In an article published in the Financial Times. The ABC broke his silence over the St. Paul’s situation yesterday, to express his dismay about the resignations of Giles Fraser and Graeme Knowles. Today he addresses some of the larger issues, including the Church’s role in the debate over the economy.

we should keep two things in mind. One is what I began with. The Church of England is a place where the unfinished business and unspoken anxieties of society can often find a voice, for good and ill. And if the Church cannot find ways through, that is not an index of the unique incompetence of the Church so much as of the extreme sensitivity of the matters in hand and of the fact that they touch us deeply, in ways that can’t be solved – even by the ablest and wisest – in short order. The second is that we are at risk, in all the excitement of personal crises and dramas, of forgetting the substantive questions that prompted the protest in the first place.

He also draws on the Vatican document on the economy published last week, supporting its general conclusions and suggestions. He highlights three of those suggestions: 1) to decouple ordinary banking transactions from the more speculative ones; 2) recapitalizing banks with public money to jumpstart the global economy; 3) a tax on financial transactions to fund investment and development in the ‘real’ economy.

Williams concludes:

The Church of England and the Church Universal have a proper interest in the ethics of the financial world and in the question of whether our financial practices serve those who need to be served – or have simply become idols that themselves demand uncritical service.The best outcome from the unhappy controversies in the City of London’s Cathedral will be if the sort of issues raised by the Pontifical Council can focus a concerted effort to move the debate on and effect credible and hopeful change in the financial world.