Vatican: 'Poverty of imagination' hinders efforts to end real poverty

Published: 2004-06-30

UNITED NATIONS (CNS) -- The Vatican said June 29 that overcoming world poverty is hindered by "a certain poverty of imagination among the more fortunate peoples of the world." Addressing the U.N. Economic and Social Council, or ECOSOC, during its session on least-developed countries, the Vatican also blamed "the vicious cycle of material poverty" in those countries, but also a lack of empathy on the part of others and "an inability at times to recognize the common humanity" of all of the world's people. The statement was presented by Mary Ann Glendon, a Harvard law professor who headed the Vatican delegation to the ECOSOC meeting. Glendon, whose earlier services to the Vatican included leading its delegation at the 1995 Beijing Conference on Women, was named by Pope John Paul II in March as president of the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences, making her the first woman to head one of the major pontifical academies. ECOSOC was holding its annual substantive session at U.N. headquarters in New York June 28-July 23. The meeting opened with a review of goals set at a 2001 meeting in Brussels, Belgium, for eradicating poverty in the 50 least-developed countries.

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