Poverty can take many forms, spiritual as well as material. The common good may sometimes demand that the right to own be limited by public involvement in the planning or ownership of certain sectors of the economy. Support of private ownership does not mean that anyone has the right to unlimited accumulation of wealth. Private property does not constitute for anyone an absolute or unconditional right. The obligation to provide justice for all means that the poor have the single most urgent economic claim on the conscience of the nation.
Poverty can take many forms, spiritual as well as material.
Every economic decision and institution must be judged in light of whether it protects or undermines the dignity of the human person. The norms of human dignity and the preferential option for the poor compel us to confront this issue with a sense of urgency. Dealing with poverty is not a luxury to which our nation can attend when it finds the time and resources. Rather, it is a moral imperative of the highest priority. Decisions must be judged in light of what they do for the poor, what they do to the poor, and what they enable the poor to do for themselves.