The S-word "dissemination" enters the lexicon Pope

Vatican City (Reuters)-the ubiquitous term "spread"--a staple of financial news bulletins and one of the main measures of investor sentiment--now has penetrated even the lexicon of the papacy.

In his speech to diplomats from around the world, Pope Benedict XVI chastised those who think only of a "spread" in financial terms. He said there would be a simultaneous concern for a "spread"-the gap between rich and poor.

"If the financial differential between taxes index represents a source of concern, the growing differences between those few who grow increasingly rich and the many who grow desperately poor, should be a cause for dismay," the Pope said in his address diplomats at the Vatican on Monday.

"In a Word, it is refusing to be resigned to a ' spread ' in social welfare, while at the same time fighting one in the financial sector," he said.

During the financial crisis facing Italy for more than a year, barely a week has passed without a news report about spread see-sawing-the risk premium investors demand to hold Italian bonds rather than German equivalents safer.

Greater dissemination, higher interest payments are for Italy to finance the national debt. The spread was at 574 basis points about 14 months ago, when Prime Minister Mario Monti took office and is now approximately 279 basis points.

But in part of his speech that centered on financial issues-most of the address was devoted to hot spots like Syria the Pope said politicians had to treat people like numbers.

"Certainly, if justice is to be achieved, good economic models, though necessary, are not sufficient. Justice is achieved only when people are alone, "he said.

With regard to dissemination, Benedict, a world-renowned theologian who, by his own admission, is not good with numbers, is only the latest person to be unexpectedly touched by the S-Word.

Last month Monti said a television interviewer who speaks of bond spreads had filtered from power lunches of bankers and brokers of all the way to the nursery of his nephew.

"He was the youngest of three children of my daughter Home program and saw a news story on television and they were talking about the spread," Monti said. "And he said ' MOM, but I'm Spread".

It seems that the word has become so much a part of the common lexicon that his classmates gave him the nickname of "dissemination".

(Reporting by Philip Pullella, editing by Paul Casciato)

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