I find myself troubled by a question that visits me often in the quiet hours of reflection: how is it that in our world of unprecedented abundance, where we have conquered distance through technology and multiplied our productive capacity beyond what any previous generation could imagine, we still live alongside such stark divisions between those who possess everything and those who possess nothing? This inequality of wealth, which manifests itself so boldly in our daily experience, seems to me both the most natural and the most unnatural thing in the world.