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Theology and economic crisis. The world is dealing at present with harsh economic turbulences provoked by the 2008 Crisis. Some famous economic analysts, like Nouriel Roubini, established that in the core of this crisis we can find the cancerous growing of the financial system. This same opinion was reiterated by the Encyclical Caritas in Veritate of Pope Benedict 16. Both, Roubini and Benedict 16 establish a direct link between the economic crisis and a low morality that defines the current economic mentality. The important relation between economy and theology is little investigated by the theologians, as M. Novak pointed out, is the area of less implication by the theology. This paper intends to introduce the reader into the relation that can be established between theology and economics. The reflection will pass beyond the mere description of the financial system’s degradation as being the cause of the deep economic recession we face. It will mention also the causes of the new economic and social turbulences due to the exhaustion of non-regenerative resources, the climate change altogether with its disastrous consequences, or the unbalanced growing population in underdeveloped areas and the new geopolitical tensions that derive form it. All these facts are in strict correlation with an economic mentality headed only to profit which is separated from the traditional values in which the occidental economic system had its birth. Finally I express my optimism regarding the strength of the European society to improve and enforce the current political and economic model by recognizing the values that shaped the particular European democracy and economic model. The Church has to actively interfere in all this process and to be in continuous contact with the current problems of the society.

Keywords: Crisis, Morality, Economic ethics, Development, Respect for life, Social market economy