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LSE: Public lectures and events
Towards Reforming the International Financial and Monetary Systems
01:31:14
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Good evening, everybody. My name is Conor Geerty. I'm professor of Human Rights Law here at Telasee and also Director of the Institute of Public Affairs. You are trebly to be congratulated for being here. And all three of the congratulations are linked to evidence of the kind of change that His Eminence Colonel Turksen, on whom more in a moment will be speaking. First of all, there is, of course, the appalling weather. The worst January for hundreds of years, and it beggars belief that politicians still believe it's an accident. Power drives their beliefs, and Marx would not have envisaged, but would have understood it. Secondly, we have a tube strike. And we've become so unfamiliar now with the idea of collective action that we regard it as an unattractive idea that men and women can gather together to inconvenience people in order to protect a life that would otherwise be, in their opinion, inexorably damaged. And our response appears to be to plan, not to allow it to happen, rather than to engage in their rights and wrongs again, something which reflects a certain change. And thirdly, and finally, we ourselves have a strike. It's not on the scale of the tube strike. We inconvenience students sporadically, and then when no one is looking, we rearrange our classes. When I cycle in this evening, I'm rather hoping that my union has not continued the picket. But we are on strike, and that union of university teachers and others are fighting too, for a share of a pie that is disintegrating while certain people within that particular environment grab more and more. Again, it's almost eccentric to be on strike. And yet again, it reflects a certain inability to completely go down without some kind of fight. All three are creatures of change. Change that's rendering what previously was obvious and commonsensical, peculiar and eccentric. And their change linked undoubtedly to international finance. Now, we're very lucky to have His Eminence Cardinal Peter Turksen here. It's an extraordinary moment at which to have him at lse. Emeritus Archbishop of the Cape coast in Ghana, appointed then in 1992, a cardinal in 2003, from which I deduce he must be one of those Medici cardinals appointed at the age of about 10, 2003 by John Paul II and President of the Pontifical Council for justice and peace, 2009, and I understand, confirmed by the current pope, Pope Francis just last year, has a master's doctorate, numerous honorary degrees, speaks, it might almost be said, innumerable languages. You'll be able to see him on hard Talk quite soon. Tomorrow morning. He'll be being interrogated. Something which comes easy to Cardinal Turksen, if you're following this on Twitter, we.
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Are.
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Lseforum on religion, on which more at the end. And also, interestingly and rather dramatically, this is going out live on something possibly called LSE TV or something like that. But there you are. By definition, you don't need to know, because so far as I can tell, you're here. The plan is to have about 45 minutes, your Eminence, from yourself, and then questions from the audience. We'll try and keep them rattling along. We'll take a few together and you'll be good enough. You're good enough to say you'll answer these. And then we wrap up here at about 8:00'. Clock. So we do have an endpoint. It won't go much beyond that. So you can plan your journey home and plan it on the basis that you will be leaving at some point. Can we just extend a terrific LSE welcome to his Eminence?
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It's very interesting for me tonight, step into the shoes and treading where my former president had treaded and where Kofi Annan, the former Secretary General to the United nations, also once stood and spoke. I wish to thank you for your kind words of introduction and to say very hearty good evening to all of you and to thank you very heartily and sincerely for having made time, despite all the challenges that have just been mentioned and talked about, to be here tonight. I'm grateful to the London School of Economics and Political Science for inviting me to contribute to the Forum on Religion. The Forum effectively embodies the conviction of the London School of Economics that religion can and must inform public affairs. Indeed, this is why it's such a great joy for me to be here as the President of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace. Because as some of you may know, in 1965, right at the end of the Second Vatican Council, four crucial objectives were set by the Council. One of them was to set up an office, a body within the Church which would follow social events and the social order of humanity. And that body setup was then named by Pope Paul VI as the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace. The name justice and Peace may sometimes be misleading, but actually it just represents a body that follows all the social events, everything that has to do with the social order, and to provide accompaniment to humanity in its walk and passage through history. It is in the light of that that Pope Benedict XVI would redefine this as the need for the Church to foster dialogue with all forms of thinking. So Benedict talked about the need for dialogue between faith and reason, Whether it's political reason, economic reason, financial reason, whatever form of reason can enter into dialogue with faith. And on account of that, in 2008, when Pope Benedict set himself to writing his second encyclical, Charity in Truth or Characters in Veritate. As some of you may know, Benedict had almost finished the encyclical when the financial crisis broke. And when the crisis broke, Benedict thought of withholding the publication of the encyclical and to take on board the challenges that the financial crisis brought upon humanity. And so the encyclical actually came out not in 2008, but in 2009, and it was to take on board the challenges of the financial crisis. In doing this, of course, he himself was following what he himself had taught, and that is the need for faith to always be enter into dialogue with reason, if even its economic and financial reason. So following the queue of Pope Francis, Pope Benedict xvi, right after the incidents of this crisis, when our office, our council, the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, learned about the meeting of the G20 leaders in Cannes in France, we decided to engage in the same dialogue with the reason of finance and economics. And we came up with a small booklet called Towards Reforming the Financial Crisis. A note. And with this note we thought we sought again to engage the economic financial leaders in the world about the financial crisis. And that note is what I'm about to briefly discuss with you tonight. It was for us then, a very modest undertaking, not being economists and experts ourselves, but to bring the light of fate to bear on the experience of humanity as it passed through history at this point in time. So there's small note towards reforming the international financial and monetary system in the context of global public authority. Hope at the end of this, you probably find copies around here to take along. The note just sought to provide and to stimulate an open discussion between religion, faith positions and economists, financial experts. Because the creation of a world public authority at the service of the common good was thought to be necessary by the Council as the only horizon that was compatible with the new realities that we were facing and encountering. It felt that to offer a contribution to the world leaders and all people of goodwill in the face of the present world economic and financial crisis, which had exposed behaviors such as selfishness, collective greed and the hardening of goods, and on a very mammoth scale, the Council thought that he needed to engage and to shed a light of faith and ethics on this new experience. And so the Note underlies that what is at stake is the common good of humanity and the future itself. More than 1 billion of people live with barely, as they would say, a dollar a day. And the inequalities within and between various countries have also grown significantly, so giving rise to tension and to massive migratory movements. As a text on the lines, no one can in good conscience then accept the development of such a situation in different countries, which basically creates a lot of inequalities in in the world system. And so, instead of having a situation where people seek to make profit and gains at the expense of others, we thought that would promote the sense and the concept of the common good and invite all to work for the common good. So this small note of ours then is made up of small, short 4 page work and the first chapter, 42 page work. The first chapter was based on evaluation and assessment of the present economic situation and the resultant inequalities in the world. It described the multiple causes of the crisis and the disastrous effects of erroneous policies, flawed institutions and ethical breakdown within certain systems, the result of which was a lot of inequality, a lot of poverty and a lot of suffering. And so, to encourage and to stimulate the return of a dialogue between the values value system and the training and the exercise of all of these sciences. The second chapter dealt with the three crucial ideologies which we thought were very crucial to this crisis. And there were a certain form of liberalism which pushed for setting aside rules and regulators and regulations, utilitarianism, which just believes sometimes that when one person gets profits or when one person makes it, there will be a trickle down effect for all. And then a certain form of technology which just made even human experiences just one of the variable quantifiers or the technical variables with which one could enter and do calculations about various economic procedures. And in the light of all of this, we came up with the suggestion that since the world financial system is not something that is within the power of a single nation, and since all of this was happening taking place in the context of globalization, whether it was not the time to also think about a global authority that could also deal with this situation. And so we talk about the possible public authority of global competence or global extent. The reason was very basic. Financial and economic situations are such that they go beyond the competence of single individual nations to deal with them. So it become necessary for us to discover some global public authority to deal with all of these situations. So the fourth chapter then talks about how some of these suggestions can be implemented. And we talked about several Suggestions we talked about dealing with the effects of this crisis on poor nations. And for that we wondered whether, for example, the introduction of a financial transaction tax may not help deal with some of the people suffering from the effects of the crisis. We also wondered whether it wasn't time to bridge the gap between ethical training and technical training with all those who are involved in the study of economics and the stadium in the various forms of the world, in the world of finance. And then we probably also thought whether recapitalizing banks may not be stimulated rather by situations where people demonstrate virtuous behavior and conduct to make them credible and to make them worthy of any such support. Then finally also thought whether it might not be good to separate ordinary credit banking for true investment from investment banking, whether the two may not be good also to separate the two. So these were some suggestions that were made with you to help and implement some of the decisions we thought could be useful to help emerge and come out of the financial crisis. So the note ultimately then concludes with a historical reflection on globalization and nation states. And we thought that the time had come to conceive of institutions with universal competence now that vital goods shared by the entire human family are at stake, goods which individual states cannot promote and protect by themselves. The conditions exist for going definitely beyond a Westphalian international order in which states feel the need for cooperation, but do not seize the opportunity to integrate their respective sovereignties for the common good of peoples. Some 60 years then of crisis have shown that attempts to achieve great gains for so few while ignoring the needs of very many, is no longer intelligent, is no more productive, and is not even justifiable. Instead, while pursuing their proper goods, business, banking and finance have to effectively orient their core activities towards the the common good, towards an inclusive economic activity and economic life. And so, for example, according to the recent publication of Oxfam, almost half of the world's wealth is now owned by just 1% of the world's population. And their wealth amounts to to about $110 trillion. That is 68 times the total wealth of the bottom half of our world's population, which owns the same as the richest 68 people on the earth. Seven out of 10 people live in countries where economic inequality has increased in the last 30 years. And so some markets might now be up, but many people are still very low down there, and the crisis is making them making their equality inequality even worse. And so to this we remember and recall the words of the present Pope, Pope Francis, who has vigorously denounced the existence of such inequalities and he said he said no to an economy of exclusion. He said no to the new idolatry of money or market. He said no to a financial system which rules rather than serves. And he said no to the inequality which spawns violence. For us Church, we believe that it is our right and even our duty to an urgent duty, to urge insistently that people be put first and so to advocate for a reformed international and monetary system. And it was the Church's concern for humanity, for the common good of all, and especially for those who most severely suffer from the present crisis that has led us to this subject now making common good and the basis of the call for reform. Let's take a brief look at this concept. To situate the above considerations, we can now ground them in the social teaching of the Church, especially about the concept of common good. The Teaching the social teaching of the Catholic Church provide this basic sense and definition of a common good. The principle of common good, it says, to which every aspect of social life must be related, is to attain its fullest meaning and is to stem from the dignity, the unity and equality of our people. The common good indicates the sum total of social conditions which allow people, either as a group or as individuals, to reach their fulfillment more fully and more easily. A powerful synonym for this, then, might be what Pope Paul VI and Pope Benedict XVI later on refer to as the integral development of the human person. This is the development of the human person spiritually, morally materiary, and its material flourish. And all of these belong to the sense of the common good. And so the common good does not consist in the simple sum of the particular goods of each subject, of a social entity belonging to everyone and to each person. It is and remains common because it is indivisible and because only together is it possible to attain. Is also only when we act together that it is possible to increase it and to safeguard its effectiveness with regard also to the future. And so going on still further to consider the link between a personal attainment of the common good and a society or social attainment of the common good. We might also observe that just as the moral actions of an individual are accomplished in doing what is good, so too do the actions of a society attain their full stature when they bring about the common good. The common good, in fact, can be understood as the social and the community dimensions of the moral good. And so the common good, the goal of all human striving, is personal and social and universal. A most important corollary is that persons and communities who are economic actors, are Also moral actors. The same point can be made in another way. All economic choices, whether as consumers, as business leaders, as bankers, and even as policymakers, inescapably have a moral dimension. The economy is no more a morality free zone than politics. It's no more a morality free zone than social and civil society or the family. Economics, like all sciences, contain its own truths, which are studied and feathered by economic historians, by philosophers, by mathematicians and other specialists. And it is to this that the Church offers her companionship and the partnership of her dialogue of faith. And so it does so by situating the truths of economics within the full truth about the human person. For the human person is the only creature created in the image and the likeness of God. And so economy, as the very word indicates, should be the art of achieving a fitting management of our common home, which is the world as a whole. As you know, etymologically, it's from two words, the oikos and the nomos, the house and the administration or the management of the household, so that the resources of the household maintain the occupants and the members of the household. In this original spirit, then, economy needs to recover its sense of responsibility for the welfare of all denizens of the global household. And now our relatively new context is globalization. What we experience increasingly is the complex interdependence of many human realities that we used to think of as separate from one another. In his message to the World Economic Forum just two weeks ago, Pope Francis gave alarming examples of globalized problematics. He says, for example, that it is intolerable that thousands of people continue to die every day from hunger, even though substantial quantities of food are available and are often simply wasted. He went on to say, likewise, we cannot but be moved by the many refugees seeking minimally dignified living conditions, who not only fail to find hospitality, but often tragically perish in moving from one place to the other. Such tragedies, according to the Pope, are denounced and referred to as the globalization of indifference. So we not, in this global. The context of globalization, we need not only to consider the effects and the elements of a globalized economics and globalized culture, but the possibility also of a globalized indifference. And so, instead of then reckon or working with the globalization of indifference or globalized indifference, globalization should finally also mean the globalization of the common good, globalization of fair wages, globalization of decent work, and so on. For a fair globalization reduces inequalities and expands opportunities for people worldwide. And this is a presupposition of the note that we came out with about six years ago. Every individual in every community shares in promoting and preserving their common good. And as a national and at the national level, the final arbiter of the common good in each country is the state. But to reap the full benefits of good national governance, we also need good global governance. The Note then suggests that corresponding authority needs to be exercised at regional levels and finally at the global level, in order to discern competing values and to help various goods to stay in harmony or come into harmony, and to orient competing and unrelated interests towards the common good of all. And so our Note acknowledges that establishing such authority is not without its potential risks. Some indeed have suggested, why don't you then move for the reform of the United nations to have such a public world authority? That may be an option to consider if the UN then have all its referral representation and representative forces. And so the Note acknowledges that establishing such authority is not without a potential risk, which is why it involves the principle of subsidiarity to limit the sway of any such higher instance as to who should step up to these challenges. Pope Francis gave this response at the World Economic Forum two weeks ago, saying, I wish to emphasize the importance that the various political and economic sectors have in promoting an inclusive approach which takes into consideration the dignity of every human person and the common good. I am referring to to a concern that ought to shape every political and economic decision, but which at times seems to be little more than an afterthought. So fundamental principles like human, like the human dignity, the common good and inclusivity cannot be a mere addendum or afterthought. How then can we, as homo economical socioeconomic beings, authentically take them into account and develop an economy that is fully inclusive? We just want to venture some thoughts and ideas. The world needs both theory and practice, and I am confident that both practical and theoretical interest represented here this evening. And so let me give an example of each of them to illustrate what the Church can best do to promote sound reform of the economic, financial and monetary systems. Let me first give a practical example regarding leadership and then a proposal to encourage good thinking and good theory. Last September, our office at Pontifical Council in Rome hosted a gathering of chief executives and other key leaders of the global mining industry. These executives recognized that while the negative perceptions of the industry might be exaggerated, it was not undeserved. They had failed particularly to listen to those who are directly affected by their industry and by their operations. They had not shown respect. They had not thought enough about the common good or about future generations. And so they wished to reflect on how the mining industry might put its best foot forward with regard to society and the environment. Accordingly, our council designed a day long program to create dialogue among executives with stakeholders. The common concern was about the direction the industry should be taking from now on. About the health of each participant's firm and first and finally about what we would call the vocation of of every individual present. We hoped that the combined listening and self examination would lead to new approaches which we called mining towards the common good. The day required deft and careful planning to achieve dialogue among stakeholders who used to being competitors and opponents to each other. The following elements then were found to be very critical for the success of the day. Participants needed to come with a commitment to be open to new ideas and new values. Their attitudes would be one of learning and they would have to encourage personal reflection as a gateway to innovation, to an enriched understanding of business as a vocation and to personal grounding that comes from introspection, from honest reflection on one's personal beliefs, values and one's own history. First, for the dialogue to be new rather than entrenched, participants needed to reach beyond their usual thinking and and corporate stances. Reason for such personal reflection is to embrace one's own reality beyond the individual firm and indeed business. People have the honor and responsibility to consider themselves as co creators with God in the continuing unfolding work of creation. Thirdly, we encourage them as persons and as business leaders that they may also suffer in the heart and in the soul. It may be due to the demands of their own positions, too little time for their family, guilt over harms done resulting from business decisions and so on. And so we thought that the office would provide them healing and require them to admit that I am in pain and I also need help. So we went on then to engage in a soul searching and to help them listen respectfully to one another. For they needed them to recognize that to listen respectfully to one another required a safe time and a safe space, what we traditionally call a sanctuary or retreat. We also encourage them to promote friendship among participants which makes it so much easier to be open and to trust others. The growth of friendship is held by opportunities for informal mingling and by group activities that are disconnected from controversial subject matters. This was an initiative of of our council and it was an attempt to bring again to stimulate this dialogue between fate and reason. This time, if you want, it was between mining, reason if you want, or the reason of the enterprise or the business of mining. But we thought that we could engage okay mining with the faith stance that we have. So I've offered you this illustration as a fresh example of practical practical action. It came about by bringing industry and church together. On the one hand, the practice of leadership in one and the largest and the most basic industries in the world. On the other, church practice which accompanies questions, supports and challenges, challenges this man and the challenges that this man and this woman are involved in. And so the Chairman and the CEO, the colleagues and the stakeholder representatives came with their practical questions. The church, through our small council, offered a space and guided the dynamics, provided the accompaniment of faith. And everyone agreed. The day of reflection was such a solid first step that a recent follow up meeting looked to further and replicate the process regionally and even locally. And so in a spirit. Then, in a similar spirit, two weeks ago at the World Economic Forum in Davos, the Archbishop of Westminster's own blueprint for better business was presented. The so called BBB works on untying corporate purpose and personal values to serve society. The aim of the initiative is to rally business leaders to explore the business need for change and how a rediscovery of corporate purpose and a focus on personal values might best be brought together in the service of society. So, my dear friends, I promise to talk about theory as well as practice. I look to theoretical research to guide new policies. Of course, the technology driving globalization is irreversible. But the policies that underlie the process are not irreversible. They are not forces of nature. They are established by policymakers and they can be changed by policymakers to ensure fair equity and dignity. And so, at the beginning of this week, the Managing director of International Monetary Fund delivered the 2014 Dimboldi Lectures. Christine Lagarde warned that economists have underestimated the importance of inequality. They have focused on economic growth on the size of the pie rather than on its distribution. Today, we are more keenly aware of the damage done by inequality. Put simply, a severely skewed income distribution harms the pace and the sustainability of growth over the long term. It leads to an economy of exclusion and a wasteland of discarded potentials. Last May, at an institution similar to this at the Chicago School of Business, I said that if the economy is to recover and develop more soundly, the movement that underpins our work and that overarches it, that oversees it, must aim and concentrate upon the common good. For the economy must fulfill potential in in an inclusive and a sustainable manner. So we must set aside familiar Nordstroms about invisible hands and unseen forces that largely leave out the vast majority Ignore the natural environment and support the status quo. As Pope Francis would have us believe. Taking hold of the crisis proactively is the thing to do. A crisis can become a time of purification and a time to rethink our social socio economic models and of a certain understanding of progress that fed illusions in order to recover what is most fully human. This is the spirit of the Pontifical Council and and this is the spirit behind the note that we produce. The challenge then is to take up a program of theoretical work such as to consider key features of the world's international financial and monetary systems, economic and business systems, to both appreciate and then critique them in the light of deep human values and principles which we identify in college social thought. To make sound proposals for research strategy and reorganization and finally to resolve on continued coordinated efforts that would move us and denote towards reforming the financial system. And so I may then suggest, as I suggested earlier, the resolutions to the global economic crisis require reoriented and reinforced leadership. May I now add the complementary suggestion that a new inclusive and sustainable economy needs to be designed? Such enormous innovation will not emerge spontaneously as the product of multiple pursuits of growth and profit. Instead, it demands visionary research, research undertaken with the greatest competence and guided by a vision of the common good. And to this end, our thinking needs to be very radical radical in order to penetrate to the deep real roots of the current crisis and also to identify the deepest foundations of for lasting solutions. Secondly, our proposals need to be very, very ambitious in constructing proposals to reform the system and establish order at the global level. Being the economic, social and political creatures that we are, this is our responsibility to one another in the global human family. And finally, our strategy ought to be very modest, suggesting small first steps in the right direction at a time. One cannot reform everything at once. It is better to have a series of limited achievements and goals, mapping each step so that it points towards the long term goal. And so our ultimate objective then of course is a financial reform along ethical lines that would produce in its term, an economic reform to benefit everyone and inclusive economics. And so that's why, with a certain amount of deep humility, I would like to propose to the London School of Business, London School of Economics, Chicago School of Business, London School of Economics. There's a good difference. So I'd like to propose the London School of Economics. Accepting these challenges to please design an economy of inclusion. It will require the full breadth of your very many disciplines. It is not realistic to deal with the integrated phenomenon of globalization with separate sectional approaches. A fair globalization will not come about only through disjointed decisions on trade or finance or labor or education or even health care policies conceived and applied independently. It is an integrated phenomenon. It takes integrated solutions and obviously it takes integrated policies. It requires great, rich and generous welcome to have quite different voices head banking, finance, business, politics and so on, as well as workers, the unemployed, the migrants, the youth and the old. And so again going to the last World Economic Forum, where I had the honor of reading a message for Pope Francis, the first time a Pope had addressed a message to the World Economic Forum. The Pope's message included a few challenges, and he challenged the economic elite that had guarded over there to put their proven ingenuity and competencies, knowledge and expertise to work for the betterment of those still in great need. This, according to him, would mean further decisions and programs, mechanisms and processes specifically geared to a better distribution of income, the creation of sources of employment and integration, integral promotion of the poor, which goes beyond the simple welfare mentality we used to and so our quest can the London School of Economics research and define the policies, processes and mechanisms needed to establish a more inclusive economy? That's our prayer, and that's why we come all of this way to share these thoughts with you. In conclusion, then let me say it is it is unhelpful to be naive about the challenges of constructing an economy of inclusion. As Madame Christine Lagaud said this week, the risk is of a world that is more integrated economically, financially and technologically, but more fragmented in terms of power, influence and decision making. This can lead to more indecision, impasse and even insecurity and the temptations of extremism. And this requires new solutions and so requiring new solutions. I wish to encourage everybody not to despair and so to resort to the words that Pope Benedict XVI pronounced at the beginning of this crisis. He said, the current crisis obliges all of us to replan our journey, to set ourselves new rules and to discover new forms of commitment, to build on positive experiences and to reject negative ones. The crisis task becomes an opportunity for discernment in which to shape a new vision for the future. In this spirit, with confidence rather than with resignation, it is appropriate to address the difficulties of the present financial and economic challenge crisis. So I wish to thank you for gathering this evening with real willingness to consider the modest, radical and ambitious program of our small note. Let us throw ourselves wholeheartedly into the challenge of the dialogue that truly seeks the common good and integral human development and the development of all. It was Pope Francis who encourages us, may hope Be the light that ever illumines your study and commitment. And may courage be the musical tempo for keeping going. And may the Lord bless your endeavors and all who study in here. Thank you.
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C
Thank you.
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A
Thank you very much. Amnesty. They'll have a chance to applaud at the end as well. But just a slightly partisan point. You did come to the right place. You know, I mean, all those business schools you mentioned. I mean, by accident, of course. I mean, it ends with business, you know, we are the London School of Economics and Political Science. So you were correctly advised and intuited this was the right place to be, because your modest proposal, which would involve the most extraordinary ambition as we see it, could be done by only one institution in the United Kingdom, possibly even the world, the London School of Economics and Political Science. So thank you very much for that. Now, I've told you already what we're going to do now we've got. Because that was an amazing new discipline. That was actually, for those of you who follow this sort of thing, that was 43 minutes and 31 seconds, and he cut 18 seconds in order to come in under. So that was a fantastic and prodigious achievement. Let's see if you can emulate him. What I'd like is to take a number of questions. None is preordained. One person who knows how I chair has already caught my eye, and another person, hoodie has caught my eye, and that's two. And we need to be broadly gendered. I'm in the market for a lady. I've got a lady here. So 1, 2 and 3. I'm not sure what you are, sir. Oh, there you are. There you are. Very good, Very good. Okay. And I'd like you to say, if you can't all say who you are, where you're from, and then I think it's a question, it could be a very quick assertion. But we then take three, and we'll come to you. Contracts, if we may. So the gentleman who is first off has got a book. That's not a good sign. Tell us who you are and your shortish intervention.
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Oh, yes, hello.
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My name is Eric Sokolowski and I am from Texas. While I did hear you speaking a lot about programs of theoretical work, critiques and proposals around research, strategy, leadership and dialogue, there is one point that I thought might be a good tool to use, and that's the Vatican bank, which is the largest and oldest endowment, and maybe one of the wealthiest. The wealthiest endowment in the world. How has the Vatican bank invested in Solving the problem of inequality. And if you would like, afterwards, I.
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Have a few ideas perhaps we could.
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Discuss either with yourself, Eric. Brilliant. Or Pope Francis as well. Yeah, Eric's making a pitch to lead our research program. Thank you, Eric. Wonderful. Good example of what we're looking for. Sir, I think it is a. Sir, you need to give us your name and a question, observation, comment.
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B
Hi, my name is Alfred. I would like to understand what Cardinal. The Church is teaching on usury seems not to be mentioned here whatsoever. And they state with usury you get all sorts of situations, bad situations, inequality and so on and so forth, which we seem to see now. What is your office's opinion on that? Do you think usury has had a hand, do you think usury has had a hand in the current economic situation? And do you think that should be the first stop, basically taking away usury, taking away fractional reserve banking, such and so forth and that would be a first stop in reforming or do you think that would be too ambitious at this stage?
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A
Okay, terrific. Well done, Alfred. Excellent. And our third one in this run. Madam, you can say who you are and question observation.
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C
Okay, thank you very much for your talk. My name is Susanne and I'm here on behalf of the Bretton Woods Project. Recently the Archbishop of Canterbury made a statement about the need for reform of the IMF and the World bank and in particular in relation to enhanced role of the developing countries and civil society groups which campaign on global economic reform, for example, and also on debt forgiveness. Like the Bretton Woods Project where I work, we have been struggling to elevate these issues and in particular due to countries such as the US and also European countries, do you think that the time is right now? And especially seeing that it is the 17th anniversary of the Bretton Woods Conference for religious leaders and civil society groups to come together and demand reform of these institutions?
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A
Okay, thank you. A nice one there about coming together as well. So I think we've got quite tough ones actually. So do you want to give us your initial thoughts? And we'll have lots more rounds.
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B
So probably I'm beginning with the last while still fresh in my mind. So do I think it's time for civil society groups and poor in society to come together and demand the reform of the IMF and the World bank in view of poor societies and poor communities in the world? Incidentally. Incidentally, you probably touched something that we already working on. As you know, the present, the current World bank, you know, president or chairman of the World bank paid a visit to Pope Francis, and when he did, he, in his exchanges with Pope Francis, you know, talked about reducing, you know, the world's poorest by 40%. You know, he said this as his objective. And therefore our office is taking up, is taking that up and is trying to design some kind of input, you know, input into. To suggest some input, you know, provide input documents into the crafting of the post MDG goals coming up and then crafting also of recommendations to the World bank itself. We have a precedence in that. Around the year 2000, the Jubilee year, some of you may remember this, there was a big jubilee campaign mounted by the church in different religious communities for the cancellation of the debt of poor countries. That was successful. Several, you know, the death of several poor countries were cancelled. And you know, if it interests you, you know, the musician called Bono, okay, so he was involved with that. And he sought us out at Davos and said that the church has not publicized enough her role in working for the consulate. But we don't seek publication publicizing anything. We're just glad that we could get the cancellation of debt for several poor countries in 2000. And that's what inspires us to start something again, provide input for the post Millennium Development Goals and plan another action for poor countries in the years coming up. The second one was usury or money lending and what our thoughts on that might be. Yeah, several people think whether money lending is so very different from banking or bank or financial whatever institutions and stuff like that. I don't know whether it's in that light that you pose a question of moneylending in society. Usury is itself not a countenance in scripture. It's not countenance much in scripture. Since then, church's social doctrine are rooted in scripture and developed according to the various sciences, human sciences. I'll start off by saying that Scripture doesn't support usury in the sense of, you know, making profit at the expense of somebody. If you look at several places in scripture, you know, it's about if you take somebody's whatever, you know, don't let even the sun set on it. And you know, there are legislations, for example, in the book of Deuteronomy that, you know, you should not even expect a payment of any interest on anything that you lend to your brother. And this is about the Jewish community. So Israel is not something that you can support strongly in Scripture. I know that in Islam, it's also a big thing that is not supported by their religion and which is giving rise to the system of Islamic banking which is like not demanding interest on whatever is giving out. So certainly there is one thing that Pope Benedict XVI is inviting and challenging all of us to do, and it is to introduce the principle of gratuitousness into our activities and even financial actions. Pope Benedict wants us to imitate the gratuity or the love with which God treats us. With it, God destined for humanity and for humankind and the challenges, all to imitate that. So he is introduced the principle of gratuitousness, as you know, into the relationship within communities, economic and financial relations among people that we, you know, gradually it should be possible for people to do things out of imitation of the love of God to ourselves in Christ and not always demand gains and respect. So that is for that. As for your. So this is the name of the Vatican Bank. It is called. Yeah, it is called ior, okay? And the IOR means institute in Italian and Latin. Instituto Opera di Religione, okay? Institute for the Work of Religion. So, you see, it's not really a bank, although it is considered and referred to popularly as a bank, if you want. At best, you can say it's a financial institution. And its setup and everything was motivated by the spread of the gospel. Y' all facilitates missionaries being able to send monies to other parts in support of missionary work and endeavor where otherwise missionary would afford to send their monies through banks and pay whatever type of, you know, whatever with all the insecurities involved. YAR tries to facilitate the movement of monies for missionaries living and undertaking various ventures in several places. But you still refer to YAWL as a very rich institution. You call it even the richest. The richest in the world or whatever. YARL is not quite the richest institution, if you believe me. Every year, all the offices in Rome get a balance sheet, okay, of the Vatican assets, and quite often it's in the red. And voluntary organizations like the Knight of Columbus are the ones who bail the Vatican out sometime out of the red margins of its budget. Now, people then say, still, the Vatican is rich. And they're looking, of course, at the museum, at the work of art and everything that is there. And they consider that to be very valuable. And so they figure if you consider all of that wealth, then the Vatican is very rich. It depends on how you look at that work of art. If you think at any moment that all of those can be sold to prepare for this, then you also deprive people of the very many visitors who come to see and for the cultural education that they may have. So the Vatican is not the Richest institution, the financial. The richest institutions around the world. And if you're interested sometime, you know, if you get your email out there, I'll get you some of the figures and you realize that we're not the richest.
- [61:43]
A
Eric, keep your hand down. And I suspect you'll be getting an email from Eric. I've caught my own eye. I've caught my own eye. I must warn you, this gentleman's also caught my eye. This lady has caught my eye. We have a bid here. We've got some bite. I know up there. I know up there is the determined. We'll take you, sir, you, madam, and then you, madam, and then we're going to have to favor this group if we have more space, sir. Name and short question. Observation.
- [62:08]
B
Thank you. Bernard Casey from the University of Warwick and lse, you talked much about inclusion and I wondered to what extent that inclusion was ecumenical.
- [62:20]
A
I wondered whether you'd had any discussions with the Archbishop of Canterbury here, who is one of the people who spoke.
- [62:27]
B
Certainly has views about reforming international financial and monetary systems and a certain expertise and whether there were others whom you could identify with similar abilities.
- [62:43]
A
So we'll take some more and we'll get a clarification if needs be. But I think we've got this lady here and then we've got a lady over there and then we're going over here later on after my catching my own eye, madam.
- [62:52]
C
Hello, Cardinal Peter Turkson. My name is Andrea. I'm up here.
- [62:57]
B
Okay.
- [62:59]
A
Hey, how you doing with a rather exotic looking iPad?
- [63:02]
C
Yeah, I'm doing this for Occupy London. I used to work in the welfare working group of Occupy London. So that's what I'm doing here live streaming for them tonight. For the whole of Occupy, not just the welfare working group. Anyway, as you may be aware, we believe that the whole system that we're living under is actually corrupted. We found out that, you know, neither God or Jesus could stop us being brutal. Thrown away from St. Paul's Cathedral, a great house of God. I understand. Not so long ago. So my question to you would be. My question to you, Connor. Excuse me.
- [63:43]
A
Andrea. I was interpreting what you said because not everybody knows as much about the details of London as.
- [63:47]
C
Oh, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry.
- [63:50]
A
I wasn't gossiping on the margin of your conversation. I might start doing that.
- [63:54]
C
So sorry. No, sorry. It's just. Just that the problem for me is, you know, I'm actually not somebody who's atheistic. But the problem for me is when it comes to these issues, I want to turn away from God and Jesus straight away. Because what I have actually seen is that these, you know, the wealth has been taken up by some very powerful people in Christendom and Islam and all the other religions. So what are we actually going to do systemically to change, you know, because we can tinker about, we can make them gratuitous, we can do tips and we can do charity and we can do so many little things, but what are we going to do about the inside of humanity which seems to be corrupted as the church knows and therefore what it manifests around, you know, the planet? Thank you.
- [64:42]
A
Thanks Andrea very much. We're going to take a last one before myself and mine is very linked to what you've just said. I think it was. It was you, wasn't it? Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Yeah. But pretty short and Name and question.
- [64:53]
C
Okay. Abigail Freeman from the tablet. Thank you very much, Cardinal for your very interesting presentation. Now you took us as far as 2011 and then you told us more about what Pope Francis has said since his election, but you didn't really dwell on that little period after the publication. Now unfortunately it was very sad that the reception to your booklet from some parts of the Vatican was so negative. Would you say that the climate has now changed under Pope Francis and now that Cardinal Bertone has gone and there is greater openness to your ideas?
- [65:30]
A
Thank you very much. For those who don't know the tablet isn't something you take when you've got a headache, it is that. But the tablet is this really classy international Catholic weekly which you should all really subscribe to. My question. I'm a trustee of the tablet. My question builds on Andreas. I was thinking about a bit of your talk about having all those mining guys in and you're trying to make sure they get on and they bond and everything and you're dead happy. They don't give, if I may say so, a damn. They are in the business of PR and camouflaging their brutality. What exact goals did you give them on destroying the planet? Have they withdrawn any of their efforts to destroy it by continuing to engage in exploitation of the resources? Has any of them taken personal responsibility to educate their shareholders? I do wonder and I think that what was said about the Archbishop of Canterbury and also Cardinal as he will be or is Cardinal Nichols, their business are delighted to have the absolution of faith leaders. What happens as a result? I'd be really interested in whether you would. For example, some of the more right wing people in the Catholic Church used to excommunicate people who had views on abortion. They used to not let people go to communion. How much energy are the church bringing to people who devastate the planet while having these, if I may say so, cozy exculpatory events in Rome? I'm sorry, I've just. If I were not chair, I'd have stopped myself.
- [67:00]
B
Okay. Now, as you know, our engagement with the mining industry is not the first time that church organizations or group have engaged the mining industry. There's a lot of ongoing engagement between the industry and faith based groups all around the world. There is powerful groups in the Philippines, there are powerful groups in Latin America and Ecuador, in Colombia, in Peru, about various mining activities. I suppose it's out of the devastation of the environment and everything that's happened to it. I think it's a certain problem. We say that there is a beginning to everything. This is probably. It doesn't happen that mining CEO of mining groups walk up to the Vatican and say, you know, we want you to organize a day of reflection, you know, with us or for us. So we may well, you know, you know, I believe or assume that this is the beginning of a new, you know, spirit that is blowing in this industry to want to do responsible mining as, you know, mining for the common good, as we like to call it. So it's beginning. It's beginning. And I think, if I'm not mistaken, there are plans to. The second meeting may well take place here in London. And if it does and if you're interested, we might invite you to it. But this is a beginning of me to kind of change the character of this industry. In fact, there was even a talk about the possibility of, instead of referring to this as extractive industry, to refer to this human resource development industry, which may reflect the changing attitude and philosophy that's in this business. So the reception of our document in.
- [69:22]
A
The tablet, she was asking whether the climate has changed in Rome, is that right? More or less. Have things been easier? Is the Vatican more positive about the ideas?
- [69:34]
B
Ideas of what?
- [69:35]
A
The ones that came out in your paper directly after the crisis, the one we were talking about.
- [69:39]
B
You know, It's this. It's this our office. Like any of the, the congregations or the councils of the Vatican are considered to be, if you want, ministries of the Holy See. So ministers of the Pope. Now there is therefore a procedure to follow if you publishing anything. It just means that when you are publishing anything, you need to recognize that because you are a council or congregation of the Vatican, whatever you publish or say can be Interpreted as something or can be, you know, related to the Holy Father or something coming from the Pope. And they want us to be. They want us to be careful about that. So there is a procedure, a process you go through. If you publish anything that can bear the name of a note of the Vatican, a note of the Vatican would mean you come out with a draft, then it goes to the Secretary of State. Then the Secretary of State will do a consultation about the content and everything and, you know, okay it, and then you can give it a no. It just means that the content is such that it can be attributed, as it were, to the Holy See or to the Vatican. When you don't want to go through that, you can publish anything as a result of a workshop that you organize. In that case, you're not obliged to go through this process of consultation. Now, when we came up with the note, certain people probably thought that they needed to be consulted on the issue of finances when we're talking about the financial crisis. Some thought that they needed to be consulted about that. Some also thought that our courage to even call into question the financial system, the market system, anything that has to do with liberal, whatever, capitalism, was too bold to do. So we got reactions from all over. But it was not only negative reactions such as you read about in the tablet, which, you know, one could. We also got very, very positive reactions and responses from people. We got responses such, you know, like, you know, if the Church can now begin to speak or to analyze issues this way, then I'm proud to be a Catholic. Some reaction said, if the ches. How come it's taking so long, you know, to come out with, you know, so I think, you know, we feel really proud and good about the note, although some, you know, one other. One reader said that this is coming from a very small, insignificant office of the Vatican and, you know, needs to be thrown out. You know, we can all get all kinds of reaction. But again, you know, for us, it's an issue which is still very valid and needs to be addressed. The crisis has been with us for well over six years, and we don't appear to be, you know, we don't appear to be coming out of the woods yet. And so there is a need to be creative and to be innovative about ways of dealing with this. And that's what we try to do. The other thing about the Archbishop of Canterbury and whether, you know, we're in touch or. Yes, and it's been already since last year. Last year we were here when we came talking about this Same note. And Arbitrary has his own group, financial advisors, those with whom we discuss financial issues with. And we met together with them and, you know, we went through the financial issues and discussions and all of that. So we, yes, we know about the archbishop and his group. We know about, you know, the topics they discussed. And we also know that the small note we came up with was well received over here. And Arbitrary, Rowan Williams, was the first one to call us on the phone and say, I want to use this note. Do I have you. Do I have your permission? Say, sure, you know, go ahead. That's what we produce it for. So we're very much in touch with all of these wonderful.
- [73:57]
A
Well, we have more space, actually. And we have the gentleman who was trying to get in earlier on, sir. And then we have this lady in the center. And we've had a lot. There's a little cluster of people with their hands permanently up over here. We'll take this gentleman here and we'll have three quick questions, if we may, and then we might be able to finish with some people up there. Sir, you have the floor. Name and quick question.
- [74:18]
B
Yeah, I'm Antonio. Colonel Turksen. My question relates to an earlier one regarding the IOR. In the last 11 months, there has been a seismic shift in the style of the papacy that's very obvious. And in this period, the new pope has been making dramatic changes in personnel, particularly in the ior. Even a former Singaporean foreign minister is now an advisor, as I understand, on that new group that has been advising on the ior. But in the light particularly of a senior Italian monsignor who has been arrested and charged over money allegations of money laundering, which is very serious and has received major publicity, it's obvious that there are problems in the IOR and that the apparent transparency, or not, of the Vatican bank, whatever we like to call it, my specific question to you is, do you think there needs to be greater transparency in the IOR now, and what do you think should be done to make that so? Of course, if you don't agree, well, then wouldn't be. But I'd be curious to know. I think many others would be to know, because this is a very public thing, and when you've got a leading monsignor charged, this is very, very serious and terrific.
- [75:36]
A
Following up on one of her exact points. Madam, we need to just make sure we can hear you. Barbara, no meeting is complete without one failure. I think we want it to be recorded. Can we rush through the other microphone? Because it would be a pity if the millions watching.
- [75:55]
C
It's working.
- [75:56]
A
It's working. Excellent. Barbara Way go.
- [75:57]
C
Thank you. Barbara Kentish. And I'm from Westminster justice and Peace. So I suppose I'm a foot soldier of your organisation, Cardinal. I think that surely change comes from pressure from the bottom, from pressure from below. And the reason that for instance your mining executives are meeting is because of all the pressures that are moving up. And I think it's great. I'm not as cynical as Connor was about them all coming together because I do think that dialogue does promote change. But surely you'd want representatives for, from the grassroots as well in that sort of gathering. For instance, you know the miners from the community in Rustenburg, which was shot at. I mean, what do they say and what do they think are the ways forward? And so listening to those voices moving on to the financial issues which you're talking about tonight, presumably you would be thinking of a colloquium, like some sort of a retreat for financial people as well, which would be great, but at that, wouldn't you have some of the people coming up with the creative ideas on new forms of finance, like for instance, the occupation, Occupy London people, Occupy Wall street people in London who are working on payday loans and the usury that's going on by companies like Wonga, you know, they're charging thousand percent interest on loans and that sort of thing. Wouldn't it be an idea to listen to the grassroots? And I would say that from the grassroots of justice and peace, wouldn't I?
- [77:22]
A
Thank you. Pro grassroot grassroots. Excellent, sir. And then you very quickly, because I was trying to fall in, My name is Michael Amoa.
- [77:30]
B
I went to school in Cape Coast. By the way, Cardinal, you started by talking about the common good, which nowadays we call it a public good. And in religious terms you probably say, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Well, given that scripture talks about, you know, inequality, that is the rich shall be richer and the poor shall be poorer. Just how does the pontificate go about addressing inequality? And just how do you make the decision about what specifically to address and you know, where to actually locate your resources and ideas. Thank you.
- [78:11]
A
Okay, Michael, sort of on inequality and the last one, because I don't think we're going to get another round in, sir. Name and question. My name's John Alexander. My point is to sort of offer a stream to the research program that you're kicking off, I guess, which is on the job application. Exactly. So on the subject, particularly at the level of individuals rather than Institutions in society. There's some very interesting research that I've seen recently about the language that we use to describe the individual in society and this concept of the consumer in particular. So I'd refer you to. There's a study in which a thousand people answer a survey of environmental and social attitudes and behaviors. 500 people, the front cover says consumer response study. 500 people, the front cover says citizen response study. There's one word difference on the front cover. And the priming impact leads to much higher levels of self interest and lower social environmental motivation on those who answer the consumer response study. So when we have this word consumer as the kind of dominant kind of collective noun of people, is that a reform that that should come within this sort of focus? All right, John, partly a contribution to the discussion and partly a question. We've had four transparency, grassroots inequality, and then language though that's sort of an observation and we don't have much time and there won't be any more after this. So this is your wrap up set of remarks.
- [79:39]
B
Thanks. No, I think certainly, certainly if there was a study done about this terminology and its use would be very well appreciated. Incidentally, in connection with this, we do have a group already in the United States that is undertaking a study of some of these terms and some of these concepts and their use. And they even go into a point of asking, this was meant to help us, asking people what sense understanding they have when they do hear some of these expressions being used, what does it connote to them? What do they understand? You know, what the sense of it. Then there's a survey, there's a survey going on now and we eagerly awaiting the outcome for that. And if there's any contribution, anything that can come from your side or some would be very well appreciated. The Pontifical Council on Inequality and what are we or what can we do about these inequalities in the world? What we naturally, naturally the inequalities, whether they in the area of business, in the area of world and all of that. We try to address that. We try to. We wanted to bring you an example of a booklet that, you know, we run out of the English translation. A way of going about this is we did some, two workshops with business leaders and at the end of it we came up with a small booklet, if you want some booklet that they carry called the Vocation of the Business Leader. And in that small booklet we try to help business people understand what they do not simply in terms of profit making, but in fulfilling a vocation, which just means that the sense of what you do does not simply reside in your quest and desire for interest and gain, but recognize that you play a role in the experience of humanity, the world and all that there is in there. That book is at a great success. It's been translated as a city into 12 languages. It's been used in some universities in the United States already. And we keep having requests from business schools to use the material. It's just an invitation to get business leaders to recognize several details about what they do. Sometimes it's even to recognize the relations between them and their workers. Not to treat their employees simply as commodities, but to empower all of them, to enable them to realize that they're part of the decision making process, to challenge them to be creative themselves and to recognize their own sense of creativity in the business. It's also an invitation to business leaders to recognize that what they do, probably we propose three levels for them. See, judge and act. Okay, See whatever you're doing with your business, make a very reflective consideration of that. Make your decisions, your choices and all of that. And we go, courage, implement and apply them. So with this small handbook, we are making a lot of influence. We exercise a lot of influence on businessmen who feel the need and who feel challenged now to do things differently. Okay, so that's what we're doing in that area, incidentally. Our next project is to take up the same thing and address the world of political leaders and address the vocation of the political leader. Okay. And that will be another second category that we'll be looking at then. The thing about grassroots and pressure and group mining. We recognize that very well about the pressure of grassroots and all of that. In fact, that, as you may say, as you observe, may probably have been one of the factors which drove the mining groups to this day of reflection. We are aware of that. We also right now engage in. A sampling of ideas. Questionnaire prepared by a group of religious men and women in Rome have gone out to a whole lot of mining communities to gather responses. We working with them on that. We've gave them some of the contacts that we have in places where miners are working. And the responses have come. They're collating the responses to enable us to see, you know, what exactly is happening in the different places where these groups are working. So the grassroots is very much, you know, we very much aware of that. Then there is your again IOR in the Vatican bank, Pope Francis, his new style, the change that is brought and the need for transparency in that institution. Yes, we can talk about the changes that Pope Francis has brought. We can also talk about, you know, some of the, you know, the observations you made and the need for transparency. Yes, your has been an institution for a long time. It belongs to the Vatican, but it's also in Italy. It's in Italy, and therefore it's also, you know, you know, it's something that people within the state also have access to. Are there any Italians here? Any chance? No, it's just, it's. I mean, so is there. And so the likely that, I mean, it is, it's come up publicly in Italian media of how sometimes, you know, the last one that was, if there any Italians over here, they know of a radio, a television stage they call called La Sete L A7, which, you know, broadcasted the other day, a son who claims that his father, a mafia boss, had an account at yore and so transferred money through that account and therefore could avoid taxation and Italian state laws and all of that. Having an institution that old exists in a place like that, you likely. I mean, nobody disputes the possibility that people have tried to take advantage of the institution. And as I said, it was something that helped missionaries do their work. But it's also conceivable that others who found that as an opportunity or a case to also escape certain taxation systems and all of that also did so. The abuses are there. You're talking about transparency now. As a result of this, the Vatican is now accepted all the requirements from international, you know, financial system and organizations. They set up a, you know, financial regulatory board of the Vatican. It's freely set up such bodies and accepted all the other, you know, reforms and changes that are required. So the interest in this regard of being transparent is there. And with Pope Francis and the change of personnel, it's not. Again, the thing about the change of personnel should not entail, you know, necessarily some judgment that people who are changed, necessary, were, you know, corrupt or involved in certain type of things. I personally do not have enough data to be able to draw that conclusion. But we know that Francis has got the right to do that. Our own office is also undergoing restructuring. So this is. Any head of state, in this case with the Pope has got a right to modify the structure so that it can be the thing that he can work with most effectively and most efficiently. So the transparency thing is now something that the Vatican. It's fulfilling all the conditions that the financial organizations are asking for.
- [88:21]
A
I think that was a very subtle argument for return to the Papal States. Actually, you know, it was a mistake, wasn't It. Italy. Italy. And it could become a routine remark, couldn't it? In the course of the few years it's in Italy becomes a sort of general explanation about it. We all, as it were, understand it. Look, we're wrapping up. I want you to may say a word about this forum on religion, the lse. The LSE would not be notoriously religious by its culture and history. As Alastair Campbell might have said in another context, we don't do God, but we've sort of begun to do God. Actually. We've had close relationship with the churches through Inform, run by Eileen Barker for many years here we've had Rowan Williams here as Archbishop Cantrispeak. We've had then Archbishop Nichols here. We've got close relationships with the. With the religious communities across the country. We've now got this marvellous new, which I invite you to all visit, actually, the faith centre in this really beautiful Irish made building. Sorry, how did that slip out? A beautiful new building, second floor, there's a faith centre and it's a lovely inclusive place. Father Jim, who's here, will I'm sure be delighted to show anybody around who shows up incorporating all faiths and has lovely opportunities for belief. And we have this forum on religion. Matthew, who's here, runs the program for the studies of religion and non religion. We weren't quite brave enough yet at LSE to go for the program for studies for religion, so we slip in. And non religion. So we do take. Your eminence, we do take religion very seriously. And that great remark you said about religion can and must inform public affairs is something which LSE understands. We have discussion on religion at the LSE festival coming UP and the LSE Research Festival 2. The Institute of Public affairs, which I direct, will be devoting a lot of time and energy to religion in the coming years. So it's this interaction between different kinds of reason and faith that we find fascinating. We're going to thank everybody now. We're going to thank the questioners. We had 11, you know, questions, tough questions. It's one of those days when you really feel proud of an LSE audience. Tough in point and engaged partisan in the search for truth. I want to thank the stewards. There are a lot of them. There were no hitches on the microphones apart from Barbara's mini effort to turn it on. And they run. And LSE runs a very tight ship here indeed. And we're always grateful for conferences is professionalism. We want to thank Matthew and Father Jose, who were behind a lot of the organization here. But I think, you know, at four minutes and a half past 8:00', clock, we should end with our gratitude for a fantastic performance and excellent intellectual engagement with this demanding audience from Cardinal Peter Turks. Thank you very much.