Poor and a prophetic catholic : the readig of Leon Bloy is a must ...
In some of what I read from the "Free Market Advocates Against Poverty" perspective, I get the sense that poverty is treated as an economic problem to be solved.
I'm not sure helping the poor by helping them to acquire wealth is something to object to, but there seems to be something missing in this, just a faint whiff of Babel... maybe the moral virtues are getting a bit ahead of the theological virtues?
I don't know. It's just that, what Christians have to offer the poor is not an economic program of wealth production, but Christ.
Both sources are wrong. The concept did NOT originate from Liberation Theology and neither did it come up only in 1979.
It first appeared in official episcopal documents in the SECOND Latin American Episcopal Conference, that of Medellin, in 1968 -- the Liberation Theology movement in many ways grew out of this meeting.
It is in the last pages of the Medellin documents, under the heading "Preferencia y Solidaridad".
What worries me about "the neocons" isn't only, or perhaps even mostly, their policy views. What worries me is that I've heard both Sirico and Novak say (i.e., in lectures in which I was personally in attendance) that there isn't even a moral obligation to pay a wage beyond that which the market requires one to pay to get people to come to work (Novak bluntly added that the claim that one is required to do so is nothing more than an expression of greed). I think that there are a lot of prudential judgments necessary about minimum-wage laws, but that moral claim would seem flatly to contradict pretty much everything from Rerum Novarum to Centesimus Annus.
There's a lot to be said for letting the market dictate wages, and adding to that a generous heart and hand for those it shortchanges. Fiddling with the market for purposes of generosity is like fiddling with doctrine so no-one's feelings will be hurt. There are more accurate ways.
This may well be one of those arguments in which it is a moral duty to think clearly.
Thank you for this post and the links. I personally feel a strong impetus to increase my giving immediately, and to do so with wisdom rather than engage anecdotal randomness or what the Buddhists call "idiot compassion" that only makes matters worse in the long run for the recipients.
Please keep sharing with your readers on how to re-think this issue in line with the inescapable focus in the Gospels!
And if you say you should never "fiddle with the market," you are, precisely, "fiddling with doctrine." Especially if you say that paying people a living wage is "generosity." According to a century plus of Catholic doctrine, it's basic justice.
Here's another text from JPII about the preferential option (found in paragraph 49 of Novo Millennio Ineunte:
"49. Beginning with intra-ecclesial communion, charity of its nature opens out into a service that is universal; it inspires in us a commitment to practical and concrete love for every human being. This too is an aspect which must clearly mark the Christian life, the Church's whole activity and her pastoral planning. The century and the millennium now beginning will need to see, and hopefully with still greater clarity, to what length of dedication the Christian community can go in charity towards the poorest. If we have truly started out anew from the contemplation of Christ, we must learn to see him especially in the faces of those with whom he himself wished to be identified: "I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you clothed me, I was sick and you visited me, I was in prison and you came to me" (Mt 25:35-37). This Gospel text is not a simple invitation to charity: it is a page of Christology which sheds a ray of light on the mystery of Christ. By these words, no less than by the orthodoxy of her doctrine, the Church measures her fidelity as the Bride of Christ.
Certainly we need to remember that no one can be excluded from our love, since "through his Incarnation the Son of God has united himself in some fashion with every person".35 Yet, as the unequivocal words of the Gospel remind us, there is a special presence of Christ in the poor, and this requires the Church to make a preferential option for them. This option is a testimony to the nature of God's love, to his providence and mercy; and in some way history is still filled with the seeds of the Kingdom of God which Jesus himself sowed during his earthly life whenever he responded to those who came to him with their spiritual and material needs."
http://tinyurl.com/36a24
Oh, and there's this (which should warm the blogmeister's heart):
"Love of preference for the poor
68. In its various forms - material deprivation, unjust oppression, physical and psy chological illnesses, and finally death - human misery is the obvious sign of the natural condition of weakness in which man finds himself since original sin and the sign of his need for salvation. Hence it drew the compassion of Christ the Saviour to take it upon himself (102) and to be identified with the least of his brethren (cf. Mt 25:40, 45). Hence also those who are oppressed by poverty are the object of a love of preference on the part ef the Church, which since her origin and in spite of the failings of many of her members has not ceased to work for their relief, defence and liberation. She has done this through numberless works of charity which remain always and everywhere indispensable.(103) In addition, through her social doctrine which she strives to apply, she has sought to promote structural changes in society so as to secure conditions of life worthy of the human person. By detachment from riches, which makes possible sharing and opens the gate of the Kingdom,(104) the disciples of Jesus bear witness through love for the poor and unfortunate to the love of the Father himself manifested in the Saviour. This love comes from God and goes to God. The disciples of Christ have always recognized in the gifts placed on the altar a gift offered to God himself.
In loving the poor, the Church also witnesses to man's dignity. She clearly affirms that man is worth more for what he is than for what he has. She bears witness to the fact that this dignity cannot be destroyed, whatever the situation of poverty, scorn, rejection or powerlessness to which a human being has been reduced. She shows her solidarity with those who do not count in a society by which they are rejected spiritually and sometimes even physically. She is particularly drawn with maternal affection toward those children who, through human wickedness, will never be brought forth from the womb to the light of day, as also for the elderly, alone and abandoned. The special option for the poor, far from being a sign of particularism or sectarianism, manifests the universality of the Church's being and mission. This option excludes no one. This is the reason why the Church cannot express this option by means of reductive sociological and ideological categories which would make this preference a partisan choice and a source of conflict."
http://tinyurl.com/5rd94
Avery Cardinal Dulles points out the connection between the preferential option for the poor and the significance of Mary's Magnificat:
"In the Magnificat she expresses her joy of spirit in God her savior, who has looked upon her lowliness and done great things for her.
In the same hymn she expresses solidarity with Yahweh's beloved poor, thus anticipating the Church's preferential option for the poor."
http://www.americancatholic.org/...s/CU/
ac1298.asp
And the late JPII did the same in his encyclical Redemptoris Mater:
"The Church's love of preference for the poor is wonderfully inscribed in Mary's Magnificat. The God of the Covenant, celebrated in the exultation of her spirit by the Virgin of Nazareth, is also he who "has cast down the mighty from their thrones, and lifted up the lowly, ...filled the hungry with good things, sent the rich away empty, ...scattered the proud-hearted...and his mercy is from age to age on those who fear him." Mary is deeply imbued with the spirit of the "poor of Yahweh," who in the prayer of the Psalms awaited from God their salvation, placing all their trust in him (cf. Pss. 25; 31; 35; 55). Mary truly proclaims the coming of the "Messiah of the poor" (cf. Is. 11:4; 61:1). Drawing from Mary's heart, from the depth of her faith expressed in the words of the Magnificat, the Church renews ever more effectively in herself the awareness that the truth about God who saves, the truth about God who is the source of every gift, cannot be separated from the manifestation of his love of preference for the poor and humble, that love which, celebrated in the Magnificat, is later expressed in the words and works of Jesus.
The Church is thus aware-and at the present time this awareness is particularly vivid-not only that these two elements of the message contained in the Magnificat cannot be separated, but also that there is a duty to safeguard carefully the importance of "the poor" and of "the option in favor of the poor" in the word of the living God. These are matters and questions intimately connected with the Christian meaning of freedom and liberation."
http://tinyurl.com/atjl5
Thank you kindly for the supplementary quotes, David.
Thanks for this Christopher, which I found most useful in preparing a short presentation on the principles of Catholic Social Teaching to our joint parishes Justice and Peace Group.
God Bless
The idea that the market can set wages is preposterous and a defense of "Whatever is, is right." Has the writer of the comment ever tried to live on $7.50 an hour? I have. Social justice is not obtained simply by prayer and an appeal to the capitalist's--or communist's--better nature. They don't have one. Profit trumps the soul every time. The wage has to be through struggle. I leave it to you to determine the level of that struggle, but no wage-offerer ever gave anyone anything unless it was wrested from him.
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