448. Many people have scarcely the bare necessities.

YOUCAT Catechism + Catechism of the Catholic Church Lesson 448

Ave Maria series

Are poverty and underdevelopment an inescapable fate?

God has entrusted to us a rich earth that could offer all men sufficient food and living space. Yet there are whole regions, countries, and continents in which many people have scarcely the bare necessities for living.  There are complex historical causes for this division in the world, but it (can be remedied).  The rich countries have the moral obligation to help the underdeveloped nations out of poverty through developmental aid and the establishment of just economic and commercial conditions.

 

A homeless man in Boston asking for human kindness. …..448

There are more than a billion people living on this earth who must make do with less than one dollar per day.  They suffer from a lack of food and clean drinking water; most of them have no access to education or medical care.  It is estimated that more than 25,000 people die every day from malnutrition.  Many of them are children.

Economy of Communion” was developed so that one day we will be able to give this example: a people in which no one is needy and no one is poor.”  --Chiara Lubich (1920-2008; foundress of the Focolare Movement), 2001

“The hungry nations of the world cry out to the peoples blessed with abundance.  And the Church, cut to the quick by this cry, asks each and every man to hear his brother’s plea and answer it a lovingly.  –St. Paul VI, (1897-1978), Encyclical “Populorum Progessio”

People  Poverty homeless man