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Pope Benedict XVI called Tuesday for a new world
financial order guided by ethics, dignity and the search for the
common good in the third encyclical of his pontificate.

In ''Charity in Truth,'' Benedict denounced the profit-at-all-cost
mentality of the globalized economy and lamented that greed had
brought about the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression.

''Profit is useful if it serves as a means toward an end,'' he wrote.
''Once profit becomes the exclusive goal, if it is produced by
improper means and without the common good as its ultimate end, it
risks destroying wealth and creating poverty.''

The document, in the works for two years and repeatedly delayed to
incorporate the fallout from the crisis, was released one day before
leaders of the Group of Eight industrialized nations meet to
coordinate efforts to deal with the global meltdown.

The release was clearly designed to give world leaders a strong moral
imperative to correct errors of the past, ''which wreaked such havoc
on the real economy,'' and make a more socially just and responsible
world financial order.

''The economy needs ethics in order to function correctly -- not any
ethics, but an ethics which is people centered,'' he wrote.

The German-born Benedict, 82, has spoken out frequently about the
impact of the crisis on the poor, particularly in Africa which he
visited earlier this year. But the 144-page encyclical, one of the
most authoritative documents a pope can issue, marked a new level of
church teaching by linking the Vatican's long-standing doctrine on
caring for the poor with current events.

While acknowledging that the globalized economy has ''lifted billions
of people out of misery,'' Benedict accused the unbridled growth of
recent years of causing unprecedented problems as well, citing mass
migration flows, environmental degradation and a complete loss of
trust in the world market.

He urged wealthier countries to increase development aid to poor
countries to help eliminate world hunger, saying peace and security
depended on it. He specified that aid should go to agricultural
development to improve infrastructure, irrigation systems, transport
and sharing of agricultural technology.

At the same time, he demanded that industrialized nations reduce their
energy consumption, both to better care for the environment and to let
the poorer have access to energy resources.

''One of the greatest challenges facing the economy is to achieve the
most efficient use -- not abuse -- of natural resources, based on a
realization that the notion of 'efficiency' is not value-free,'' he
wrote.

He denounced that the drive to outsource work to the cheapest bidder
had endangered the rights of workers, and demanded that workers be
allowed to organize in unions to protect their rights and guarantee
steady, decent employment.

Benedict called for a whole new financial order -- ''a profoundly new
way of understanding business enterprise'' -- that respects the
dignity of workers and looks out for the common good by prioritizing
ethics and social responsibility over dividend returns.

''Above all, the intention to do good must not be considered
incompatible with the effective capacity to produce goods,'' he wrote.
''Financiers must rediscover the genuinely ethical foundation of their
activity so as to not abuse the sophisticated instruments which can
serve to betray the interests of savers.''

Kirk Hanson, a business ethics professor at Santa Clara University,
said the encyclical is likely to spark debate over capitalism and
social justice.

''When a group of U.S. Catholic bishops issued a similar statement
during the Reagan years, it sparked a nationwide debate about the
fairness of our capitalist system,'' said Hanson, who chaired the
hearings leading up to the bishops' statement.

Benedict stressed he wasn't opposed to a globalized economy, saying
that if done correctly it has an unprecedented potential to
redistribute wealth around the globe. But he warned that if badly
directed and if the problems aren't fixed, globalization can increase
poverty and inequality and trigger the type of crisis under way.

Benedict has written two previous encyclicals in his four years as
pope: ''God is Love'' in 2006 and ''Saved by Hope'' in 2007.