Solidarity Key to Globalization

Benedict XVI considers solidarity the key to turn globalization into an ally, not an enemy, in the struggle against poverty.

"It is an opportunity," he continued, "to be weaving a network of understanding and solidarity among peoples, without reducing everything to merely mercantile or pragmatic exchanges, in which there will also be room for the human problems of every place and, in particular, of emigrants forced to leave their land in search of better conditions of life, which sometimes entails serious consequences in the personal, family and social realms.

"The Church, considering the exercise of charity as an essential dimension of her being and mission, develops in an abnegated way valuable care of the needy of any condition or provenance, and collaborates in this task with the different public entities and institutions in order that no one who is in need of support will lack a friendly hand to help him overcome his difficulty."

The Pope added that the Church "offers her personal and material resources, but especially human closeness which tries to rescue from the saddest poverty, loneliness and abandonment, knowing that love, in its purity and gratuitousness, is the best testimony of the God in whom we believe and who impels us to love."