Holy See calls for bailout money also for poor

(March 26, 2010) According to the Holy See, the countries who found bailout money to save financial institutions in the economic crisis should also have resources for helping the poor. Archbishop Celestino Migliore, the Holy See's permanent observer at the U.N. offices in New York, made the remark on Wednesday when he addressed a U.N. General Assembly session on financing for development. While lamenting that the financial crisis has frustrated efforts in poverty reduction and skyrocketed the numbers living in extreme poverty, Archbishop Migliore was optimistic that the economic catastrophe has "given rise to unprecedented international political cooperation,” including fiscal and monetary stimulus packages. However he noted that the crisis will continue unless the conditions that generated the crisis, such as fundamental inequalities in income and wealth among individuals and between nations, continue. He said that there is the moral imperative not to leave a whole generation, nearly a fifth of the world's population, in extreme poverty. Archbishop Migliore observed that “the same world that could find, within a few weeks, trillions of dollars to rescue banks and financial investment institutions, has not yet managed to find 1% of that amount for the needs of the hungry - starting with the $3 billion needed to provide meals to school children who are hungry or the $5 billion needed to support the emergency food fund of the World Food Program."