Ash Wednesday 2010

Vancouver Olympic Games 2010

2 621 athletes and almost 10 000 journalists are present and enjoying this extraordinary sportive event.

Estimated costs of organization 2 billion dollars (law estimation)

Some are estimating that eventually it could cost Canada up to 6 billion!!!

Many people in Canada are telling that this is “One of the biggest and most useless sports extravaganza”. Because at the same time so many Canadians are living on the streets and have no decent salary, no shelter, no means for arranging honestly their lives.

Forgive me please but I would like to put this event in the larger context

At the same time

• · 829 million people in the whole world are suffering a constant hunger and malnutrition (829 million people means 25 times the population of Canada)
• · 12 million children in the world are starving every year this is 35 000 every day

According to the final data Canada collected and sent to Haiti 5 million dollars. A beautiful and honest gest of human solidarity. But if we count this and compare to the “sports extravaganza of Vancouver 2010” it shows up that Haiti get 400 times less than the costs of organization of Vancouver 2010.

Will you tell me that the Olympic Games in this context are the expression of the beautiful ideas of honest competition, human solidarity and peace?

This is not to make you guilty, or to underestimate the beautiful idea of sportive competitions.

Ash Wednesday and Lent proposes us a frank evaluation:

How much money do I spend for useless or even sinful activities?

Is my life an honest way of sharing with those who are less fortunate than I?