[UK] Poverty surrounded by plenty

from The Good News

Poverty is Britain is all the more "painful" because it is surrounded by plenty, the Archbishop of Westminster said on 29 April in a homily at a Mass for the St Vincent de Paul Society.

"We may live in a wealthy nation, with a welfare state, but the poverty that exists is no less real – and is in many ways more painful – because it is surrounded by plenty," Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O'Connor told the congregation of 800 at a Mass of Rededication at Westminster Cathedral.

"This is most vivid at present in the spiralling cost of housing, which eats more and more into the disposable income of the poor, leading many further and further into debt," the cardinal added.

The Mass was attended by representatives of the 23 central councils of the SVP from across England and Wales, who renewed their vows during the liturgy.

The SVP Conference in Britain was founded in 1844 – in the first wave of expansion of the French movement founded by the Blessed Frederic Ozanam.

SVP members in England and Wales made more than 630,000 visits in 2004-5 to people in need in hospitals, care homes, hospitals and prisons.

"Poverty and need are always personal,” the cardinal told the congregation.

"Two people in an identical material state might nonetheless experience poverty quite differently.

"Everyone has different needs. You attend to those needs in a way that is very loving, very Christian, in a way that is direct and personal, whether it is transport, food, money, clothes, furniture or fuel; or help with language or dealing with authorities.

"The range of what you do is as broad as friendship."