Pope John Paul II Quotes

Pay attention to the hungry, both in this country and around the world. Pay attention to the poor. Pay attention to our responsibilities for world peace. We are our brother's keeper.

The world remains beset by so much human suffering, poverty and deprivation. It is in your hands to make of our world a better one for all, especially the poor, vulnerable and marginalised.

America is concerned more with the possibility of moon folks than the reality of hungry poor folks.

To a billion people around the world surviving on just a dollar a day, the question of what to eat tonight is more about life and death than about recipes. The struggle of poor people around the globe weighs heavily on me, especially now that I am a mother, which is why I work with Oxfam.

In a land of great wealth, families must not live in hopeless poverty. In a land rich in harvest, children just must not go hungry. In a land of healing miracles, neighbors must not suffer and die unattended. In a great land of learning and scholars, young people must be taught to read and write.

Homeless shelters, child hunger, and child suffering have become normalized in the richest nation on earth. It's time to reset our moral compass and redefine how we measure success.

The first world is going to have to account for this sort of horrible poverty in our midst. We have to, first of all, become aware of it. We have to take responsibility for it. And then we have to do something about it for our own freedom, for our own salvation, for our own humanity.

The hungry and the homeless don't care about liberty any more than they care about cultural heritage. To pretend that they do care is cant.

I can think of no honorable answer. Why must some of us deliberate between brands of toothpaste, while others deliberate between damp dirt and bone dust to quiet the fire of an empty stomach lining? There is nothing about the United States I can really explain to this child of another world.

poverty is obsolete and hunger is abolished

We are living in the 21st century, and children are dying of hunger, so how do we fight it?

I do not believe that the hungry man should be treated as subversive for expressing his suffering.

The best way to perpetuate poverty is by spending on arms and military, and the best way to fight terrorism is by fighting the basic needs of humanity, because hunger and poverty perpetuate crime.

Hunger could not exist but through violation of economic laws and fundamental principles of social justice.

What I am interested in is to help this grand President of ours feed the hungry and clothe the naked and provide work for the idle of every race and creed

In the 19th century, some people looked at the condition of slavery and said that it was monstrous and unconscionable; that it must be abolished. ... Today the condition of hunger in a world of plenty is equally monstrous and unconscionable and it too must be abolished. We must become the 'new abolitionists'.

The poorest still deserve help with life's basic necessities regardless of the quality of their government.

When I am asked, "What, in your view, is the worst human rights problem in the world today?" I reply: "Absolute poverty." This is not the answer most journalists expect. It is neither sexy nor legalistic. But it is true.

The fight against poverty and hunger must be fought constantly and on many fronts, especially in its causes.

Those who minister to poverty and disease are accomplices in the two worst of all the crimes.

It’s scandalous when one thinks about the people who live in a world in which they need not be hungry, in which they need not die without medical care, in which they need not be illiterate, they need not feel hopeless and miserable so much of the time, and yet they are.

There are 200 million poor in the world who would gladly take the vow of poverty if they could eat, dress and have a home like I do

Half of the world lives on [about] $2 a day. If there is a hungry kid in the world, we shouldn't consider ourselves more evolved than homo habilis.

Poverty is curable, but it’s just not done, because it's not profitable. And that is the kind of violence that's perpetuated on humanity.

It is impossible to comfort men's hearts with the love of God when their feet are perishing with cold.