LONDON: The Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams blamed human greed for the international financial crisis after a meeting of Christian and Muslim religious leaders on Wednesday.
The conference in Cambridge, central England, was also attended by the second most senior figure in the Church of England, Archbishop of York John Sentamu, and the Grand Mufti of Egypt Sheikh Ali Gomaa.
Clearly as religious leaders we want to say that the root problem is human greed which is not specific to any one nation or even to the governing class or any one religion, Williams said at a briefing at his Lambeth Palace residence.
Last month, Williams called for tighter regulation of the financial sector and suggested that Karl Marx, the father of communism, was partly right, while Sentamu branded traders bank robbers for cashing in on falling prices.
Williams s latest comments came at the end of a Cambridge University conference coinciding with the first anniversary of the publication of a letter from 138 Islamic leaders to Pope Benedict XVI and Christian leaders.
The letter warned that, if Muslims and Christians did not better understand each other and make peace, the world would not survive.
In a joint statement, scholars at the conference called on world leaders to ensure that the poor did not bear the brunt of the financial crisis.
It is out of an understanding of shared values that we urge world leaders and our faithful everywhere to act together to ensure that the burden of this financial crisis, and also the global environmental crisis, does not fall unevenly on the weak and the poor, they said.
Sheikh Gomaa, meanwhile, spoke of his great concern about continuing violence in Iraq, and condemned persecution of minorities the world over.
We hope to leave this world a better place for our children and grandchildren, a place where there is mutual cooperation, he added, speaking to a translator. -AFP
