Acta Apostolicae Sedis - Commentarium Officiale298

Rinnovo al Signor Presidente della Repubblica Italiana, agli organizzatori e a

tutti i presenti l'espressione della mia sincera gratitudine per questo apprez-

zato omaggio! Ricordatemi nelle vostre preghiere, perché iniziando il sesto

anno del mio Pontificato, possa compiere sempre il mio Ministero come vuole

il Signore. Egli, che è la nostra forza e la nostra pace, benedica tutti voi e le

vostre famiglie.

VI

Ad XVI Plenariam Sessionem Pontificiae Academiae de Scientiis Socialibus.*

Dear Members of the Academy,

I am pleased to greet you at the beginning of your Sixteenth Plenary

Session, which is devoted to an analysis of the global economic crisis in the

light of the ethical principles enshrined in the Church's social doctrine.

I thank your President, Professor Mary Ann Glendon, for her gracious words

of greeting and I offer you my prayerful good wishes for the fruitfulness of

your deliberations.

The worldwide financial breakdown has, as we know, demonstrated the

fragility of the present economic system and the institutions linked to it. It

has also shown the error of the assumption that the market is capable of

regulating itself, apart from public intervention and the support of interna-

lized moral standards. This assumption is based on an impoverished notion of

economic life as a sort of self-calibrating mechanism driven by self-interest

and profit-seeking. As such, it overlooks the essentially ethical nature of

economics as an activity of and for human beings. Rather than a spiral of

production and consumption in view of narrowly-defined human needs, eco-

nomic life should properly be seen as an exercise of human responsibility,

intrinsically oriented towards the promotion of the dignity of the person, the

pursuit of the common good and the integral development - political, cul-

tural and spiritual - of individuals, families and societies. An appreciation of

this fuller human dimension calls, in turn, for precisely the kind of cross-

* Die 30 Aprilis 2010.