International Scrooges? Some feel wealthy countries too miserly

Published: 2005-01-07

VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Not even Bob Cratchit accused his miserly employer, Ebenezer Scrooge, of being a tightwad. But this Christmas season, a high-ranking U.N. official publicly complained of chronic penny-pinching by the world's wealthiest countries. Just days after a deadly earthquake and subsequent tsunamis left tens of thousands of people dead or missing and obliterated countless villages in a dozen countries along the Indian Ocean, U.N. emergency coordinator Jan Egeland had this to say about how parsimonious "the haves" have become. "It is beyond me why we are so stingy. Really. Christmas time should remind many Western countries at least, how rich we have become," he told reporters at the end of December. While Egeland praised the generous outpouring of support for the tsunami victims in Asia and East Africa, he later clarified his criticism by saying the Western world has failed and continues to fail miserably in helping the world's poor when there are no emergencies, an assessment echoed by some church officials. Cardinal Renato Martino, head of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, called the huge flow of aid money after the tsunami disaster "a positive sign." But he criticized the usual lack of attention paid to the "over 1 billion human beings whose lives are constantly marked by extreme need."

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