Read a December 2011 story published in the Huffington Post about Pope Benedict XVI’s connection between the world economic crisis and the lack of religious faith.

Jim Balassone directs the business ethics programs of the Markkula Center for Applied Ethics at Santa Clara University in Silicon Valley. The center “brings scholars and business people together to address key ethical challenges and develop best practices for building ethical organizational cultures.”

Russell Reno is editor of First Things, a magazine published by the Institute on Religion and Public Life. He writes regularly on topics such as politics, the economy and religious freedom.

Susan Pace Hamill is a professor at the University of Alabama School of Law who specializes in tax law, business organizations and ethics. She is an advocate for Bible-based tax reform guided by the moral principles of Judeo-Christian ethics.

David Skeel is a law professor at the University of Pennsylvania and an evangelical Protestant. His courses include one on Christian perspectives on law.

Eugene McCarraher is a professor of humanities at Villanova University in Pennsylvania who writes widely on issues of the economy and justice.

The Rev. James Martin is a Jesuit priest and editor at large at America magazine in New York. His books include Building a Bridge: How the Catholic Church and the LGBT Community Can Enter Into a Relationship of Respect, Compassion and Sensitivity. 

The Rev. Albino F. Barrera is a Catholic priest and professor of theology and economics at Providence College in Providence, R.I. He is the author of the 2006 book God and the Evil of Scarcity: Moral Foundations of Economic Agency and the 2005 book Economic Compulsion and Christian Ethics.

Eduardo Peñalver is a professor at Cornell Law School in Ithaca, N.Y., where he teaches property, land use and a course on Catholic social thought and the law. He writes frequently about the economy and justice. His writing has appeared in The Washington Post and Chicago Tribune, and he is a blogger at Commonweal.