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For the pope, a world order based on the unlimited satisfaction of individual wants is unattainable, and the attempt to reach it destructive of the world around us, and of the peace of our inner worlds. As he wrote 18 months ago in his powerful encyclical on the environment: “When people become self-centred and self-enclosed, their greed increases. The emptier a person’s heart is, the more he or she needs things to buy, own and consume.