Vatican thinktank offers solutions to "runaway capitalism"

Reform needed for international financial and monetary systems, say cardinals

Pope Benedict XVI with Cardinals

In response to the Occupy Wall Street protesters and other demonstrations around the world, the Vatican's Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace wants a crack down on the runaway capitalism that is causing chaos in the world's money markets.

The Council is calling for reforms to be policed by a global public authority such as the U.N. which could inject a dose of ethics to replace rampant profiteering and reduce the monumental gap between the world's rich and the poor.

A pamphlet released by the Council advocates the taxing of financial transactions to promote global development and sustainability under a central world bank to fight profiteering by Wall Street and other financial institutions.

Council secretary Bishop Mario Toso said that much of the basis for the document was from Pope Benedict XVI's 2009 encyclical Caritas in Veritate which criticized free market fundamentalism.

Wall Street Protesters 

The Council head, Cardinal Peter Turkson said that the Pope would be keeping a close eye on the G20 conferences in Cannes on Nov. 3 and 4 to produce "a clear vision of economic, social, cultural and spiritual aspects."