Joseph Cardinal Höffner CHRISTIAN SOCIAL ... - Ordo Socialis

Europe became conscious in the second half of the nineteenth century of their class situation
within the bourgeois society, which had unpredictable political, social, and economic effects,
so people in developing countries are becoming conscious in the second half of the twentieth
century of their position among the nations and states of the whole world, which will lead to
even greater consequences. After the Second World
War, it was above all political prudence which caused the more affluent states to grant a considerable
degree of economic aid to developing countries, so that development aid can more
or less be reckoned among the measures of the ‘cold war’. In contrast to this, Christian social
teaching places the question of the moral obligation to development aid in the foreground.
The following consideration then arise:
a) The Extent of Poverty
It must shake the heart and conscience of the people in the affluent states that today of approximately
four billion people one billion is either undernourished or literally suffering hunger.
According to the estimates of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations
(FAO), an average of 436 million people in the world were hungry or starving in the
period from l974-l976. The number of these needy people is by forecast to reach approximately
350 million by l990. We can demonstrate the true extent of this emergency with the
example of Africa: every sixth African is undernourished or suffers hunger. World hunger has
become a permanent major problem of our society. In spite of the intensified war on hunger,
this scourge will continue to exist for many years. Because the whole human family is now so
intertwined, anyone speaking of an impending hunger disaster who included the wealthy nations
in the ruin he predicted would not be painting phantoms on the wall.
b) The Causes of Poverty
The statement, „The denser the population, the greater the hunger“, is not correct. The Rhine-
Ruhr area, to name but one example, belongs to the most densely populated areas of the earth.
In spite of this, the work forces have not sufficed in recent years. Hundreds of thousands of
foreign workers were brought into the Rhine-Ruhr area, so that the population density increased
even more. For all that, people in the Rhine-Ruhr area do not suffer hunger. On the
contrary, this area is usually called a typical example of the so-called affluent and prosperous
society.
The true causes are neither crop failures nor population density; they lie rather in current social
and economic conditions. In the so-called developing countries, the traditional feudal
system, the shortage of capital, the primitive farming methods, the lack of professional training,
the delayed agrarian reform, the low price of raw materials offered by developing countries
on the world markets, and numerous other reasons make it difficult for an economic upswing
to get under way. The consequences are a chain of misery: a lack of jobs - unemployment
- poverty - low demand - little agricultural production - short supply - undernourishment
- hunger. Of course, it has an aggravating effect in this situation that the population has increased
to such extent that food production cannot keep pace, since hygienic and medical progress
is to be attained more easily and readily in the developing countries than economic progress.
c) Justice for the Common Good of all People
In view of this situation, it is a command of justice for the common good of all people to
come effectively to the aid of these nations. Starving nations expect a „sign“ from Christians
above all. If this sign is lacking, the danger threatens that „would-be saviors“ will incite the
masses through „alluring and deceitful promises“ and deliver them up to „totalitarian ideologies“
(Populorum progressio, II).
163