Cafod backs CST as basis for economic reform

THE CATHOLIC aid agency Cafod  has called on politicians to use Catholic Social Teaching (CST) as a moral framework to reboot the British economy.

In a paper launched this week, the charity – which normally focuses on international need – made a rare venture into United Kingdom politics in a report that highlighted “deep and unanswered questions” relating to the global financial crash of 2008.

In “Common Good and the Economy”, it said: “With the economy as a key battleground for the 2015 general election, political debate has failed to engage with the more fundamental issues. In fact, with certain predictability it has moved towards a focus on the household economy … and has largely ignored the more fundamental shifts in economic thinking that need to take place.”

One of these fundamental shifts, it argues, should be to re-orientate global economic systems to prioritise the common good.

Cafod director Chris Bain said that the financial crisis was a missed opportunity to re-evaluate the global economy, adding: “While Catholic Social Teaching is not a blueprint for an economic model, it does provide a critical moral framework to ensure that economic decisions taken by our leaders show a preferential option for the poor and care for Creation.”

Author and Tablet commentator Clifford Longley, whose separate report on CST was welcomed by MPs and policymakers last week, said charities needed to work together to promote the common good.

“Cafod will have raised eyebrows by venturing into domestic political affairs, which are normally regarded as the province of the parallel Catholic agency Caritas Social Action Network,” he said.

“But perhaps with a global economy the line between domestic and international will have to be a bit blurred from time to time, provided of course that the agencies work together and don’t cut across each other.”