In his commentary, “The Pope, the Rabbi, and the Moral Economy,” Samuel Gregg compares recent statements by Britain’s Chief Rabbi, Lord Jonathan Sacks, and Pope Benedict XVI, on the market economy and other social questions. “Benedict and Sacks rigorously deny that markets are intrinsically flawed,” Gregg writes. “Each also maintains that there are fundamental limits to state power. They do, however, insist that morality’s ultimate sources come from neither state nor market.”
Gregg demonstrates the parallels between Pope Benedict XVI’s Caritas in Veritate and an op-ed printed in the London Times by Rabbi Sacks:
The pope and the rabbi had a similar message, which amounts to the following. Some of our contemporary economic problems reflect a deeper moral crisis within Western civilization. Until we acknowledge this, shifts in economic policy and business practice will only provide limited solutions.
Drawing upon the parallels between Pope Benedict the XVI and Rabbi Sachs, Gregg concludes that both question “those who limit morality to politically-causes and the associated refusal of many working economies…”
