What is the Price?
The price is right, says Maja Pazin, about the financial costs of WYD
While more than a million of people came to worship God and meet the Pope, smaller groups from Spain clash over Pope's visit and its costs. Now, go to Google, type in „costs protest pope“ and you will see all the same articles recycled and same pictures, maybe even same people in the picture. Media seem to ignore millions who are quiet and give all of their attention to smaller but louder groups of people.
Why do governments sponsor Pope’s visits to their countries?The Catholic Church is one of the biggest communities in the world. It is also one of the largest promoters of fairness, honesty, integrity, love, forgiveness and many others. Those are not values that we need only in the Church but we need them in our everyday life. We need them on our jobs; in our schools, in hospitals, in our media, in our governments…
We are often witnessing corruption in many different professions and we do not like it. The Catholic Church is trying to help us and we are refusing that help? We just grumble and reject it. This is why the importance of the Catholic Church is so big in the world and this is why it has so many followers, because it is unique in its values and so clear in its attitude.
Besides these values, it is important to know what do we use taxes for? Taxes are imposed by government and one of the most important uses is to finance public goods and services. With the money we gathered from taxes; our governments finance football games, theatre shows, sports atriums, transportation…
It is not of everyone’s interest to spend tax money on football games or theatre shows. All of us have some better ideas how should money be spent. But our governments have to work in the interests of majority and they have to work in general public interest.
The Pope’s visit to any world country gives hope to people, encourages them to live their live honestly. Visits of the Holy Father bring peace to those people who are ready to receive it. I hope you all will see and feel this, just as I did!
Maja Pažin
Leider war dieser WJT aber kein Beispiel von Nachhaltigkeit und ökulogischen Denkens. Im Vorfeld wurden die Pilger aufgerufen an die Schöpfung zu denken und wenig Müll zu produzieren. Der WJT bzw. die Organisatoren haben sich an ihren eigenen Aufruf allerdings nicht gehalten.
Es entstanden ganze Müllberge, weil alles 2-3mal eingepackt war oder schlecht kalkuliert wurde. ich habe riesige Berge von Magnificats auf dem Flugfeld gefunden, die unbenutzt weggeworfen worden sind oder Picnic-Tüten die noch voll waren aber auf dem Müll lagen.
Wenn so etwas passiert, kann man nicht davon sprechen, dass die Kosten angebracht waren.
LG