A study day for the bishops gathered in Fulda for the Plenary Assembly of the German Bishops’ Conference (DBK) to discuss how to tackle the challenges of poverty and exclusion and how to take action as a Church and as Caritas. “In union with God, we hear a plea”: “this sentence comes from Pope Francis’ Apostolic Exhortation Evangelii Gaudium”, Card. Rainer Woelki, Archbishop of Cologne, recalled in the homily of the Mass he celebrated this morning. “In our episcopal ordination as well as in our priestly ordination, we were asked if we were ready for the Lord, to meet the poor, the homeless, the needy and be merciful with them”, Card. Woelki continued, stressing that the Church’s main concern is for the poor and the marginalised who are a priority. The prelate also observed that “we see in our country, at this very time, what happens when people are the object of political courtship on this matter. Populism fuels selfish attitudes and the need to find scapegoats”. According to Card. Woelki, “people are ruthlessly duped when it comes to evaluating their own needs”. Referring to the situation of poverty, the cardinal said that “it is not a distant reality, but a situation that thousands of people are experiencing in our own country, here and now. No society can be called humane if it loses sight of the fate of its own poor, or if it places the blame on the shoulders of other poor, making them scapegoats”.