What had seemed like a mere crisis in the banking system turned this week into something close to a calamity. The emergency rescue plan announced by Gordon Brown and Alistair Darling would have been close to unimaginable a matter of weeks ago. While it has long been the ambition of the Left in the Labour Party to nationalise the banks, not even Tony Benn could have imagined that it might be partly achieved by these means. And despite this dramatic action and further moves by the Bank of England, there is no certainty that the financial system will recover swiftly. These are, as both the Prime Minister and the Chancellor asserted, extraordinary times.

They also have to represent the end of an era in banking. In principle, the notion of the taxpayer shoring up institutions that have paid themselves too well and loaned money too recklessly is profoundly unattractive. In practice, the economy could scarcely withstand the collapse of the banking system without massive consequences for the ordinary citizen. Not that the rescue package isn't without its own set of consequences, coming as it does on the back of a couple of years when the Government has been shelling out more than it was getting in as taxes. With the public purse already bearing the cost of Northern Rock's nationalisation, things are going to get worse before they get better as banks tap into the Treasury's coffers, so many schemes that involve increased public spending are unlikely to see the light of day within the next few years. Still the Government found itself with little choice but to intervene and having made that decision it at least produced a proposal that is comprehensive in character. The broader acceptability of this bargain to the taxpayer will depend on whether the "strings attached" by Ministers are deemed to be credible.

This means that the implicit promises in this deal are honoured. It would be obscene if British banks were taking support from the taxpayer while foreclosing ...

When the Cistercian monk and author Thomas Merton first visited the monastery that was to become his home, the Abbey of Gethsemani, he is said to have exclaimed that he had discovered the only real city in America. It was a comment that conveyed how well a place functions under the rule of St Benedict, with its emphasis on service, order, hospitality and communal life.

It has become a commonplace among some ...

The Churches in Britain have a long and distinguished record of commenting authoritatively on issues of economics and social justice, a tradition embracing the Anglican "Faith in the City" report in 1985, the Catholic statement "The Common Good" a decade later, and the more recent ecumenical document of 2005, "Prosperity with a Purpose".

It is far too soon to expect similarly weighty ...

In the Middle Ages, the financial crisis that has devastated Wall Street would no doubt have been likened to the wrath of God that destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah. One of America's biggest banks, Lehman Brothers, has filed for bankruptcy, throwing thousands out of work (including up to 5,000 at its London subsidiaries) and threatening a dangerous chain reaction throughout the global financial system. As in the story ...

Stephen Hawking's bestseller, A Brief History of Time, concludes with the passage that made the book famous. If a complete theory of subatomic physics were ever reached, he wrote, people would then be able "to take part in the discussion of the question of why it is that we and the universe exist. If we find the answer to that, it would be the ultimate triumph of human reason - for then we should know the ...