ose
of development--and its own role in fostering creation of the means to
achieve it. Only in this way can economics and the related sciences free
themselves from the undertow of the materialistic preoccupations that now
distract them, and fulfill their potential as tools vital to achieving
human well-being in the full sense of the term. Nowhere is the need for a
rigorous dialogue between the work of science and the insights of religion
more apparent.

The problem of poverty is a case in point. Proposals aimed at addressing
it are predicated on the conviction that material resources exist, or can
be created by scientific and technological endeavor, which will alleviate
and eventually entirely eradicate this age-old condition as a feature of
human life. A major reason why such relief is not achieved is that the
necessary scientific and technological advances respond to a set of
priorities only tangentially related to the real interests of the
generality of humankind. A radical reordering of these priorities will be
required if the burden of poverty is finally to be lifted from the world.
Such an achievement demands a determined quest for appropriate values, a
quest that will test profoundly both the spiritual and scientific
resources of humankind. Religion will be severely hampered in contributing
to this joint undertaking so long as it is held prisoner by sectarian
doctrines which cannot distinguish between contentment and mere passivity
and which teach that poverty is an inherent feature of earthly life,
escape from which lies only in the world beyond. To participate
effectively in the struggle to bring material well-being to humanity, the
religious spirit must find--in the Source of inspiration from which it
flows--new spiritual concepts and principles relevant to an age that seeks
to establish unity and justice in human affairs.

Unemployment raises similar issues. In most of contemporary thinking, the
concept of work has been largely reduced to that of gainful employment
aimed at acquiring the means for the consumption of available goods. The
system is circular: acquisition and consumption resulting in the
maintenance and expansion of the production of goods and, in consequence,
in supporting paid employment. Taken individually, all of these activities
are essential to the well-being of society. The inadequacy of the overall
conception, however, can be read in both the apathy that social
commentators discern among