Catholic World News News Feature
Short-sighted speculation harms economy, endangers peace, Pope writes in World Peace Day message December 11, 2008
In his annual message for the World Day of Peace, Pope Benedict XVI emphasizes the connection between world peace and economic development, and argues that in the global economy, short-sighted pursuit of profit must give way to a system guided by solidarity.
The 17-page papal message, entitled "Fighting Poverty to Build Peace," was released by the Vatican today, at a Roman press conference chaired by Cardinal Renato Martino, the president of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace. The message will be formally delivered to the Vatican diplomatic corps on January 1, 2009, as the Church observes the annual World Day of Prayer for Peace.
[For the full text, see Fighting Poverty to Build Peace.]
Following the example set by Pope John Paul II in 1993, when he devoted his annual message to considerations about poverty, Pope Benedict "shows us how peace and the fight against poverty intersect," Cardinal Martino told reporters. In his message the Holy Father observes that poverty can be both a cause and an effect of warfare. "Poverty is often a contributory factor or a compounding element in conflicts, including armed ones," he writes. "In turn, these conflicts fuel further tragic situations of poverty."
In a stinging analysis of the current turmoil in the word's financial markets, the Pope writes that the international economy is "experiencing the negative repercussions of a system of financial dealings-- both national and global-- based upon very short-term thinking, which aims at increasing the value of financial operations and concentrates on the technical management of various forms of risk." He argues that much of the financial world has been "completely turned in on itself, lacking any long-term consideration of the common good." That approach, he said, "becomes dangerous for everyone, even for those who benefit when the markets perform well."
To guide a healthy economy in an era of globalization, the Pope says that world leaders should recognize the wisdom of promoting and protecting the common good. Such an approach, he writes, would entail a genuine concern for the needs of the poor.
The Pope argues that material needs are not the only-- indeed not always the most important-- factor in causing poverty. Gross inequalities in the distribution of resources, barriers to markets, and misguided government policies aggravate the problem. When adequate resources are brought to the problem, he says, major inroads can be made quickly to alleviate human needs.
To illustrate his argument he points to the problem of hunger, which is "characterized not so much by a shortage of food, as by difficulty in gaining access to it and by different forms of speculation." He says that policies which ignore or marginalize the poor must be changed, and calls for a global effort toward that end. Pope Benedict writes: "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."
The Pope makes it clear that in writing about poverty, he is concerned not only with material shortages but also with other indications of deprivation. He observes that "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." He suggests that economic "superdevelopment" has increased the risks of "moral underdevelopment."
The Pontiff denounces the attitude that has led some international leaders to suggest aggressive policies to reduce human population, on the mistaken assumption that human beings themselves are the cause of poverty. The result, the Holy Father notes, has been a rash of policies promoting aggressive family-planning measures, including abortion. "The extermination of millions of unborn children, in the name of the fight against poverty, actually constitutes the destruction of the poorest of all human beings," the Pope notes.
Similarly, the Pope notes that "pandemic diseases, such as malaria, tuberculosis, and AIDS" require an urgent global response. But he notes that some poor countries, in their battle against those diseases, "find themselves held hostage, when they try to address them, by those who make economic aid conditional upon the implementation of anti-life policies."
