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- MILAN (Reuters) - Catholics
can invest in the stock market safe in the knowledge that they are acting
in the common good so long as their only aim is an ``honest profit,'' Italy's
leading Catholic magazine said on Wednesday.
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- Answering a letter about the morality of playing the
markets, theologian Giuseppe Mattai wrote in Famiglia Cristiana that the
stock market was in principle an ideal market place that promoted fair
prices.
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- ``As such it is an institution aimed at the common good
and whose correct functioning has repercussions on the general situation
of the country,'' Mattai wrote.
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- However he criticized those who ``raise prices through
speculating on the ignorance or need of their neighbor.''
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- ``In the current climate of neoliberalism, such games
and speculation have become ordinary and routine, driven by greed,'' he
said.
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- But he added: ``Perhaps with a little bit of naive optimism,
the moral judgment could be different towards people or institutions who
play the market with the aim of making an honest profit.''
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