Banks links to arms trade provoke
boycott
Despite Pope John Paul IIs commitment to promoting peace,
one of his recent gestures has triggered charges from Catholic missionaries
that the Vatican is unwittingly complicit in the global arms trade.
The accusation rose in connection to the popes call for a
day of fasting on Dec. 14 to mark the end of Ramadan.
In proposing the fast, John Paul suggested that participants set
aside the money they would have spent on food and donate it to the poor. The
Vaticans office for charitable work, Cor Unum, created a bank account at
the Bank of Rome, one of Italys largest financial institutions, to
receive donations.
The pope said he would distribute proceeds to poor people at
Christmas. The idea was sufficiently important to Vatican officials that they
installed a special popup window on the Vatican Web site giving details.
The respected missionary journal Missione Oggi, however,
called for a boycott of the account on the grounds that the Bank of Rome is a
major player in the arms market. The journal, published by the Xaverian
Missionaries, charged that the Bank of Rome financed $106 million worth of arms
deals in 2000, earning $8 million in transaction fees.
In response to a request for comment from NCR, a Bank of
Rome spokesperson said Dec. 12 that the figures cited by the missionaries
may be correct, but insisted that the bank does not finance
arms, but companies.
What those companies produce is their business, the
spokesperson said. For example, we lend money to metallurgical firms. If
they make a piece of steel that ends up in a pistol, thats not our
decision.
The spokesperson said the bank respects the missionaries
concern, but considers it misdirected.
The Xaverians called on Cor Unum to open an account at the Popular
Ethical Bank of Rome, which has policies against involvement in arms
traffic.
One Vatican official told NCR that the boycott seemed
unrealistic, given that most banks are engaged in at least some kind of
ethically debatable commerce. Another, however, said that he understood the
motivation. If you want to change corporate behavior, he said, You have
to hit them in the wallet.
As NCR went to press, the Vatican was still
soliciting donations for the account. The Dec. 13 issue of
LOsservatore Romano, the official Vatican newspaper, published an
appeal for contributions on its front page.
-- John L. Allen Jr.
National Catholic Reporter, December 21,
2001
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