Those politicians who think the Dodd-Frank law went too far in attempting to reform Wall Street will likely need smelling salts after taking a look at a proposal for reforming the global financial system that was released by the Vatican on Monday. The proposal’s centerpiece is a call for the formation of a global political authority that would, among other things, possess broad powers to regulate financial markets. The reality of globalization, says the document, necessitates a “gradual, balanced transfer of a part of each nation’s powers to a world authority and to regional authorities.” The Vatican envisions this global authority playing a role not just in overseeing financial markets, but also disarmament and arms control, food security and peace efforts. Read more: swampland.time.com...

CNN's Report

(CNN) – Against the backdrop of the European debt crisis and the birth of the Occupy Wall Street movement, the Vatican on Monday called for a new “global public authority” to help reform the world’s finance and economic systems. New ideologies are “reducing the common good to economic, financial and technical questions, (placing) the future of democratic institutions themselves at risk," said Roman Catholic Bishop Mario Toso at a Monday press conference. The document, called "Towards reforming the international financial and monetary systems in the context of a global public authority" quotes former Pope John Paul II in bemoaning the “idolatry of the market.” The document calls for a new global economic authority that could impose penalties on member states as “way of ensuring that they possess efficient markets,” Toso said. Some progressives embraced the Vatican’s call, arguing that it sounded many of the same themes as the Occupy Wall Street movement.