Cardinal O'Brien, who is the Archbishop of St Andrews and Edinburgh, has also branded David Cameron's opposition to a "Robin Hood tax" on financial institutions as "shameful".
In a BBC Scotland interview, the Cardinal said: "My message to David Cameron, as the head of our government, is to seriously think again about this Robin Hood tax, the tax to help the poor by taking a little bit from the rich.
"The poor have suffered tremendously from the financial disasters of recent years and nothing, really, has been done by the very rich people to help them.
"And I am saying to the prime minister, look, don't just protect your very rich colleagues in the financial industry, consider the moral obligation to help the poor of our country."
The UK government has opposed the unilateral introduction of a tax on financial transactions, arguing jobs and investment would be lost overseas. But the Cardinal said he believes that position is immoral because, he maintains it overlooks the needs of the poorest in society and those of the less well-off.
He said: "When I say poor, I don't (only) mean the abject poverty we see sometimes in our streets.
"I mean people who would have considered themselves reasonably well-off.
"People who have saved for their pensions and now realise their pension funds are no more.
"People who are considering giving up their retirement homes that they have been saving for, poverty affecting young couples and so on and so on.
"It is these people who have had to suffer because of the financial disasters of recent years and it is immoral. It is not moral, just to ignore them and to say 'struggle along', while the rich can go sailing along in their own sweet way." » | David Miller | BBC Scotland | Sunday, April 29, 2012
