Pope's Katrina envoy: 'Shameful' poverty in U.S.

[gilliam]

VATICAN CITY (AP) -- Pope Benedict XVI's envoy to the United States to bring aid for Hurricane Katrina's victims said Saturday that many of them have been struck by "shameful" poverty in "rich America."

The German-born Archbishop Paul Cordes, who heads the Vatican's charity organization, traveled to Louisiana and Mississippi last week to express the pontiff's solidarity with the victims as well as bring aid.

He said that Catholic Charities had allocated $6 million (euro4.9 million). "Many were struck by ... poverty, at times shameful, in rich America," Cordes told Vatican Radio.

http://www.cnn.com/2005/US/09/17/kat....ap/index.html


This is something the President talked about in his speach. New Orleans needs more than rebuilding of buildings, it needs to seriously address the poverty in the city.