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Diocesan Bulletin May 2012 - Eparchy of Idukki
Diocesan Bulletin May 2012 - Eparchy of Idukki
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In that context, the term “development” (as a response to<br />
poverty) was perceived as and equated with a growing Gross<br />
Domestic Product (GDP), namely the total dollar value of goods<br />
produced and services provided each year. When GDP is divided<br />
by the population, you get “GDP per person” which is easy to<br />
compare. If it is higher than last year, the country is developing; if it<br />
is lower or higher than that of another country, then our country is<br />
more or less developed than the other.<br />
Over 20 years ago, to this narrowly economic notion of<br />
“development” (as solution of poverty), the important adjective<br />
“human” was added. And so, the 2010 Human Development<br />
Report (of the UNDP) bears the title: “The real wealth of the<br />
nations: pathways to human development”. Marking the 20 th<br />
anniversary of its first such report, the 2010 UNDP Report reaffirms<br />
the centrality of the human person in every process of development.<br />
Although it admits that much still needs to be done, the 2010 Report<br />
presents a generally positive picture and affirms that ‘‘progress in<br />
health and education can lead to successes in its human<br />
development programme’’ 6<br />
Relying on the works of the economists Mahbub Ul Haq of<br />
Pakistan and Amartya Sen of India, the Report discusses the<br />
indicators of human development according to which development<br />
cannot be understood merely in terms of increase of GDP, but<br />
must take into consideration other factors, including the quality<br />
of life of the people and their access to health care and education.<br />
This is a very familiar terrain for the Church in India!<br />
• Instead of sickness and early death, having a long and healthy life<br />
• Instead of grinding poverty, enjoying a decent standard of living<br />
• Instead of ignorance, being literate and educated<br />
sabv 2012<br />
Thus, the Human Development Index (HD1) is the result of<br />
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361<br />
sabv 2012<br />
three components: standard of living, health and education; and the<br />
HDI is considered by many to be a more useful tool than GDP-perperson<br />
for measuring development, since both economic and social<br />
indicators, including the environment, are evaluated, and suggested<br />
as ways of overcoming poverty, material poverty. But material<br />
poverty is not the only obstacle to human development. Spiritual<br />
poverty stymies human development even more badly.<br />
The human person, the protagonist of development, has a<br />
vocation, not only to development, but also to transcendence, in<br />
correspondence to his creation as body and soul, called to<br />
communion with God. Accordingly, to ignore the spiritual dimension<br />
- to overlook the transcendent aspects of the human person in efforts<br />
at overcoming poverty - actually diminishes human development.<br />
Regrettably, this narrowing has been an increasing trend since World<br />
War II, especially in the so-called “First” world: a trend that seems<br />
to be accelerating with the phenomenon of globalization. But “there<br />
cannot be holistic development and universal common good unless<br />
people’s spiritual and moral welfare is taken into account, considered<br />
in their totality as body and soul,” 7 and created in the image of God.<br />
To leave religion (the spiritual) out of the social picture -<br />
claiming that it belongs exclusively to the private sphere, or opposing<br />
its inclusion in public life as “divisive” or “irrational” - is to deny full<br />
religious liberty, which is not only a basic human right but in some<br />
sense the fundamental one, on which all other basic rights depend....<br />
The right to seek God and the truth of God!<br />
Talking about people’s spiritual and moral welfare, I recall<br />
how Benedict XVI, in his homily at the opening Mass of the II Synod<br />
for Africa in October 2009, exhorted Africa to be wary of the<br />
pathology of practical materialism, combined with relativist and<br />
nihilistic thought. This pathology manifested itself in ideologies<br />
which diminish man’s vision of the truth (of God) and the truth about<br />
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