In today's industrialized countries people are dominated by the frenzied race for possessing material

goods. The consumer society makes the gap separating rich from poor even more obvious, and the
uncontrolled search for a comfortable life risks blinding people to the needs of others. In order to promote
the social, cultural, spiritual and also economic welfare of all members of society, it is therefore absolutely
essential to stem the unrestrained consumption of earthly goods and to control the creation of artificial
needs. Moderation and simplicity ought to become the criteria of our daily lives. The quantity of goods
consumed by a tiny fraction of the world population produces a demand greater than available resources. A
reduction of this demand constitutes a first step in alleviating poverty, provided that it is accompanied by
effective measures to guarantee a fair distribution of the world's wealth.

In this regard, the Gospel invites believers not to accumulate the goods of this passing world: "Do not lay up
for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust consume and where thieves break in and steal, but
lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven" (Mt 6:19-20). This is a duty intrinsic to the Christian vocation, no
less than the duty of working to overcome poverty; and it is also a very effective means for succeeding in
this task.

Evangelical poverty is very different from socio-economic poverty. While the latter has harsh and often tragic
characteristics, since it is experienced as a form of coercion, evangelical poverty is chosen freely by the
person who intends in this way to respond to Christ's admonition: "Whoever of you does not renounce all
that he has cannot be my disciple" (Lk 14:33).Such evangelical poverty is the source of peace, since
through it the individual can establish a proper relationship with God, with others and with creation. The life
of the person who puts himself in this situation thus witnesses to humanity's absolute dependence on God
who loves all creatures, and material goods come to be recognized for what they are: a gift of God for the
good of all. Evangelical poverty is something that transforms those who accept it. They cannot remain
indifferent when faced with the suffering of the poor; indeed, they feel impelled to share actively with God
his preferential love for them (cf. Encyclical Letter Sollicitudo rei socialis, n. 42). Those who are poor in the
Gospel sense are ready to sacrifice their resources and their own selves so that others may live. Their one
desire is to live in peace with everyone, offering to others the gift of Jesus' peace (cf. Jn 14:27).

This gift overflows into creation and is fully revealed in the Incarnation of the Word and in his redemptive
death (again, the Christological aspect). (VC 21c; cf. 22b) In this way, religious: imitating Christs poverty
(Christological aspect), they profess (apostolic-prophetic aspect) that he is the Son who receives everything
from the Father, and gives everything back to the Father in loveIf we dont arrive at discovering and rooting
ourselves on this base, we are still outside the Gospel; we have not understood anything about life (and it
happens!, given that in our culture we tend to understand and judge things from the external, empirical,
material point of view). And it is from this then, that also the external, apostolic, witness and prophetic
significance of our poverty springs. In fact, before a society in which there is: a materialism which craves
possessions, heedless of the needs and sufferings of the weakest, and lacking any concern for the balance
of natural resources (the ecological problem) (VC 89a), our poverty appears as a charism of simplicity,
detachment, solidarity and fraternity with all, beginning with the most needy, the option for the poor and
the promotion of justice (VC 82). Charism urges us to have even a preferential love not exclusive for
the poor (VC 82, 90). The poor people, in fact, become the first not the only one after Him who is the
true First and Only: God. And all this, says the exhortation again, the religious lives with: unbounded
generosity and love, and this all the more so in a world which risks being suffocated in the whirlpool of the
ephemeral. (VC 105a)

A charism that demands to be lived as Jesus lived it (Christological aspect): in humility, simplicity, solidarity,
and hospitality, overcoming every form of exploitation, of becoming bourgeois (capitalistic) and
consumerism. This said, however, lets look more concretely what poverty meant in Christ and what,
consequently, it must also mean in us. Finally, in the fourth point, we will draw some practical
consequences.

a) We have to see the significance of our poverty in the context of Christian poverty in general; and this is
none other than the representation, prolongation and completion of the story of Christs poverty.In effect,
this fundamental poverty consists in the voluntary renunciation, for love of the Father and human beings
who have become his brothers in flesh, of his previous divine situation and its prerogatives: his becoming
like us, and therefore poor, limited, subject to the human creaturely reality, in a flesh similar to that of
sin(Rm 8:3), made inferior to the angels (Heb 2:9), in all things similar to his brothers (Heb2:17), having
himself been tried in all things, like us, except in sin (Heb 4.15)12. Which signifies: subject to the poverty of
physical pain, of the lack of goods, to having to grow and learn humanly (Lk 2:40, 52), to the passion and
death; subject to the poverty of the psychic pain of misunderstanding, of not succeeding in making himself
understood and accepted, of lies (Lk 11:15; Jn 6:15), of calumny, insults Poverty which means
renunciation to the divine powers in his favor, as appears in the temptations (Mt 4:3, 6, 9), at Gethsemane
(Mt 26:53-54), before Caiphas (MT 26:63-74), and Pilate (Jn 18:37), on the cross (Mt 27:42-43): a constant
provocation to make use of the divine powers in his favor which he had renounced! Even, once he had died,
when he could no longer defend himself, he is deprived of the reason for which he had lived, and accused
of what he had always refused (Jn 6:15), that is the political motive: Pilate wrote out a notice and had it
affixed to the cross; it ran: Jesus the Nazarene, King of the Jews. (Jn 19:19) They wanted to destroy and
humiliate him completely and forever, depriving him even of the possibility of vindicating his cause. The
Father, however, will vindicate him, raising him up.First of all, poverty is an internal reality, an attitude and an
interiorly lived reality (cf Mt 5:3), fruit and consequence of faith. Concretely, one starts off from accepting
God in Christ as center and motivation of ones life; that is, the primacy of God over everything and
everyone. And, 9consequently, total donation to God in Christ, as the only One necessaryIn second place,
Gospel poverty is availability in behalf of the Kingdom. This is only the consequence of what has just been
said. And the practical stance of service, as well as external poverty, will be nothing other than the
consequences of that interior attitude of freedom and availability to God and ones sisters and brothers, as
Christ. In fact, in imitation of him (cf Phil 2:7), the religious divests herself, empties herself, detaches herself
from everything (persons: family-celibacy, goods: material poverty, and autonomy: obedience) for the
purpose of remaining open and available to God and the sisters and brothers. In this regard, she first of all
makes her own person (the greatest good she has) available; she gives herself unreservedly, she becomes
everything to everyone. (1 Cor 9:19-23) Thus she becomes a visible representation, in history, of the total
donation of Christ to his Father and humankind. Poverty, therefore, is a donation, as life of charity, and not
as pleasure of emptiness, as contempt for someone or something, or as simple asceticism. Asceticism,
surely, will be necessary, but as an indispensable help to overcome ones selfishness and to promote
communion. It has already been said, but lets repeat it: poverty means sharing of goods. Let us remember
that the ideal of the Jerusalem community, paradigm of Christian poverty, was not the lack of goods, but the
sharing of what there was. (cf. Acts 2:42-47: 4:32; 5:16) For the Christian, as a matter of fact, goods are not
an evil, but a good to be shared, a means for living and expressing communion. In the religious this means
a double type of sharing and a double type of goods: 1) a sharing within the group or community, among its
members, that is, fraternal life (VFC 44e-h) and toward the external; that is, the apostolic mission (VFC 59);
2) and two types of goods: the material and human goods, and the spiritual goods. Each person gives what
she can give, welcomes the other as she is and is disposed to receive. Fraternal life and the specific
mission are therefore none other than manifestations of evangelical poverty.
Then, regarding external poverty, this becomes secondary and inevitable at the same time. Secondary,
because the important thing is interior poverty; inevitable because the human being is a unique reality and,
therefore, simplicity of life and austerity become an indispensable help for rendering interior poverty
possible and credible. That is why, even though secondary, it is the testbed (history shows that!) of interior
and theological poverty. When we are poor, it cannot fail to be reflected in how much we have.

CHURCH FOR POOR

When we talk about a church of the poor, we are not talking about some small minority but about the vast
majority of Christians in the world today. It is First World Christians, those of us who are privileged and
comfortable, who are a small minority in the Catholic Church. The preferential option for the poor is simply
the attempt to read the gospel and to understand God from the perspective and through the eyes of the
poor. Not because the poor themselves are any better than the rich, but simply because God is identified in
a special way with the poor in the person of Jesus Christ. Making a preferential option for the poor means
that in one way or another we enter into solidarity with the marginalized, those in our world who, in the
words of Jon Sobrino, cannot take life for granted, those who do not know if they will have food on their
tables tomorrow.

We all know that the poor need food and clothing, decent education and good jobs, but what about their
spiritual and cultural needs? Can a church building serve the poor spiritually through the material? It is an
expensive proposition, but I would suggest the answer is yes, which leads us to the question: How to design
a church for the poor?

First, consider what a church for the poor is not: It is not a church for ascetic monks, who take a vow of
poverty, spend their days in prayer, and prefer the simple beauty of the cloister to the richness and chaos of
the world. On the contrary, a church for the poor should be seen as a place for full-blooded laypeople who
need to be drawn into the building through material and tactile means. It is a respite from the world that
offers a glimpse of the heavenly Jerusalem to those living in Nineveh

A church for the poor is not only for the poor, it is for allboth rich and poor, proud and humble. Are there
iconographical elements that might draw the needy and inspire others to give? Perhaps images of poverty
in the lives of holy saints such as Francis, Dominic, Mother Teresa, and many others. Along with these, a
church for the poor should have murals, stained glass, and side altars portraying the centrality of poverty in
the life of Christ: The king is born in a stable, and His family must immigrate to a foreign land to survive. He
displays compassion for the poor, the leper, the widow, and the mother. He raises the dead. He lives as a
mendicant, reliant on the generosity of others for food and lodging (from both priests and tax collectors). He
introduces many parableslike the widows mite or the prodigal sonthat speak powerfully to all those in
hunger and poverty.

RIGHTS
What are human rights?
Human rights are rights inherent to all human beings, whatever our nationality, place of residence, sex,
national or ethnic origin, colour, religion, language, or any other status. We are all equally entitled to our
human rights without discrimination. These rights are all interrelated, interdependent and indivisible.
Universal human rights are often expressed and guaranteed by law, in the forms of treaties, customary
international law , general principles and other sources of international law. International human rights law
lays down obligations of Governments to act in certain ways or to refrain from certain acts, in order to
promote and protect human rights and fundamental freedoms of individuals or groups.
Universal and inalienable
The principle of universality of human rights is the cornerstone of international human rights law. This
principle, as first emphasized in the Universal Declaration on Human Rights in 1948, has been reiterated in
numerous international human rights conventions, declarations, and resolutions. The 1993 Vienna World
Conference on Human Rights, for example, noted that it is the duty of States to promote and protect all
human rights and fundamental freedoms, regardless of their political, economic and cultural systems.

Human rights are inalienable. They should not be taken away, except in specific situations and according to
due process. For example, the right to liberty may be restricted if a person is found guilty of a crime by a
court of law.

Interdependent and indivisible

All human rights are indivisible, whether they are civil and political rights, such as the right to life, equality
before the law and freedom of expression; economic, social and cultural rights, such as the rights to work,
social security and education , or collective rights, such as the rights to development and self-determination,
are indivisible, interrelated and interdependent. The improvement of one right facilitates advancement of the
others. Likewise, the deprivation of one right adversely affects the others.

Equal and non-discriminatory

Non-discrimination is a cross-cutting principle in international human rights law. The principle is present in
all the major human rights treaties and provides the central theme of some of international human rights
conventions such as the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination
and the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women.

The principle applies to everyone in relation to all human rights and freedoms and it prohibits discrimination
on the basis of a list of non-exhaustive categories such as sex, race, colour and so on. The principle of non-
discrimination is complemented by the principle of equality, as stated in Article 1 of the Universal
Declaration of Human Rights: All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights.

Both Rights and Obligations

Human rights entail both rights and obligations. States assume obligations and duties under international
law to respect, to protect and to fulfil human rights. The obligation to respect means that States must refrain
from interfering with or curtailing the enjoyment of human rights. The obligation to protect requires States to
protect individuals and groups against human rights abuses. The obligation to fulfil means that States must
take positive action to facilitate the enjoyment of basic human rights. At the individual level, while we are
entitled our human rights, we should also respect the human rights of others.