As leaders of some of the world's wealthiest nations got ready for the Group of Eight summit in Scotland, Pope Benedict XVI urged them to take "concrete measures" to eradicate global poverty.

After praying the Angelus July 3, the pope appealed to summit participants to reduce the debt of poorer countries and to foster "authentic development" in Africa, a continent "often overlooked."

The pope said he hoped the G-8 summit July 6-8 would enjoy full success by having nations agree to share, "in solidarity, the costs of debt reduction, to enact concrete measures for the eradication of poverty and promote authentic development in Africa."

The previous day in Edinburgh, Scotland, Cardinal Keith O'Brien of St. Andrews and Edinburgh read a papal message to a crowd of 225,000.

Signed by the Vatican's secretary of state, Cardinal Angelo Sodano, the message greeted all those "united by their concern for the welfare of millions of our brothers and sisters afflicted by extreme poverty."

"As the Second Vatican Council teaches, 'God intended the earth and all it contains for the use of everyone and of all peoples, so that the good things of creation should be available equally to all,'" said the message, quoting from the Second Vatican Council's document on the church in the modern world, "Gaudium et Spes."

"For this reason, people from the world's richest countries should be prepared to accept the burden of debt reduction for heavily indebted poor countries and should urge their leaders to fulfill the pledges made to reduce world poverty, especially in Africa, by the year 2015," the pope's message said.

Cardinal O'Brien told rally participants they were there because they recognized their solidarity with the world's poor.

"We are here today because we are scandalized by the needless suffering that poverty causes. To be passive or indifferent in the knowledge that one child dies needlessly every three seconds is to be an accomplice in barbarity," he said. "We say to the leaders of the world's richest nations: We have no intention of being accomplices in barbarity."

He added: "The poor do not seek charity but justice. Canceling debt, increasing aid, making the rules of trade fair are not acts of charity: They are long overdue acts of justice. We demand generosity and justice in our giving and in our politics."

Cardinal O'Brien was accompanied by church leaders, including Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O'Connor of Westminster, England, who told the crowd that the church was asking for trade justice, more aid and the cancellation of unpayable debt.

"In the past, people sat up straight and asked themselves why some people had to be slaves, or why tuberculosis had to kill off generations of poor people in Britain's cities," he said. "Now, people all over the Western world are sitting up straight and asking why it is that our poorest brothers and sisters must go to bed hungry or die needlessly."

At the end of the rally in Meadows Park, the cardinals led the demonstrators, winding hand in hand on a march through the streets of Edinburgh to the sound of whistles and drums. Many who took part wore white, the color adopted by the Make Poverty History campaign, a coalition of development, human rights and public interest groups.

Using data provided by Bread for the World, UNICEF and the World Health Organization, the campaign estimates that 30,000 children die each day from malnutrition and preventable diseases.

---CNS