By Susan Brinkmann, OCDS
Staff Writer
 
Vatican Cardinal James Francis Stafford is calling on bankers to assume responsibility for causing the current global economic downturn and to apologize for causing it.

According to a report by CathNewsUSA, Cardinal Stafford made the appeal on Vatican Radio.

“Our world is complex,” he said. “Let us think of the economic world, which is now called global: The sins in this economic and global world are different in their complexity and depth from those in the past.

“For example, this economic crisis is rooted in the lack of respect on the part of the world’s leaders for other people. Bankers must assume moral responsibilities and ask God for forgiveness for these complex sins,” he said.

The head of the Tribunal of the Apostolic Penitentiary then called attention to the importance of discovering the theological and pastoral dimension of sin, reminding that sin “is not an offense against the law but, above all, is an offense against a person, a Divine Person, against the Triune God and against human persons.”

The Tribunal of the Apostolic Penitentiary was created in the 12th century and is responsible for receiving the confession of sins that can only be forgiven directly by the Pope given their gravity, and of granting dispensations and graces reserved to the Supreme Pontiff.

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