If Occupy Wall Street protesters are concerned with ramped-up police efforts to dissolve the camps and halt their movement, they’ve got some Holy allies.

Cardinal Peter Kodwo Appiah Turkson, a senior Vatican official, made the Pope’s views clear this week.

”Do people at a certain time have a right to say: ‘Do business differently, look at the way you are doing business because this is not leading to our welfare, to our good?'” he asked. “Can people demand this of the people of Wall Street? I think people can and should be able to.”

The statement comes after the Vatican called for new financial rules over the past few years, including what is likely to emerge as a key demand of the protesters: a tax on financial transacations.