Pope to Davos elite: Consider your role in creating poverty

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Pope tells Davos elite - Consider your role in creating poverty

[ http://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/pope-tells- ... -/41907038 ]

(Reporting By Philip Pullella in Rome; Editing by Jeremy Gaunt.) Reuters International January 20, 2016

DAVOS, Switzerland (Reuters) - Pope Francis told members of the world's wealthy political and economic elite on Wednesday that they should not be deaf to the cry of the poor and must consider their own role in creating inequality.

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The annual Davos meeting brings together many of the world's wealthiest and most powerful people to consider issues such as economics, climate change and war, with an eye to working on solutions to them.

It has been criticised by anti-globalisation activists and others, however, as a forum for organisations that have been responsible for the problems in the first place.

They are boosted by reports such as one from charity Oxfam estimating that 1 percent of the world's population owns 99 percent of the wealth.

Francis, who has made the defence of the poor a hallmark of his papacy and has in the past called money "the dung of the devil", said businesses and wealthy societies must acknowledge their role in creating poverty.

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