the fact that when one then delves into the analyses and specific proposals, it is also stunning how strong the divergence is between what is written in the document of the pontifical council for justice and peace and what has been maintained for some time in the financial commentaries published in L’Osservatore Romano by Ettore Gotti Tedeschi. For example, not even one line in the document attributes the global economic and financial crisis to the collapse in the birth rate and to the resulting higher and higher costs of population aging.

 Gotti Tedeschi did not remain silent. On November 4  L’Osservatore Romano published an editorial by him that reads like a complete repudiation of the document of the Pontifical Council for justice and Peace. Gotti Tedeschi wrote that «the true origins of the collapse of birthrates and the consequences of the increase of taxes on the GDP to absorb the costs of the ageing of the population were wrongly interpreted. The effects of the decisions made to compensate for these phenomena were underestimated, especially with the de-localization of production and consumer debt». For the president of IOR,  «to deflate the total debt – public, banking, business and family – and bring it back to pre-crisis levels, that is, to around 40% less, it is possible, though not advisable, to cancel a part of the debt with a type of “preventive agreement,” where creditors are paid at 60%».

More. Someone inside the Roman Curia – sources whisper that it was Gotti Tedeschi himself, very active indeed (he also wrote down an article for the Italian magazine Tempi) – complained about the document with the cardinal Bertone, secretary of State. Medias report that Bertone complained to have not been even informed by document. It was not true, since he had been constantly kept informed of the document. And this is what he said, sources from inside the Curia report. Probably, the truth is in the middle: pressed by the vain discontents memeber of the Curia that were protesting, Bertone said that he knew about the document, not about his contents, and he managed a summit to solve the question. The news about a summit convened in the Secretariat of State on November, 4^th leaked to the press. The conclusion of the summit was that this binding order would be transmitted to all of the offices of the curia: from that point on, nothing in writing would be released unless it had been inspected and authorized by the Secretariat of State.

This is how the red alarm for the new document of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace has been defused. In the mean time, very few know about the international activities of the Holy See, and the financial transparency brought on with the establishment of the Authority for Financial Information can have some contraindication. The game is on the international impact of the Holy See. The same game the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace played by asking for an World Authority with Universal Competences. Since the world is now globally ruled, the Holy See want to give is contribution to write common rules. In order these common rules will be for the common good of humanity, and not just for the good of few. Will this commitment be consumed in the bonfire of vanities?

Catholic Church was the first that spoke about world imbalances, fifty years ago, in the John  XXIII’s encyclical Mater et Magistra. The Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace celebrated the anniversary of this encyclical with an international congress. In the last fifty years, many things changed, but the request of Catholic Church. Which are the imbalances of today? Toso replies: «The imbalances between economics and politics, so the States sovereignty is not adequate to bear on the new financial international context». And then, «the imbalances between the up-to-bottom management of power and involvement of the whole population; the imbalances between social welfare policies and citizens. Beyond the demagogical matters, there is the lack of health care and guaranteed minimum pension for a large part of the world population». Still, there are the imbalances between «natural and energetic resources and the institutions that manage those resources – and that often penalize the poorest countries; between the respect for life since life is conceived and the global development; between the promotion of the right to religious freedom and the integral human development; between claimed and exaggerated rights and forgotten dues». And – finally – «the imbalance of the relationships between ecology and moral behaviour of the society and the imbalance between the thought and the gravity of social and cultural problems». This latter has been one of the key issues of Benedict XVI’s Pontificate, and that is why Ratzinger was nicknamed as ‘the Green Pope’. Mario Toso explains: «Nowadays, global justice is applied to ecology, as well. Human and environmental damages can be so serious that no insurance should balance them out. Some peculiar case – as, for example, the supply of arsenic water or nuclear escapes in Fukushima – brought so serious damages and so irreparable that there is no compensation would adequately payback».

Caritas in Veritate asked for a reform of United Nations and a true world political authority «to manage the global economy; to revive economies hit by the crisis; to avoid any deterioration of the present crisis and the greater imbalances that would result; to bring about integral and timely disarmament, food security and peace; to guarantee the protection of the environment and to regulate migration». Holy See worries are toward the poorest countries, annihilated from the First world economy.  «When I was involved on the HIPC campaign – cardinal Oscar Andrés Rodrigues Maradiaga tells – and I took part to international summits, I always asked why, among all the Nobel prizes for Economics, there was no economist able to outline a more equitable development model. Nobody answered. But once, during a coffee break, one of the delegates told me not to ask for it anymore, since nobody had the will to change that model». Yet – Maradiaga affirms – «people know that they will suffer when the International Monetary Fund intervenes in their country. People know the Imf will ask for economic adjustments: Vat and electricity bills will be increased, services will cost more, in order to adequate the economic system to First World standards. It is not right».

The integral human development can be reached through demographic development, as Caritas in Veritate explains. This issue is in strong contrast to neo-malthusian theories of the birth-control to sustain the economic development of a country. «Malthus – Mr. Antonio Fazio, former governor of Bak of Italy, explains – was obsessed from the demographic development of England. He feared that there would be no more space in the country and that demographic development could not be economically sustainable. No one remembers that Malthus was an Anglican pastor. He never thought about abortion. He recommended the abstinence from sex and the reduction of marriages to face the demographic emergency». The ones who brought on Malthus theories, on the other hand, are supporters of the birth-control and abortion. Life in change of a good economic development. On the other hand, there is another idea, maybe even more dangerous: have sons to distribute the national debt to the more people possible. Sons as a way to sustain the economy, and not as a purpose of the full development of human being. It is the opposite of Catholic beliefs.

The sons, the family, are the basis of society. This is subsidiarity, which begins from the small communities and ends to the larger one, from family to State and now to international concert. This kind of process gives birth to many good practices, and Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace give some example of them at the International Congress about Mater et Magistra. Social Doctrine of the Catholic Church Study centers rise up in very difficult conditions, just see the job brought on from the Institut des Artisans de Justice et de la Paix in Benin and the Jesuit Center for Theological Reflection in Zambia. While in Mexico anticlericalism lives a sort of revival, the  Imdosoc (Istituto Mexicano de Doctrina Social Cristiana) create networks, train up social entrepeneurs, teach the Social Doctrine, a “well kept secret” in Latin America, according to card. Maradiaga words. In Brazil, a popular initiative implemented by the Episcopal Conference brought to a national law for the eligibility of candidates, the Ficha Limpa.

Is it enough? The “diplomatic way” of Catholic Church has a larger point of view, and is in favor of a reform of United Nations. «Justice – mons. Toso says – must be founded on the acknowledge of the universal human good. Social conscience must be carried out in the market economy. A world governance based cooperation among nation is needed. It must be a true ‘world authority’, able to take superpartes decisions. A new economic, political and financial architecture is needed». Above all, the primacy of policy on the economy is needed to come back. What is now missing is a “catholic laity” able to undertake Christian values. There must be politicians Christianly trained up, able to understand the challenge of the Social Doctrine. In the front of world imbalances, this Christian laity must be able to give a concrete contributions to make everything more equal. It is now time that Social Doctrine of the Church is brought into action. Even if – monsignor Toso remarks – «politicians should be more exemplar in morality», and even more prepared. «There are prepared people –Toso says – but unfortunately the less prepared people prevail».