Pizzas galore!

The pontiff says that the market does not exist in isolation. "Economy and finance, as instruments, can be used badly when those at the helm are motivated by purely selfish ends. Instruments that are good in themselves can thereby be transformed into harmful ones. But it is man's darkened reason that produces these consequences, not the instrument per se. Therefore, it is not the instrument that must be called to account, but individuals, their moral conscience and their personal and social responsibility.

"Without internal forms of solidarity and mutual trust, the market cannot completely fulfil its proper economic function. And today it is this trust which has ceased to exist, and the loss of trust is a grave loss."

On how to resurrect the world's financial systems, he writes: "Above all, the intention to do good must not be considered incompatible with the effective capacity to produce goods. Financiers must rediscover the genuinely ethical foundation of their activity, so as not to abuse the sophisticated instruments which can serve to betray the interests of savers. Right intention, transparency, and the search for positive results are mutually compatible and must never be detached from one another. If love is wise, it can find ways of working in accordance with provident and just expediency, as is illustrated in a significant way by much of the experience of credit unions."

He also addresses the debate over the place of faith in an increasingly secular world, and describes the erosion of religious freedom by militant secularism in the West.

He writes: "As well as religious fanaticism that in some contexts impedes the exercise of the right to religious freedom, so too the deliberate promotion of religious indifference or practical atheism on the part of many countries obstructs the requirements for the development of peoples, depriving them of spiritual and human resources."

To the regular list of "life" issues subject to Papal condemnation is added the scientific manipulation of the reproduction process. Pope Benedict writes: "We must not underestimate the disturbing scenarios that threaten our future, or the powerful new instruments that the 'culture of death' has at its disposal. To the tragic and widespread scourge of abortion we may well have to add in the future — indeed, it is already surreptiously present — the systematic eugenic programming of births.

"At the other end of the spectrum, a pro-euthanasia mindset is making inroads as an equally damaging assertion of control over life that under certain circumstances is deemed no longer worth living. Underlying these scenarios are cultural viewpoints that deny human dignity."

He concludes with an attack on atheism and a quote from St Paul's Letter to the Romans: "A humanism which excludes God is an inhuman humanism. Only a humanism open to the Absolute can guide us in the promotion and building of forms of social and civic life — structures, institutions, culture and ethos — without exposing us to the risk of becoming ensnared by the fashions of the moment."

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