Where's the Church? - Where Am I?

I recently was told by my wife that Bono, of U2, met with some of the richest people in the world to talk about poverty and the economy of the United States. Here's a comment I found from that meeting...

"It is extraordinary to me that you can find $700 billion to save Wall Street and the entire G8 can't find $25 billion to save 25,000 children who die every day of preventable treatable disease and hunger," the U2 lead singer told Clinton's fourth annual philanthropic summit in New York. "That's mad, that is mad."

The Group of Eight wealthy nations vowed in 2005 to raise annual aid levels $50 billion by 2010, $25 billion of which was to go to Africa. But under current spending plans, the G8 will fall $40 billion short, according to a June report by the Africa Progress Panel set up to monitor implementation.

As I read this I was thinking to myself, what a shame that our country is the one that is doing the least amount in this justice issue. Of the eight, we are dead last on the list of fulfilling our part. Then I realized, is this our country's responsibility or is it the Church's? As long as we can point at something so much bigger than ourselves, like the country, then we don't feel the responsibility. We can blame others. Even when we make it so broad as to say it is the Church's responsibility, I think that is too big as well.

The question we should be asking ourselves is, what is my responsibility? I fully realize that this is an even harder question to ask in such uncertain economic times, but that doesn't mean that we shouldn't be asking the question. We also can't stop at the question, we need to find answers. We need to move from being a part of the problem to a part of the solution.