In the world today there are many people who have in superabundance. By that I mean that, after satisfying all their needs -- for food, shelter, warmth, clothing, health care, and education, for themselves and their children --- they have money enough to buy items that are not needs. If you have money to spare for good restaurants, concerts, vacation travel, books, CD's, and keeping your clothing in fashion, you are, in a word, rich. (A)*Aquinas could never have expected the kind of wealth many people have today --- such luxuries as central heating and air-conditioning, exotic fresh fruits from both temperate and tropical lands delivered to your door. If Aquinas could be transported to our time, he would think most middle-class Europeans and Americans today to be unimaginably rich, and the same goes for those able to live a comparable lifestyle in other countries.
If the rich are far richer than anyone in the thirteenth century could have imagined, however, the essential *ingredients of poverty are the same. As in earlier times, the poor are those who do not have sufficient means to meet even the most basic of these needs, for example for food, shelter, and clothing. Today we would add that they also lack the resources to obtain even minimal health care, or to provide education for their children. There are today more than a billion of these "absolutely poor" people, living on no more than one dollar per day. These are the people who are absolutely poor.
In the Brazilian film Central Station, Dora is a retired schoolteacher who makes a modest living sitting at the station writing letters for illiterate people. Suddenly she has an opportunity to earn $1000. All she has to do is persuade a homeless nine-year old boy to follow her to an address she has been given. (She is told that he will be adopted by wealthy foreigners.) She delivers the boy, gets the money, spends some of it on a television set, and settles down to enjoy her new acquisition. Her neighbor spoils her good mood, however, by telling her that your story sounds strange, for the boy is too old to be adopted -- she says that he will be killed and his organs sold for transplantation. Perhaps Dora was aware of this possibility all along, but was able to block it out of her mind. After her neighbor's plain speaking, however, she is unable to sleep. In the morning she sets out to take the boy back.
Imagine that, instead of trying to save the child from his fate, Dora had told her neighbor that it's a tough world, that she wants a TV, and if selling the kid is the only way she can get one, well, he was only a street kid, and who knows, maybe he will be adopted after all. She would then have become, in the eyes of the audience, a callous, selfish person, lacking all conscience and moral sense. (B)She *redeems herself only by being prepared to take considerable risks to save the boy.
After watching the movie, in cinemas all over the rich countries of the world, people who would have been quick to *condemn Dora if she had not gone back to rescue the boy go home to places far more comfortable than her apartment. These people are, by the standard I described a few moments ago, rich. (C)The average family in the United States spends around one-third of their income on things that are no more necessary to them than Dora's new TV was to her. (D)The money that the rich spend on luxuries could, if donated to one of a number of voluntary agencies, mean the difference between life and death for children in need.
All of this raises a question: in the end, what is the difference between a Brazilian who sells a homeless child to people who might be organ peddlers and one, living in a rich country, who already has a TV and upgrades to a better one, knowing that the money could save the lives of street kids in Brazil?
*Aquinas：Thomas Aquinas（トマス＝アキナス。13世紀イタリアの哲学者） *ingredients：要素 *redeem oneself：名誉挽回する *condemn：有罪の宣告をする *incongruity：不調和・矛盾