Pope: Bible is a stronger foundation than money
By Anna Arco
10 October 2008

Benedict XVI gives Communion during the opening Mass of the Synod of Bishops (CNS)

Pope Benedict XVI has said that the global financial crisis is proof that people should build their lives on the more solid foundation of the Word of God.

Speaking to the Synod of Bishops in Rome the Pontiff said that the collapse of the great banks showed that material things were secondary and did not offer the stability of the Word of God. On the same day, October 6, the European stock markets took a plunge after the news came that more banks needed to be bailed out by governments.

Benedict XVI made the impromptu comments at the first meeting of the 244 fathers of the Synod of the Word of God. He said that the morning's Bible readings had inspired him.

The Holy Father, who has criticised materialism in secular societies repeatedly this year, drew a parallel between the economy and the parable of the wise man who builds his house upon the rock and the fool who builds his on the sand.

He said: "We should change our idea that matter, solid things we touch, are the most solid and secure reality.

"He who builds only on things that are visible and tangible on success, a career, money; he is building on the sand. Apparently these are the true realities, but one day they will pass away. And in this way, all these things that do not have a true reality to count on... he who builds his house on these realities, on material things, on success, on everything that seems to be, builds on sand. Only the Word of God is the foundation of all reality; it is stable like the heavens and more than the heavens. It is the reality. Therefore we should change our concept of realism. The realist is he who recognises in the Word of God, in this reality apparently so fragile, the basis of everything."

The president of the Pontifical Council for Social Communications Archbishop Claudio Celli told the press afterwards that the Holy Father was pointing out how flimsy the material world was compared to the Word of God.