Pope challenges nations to keep commitments to U.N. goals for poor

Published: 2005-09-12

CASTEL GANDOLFO, Italy (CNS) -- Pope Benedict XVI challenged participants at the U.N. World Summit to fulfill their previous commitments to help the poor, sick and hungry. The pope, speaking at his Sunday blessing Sept. 11, said he was sending Cardinal Angelo Sodano, the Vatican secretary of state, to attend the summit in New York Sept. 14-16. The summit's agenda includes world peace, human rights, development aid and U.N. internal reforms. "I express my fervent hope that the governments united there may find appropriate solutions to reach the great goals that have been set previously, in the spirit of harmony and generous solidarity," the pope told pilgrims at his summer villa outside Rome. The Vatican has been a strong supporter of the Millennium Development Goals of 2000, in which world leaders laid out a timetable to cut global poverty in half by 2015. To meet the goal, richer countries would increase development aid to 0.7 percent of their gross domestic product.

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