Poverty – POVERTY does not arise to be contemplated, nor can it be solved with palliatives, but it is a problem that faces challenges in search of a solution. Therefore, poverty today is a defect of peoples and not a virtue, and it is essential that we fight to eliminate this defect.
True POVERTY – indigence – is a degrading lowering of animal life, which can lead to an involutionary setback and paralyze the development of a people.
Today, instead of making POVERTY a spiritual problem without solving it, we must try to eliminate it with positive means of productive technique and collective economic organization. A Chinese proverb says: “If you want to help a poor man, don’t give him a fish, but teach him how to fish”.
In the past, in many religious orders, a vow of POVERTY actually meant a vow of idleness. Today, in our case, a vow of poverty means a vow of work, opposed as a corrective reaction to the abuse of those who live in abundance without working, served by the work of others.
