Fighting Poverty to Build Peace -- Part 10

Quotes from the Message of His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI

for the Celebration of the World Day of Peace

Fighting Poverty To Build Peace

January 1, 2009

Wealthy societies suffer from moral and spiritual poverty.

“Non-material forms of poverty exist which are not the direct and automatic consequence of material deprivation. For example, in advanced wealthy societies, there is evidence of marginalization, as well as affective, moral and spiritual poverty, seen in people whose interior lives are disoriented and who experience various forms of malaise despite their economic prosperity. On the one hand, I have in mind what is known as “moral underdevelopment”, and on the other hand the negative consequences of ‘superdevelopment’” (no. 2).