The final paradox is that to have equality, we also need inequality of intelligence, generosity, and diligence.

On “The Paradox Of Abundance”

By James V. Schall, S.J.

On February 13, L’Osservatore Romano (English edition) printed a full-page text of Pope Francis’ message to the Milan “Expo of Ideas.” Its theme was: “Nourish the Planet, Energy for Life.” Pope Bergoglio brought up again his now familiar suggestions about how to handle poverty and hunger.

Pope Francis recalled his address to the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO, November 20, 2014). There, he linked together “the production, accessibility, and availability of foodstuffs, climate change, and agricultural trade.” Our “first concern,” however, “must be the individual person, who lacks daily nourishment, who has given up thinking about life . . .and fights only for survival.” The pope acknowledged that many organizations exist to assist the hungry. He recalled John Paul II’s phrase “the paradox of abundance.”

We have plenty of food in the world, though the pope never seems to explain why we have this food available. But it does not reach everyone. Many studies of poverty and hunger are available: “Few topics are as likely to be manipulated by data, statistics, by national security demands, corruption, or by grim reference to the economic crisis.” The pope sees this situation as “nominalistic.” It “goes beyond reality without touching it.” Evidently, issues of national security, corruption, and economic crisis are seen as causing this failure to reach the individual hungry, not as issues with their own weight.

Pope Francis proposes three steps to rectify this situation. He first proposes that we must “resolve the structural causes of poverty. Let us remember that inequality is the root of all social ills.” The root of social ills is not money, sin, sloth, or ignorance. If we “fix” the structures, no more problems would ensue.

Benedict XVI, in Deus Caritas Est, noted that, even if we had everything in order at the economic and political level, we would still have much to do that could not and would not be solved by social reorganization alone. A world of total equality, as Aristotle suspected, would be one without much desire or concern about improvement. The motives and incentives for producing present abundance would soon dry up.

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