Vatican City, Oct 8, 2020 / 08:00 am
In a speech Thursday to Moneyval representatives evaluating the Vatican, Pope Francis emphasized that money should be at the service of human beings, not the other way around.
"Once the economy loses its human face, then we are no longer served by money, but ourselves become servants of money," he said Oct. 8. "This is a form of idolatry against which we are called to react by reestablishing the rational order of things, which appeals to the common good, whereby 'money must serve, not rule.'"
The pope addressed Moneyval, the Council of Europe's anti-money laundering watchdog, a little over halfway into its two-week on-site inspection of the Holy See and Vatican City.
The purpose of this phase of the evaluation is to judge the effectiveness of legislation and procedures toward combating money laundering and the financing of terrorism. For Moneyval, this comes down to prosecution and the courts, according to a 2017 report.