Pope Calls For Fund To Aid Poor Nations

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31330, 29 March 1967, Page 14

Pope Calls For Fund To Aid Poor Nations

(N.Z.P.A.-Reuter —Copyright > VATICAN CITY, March 28. Pope Paul today called for a world fund for underdeveloped nations, to be created with money from arms expenditure of industrialised powers.

In an encyclical—a letter to the world’s 550 million Roman Catholics through the bishops—the Pope said expenditure prompted by ostentation and the arms race constituted “an intolerable scandal” in the face of man's suffering. The Pope called for aid for the weak and the hungry, equity in trade relations and universal charity. He said: “To wage war on misery and to struggle against injustice is to promote, along

with improved conditions, the human and spiritual progress of all men and, therefore, the common good of humanity.” For this there must be an end to isolation and the creation of an effective world authority, he said. Work Urgent “We are all united in this enterprise. We have desired to remind all men how crucial is the present moment, how urgent the work to be done. “The hour for action has now sounded. At stake are the survival of so many innocent children and for so many families overcome by misery, the access to conditions fit for human beings.”

The Pope went on: “At stake are the peace of the world and the future of civilisation. It is time for all men and all peoples to face up to their responsibilities.”

He said rich nations had a duty of human solidarity towards developing nations. No-one had the right to ignore the duties that world hunger imposed upon him: However, the Pope said, it was not enough to eliminate hunger and reduce poverty. A world must be built where every man without exception “can live a fully human life,” he said. Rich nations must bear the cost and their superfluous wealth should be placed at the service of poor nations. “Otherwise the continued greed of the rich nations could only provoke the judgment of God and the wrath of the poor with consequences no-one can foretell,” he said. “The very life of poor nations, civil peace in developing countries and world peace itself are at stake,” the Pope said.

He called for a closing of the gap between rich and poor nations and said “the economic dictatorship” of free competition in trade should be avoided. Trade Freedom “Freedom of trade is fair only if it is subject to the demands of social justice.” International agreements will be the means of bringing this about, he said. Among obstacles that must be overcome were nationalism, which isolated peoples from their tfue God, and racism, which attacked inviolable human rights. The 69-year-old pontiff said the world was sick with egoism. It would recover if it returned to the exercise of brotherhood among individuals and among peoples, he added.

The Pope underlined the urgency of the work to be done.

“We must make haste, too many men are suffering.” He said the temptation to violence was ever present for them. But revolution, which was ruinous, must be condemned, except when the necessity for it was inescapable.