Information service of the Pontifical Mission Societies since 1927
Vatican City (Agenzia Fides) - The Message of His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI for the 42nd World Day of Peace on January 1 2009 will focus on the theme "Combating poverty. "The theme chosen by the Holy Father", says a Holy See press office communique issued today, "highlights the need for the human family to find an urgent response to the serious question of poverty, a problem which is not only material but also and above all moral and spiritual". The communique recalls how in a Message addressed to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation on 2 June the Pope denounced the scandal of world poverty in the following terms: "Poverty and malnutrition are not a simple fatality, provoked by adverse environmental situations or by disastrous natural calamities. ... Purely technical and economic considerations must not prevail over the duties of justice towards people suffering from hunger".
The communique continues: "The scandal of poverty reveals the inadequacy of current systems of human coexistence in promoting the realisation of the common good. This imposes the need for reflection on the deep roots of material poverty and, consequently, also on spiritual poverty which makes man indifferent to the suffering of others. The answer, then, is to be sought first and foremost in the conversion of the human heart to the God of charity, so as to achieve poverty of spirit in the terms of the Message of salvation announced by Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount: 'Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven". (Mt 5,3). (S.L.) (Agenzia Fides 2/7/2008)
