Bishop McElroy Made Several Important Points Concerning the Issue of Poverty in the World.

Bishop McElroy made several important points concerning the issue of poverty in the world.

1. Materialism. In today’s culture materialism is rampant. We are concerned with acquiring more and more possessions. To combat materialism, we need to look at how important our possessions are to us. We need to ask ourselves how the acquisition of material possessions directs our lives. In many ways, the poor are freer from the grasp of materialism than we are. We must be cautious to never let the acquisition of possessions direct our lives
2. The idea of a culture of comfort. The culture of comfort is one where we only think of ourselves. When we buy into a culture of comfort, we are essentially orienting all our actions to providing comfort to ourselves, and not thinking of the comfort and health of others. It is essentially an extreme form of selfishness.
3. Culture of indifference. The culture of indifference is even more dangerous than the culture of comfort. Being compassionate is hard. It is painful. It may even cost us great suffering to be compassionate. But if we fail to be compassionate, we lose the ability to participate in the life of Christ.
4. Finally, from an economic sense, Bishop McElroy pointed out that the US, among other countries has pledged to contribute .7% of GDP towards alleviating extreme poverty in the world. However, we are currently contributing only .2% of our GDP. Using 2013 data, .7% of US GDP would be $117 billion dollars, which could go a long way towards alleviating extreme poverty in developing countries. Though $117 billion appears to be a large amount of money, in 2013, the US had a nominal GDP of over $16 trillion dollars. As Bishop McElroy pointed out, as a country with this amount of resources, we have a responsibility to help those who are less fortunate.