Crisis of values underlies economic and family crises, says Spanish bishop

Avila, Spain, Jun 15, 2009 / 19:03 pm

Bishop Jesus Garcia Burillo of Avila, Spain said recently that the current economic crisis has revealed another face of poverty--the poverty of values. In response to this values crisis, he called on the faithful to embrace solidarity.
 
“This crisis gives evidence to a profound anthropological rupture and a crisis of moral values.  The dignity of the human being is the value that is in crisis when the person is the center of social, economic and business life; when money becomes an end in itself and not a means of service to the person and to social development,” the bishop said in a recent letter.
 
In addition to the economic poverty into which “a growing number of men and women have fallen,” the bishop added, “We have also seen another kind of poverty, in this case spiritual, which underlies the material, economic and employment crises.”
 
“It is the poverty of values and attitudes that is made manifest and has spread to different areas through some media channels,” Bishop Burillo said.  “Together with that we cannot forget the crisis in education that is also present at the heart of the family. These are the faces of poverty,” he said.
 
Nevertheless, he went on, in the midst of “personal social and ethical misery,” “exemplary responses of solidarity” have also appeared.  For this reason, he encouraged Catholics “to become aware not only of the Christian responsibility to spread good, but also of the need for personal and communitarian conversion.”