Once again, as the new year begins, I want to extend good wishes for peace to people everywhere. With this Message I would like to propose a reflection on the theme: Fighting Poverty to Build Peace. Back in 1993, my venerable Predecessor Pope John Paul II, in his Message for the World Day of Peace that year, drew attention to the negative repercussions for peace when entire populations live in poverty. Poverty is often a contributory factor or a compounding element in conflicts, including armed ones. In turn, these conflicts fuel further tragic situations of poverty. “Our world”, he wrote, “shows increasing evidence of another grave threat to peace: many individuals and indeed whole peoples are living today in conditions of extreme poverty. The gap between rich and poor has become more marked, even in the most economically developed nations. This is a problem which the conscience of humanity cannot ignore, since the conditions in which a great number of people are living are an insult to their innate dignity and as a result are a threat to the authentic and harmonious progress of the world community” [1].
In this context, fighting poverty requires attentive consideration of the complex phenomenon of globalization. This is important from a methodological standpoint, because it suggests drawing upon the fruits of economic and sociological research into the many different aspects of poverty. Yet the reference to globalization should also alert us to the spiritual and moral implications of the question, urging us, in our dealings with the poor, to set out from the clear recognition that we all share in a single divine plan: we are called to form one family in which all ”“ individuals, peoples and nations ”“ model their behaviour according to the principles of fraternity and responsibility.
I think that the Pope misleads a bit.
It is not poverty that causes war and violence but rather the love of other’s wealth that is the root of this evil.
It seems that Jesus and the Pope are a bit out of sync.
Don
Jam 4:1 -5 From whence [come] wars and fightings among you? [come they] not hence, [even] of your lusts that war in your members? Ye lust, and have not: ye kill, and desire to have, and cannot obtain: ye fight and war, yet ye have not, because ye ask not. Ye ask, and receive not, because ye ask amiss, that ye may consume [it] upon your lusts. Ye adulterers and adulteresses, know ye not that the friendship of the world is enmity with God? whosoever therefore will be a friend of the world is the enemy of God. Do ye think that the scripture saith in vain, The spirit that dwelleth in us lusteth to envy?
#1,
It was the impoverishment of the German people after World War I which provided the fertile soil into which Hitler sewed the seeds of his atrocious philosophy. Poverty indeed provides the conditions which lead to war.
2. IchabodKunkleberry:
Then what do you say of the many poor people in NAZI Germany who did not follow Hitler?
It is in poverty that our real charactor is discovered. Poverty is no excuse for anarchy nor tyranny nor even rebellion.
Don
I don’t think HH is making an either/or case.