Last Updated:Friday - 09/24/2010

Poor South will judge rich North

In more politically polarized times, some would call Honduran Cardinal Oscar Rodriguez Maradiaga a communist. Imagine! A Church leader daring to say, "Poor countries are the most effective and generous financiers of rich countries" (see Page 19).

But the Honduran cardinal is no communist; he is just telling it like it is. The gap between the rich and the poor is getting wider. A quarter of the world's nations have become poorer since the 1980s and one fifth of the people in the world live on less than $2 a day. Three families - Bill Gates, the Sultan of Brunei and the Waltons (who own Wal-Mart) - have a combined wealth of $180 billion. That equals the combined annual income of 600 million people living in the world's poorest countries.

Moreover, the wealth of the few is related to the poverty of the many - just as Rodriguez states. The structural adjustment policies of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund drain capital from poorer nations, replace subsistence agriculture with cash crops for export and shut down medical and social programs. They open the door to "liberalization" - a liberalism that allows European and North American-based corporations free rein to establish in poorer nations with no respect for the environment or the dignity of workers.

The growing desperation of the poor in Latin America drives up the crime rate as people will do anything to get food or money. The wealthy protect their wealth with death squads aimed at putting an end to the riff-raff. But as with most anti-crime programs that do not target root causes, these efforts only offend human dignity and make the problem worse.

Across Latin America, several governments have been elected that oppose the neoliberalism that is sucking them dry. Individually, these countries will never be able to resist the outside forces that have consistently undermined and helped overthrow governments that tried to build an economy that respects the dignity of the people. The hope is that if the continent en masse opts to go a different route, it may be able to overthrow the burden of debt and develop some measure of economic freedom.

All this is reminiscent of the hopeful words Pope John Paul spoke in Edmonton in 1984: "The poor South will judge the rich North. And the poor people and poor nations - poor in different ways, not only lacking food, but also deprived of freedom and other human rights - will judge those people who take these goods away from them, amassing to themselves the imperialistic monopoly of economic and political supremacy at the expense of others."

Yes, these words are hopeful, even with their strong tone of judgment. The world cannot sustain an ever-growing gap between the rich and poor, even if change leads to a more modest lifestyle for much of North America. God will not allow it. The people will not allow it.

Communists flourish where Christians fail to establish justice. Cuba, a once strongly Catholic nation that is now just about the only communist nation remaining, opted for communism because the Christians there failed to establish a just social system. Because of that missed opportunity, the Church in Cuba has been subjected to 45 years of repression.

Faith means acting for justice, rather than buying guns to put down those who are crying out for even a meagre existence. Too often, our faith has led Christians to opt for law and order at all costs, forgetting Jesus' words, "I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to eat."

The Second Vatican Council reminded us of many of our social obligations. Its most basic call was for the laity to permeate society with the spirit of the Gospel. We don't want theocracy, but we do want the Gospel. And the Gospel challenges us to use our talents to make a thousand flowers bloom. Putting the Gospel into action is the only real hope for a world where some have far too much and too many have nothing at all.

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