"This parable added the Holy Father can also be read as a social lesson". From this perspective, "the interpretation provided just forty years ago by Pope Paul VI in the encyclical Popolorum progressio is still memorable": in it, Pope Montini stated that one of "the many causes of poverty" are "the slaveries that come from men" as well as "an inadequately-mastered nature". "Unfortunately highlighted Benedict XVI some populations suffer from both factors, added together". Hence his thought "specially to the countries of sub-Saharan Africa that have been hit hard by terrible floods over the last few days" as well as to the "many other states of humanitarian emergency in many regions of the planet, in which conflicts for political and economic power exacerbate situations of hardship that are already heavy as they are". Paul VI’s appeal, back then: "The people of hunger dramatically appeal to the peoples of wealth", according to the Pope, "retains all its urgency today. We can’t say we don’t know what to do"; "becoming more attentive to our brothers in need to share with them the little or much that we have, and contributing, starting from ourselves, to the spreading of the approach and style of true solidarity".
