Yesterday, Cardinal Renato Martino, president of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, acting on behalf of the Pope, was the first to purchase bonds being sold to finance the immunization of children in third world countries. The funds will be used to manufacture and purchase vaccines for diseases which are ignored because no market exists for them in developed nations.
The project hopes to raise over $4 billion, vaccinate 500 million children, and save 10 millions lives, inclusing 5 million children.
Zenit has the address given by Cardinal Martino at the presentation of the bonds. He expressed the Pope's "hope...that the participation by the Church in this program will help to inspire others to take the step toward concrete action."
Here is the Website of the immunization initiative. Unfortunately, it looks like the bonds are not registered with SEC and cannot be sold in the U.S. Regardless, this was a wonderful symbolic gesture for the Pope to make.
http://www.stblogs.org/scgi-bin/mv/mt-tb.cgi/20448
