Fight Poverty Build Peace

(11 Dec 08 - RV) Pope Benedict XVI today released his Message to mark the World Day of Peace on January 1^st of the coming year.
The message focuses on the need for and the ways to build peace by working to eradicate poverty.


Titled, “Fighting Poverty to Build Peace”, the Message of Pope Benedict XVI to mark the World Day of Peace, 2009 calls on every disciple of Christ and every person of good will to expand their hearts to meet the needs of the poor and to take whatever practical steps are possible in order to help them.
The 15 paragraphs of the Message are concerned with the practical wisdom necessary to understand what is needed in a given situation, and to design effective ways of supplying the need.
The Message makes it clear, however, that supplying needs is not always, and never merely, a matter of giving hand-outs:
“It cannot be denied that policies which place too much emphasis on assistance underlie many of the failures in providing aid to poor countries. Investing in the formation of people and developing a specific and well-integrated culture of enterprise would seem at present to be the right approach in the medium and long term.”
The Holy Father goes on to call for the fostering of co-operative strategies:
“The fight against poverty requires cooperation both on the economic level and on the legal level, so as to allow the international community, and especially poorer countries, to identify and implement coordinated strategies to deal with the problems discussed above, thereby providing an effective legal framework for the economy. Incentives are needed for establishing efficient participatory institutions, and support is needed in fighting crime and fostering a culture of legality.”
If the The Pope’s Message for the 2009 World Day of Peace stresses the need for practical thinking to win over ideological commitment in the fight to defeat poverty, it also emphasizes the primacy of the human person and of the human community over the systems of production and exchange in which people participate…
If the poor are to be given priority, then there has to be enough room for an ethical approach to economics on the part of those active in the international market, an ethical approach to politics on the part of those in public office, and an ethical approach to participation capable of harnessing the contributions of civil society at local and international levels. International agencies themselves have come to recognize the value and advantage of economic initiatives taken by civil society or local administrations to promote the emancipation and social inclusion of those sectors of the population that often fall below the threshold of extreme poverty and yet are not easily reached by official aid. The history of twentieth-century economic development teaches us that good development policies depend for their effectiveness on responsible implementation by human agents and on the creation of positive partnerships between markets, civil society and States. Civil society in particular plays a key part in every process of development, since development is essentially a cultural phenomenon, and culture is born and develops in the civil sphere.
The President of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, Cardinal Renato Rafaele Martino held a Press Conference on Thursday at the Press Office of the Holy See.
He says the Message is at once timely, innovative and firmly rooted in the social doctrine of the Church.
The 1^st the World Day of Peace was held on New Year’s Day, 1968, and Pope Paul VI that year began the tradition of delivering a Message to the Church and the World to mark the occasion – a tradition Pope John Paul II and Pope Benedict XVI have continued during their own pontificates.