VATICAN - Pope's Letter to the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, on the occasion of the G-20 Summit: “the way out of the current global crisis can only be reached together, avoiding solutions marked by any nationalistic selfishness or protectionism.”

Vatican City (Agenzia Fides) - “It is necessary, therefore, to turn to the multilateral mechanisms and structures which form part of the United Nations and its associated organizations, in order to hear the voices of all countries and to ensure that measures and steps taken at G20 meetings are supported by all” and “all the measures proposed to rein in this crisis must seek, ultimately, to offer security to families and stability to workers and, through appropriate regulations and controls, to restore ethics to the financial world.” These are the recommendations made the Holy Father Benedict XVI in his letter addressed to the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, the Right Honorable Mr. Gordon Brown, on the eve of the G-20 Summit that opens today in London.
In the letter, the Holy Father expresses the Church's gratitude and his own personal appreciation to the Heads of State and Heads of Government who are participating in the Summit “for noble objectives based on the conviction...that the way out of the current global crisis can only be reached together, avoiding solutions marked by any nationalistic selfishness or protectionism.”
Benedict XVI recalled his recent trip to Africa, where he had the opportunity to witness first hand “the reality of severe poverty and marginalization, which the crisis risks aggravating dramatically. I was also able to witness the extraordinary human resources with which that Continent is blessed and which can be offered to the whole world.” In light of this, there should be a reflection on “those whose voice has least force in the political scene are precisely the ones who suffer most from the harmful effects of a crisis for which they do not bear responsibility. Furthermore, in the long run, it is they who have the most potential to contribute to the progress of everyone.”
The Pope highlighted that “finance, commerce and production systems are contingent human creations which, if they become objects of blind faith, bear within themselves the roots of their own downfall. The only true and solid foundation is faith in the human person.” Once again recalling the situation in Africa, as well as in other underdeveloped nations that following the financial crisis fear a drastic reduction in aid, the Pope affirmed: “Development aid, including the commercial and financial conditions favourable to less developed countries and the cancellation of the external debt of the poorest and most indebted countries, has not been the cause of the crisis and, out of fundamental justice, must not be its victim. If a key element of the crisis is a deficit of ethics in economic structures, the same crisis teaches us that ethics is not "external" to the economy but "internal" and that the economy cannot function if it does not bear within it an ethical component.”
Lastly, Benedict XVI called for a “renewed faith in the human person”: “above all faith in the poorest men and women – of Africa and other regions of the world affected by extreme poverty – is what is needed if we are truly to come through the crisis once and for all, without turning our back on any region, and if we are definitively to prevent any recurrence of a situation similar to that in which we find ourselves today.” The Holy Father thus joins his voice to those of the adherents of various religions and cultures who share the conviction that “the elimination of extreme poverty by 2015, to which Leaders at the UN Millennium Summit committed themselves, remains one of the most important tasks of our time.” (SL) (Agenzia Fides 2/4/2009)