In the midst of a global recession, religious leaders are looking beyond the recent regulatory fixes and bailouts aimed at repairing an ailing financial system.
They are questioning the underlying assumptions of a market economy that they say has lost its moral bearings.
Last week, Pope Benedict XVI issued an encyclical, a papal pronouncement, that decries the divide between rich and poor.
He said that growing financial interdependence had not been matched by ethical interactions for the good of all and that the United Nations and financial institutions should be reformed so that a "true world political authority" can work for the common good while respecting local decision-making.
"The church does not have technical solutions to offer and does not claim to interfere in any way in the politics of states," the pope wrote. It "does, however have a mission of truth to accomplish. . . . Fidelity to man requires fidelity to the truth."
The archbishop of Canterbury, speaking Wednesday in Anaheim at a national convention for Episcopalians, criticized those who profit by manipulating markets and fashioning exotic financial instruments on a house of cards.
"In the last six to nine months, what we have seen in our world is not simply an economic crisis but a crisis of truthfulness," said the Most Rev. Rowan Williams. "We have suddenly discovered that we have been lying to ourselves."
Williams, the leader of the Anglican Communion, said that the world can't return to a "dysfunctional, disabling and destructive" financial system and that the demands of the market are never a satisfactory moral guideline. He called for factoring environmental costs into the equation.
"The economy is a wholly owned subsidiary of the environment," he said.
Together, Roman Catholics and Anglicans make up about 58% of the world's estimated 2.1 billion Christians.
The declarations by these and other church leaders came as the world's major economic powers met in Italy to come up with a shared response to the global downturn and to climate change. Only marginal progress was achieved.
Given the initiatives of government and the influence of multinational corporations, one might wonder if religious bodies can have any effect.
Will they be heard outside the cloister, or even by their own congregants, whose lifestyles for the most part are not unlike those of people who are not members? Is anyone really listening?
