Why some poor can't move up.

• Author: Chafuen, Alejandro
• Position: Editorials

Byline: Alejandro Chafuen

While the church and Christian moralists have always spoken about the rich and the poor, and condemned those who put wealth, or anything else, above eternal life, it was only in the 20th century when church authorities began to make frequent empirical statements about the number of rich and poor. Pope Francis is the latest example. He writes in the latest apostolic exhortation that "While the earnings of a minority are growing exponentially, so too is the gap separating the majority from the prosperity enjoyed by those happy few.''

During the 20th century, inequalities of wealth became a favorite topic of intellectuals of different persuasions. Vladimir I. Lenin developed his theories of imperialism touching upon the topic of nations continuously getting rich while others grew poor. His views on how the rich capitalist nations exploit others still influence the world today.

Corrado Gini, who in 1927 wrote, "The Scientific Basis of Fascism,'' developed a method to measure inequality called the Gini coefficient. The gap between the rich and the poor, as measured by this index, led to numerous studies that soon began to influence moralists of all bents, including those in the Catholic Church.

During the second half of the 20th century, economist Raul Prebisch developed a theory of center-periphery similar to Lenin's. It stated that as the cards were dealt, the rich countries at the "center'' were bound to get richer and exploit the poor countries at the "periphery.''

In 1968, the Episcopal Conference of Latin American Catholic Bishops met in Medellin, Colombia. Some of the Medellin document echoed Lenin and Prebisch: "The countries which produce raw materials -- especially if they are dependent upon one major export -- always remain poor, while the industrialized countries enrich themselves.''

Pope Paul VI, in his encyclical Populorum Progressio (1967) used similar language and analysis. He wrote that the economic system left to itself widens the gap between rich and poor nations: "Rich people enjoy rapid growth whereas the poor develop slowly. The imbalance is on the increase.''

In "Caritas in Veritate,''Pope Benedict XVI repeated what "John Paul II has already observed: the demarcation line between rich and poor countries is no longer as clear as it was at the time of Populorum Progressio.''

Benedict mentioned corruption as exacerbating the problem. But he did not mention that it is precisely those countries with...