Catholic News Service reports the global economic crisis has contributed to a delay in Pope Benedict XVI’s new social encyclical, “not for financial reasons, but because the crisis has demonstrated how important and how complicated the topic is.”

If the encyclical “does not deal competently with the economic reality, it cannot be credible,” Pope Benedict said Feb. 26 in response to a question from a priest of the Diocese of Rome.

See our previous report on the Vatican’s position on tax havens.