Thursday, August 09, 2012

“The relationship between faith and money: A hard nut to crack”

Chief Rabbi Riccardo Di Segni, the relationship between faith and money has been a controversial and problematic issue for centuries. Why?
 
“You should ask representatives of the Catholic faith that question. In general, any religion that intervenes in human relations with its ethics, has to deal with problems linked to the economy and money if it is to establish what is licit and what is not from a strictly legal point of view, what the ethical and spiritual perspective is and in order to judge the sense of a human business whose focus is on making profit.”

The Rothschilds were the Pope’s bankers for a long time. Does this show the Vatican was incapable of managing its financial resources by itself? 
 
“I don’t believe the Rothschilds worked for the Vatican for more than a decade. Relations between the two were not rosy. Belli remembers them with a hint of anti-Semitism in one of his sonnets. Having ties with banks is not a sign of inability. It’s just that banks and bankers need to be chosen carefully. Even the Rothschilds had their problems in Italy. The only branch that didn’t last was the Naples.”


Another recurrent aspect of ecclesiastical history is the mention of “conspiracies” hatched by enemies like the Masonic Lodges. Why did the Church feel under attack despite it having been the majority religion for centuries? 
 
“All centres of power come under attack simply for being what they are. But first of all attacks are internal. More power leads to greater ambitions, rivalry and a loss of moral sense…”

Do Judaism and Christianity differ in their approach to the material and economic dimension? 
 
 “There’s Judaism and Judaism, Christianity and Christianity. I don’t for example believe that Calvinist ethics agree with Catholic ethics on economic issues. In as far as Judaism is concerned, the main points are these: respect for the rules of social, commercial and production relationships; respect for nature which should not be destroyed; immersion in this world’s reality without losing sight of the spiritual dimension. Saturday is the big metaphor for this way of thinking: we work and produce for six days and on the seventh day we pause and focus on the spirit.”

Why can a Mason be excommunicated “ipso facto” while a member of the mafia, for example, can’t? 
“It’s not up to me to answer that question. I have yet to see a rabbi or a Jew form part of the ecclesiastical body that makes provisions for excommunications. The Church has absolute truths which derive from God and are not in any way subject to discussion.”

Is dialogue with other religions or Freemasonry possible?
 
“This question should be put to the leaders of the Catholic Church. As far as Judaism sees it, the Catholic Church seeks dialogue. It depends what it means by dialogue though… the Dominus Jesus declaration was certainly not an acceptable form of dialogue.”