The current financial crisis challenges us to find new economic models to address “a poverty that impedes people and families from living according to their dignity, a poverty that offends justice and equality and, as such, threatens peaceful coexistence,” said Pope Benedict in his January 1 homily.

“Are we ready to read [the current economic crisis], in all its complexity, as a challenge for the future and not just as an emergency needing short-term responses?”, asked the Pope. “Are we ready to conduct together a profound revision of the dominant model of development in order to correct it in a concerted and farsighted way?…Even more than the immediate financial difficulties, the ecological state of the planet and, especially, the cultural and moral crisis whose symptoms have long been evident in many parts of the world require it.”

Pope Benedict suggested that any solution to the crisis must be based on adoption of a moderate lifestyle and a commitment to solidarity with those whose dignity is threatened by poverty and by war.

The Pope also spoke in his homily of the need to end the “massive violenced” in the Gaza strip. Further descriptions of the Pope’s homily can be found here and here.