Fighting poverty to build peace

[Thornton]

FIGHTING POVERTY TO BUILD PEACE

This is the title of the Message Of His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI
For The Celebration Of The World Day Of Peace, 1 January 2009
http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/b...xvi_mes_20081208_xlii-world-day-peace_en.html

The document is 6 pages long and has 15 numbered paragraphs. Pope Benedict presents a reframe of the message from Pope Paul VI ? If you want peace, work for justice,? by concluding his message ?to fight poverty is to build peace.?
Some highlights:

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?

(paragraph 1)
Not surprisingly he argues that poverty is more than just the absence of things. From paragraph 2 ?

If it were a question of material poverty alone, then the social sciences, which enable us to measure phenomena on the basis of mainly quantitative data, would be sufficient to illustrate its principal characteristics. Yet we know that other, non-material forms of poverty exist which are not the direct and automatic consequence of material deprivation. For example, in advanced wealthy societies, there is evidence of marginalization, as well as affective, moral and spiritual poverty, seen in people whose interior lives are disoriented and who experience various forms of malaise despite their economic prosperity.

In paragraph 4 he notes the adverse impact of pandemic diseases on social structures?

Another area of concern has to do with pandemic diseases, such as malaria, tuberculosis and AIDS. Insofar as they affect the wealth-producing sectors of the population, they are a significant factor in the overall deterioration of conditions in the country concerned

Other areas highlighted are: the special problem of child poverty, the relationship between disarmament and the fight against poverty, the problem with distributions, especially of food, and the need for a common code of ethics.
from paragraph 8

Effective means to redress the marginalization of the world's poor through globalization will only be found if people everywhere feel personally outraged by the injustices in the world and by the concomitant violations of human rights

In paragraph 11 the fight against poverty must be more than simply redistribution of wealth?.

In a modern economy, the value of assets is utterly dependent on the capacity to generate revenue in the present and the future. Wealth creation therefore becomes an inescapable duty, which must be kept in mind if the fight against material poverty is to be effective in the long term.

In paragraphs 12 and 13 he again emphasizes a need for ethical principles to guide international economies and ultimately it is the individuals within the more powerful societies who have the greater responsibility

In today's globalized world, it is increasingly evident that peace can be built only if everyone is assured the possibility of reasonable growth: sooner or later, the distortions produced by unjust systems have to be paid for by everyone

What the fight against poverty really needs are men and women who live in a profoundly fraternal way and are able to accompany individuals, families and communities on journeys of authentic human development

And

?.gestures of creative solidarity, not only by ?giving from one's surplus?, but above all by ?a change of life- styles, of models of production and consumption, and of the established structures of power which today govern societies

Since the vast majority of the world population cannot stockpile its way through a pandemic, the people of the world are going to have to find a way to work together to survive. This message of world peace provides a road map for action.