“In a world that
is currently being redefined and redesigned in the hands of wealthy and
powerful social engineers, Africa is being increasingly pressured and prodded
to embrace the new and emergent decadent culture of death. Issues such as
abortion and contraception are being pushed as women's empowerment and
reproductive healthcare by many western donors who seem obsessively committed
to eliminating poverty through the
elimination of poor people.”
First of all, Western society: PLEASE keep your CRAP out of the developing nations. They have enough problems of their own without your propaganda and your lousy excuses for “healthcare.” Thank you.
First of all, Western society: PLEASE keep your CRAP out of the developing nations. They have enough problems of their own without your propaganda and your lousy excuses for “healthcare.” Thank you.
Secondly, I think
this article – specifically this quote – really provokes this question: What is poverty?
Here we see Nigerians
portrayed as a people renewed in their long-established commitment to honoring “the
blessing of married life, the beauty of womanhood and the inestimably precious
value of human life from the moment of conception.” Beautiful! And according to the UN, 68% of the
population of Nigeria lives on $1.25 or less a day, and at least 50% live in “multi-dimensional
poverty” (significant deprivations in education, physical/emotional health and
income). Not beautiful…
In contrast, we see the United States, a country not without economic problems, but certainly not known for widespread abject poverty (much more for reckless spending and ostentation). And yet the United States is a country so enamored with equality and freedom of choice that it writes immorality (even murder ) into its law books, celebrates things that ought to be lamented, and influences other countries to follow suit.
In contrast, we see the United States, a country not without economic problems, but certainly not known for widespread abject poverty (much more for reckless spending and ostentation). And yet the United States is a country so enamored with equality and freedom of choice that it writes immorality (even murder ) into its law books, celebrates things that ought to be lamented, and influences other countries to follow suit.
So who is poor?
Mother Teresa of
Calcutta, a nun who worked for many years in the slums of India, had this to
say:"When I pick up a person from the street, hungry, I give him a plate of rice, a piece of bread. But a person who is shut out, who feels unwanted, unloved, terrified, the person who has been thrown out of society - that spiritual poverty is much harder to overcome. And abortion, which often follows from contraception, brings a people to be spiritually poor, and that is the worst poverty and the most difficult to overcome.” (From her address to the UN, 1994)
"There are many in the world who are dying for a piece of bread but there are many more dying for a little love. The poverty in the West is a different kind of poverty -- it is not only a poverty of loneliness but also of spirituality. There's a hunger for love, as there is a hunger for God."
I write this not to minimalize material poverty, nor to make those from Western
society feel horrible or godless. The material poverty that exists in many "developing" nations (as well as in many places in "developed" countries) is very real, but it is no more real than this "hunger for love" and "poverty of spirituality" which, in fact, exists throughout the world. In many places, this poverty, both physical and spiritual, is squalid and extreme, and it is right and just that we work to eliminate this kind of poverty, wherever and whenever it is found. We should seek to feed the hungry and clothe the naked, to give hope to the hopeless, to instruct the ignorant, to “put love where there is no love” (St. John of the Cross). But we can do so with humility and true charity (rather than an attitude of superiority) when we recall the human poverty that we all have in common.
For, indeed, in every country and every culture throughout the world, man has the same fundamental need for love, companionship, and yes, God. Everywhere in the world, man stands before God as a beggar, naked and hungry, with empty hands, hoping to receive from Him what he needs. The more “stuff” that we have, the easier it is to forget this basic truth and depend on things or people other than God, imagining that these things belong to us and so they will always be there or we can always “get” more. But all of this “stuff” is in the hands of God. It is He who gives, and He can take away. We need to be reminded more often that everything is a gift, and we have nothing but what God gives or allows us to have, not even our very life and breath.
For, indeed, in every country and every culture throughout the world, man has the same fundamental need for love, companionship, and yes, God. Everywhere in the world, man stands before God as a beggar, naked and hungry, with empty hands, hoping to receive from Him what he needs. The more “stuff” that we have, the easier it is to forget this basic truth and depend on things or people other than God, imagining that these things belong to us and so they will always be there or we can always “get” more. But all of this “stuff” is in the hands of God. It is He who gives, and He can take away. We need to be reminded more often that everything is a gift, and we have nothing but what God gives or allows us to have, not even our very life and breath.
In the final analysis, there is no African or American, no upper class
or lower class, no liberal or conservative, no pro-choice or pro-life. These
are labels and categories created by man.
Before God, we are all only human, and to be human is
to be poor.
“Blessed are the poor in
spirit [those who are humble and recognize their poverty before God, and who are not attached to the things of this earth], for theirs is the kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 5:3).
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