 We're honoured today to have Cardinal Turksen, who's the president of the Pontifical Council of Justice and Peace to talk to us today about reforming the global financial system, which I gather has been a source of some problems in recent years. I wanted to ask the Cardinal first, what's been keeping him up at night recently? What issues have you been struggling with? Have you been dealing with? And why? Thank you for the question. Basically, what our office has been dealing with lately has just been precisely the current financial economic crisis. And although we recognise as a church that we don't dispose of the technical solutions and all of that, but we still have one thing. We still follow humanity. Humanity is basically our area of work. So we follow the present economic crisis and want to consider very many causes of this crisis, the impact that it has on people, especially the poor, and then suggest or engage the G20, the IMF and all who matter on joint reflection for a solution to this problem. Because we think that this present economic crisis is not an experience which calls us to despair of solutions and throw up our arms and despair, but it's a challenge rather to discernment, to find out what we've done and done wrongly, and to identify what the strong areas that we need to emphasise on and develop solutions from there. So we want to stress the part of this crisis being an opportunity for an ongoing discernment about the financial world, economic structures, how the financial market has been operating, how the market has been operating until now. So that's what we want to do. And in doing that, we are encouraged by the fact that for us, this is an opportunity to also recognise that as a church. Our big thing is to call people to optimism. Optimism not because it is baseless, but optimism because it is rooted in the present and the future. And basically, the source of our optimism is basically for us because the future is ultimately gone and we can always seek that. So this is what the thing has been. And we encourage in this regard by two statements that past popes have made. Like Pope John XXIII, who came out on the period of the Cold War with a secretary called Parchament Harris, invited us to be ready, not to be afraid of new ideas, even when they disturbed the established tattoo school of Thames, not to be ready, not to be afraid of espousing new ideas. And subsequently, Pope Paul VI also came out with a message inviting us to be courageous in our imagination of what is possible so that we can modify and change the present experience of the world for the better. For the better, for the realisation of the common good of humanity and all of that. So this is what our office currently is engaged with. And that kind of thinking or feeling fuelled into our production of a small document, which we call a note on the, yeah, I think you're holding a copy out there in your hands. We came out with that last October, just before the G20 met in Cannes in France. And the objective was simply to contribute to the ongoing search for a solution to the economic crisis. And you have the sense that this economic crisis was a moral crisis, not just a technical crisis of too much liquidity in the system? I think it's both. There is a moral side to it, as you probably know. People from Wall Street, if there's any merit to the movie, Wall Street, and if there's any merit to similar products have come, we're even populising the jargon, greed is good and all of that. If there's any validity to all of those, then it just means that it's all not be morally sound in these financial transactions. And for us, it's about time that we realise that and begin to realise in that connection that the real objective of our financial enterprise and market and the doing of business is actually the well-being of the human person or the common good. So we think that the human person should not in any way serve as a tool for market. Market should rather serve as a tool for the well-being, for the common resistance of the common good. And so in this connection, we want to invite people to recognise, for example, the fact that finance should serve decent economics. Decent economics being our way of managing, if you want, the world household in such a way that its resources can take care of its needs. So we want to invite people to etymologically to go to economics. Or you call it a nomos, the laws of the household. And the laws of the household just basically invite us to see how we can manage principle, whatever the two, so that the household can be nourished by the resources available to it. And so for us, this is part of the process of discernment which we should be doing. Okay, going back sometimes to the basics to discover what we need to do and do right. And so that we hold the focus that should be the human person, his well-being, his dignity and his development, the human development. And ensure that everything we do, including the finance market and all of that, they serve to promote good banking, good economics so that the human person can live and live well. So that would be the moral side. The technical side has to do with, fine, everybody knows about the development of the bubble and the development of derivatives and all the other problems that they cause. So it is just, again, in that regard, to an advert, technology is certainly good. Okay, it's part of even God's mandate to humanity and creation to dominate the earth. So it's good. But to dominate the earth for the well-being of the human person. So technology is such that it should also serve the well-being of the human person and the human person also set technology. An interesting example can be, so an auto industry technologically can come out with the most advanced system of automobile with endowed with all the gadgets and everything. But that's not the end of the consideration. Okay, the end of the consideration, it's not the end of the consideration. The sense that what we're looking at is not how much the technical staff can equip that vehicle. We need to think about the driver. We need to think about pedestrians. We need to think about the roads on which, so there are very many other aspects to all of this. And so we want to draw attention to the fact that in all of these, let us not just look at technology and what it can do, finance, economy and the markets. Let's think about culture, let's think about ethics, let's think about society and let's think about the well-being of the human person. That's the basis and the character of our reflection. Did you generate any insights about globalization? Because you have in the financial industry one of the world's most globalized industries and yet the church often directs its words to people who are rooted in particular places, in particular times, in particular cultures. We haven't really thought morally enough, I think, about globalization. Did you have any broad reflections on that? We did. We did. I mean, when we haven't so identified and analyzed the situation, we then have to propose solutions still for reflection. And we thought at one, in the first place, we should rethink our humanism a little bit. What's our sense of the human person? And so generate a new form of humanism. You know, synthetic humanism, that kind of recognize a human person, not simply as a material aggregate of it, they're quantifiable and all of that, but also reckon with the qualitative part of it. Part of it would include his own openness to transcendence. Okay, transcendence which can equip him to ask questions about why. The teleology, as it were, the objective vision of human life and human existence, the nature of the world and its own external existence. Ecology itself as its own program, way and above the use that we make of it. And if, like all Christians would do, we consider ourselves to be stewards of creation. They need for some sort of responsibility in how we make use of it. So all of these considerations came in. And at the same time, you know, so if we thought that we should invite people to, you know, conceive a new form of humanism, how did we also invite people to consider one thing which is with us? I mean globalization is with us. And if globalization is with us, it's basically because it's inviting us to recognize the interconnection, interconnectedness and interrelatedness of the world family. And your church has argued with the oldest global institution in the world. And for that matter, sometimes we say we're experts of humanity. So that's part of it. If there's any fundamental ethic to globalization, it is the fact that the trust towards making us recognize that the human family is essentially one that belongs together. And so if globalization with everything that is happening, invites us to consider ourselves as globally belonging to one public community. Then the question that arises from that is, if the talk is about a global public, you know, political community or family, is it also time to talk about its administration? Right. Okay, and the possibility then that since, you know, globalized, it goes beyond the competence of every single, you know, nation. And so the last situations, in fact, what we call common good, peace, security, food, water and all of these, all of these common goods at this point in time cannot be safeguarded by individual single nations. It's called for the venture, the effort of all of us. So this is also driven us to pose the question, is it time to think about evolving a global political authority of some universal competence? I wanted to ask you, what do we do about this financial problem? Did you generate any new ideas, any new model, any new way of thinking about these problems and some positive suggestions to reform the system for the future? Definitely, okay, we have decent existence in our policies, the Brenton Wood institutions and all of those do exist. Our small thing was simply to, you know, address to them again the small question, okay, that the concern of all of this being the human person, the market and its interest should not be the driving force, it should not be the only thing in the driving seat, okay, but the well-being, the common good of the human person should direct it a little bit. And that, you know, the free use of, you know, accumulation, piling up of credit, okay, which finally bubbled and exploded and got us into all of this, that should also be controlled a little bit. And then also, you know, thought about the possibility sometimes of considering the social scope of the financial market and its business. In this sense, you know, I'm glad to know that some have already thought about, you know, tax on financial transactions to support other sectors of society. Some have also even talked about the Robin Hood tax in the case of Britain, okay, in the United States they talk about the Tobin tax. All of these forms which are suggested by way of, you know, having the financial market respond better to the social, because who makes the fortunes of the financial institutions is a civic society. And it would be good, therefore, to also see what they can also put back into civic society to sustain it. So that's a suggestion that we made, you know. More regulation, more taxes. Definitely. And how would you do that in the global context with capital being so free-moving? Okay, capital most freely. And most freely, that's part of the thing again of, because of its fluidity now, it's beyond again the control, the regulation of a single individual. That's what we're calling for this, you know, global public authority or some universal competence. Okay, it would be a group that would evolve gradually. It's not something to be imposed. It's something that different nations, you know, would come up with and adhere to freely and willingly. And the idea is that this would not be just another type of United Nations. In fact, the United Nations with its spread and reach can readily reform to do that. What is missing in locking the United Nations is that United States doesn't function as a suprapartist body with any protesters, with any authority to supervise, to impose, to regulate or do anything. In that sense, the UN as it is today cannot do what we're talking about because the system will request a certain amount of regulation and authority to supervise, to control and all with even sometimes the possibility and the authority to even sanction. Okay, all of that will be part of this. The United Nations is not, you know, set up to do that, although it's got the widespread and reach, you know, extending almost every nation. So in that sense, you know, that's a direction it can reform to. On the other hand, all the institutions like the G20 there and so, IMF and all, also, you know, require a certain amount of, you know, grouping. But, you know, they have the character of like a club. Okay, people come together. It doesn't, it lacks the representation, okay, of the world community. And if that also opened up to representation, what representation of the world community that could also be, you know, function in that, in that, in that direction. So both regards can, both institutions or institutional structures and very many like them, can function in that regard. And when we call for this on the international level, we can, on the regional level, advise the same term. Okay, like, you know, the European Bank. Okay, the African Development Bank. All of this, you know, regional level could be advised to, you know, adopt a similar type of restructuring to be able to, you know, just, you know, maintain this order. And what would the relationship of this public authority be to the World Bank or to the IMF to established institutions? A big thing is that they would all be regulated, all of this to ensure the common good. Right. Of the human family. The human family being the objective. All of this is to ensure that this body that we're talking about, it's a body that should serve the common good. Not by imposing anything, because it will have to function by two principles. The principle of solidarity. Okay, showing concern for the weak and their, you know, taking care of them. And the principle of subsidiarity, which makes room for the national bodies, the local groups to function and to pursue their own common good. So on the two principles, what will be required to guide the operation of this body. So while it accepts the mandate then to exercise protest that will ensure the common good of, you know, global humanity, it still would make room according to principle of subsidiarity, recognizing the competence of local national governments to pursue their own common good also on their level. Okay, so these two principles will be very crucial in the relationship that will be fashioned between the two bodies. And would it have a redistributive role, a Robin Hood role of taking from the rich and giving to the poor, or would it be more... That's the Robin Hood type of... That's the Robin Hood type of... You know, that is already practiced in some states on a very, very, very local level. So some of these are already practiced on very local levels. In France, for example, there is a practice called, you know... Per... Yeah, I think it's per equation, per equation in French. And that practice on a very local level is something that exists among the priests in France. Recognizing that some work in rich parishes and some work in poorer parishes, they pull their income together and split it so that whether you work in poor parishes or working in rich parishes, it doesn't make a difference for you. That per equation, which can easily be rooted in scripture and be justified out there, it's one way of also taking care of such needs. So the Robin Hood tax is there. Taking from the rich and taking from the poor, it's not by way of exercising any coercive power of force. In Italy, for example, there's a practice called the patrimonial. And it's a system of taxation, which also recognizes that people who are in doubt beyond a certain level are allowed to be taxed by the state in support of some other group. It depends on their patrimony. Some of them even pay their taxes. What is the relationship between your church and other Christian churches and other religious denominations? In this regard. Yes, in this regard. We're very glad to know that when we came up with a node, for example, with the Agbishop of Canterbury, at that time, as you probably recognize, there was a big group besieging this cathedral. He called us and wanted to make use of the node. Although the vision of a global public authority with universal confidence didn't immediately appear to be feasible, but the other details and other sides of the financial technological analysis, all those things that he bought into and so made use of the node already then. So we're glad in that regard. I also had a chance to receive communication from several other groups. The latest being a group of engineers. That calls itself a group of Christian engineers. But the node came from the southeastern part of the United States so I have a reason to suspect that. They're from the so-called Bible Belt of the United States. It's calling for inclusion in this consideration. They have about 2 million registered chartered members, engineers all around the world, and they are the ones who are foremost in their design and impacting directly on nature. They design the roads, the stadiums, the buildings, and all of that. So what happens to the environment is a large extent the work of their thinking and all. And so somebody should think about bringing them together to also see how they could also have their profession inspired by some of these discussions that we're doing. So I think it's gone to places, but it's not always been positive. I mean, some places, somebody called it rubbish, rubbish, rubbish. It's just Goldman Sachs. So that's it. And what are the next practical steps with your document? Where will you go from here having published this? Having published this, which is meant to invite ongoing reflection on the situation. We've directed our tender attention specifically to Catholic businessmen. And they are now working with them to us, producing what initially, at a seminar we conducted with them, we called the 10 Sullivan principles. Sullivan principles refers to 10 principles which were evolved by a pastor in the United States in the case of apartheid. So we've evolved similar principles to direct the operation of a Catholic businessman. And we hope that by May we'll be able to present those principles to the public. So we engage in doing that as a follow-up on this. So it's just as I just talked about. It's shaping public opinion. Yeah, especially challenging Catholic businessmen to be inspired by some of these principles. And we don't expect the financial system to be crisis-free in the future. So I'm sure there'll be lots of reason to be debating these issues. I think we've now actually come to the end of our session, but that was a wonderfully stimulating conversation. Thank you very much. Thanks to you.