Pope: Poverty is not inevitable
ANTANANARIVO (AP) — Pope Francis insisted Sunday that poverty isn’t inevitable and that the poor deserve the dignity of work as he visited a rock quarry in Madagascar where hundreds of people toil rather than scavenge in the capital’s biggest dump.
Francis appealed for new development strategies to fight global poverty as he visited the Akamasoa project, or “City of Friendship,” which soars on a hillside above the dump in Antananarivo.
The project is the brainchild of an Argentine priest who was so overwhelmed by the abject poverty of Madagascar that he set about creating ways for the poor to earn a living.
Speaking off the cuff in French, Francis told them that Akamasoa’s founder, the Rev. Pedro Opeka, had been a student of his in 1967-1968 at a Buenos Aires seminary, but that he remembered that Opeka didn’t much care for studying.
“He had a love for work,” Francis said to giggles. Returning to his prepared remarks and with Madagascar’s president listening behind him, Francis told the villagers that the existence of Akamasoa meant that God had “heard the cry of the poor.”