Vatican City (Fides) - "Brazil presents the paradox of possessing a level of industrial scientific-technological development equal, in certain stages, to that of the industrialised world, although it is forced to live with chronic economic marginalisation of broad social sectors…development plans applied in the 20th century…failed to eliminate poverty and misery or even to reduce the disparity of riches and income, which has recently increased." This analysis on the situation in Brazil today was made by Pope John Paul II when he received the Brazilian Bishops in the Vatican on their ad limina visit on November 26. The Holy Father asked the Bishops to encourage people to find new solutions filled with the Christian spirit, reminding them that "a vision of economic and social problems drawn from the point of view of the social teaching of the Church, always considers things in virtue of the dignity of the human person, which transcends the simply economic factor". See Pope's address to the Bishops of Brazil in Portuguese. (SL) (Fides Service 27/11/2002)