Vatican City, Jul 8, 2004 / 22:00 pm
In a letter to Cardinal Renato Martino president of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, the Holy Father called developed countries to solidarity with the poor by ending the debts of less developed countries.
The Pope’s letter was penned on the occasion of the Council-sponsored international seminar being held today in the Vatican on “Poverty and Globalization: Financing for Development, including the Millennium Development Goals.”
Assuring the participants of his “prayers and encouragement for this most important work,” the Pope noted that “the conditions of extreme poverty afflicting many millions of people are a cause of grave concern to the international community.”
“The Church, committed to a 'preferential option for the poor', naturally shares in that concern and strongly supports the Millennium goal of halving the number of people living in poverty by the year 2015,” he wrote.