Church has “guiding role” in driving economic reform, says Vatican economist Sr Helen Alford

Dozens of officials from national governments and international organisations gathered in the Vatican on Thursday for a high-level dialogue on ‘Tax Justice and Solidarity’.

The conference, which was organised by the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences (PASS), explored the ways in which today’s international tax system fuels global inequality.

Tax reform is “crucial”, Sr Helen Alford told Vatican News.  London born Sr Helen is an economist and dean of social sciences at the Pontifical University of Saint Thomas Aquinas in Rome and in 2023 was appointed President of PASS.

The current international tax system is more than a hundred years old, Sr Helen stressed, and “really isn’t able to deal” with today’s hyper-globalised world. This allows multinational corporations and ultra-wealthy individuals to pay very low rates of tax, in turn depriving governments of crucial resources.

Sr Helen stressed the role that the Church can play in combatting the problem. Dozens of government and international officials had gathered in the Vatican for the high-level dialogue, she said, because they recognise “the crucial guiding role” that the Church and, in particular, Pope Francis, play in today’s world.

Leaders recognise his ability to speak not only to the world’s 1.4 billion Catholics, Sr Alford said, “but way beyond that, too”, with the Pope recognised as a moral authority by many outside the Church.

Moreover, Sr Alford said, problems at the UN and other multilateral organisations mean that a venue like PASS has increased value, offering the chance for government officials and world leaders to discuss “ideas that would be very difficult for them to talk about anywhere else”.

https://www.vaticannews.va/en/