CNS STORY: Pope calls for greater effort to reduce poverty

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POPE-AUDIENCE Oct-17-2007 (410 words) With photos. xxxi

Pope calls for greater effort to reduce poverty

By Cindy Wooden
Catholic News Service

VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- The extreme poverty in which millions of the world's people live is an offense to their human dignity, Pope Benedict XVI said at his weekly general audience.

The pope marked the U.N.'s International Day for the Eradication of Poverty Oct. 17, just moments before he announced the names of the 23 churchmen he would induct into the College of Cardinals Nov. 24.

Focusing on the problem of poverty, the pope said, "The disparity between rich and poor is becoming more evident and disturbing, even within the most economically advanced nations."

According to the United Nations, 980 million people live in "extreme poverty," struggling to survive on less than $1 per day.

"This worrying situation calls on the conscience of humanity because the condition in which a great number of people live offends the dignity of the human person and consequently compromises the authentic and harmonious progress of the world community," Pope Benedict told the estimated 30,000 people at his general audience.

The pope asked people to "multiply efforts to eliminate the causes of poverty and the tragic consequences that derive from it."

In his main audience address, Pope Benedict spoke about the life and ministry of St. Eusebius of Vercelli, a fourth-century Italian bishop and theologian.

The pope said St. Eusebius, a strong defender of the church's teaching that Jesus Christ was fully human and fully divine, was a strong evangelizer and a model bishop, concerned for all the people of his diocese, whether Catholic or not.

"The bishop of Vercelli governed his diocese with the witness of his life," fasting, praying and living in community with his priests, the pope said.

The bishop and his priests "shared the problems of their fellow citizens and did so in a credible way, while at the same time cultivating a different citizenship, that of heaven," he said.

Pope Benedict said St. Eusebius managed to create a Christian community in which he and his faithful learned to live in the world, but not to follow the shifting trends of the world. They knew, he said, that earth was not their final dwelling place.

The pope ended his remarks about the saint by quoting an exhortation he had written to the people of Vercelli, encouraging them to "make every effort to preserve the faith, to live in harmony and to be constant in the practice of prayer."

END

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