The free market is the economic model that seems most consonant with biblical teaching, but the global economic crisis demonstrates that, without moral values, the market economy can implode, said Great Britain's chief rabbi.

Sir Jonathan Sacks traveled to the Vatican Dec. 12 to speak with Pope Benedict about united efforts to bring morality back to the marketplace and to deliver a major speech at the Pontifical Gregorian University.

Speaking to reporters after both events, Sacks said he and the pope focused "on principles we share about the need for moral markets and a people-centred approach to economics that His Holiness set out two years ago in his document, Caritas in Veritate (Charity in Truth)" and that the Jewish community shares.

"My real concern is that a clear voice be heard" in the midst of the global economic crisis, "a strong religious and moral voice," he said.