OXFORD, England (CNS) -- The Brussels-based commission representing Catholic bishops from the European Union has called for a system of global financial governance in response to the spiraling crisis in the world's economic markets.

"Catholic social doctrine has always favored interdependence over purely nationalistic approaches," said Stefan Lunte, assistant to the secretary-general of the Commission of Bishops' Conferences of the European Community, known by the acronym COMECE.

"Governments are probably more receptive right now to stock-exchange movements than to Catholic teaching," he told Catholic News Service Oct. 13. "But they have reacted in a global way and they now need to go further."

Noting that "there'll be victims of this crisis who lose everything, from fund assets to the very money in their pockets," he called on governments to help those people.

"It's too easy to say they bear sole responsibility because they decided to invest in stocks and shares," he said of the victims.

"A key moral lesson of the crisis is that laws and regulations will never suffice to replace personal values such as responsibility and courage," Lunte said.

COMECE's Social Affairs Commission met in Paris Oct. 8-9 to discuss the financial meltdown and its social consequences.

Lunte said participants at the meeting had considered new initiatives for promoting Catholic social ideas in Europe, and participants agreed to coordinate initiatives at an inaugural European Social Conference in October 2009 in Gdansk, Poland.

A statement issued Oct. 10 after the Paris meeting said the financial upheaval risked spurring a wider crisis by disrupting social security and pension systems. The bishops called on EU governments to make "all possible efforts" to end the slump in confidence.

"The church's social teaching has long recognized the idea of global governance in order to bring justice, transparency and responsibility into the world's financial markets," the statement said. "Now the time has come to implement this social teaching. It is important for our governments, as well as for the EU institutions, to start caring for the situation of those citizens who, without being responsible, will nevertheless have to carry the social consequences."

© 2008 Catholic News Service/U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops