Rich Nations "Plundered" The Third World

Pope Says Rich Nations "Plundered" Third World

Reuters
Wednesday 04 April 2007
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Vatican City - Rich countries bent on power and profit have mercilessly "plundered and sacked" Africa and other poor regions and exported to them the "cynicism of a world without God," Pope Benedict writes in his first book.

... In the 400-page book, called "Jesus of Nazareth," the Pope offers a modern application of Jesus's parable of the Good Samaritan, who stopped to help a man who had been robbed by thieves when others, including a priest, had not.

"The current relevance of the parable is obvious," the Pope writes.

"If we apply it to the dimensions of globalised society today, we see how the populations of Africa have been plundered and sacked and this concerns us intimately," the Pope says in his book, which comes out on April 16, his 80th birthday.

He drew a link between the lifestyle of people in the developed world and the dire conditions of people in Africa.

Stripped Naked

"We see how our lifestyle, the history that involved us, has stripped them naked and continues to strip them naked," he writes.

"Instead of giving them God,...and welcoming in their traditions all that is precious and great ... we have brought them the cynicism of a world without God, where only power and profit count ..." he writes.

The Pope says his comments were valid for other regions apart from Africa.

In what could be seen as a strong self-criticism of the Roman Catholic Church, whose missionary activities often went hand-in-glove with colonialism, the Pope writes:

"We destroyed (their) moral criteria to the point that corruption and a lust for power devoid of scruples have become obvious."