Scriptures

Rom 12: 9-18 - Love one another, contribute to the needs of others, live peaceably with all.

1Cor 3:16 - You are holy, for you are God’s temple and God dwells in you.

Gal 3:27-28 - All Christians are one in Christ Jesus.

James 2:1-8 - Honor the poor.

1Jn 3: 1-2 - See what love the Father has for us, that we should be called Children of God.

1Jn 4:7-12 - Let us love one another because love is from God.

Tradition  

When we fail to acknowledge as part of reality the worth of a poor person, a human embryo, a person with disabilities – to offer just a few examples – it becomes difficult to hear the cry of nature itself; everything is connected. (Pope Francis, On Care for Our Common Home [Laudato Si'], no. 117)

Just as the commandment "Thou shalt not kill" sets a clear limit in order to safeguard the value of human life, today we also have to say "thou shalt not" to an economy of exclusion and inequality. Such an economy kills. How can it be that it is not a news item when an elderly homeless person dies of exposure, but it is news when the stock market loses two points? This is a case of exclusion. Can we continue to stand by when food is thrown away while people are starving? This is a case of inequality. Today everything comes under the laws of competition and the survival of the fittest, where the powerful feed upon the powerless. As a consequence, masses of people find themselves excluded and marginalized: without work, without possibilities, without any means of escape. Human beings are themselves considered consumer goods to be used and then discarded. We have created a "throw away" culture which is now spreading. It is no longer simply about exploitation and oppression, but something new. Exclusion ultimately has to do with what it means to be a part of the society in which we live; those excluded are no longer society's underside or its fringes or its disenfranchised – they are no longer even a part of it. The excluded are not the "exploited" but the outcast, the "leftovers". (Pope Francis, the Joy of the Gospel [Evangelii Gaudium], no. 153)