THEOLOGY 4:

• LIVING THE CHRISTIAN VISION IN THE CONTEMPORARY WORLD:

Harmony with the Human Community:

Dialogue with the Poor

UST – Institute of Religion

Social poverty includes people groups that are undervalued and have few rights. Oftentimes, social poverty is
easiest to spot when we look for people who have been silenced—they have no say and their rights are minimized.
They are often oppressed and thought of as insignificant.
Educational poverty. Hundreds of millions of children lack education and that creates lack of options. Education
equals knowledge, skills, and training, so when education is not available, families get trapped in the cycle of
poverty for generations. Steady employment and income can be difficult to find and a person’s basic needs can’t be
met. Lack of education also makes children more vulnerable to exploitation or abuse.
Health poverty. Health poverty may sound strange, but when a person is unhealthy it is difficult to hold down a job
and develop positive relationships. Physical and emotional health is the basis for our ability to work, play and be in
relationship with others.
Spiritual poverty can be summed up by the word “hopelessness.” Oftentimes, people in poverty struggle with
feelings of worthlessness and despair. Children are especially vulnerable to these emotions and the message of
despair poverty sends.
Environmental poverty. Physical surroundings play a large role in a person’s wellbeing. Environmental factors
include climate, housing options, land availability, water supply, insects that carry disease, water-born illnesses,
weather, drought, and much more.
Economic poverty. Half the world lives with a household income of less than $2.50 a day. This level of poverty is the
equal of slavery. People need an income level which allows them to purchase what they cannot make or grow
1. How could you work in your school to
make a stand against poverty? What
would you do first?
2. How could you get more people
involved in your efforts? Who in the
school's leadership would you talk to?
How would you do it?
3. How could you raise awareness
around the parish/ community? What
kinds of activities could you plan to
address the issue?
 Poverty remains the crucial challenge facing the
region. According to the World Bank, 783 million
extremely poor who live below the poverty line of
US$1.9 (HK$15) a day, about 33% live in South
Asia and 9% live in East Asia and the Pacific.

Poverty also includes the growing number of

urban poor brought about by globalization,
urbanization, materialism and secularism to
mention a few.
“Life for those living in poverty is
characterized by ill health, limited
access to clean water and hygienic
sanitation, poor quality housing,
hunger, illiteracy and premature
death. Such material deprivation in
developing countries has been the
impetus for international efforts to
eradicate poverty throughout the
second half of the last century.”
Matthew Clarke, Mission and Development: God’s Work or Good Works?
(New York: Continuum International Publishing Group, 2012), 1.
The Poor as Object of Evangelization
to being Subject of Evangelization
Church Teaching on Poverty.
 The poor are not
only recipients of
the Good News but
they are also
bearers of the
Gospel”
(CFC no. 1188).
Lk 14:43

• “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,

because he has anointed me to
proclaim freedom for the prisoners
and recovery of sight to the blind, to
set the prisoners free, to proclaim
the year Lord’s favor.” Further, Jesus
mentions that “I must proclaim the
good news of the kingdom of God to
the other town also because that is
why I was sent.”
“Preferential option for the
poor such as the migrants,
indigenous and tribal people,
women and children and the
defense of human life, health
care, education, peace making,
cancellation of debts, and
protection of environment.”
John Paul II, Apostolic Exhortation on Jesus Christ the
Savior and His Mission in Asia Ecclesia in Asia (6
November 1999), no. 32-41.
“The modern paradigm
of mission understands
salvation to include,
beside forgiveness of sin
and reconciliation with
God, liberation from all
forms of socio-political
oppression and
promotion of economic
well-being.”
Phan, In Our Tongues, 20.
“Mission must show
redemption to be an
option, both historically
and collectively and in
the personal lives of
individuals.”
Paulo Suess, “Missio Dei and the Project of
Jesus: The poor and the ‘Other” as Mediators
of the Kingdom of God and Protagonists of the
Churches,” International Review of Mission Vol.
XCII no. 367 (2003), 556.
EG #53

• Human beings are themselves considered

consumer goods to be used and then discarded.
We have created a “throw away” culture which is
now spreading. It is no longer simply about
exploitation and oppression, but something new.
Exclusion ultimately has to do with what it
means to be a part of the society in which we
live; those excluded are no longer society’s
underside or its fringes or its disenfranchised –
they are no longer even a part of it. The excluded
are not the “exploited” but the outcast, the
“leftovers”.
 The dignity of the human person is the
very foundation of a moral vision for
society.
• For Paul VI Evangelization is integral
liberation, “For the Church,
evangelizing means bringing the Good
News into all the strata of humanity,
and through its influence transforming
humanity from within and making it
new: "Now I am making the whole of
creation new." EN 18
Dialogue with the Poor
 “Mission will mean a dialogue with Asia’s poor, with its local
cultures, and with religious traditions.

Our faith in Christ, who became poor and was always close to
the poor and the outcast, is the basis of our concern for the
integral development of society’s most neglected members.”
Pope Francis, Evangelii Gaudium, no. 186.

The poor are dialogue partners in mission for they are, like
people of other faith and culture, instruments of evangelization.
“Neighborhoods function when
people are neither too close nor too
far, not overly involved in each
other’s lives but not indifferent from
each other.” Further, this
neighborliness, “involves face-to-
face relationships that go beyond
the faceless world of the political,
on the one hand, and the intimate
and private world of family and
friends, on the other hand. In other
words we are not condemned to
relating only either as friends or
enemies. We can also be neighbors.”
Pope Francis, Evangelii
Gaudium, no. 49.

• The Church must move outside where

the people needs them the most and
become, “a church bruised, hurting
and dirty because it has been out on
the streets, rather than a church
which is unhealthy from being
confined and from clinging to its own
security.”