Download 1 “The Cry of the Poor” - What does it mean for you?

“The Cry of the Poor” - What does it mean for you?
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Keynote Address – Friday, 24 June 2005 - SSVP AGA 2005 – Calgary Alberta
Bishop Frederick Henry, Roman Catholic Diocese of Calgary
We may not think about it often but our personal world vision - our habitual way of looking at the world is
crucial in how, with the eyes of faith, we read the signs of the times in today’s world.
It seems that much of the new religious energy in the world is reacting against the dark or negative side of
globalization which is reserving its best gifts for small privileged elites and presently excluding billions of
people by its Security Deficit wherein we see whole countries collapsing into chaos; by its Social Deficit
which continues to widen the gap between the rich and poor in every country; by its Ecological Deficit
which stubbornly refuses to accept the limits of nature; and by its Democratic Deficit that excludes most
people from being effectively represented and participating in the decisions of the vast new powerful
international agencies such as WTO, IMF and World Bank, which are dominated by a few rich nations.
How do I look at history unfolding in my own life, in the Church’s life, in the life of the world? We all
have blind spots and biases in our worldview or vision.
Mexican Parable
An investment banker from the United States was at the pier of a costal Mexican village when a small boat
with just one fisherman docked. Inside the boat were several large yellow-fin tuna. The investment banker
complimented the Mexican on the quality of his fish and asked how long it took to catch them.
“Only a little while,” replied the Mexican. The banker asked why he did not stay out longer and catch more
fish, and the Mexican said that he had enough to support his family’s immediate needs.
The banker then asked, “But what do you do with the rest of your time?”
The Mexican fisherman said, “I sleep late, fish a little, play with my children, take a siesta with my wife,
and stroll the village each evening where I sip wine and play my guitar with my friends. I have a full and
busy life.”
The investment banker scoffed: “You should spend more time fishing and, with the proceeds, buy a bigger
boat. With the proceeds from the bigger boat you could buy several boats. Eventually you would have a
fleet of fishing boats. Instead of selling your catch to a middleman you could sell directly to the processor,
eventually opening your own cannery. You would need to leave this small coastal fishing village and move
to Mexico City, then Los Angeles, and eventually New York where you will run your own expanding
enterprise.”
The Mexican fisherman asked, “But how long will all this take?” the banker replied, “15 to 20 years.”
“But then what?” the fisherman asked.
The banker laughed and said, “That’s the best part. When the time is right you would float your company
on the market and sell your stock to the public and become very rich. You would make millions.”
“Millions ... then what?”
The investment banker said, “Then you would retire. Move to a small coastal fishing village, where you
could sleep late, fish a little, play with your kids, take a siesta with your wife, stroll to the village in the
evenings where you could sip wine and play your guitar with your friends.”
The basic challenge for us Catholics today is to become, with the help of God’s Spirit, grateful enough, free
enough, humble enough, letting go enough to be able to see and read clearly the signs of the times in us,
and around us so that our world vision may become that of Christ, as we grow in his gift of discovering His
risen presence and actions in ourselves, in every person, in every happening in all of creation.
Bishop Frederick Henry – Diocese of Calgary
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Biblical Overview of the Poor
Jim Wallis, a prophetic evangelical Christian, tells the story from his seminary days about his distress that
many believers consistently miss a central theme of the Scriptures.
A group of eager first year seminarians did a thorough study to find every verse in the Bible that dealt with
the poor. They found several thousand references to poor people, to wealth and poverty, to injustice and
oppression and to what the response of God’s people was to be.
One member of the group took an old Bible and a pair of scissors and began the long process of literally
cutting out every single biblical text about the poor.
The prophets were simply decimated. The famous refrain from Amos, “let justice roll down like waters,
and righteousness like an every flowing stream,” was cut out.
Isaiah’s question, “Is this not the fast that I choose: to loose the bonds of injustice, to undue the thongs of
the yoke, and let the oppressed go free?,” had to go.
Micah’s call to “do justice, love kindness, and walk humbly with your God.”was eliminated.
Much of the psalms, those sections describing God as defender and deliverer of the oppressed,
disappeared, as did references to the Hebrew tradition of Jubilee.
The thankful Magnificat prayer of Mary didn’t survive the cut: “He has brought down the powerful from
their thrones, and lifted up the lowly; he has filled the hungry with good things, and sent the rich empty
away.”
The Nazareth manifesto of Jesus, “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring
good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the prisoners and recovery of sight to the
blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favour,” had to expunged.
The Sermon on the Mount, and especially the Beatitudes, were deemed to be too upsetting. Imagine saying
that the blessed are the poor, the meek, the merciful, the peacemakers, the persecuted, and those who
hunger and thirst for justice!
Mt. 25, the last judgement scene, and that part about “As long as you did it to the least of my brothers” had
to be excised.
Of course, the slashing affected Acts and the practice of economic sharing: “there was not a needy person
among them.” Even Paul’s collection since it was encouraging economic redistribution had to go.
James with his doctrine about position in the community and “faith without works” had to be snipped; as
did all that stuff from John about not having the love of God in you unless you opened your heart to the
needy.
When the zealous seminarian was done with all his editorial cuts, the old Bible would hardly hold together.
It was literally falling apart. What had been created was a “Bible full of holes.”
We tend to do the same thing.
People can really love the Bible, based their lives on it, and yet completely miss some of its most central
themes. The Scriptures repeatedly tell how nations, rulers, and all of us are to treat the poor but we just
don’t seem to get it.
We tend to take the comment of Jesus, “the poor you will always have with you,” as a fatalistic insight or
an excuse rather than as an expression of the disciples continuing proximity to the poor. We don’t see
assistance rendered to the poor as a primordial option. The poor are not those we identify with, spend our
time and share our resources with.
Bishop Frederick Henry – Diocese of Calgary
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In the Wisdom Tradition
Some of the oldest literature in the Bible is found in the Wisdom books. This oldest material is largely
made up of proverbs, sayings, clever observations, often with a note of humour. They are sayings which
were handed down from one generation to the next, usually in upper-class circles, where it was used for
education. These sayings record observations on reality, as seen by the upper-class wise people of their day.
It is not surprising that in this stream of thought the poor are seen as mostly lazy, lacking in intelligence, or
simply immoral and suffering the consequences of their evil lives. In this tradition, a psalmist can say that
he has never seen a virtuous person deserted (Ps 37:25). He must have lived a very sheltered life.
In this same tradition, a later wise man challenges the theory: he has Job, an innocent man, reduced to
abject poverty and afflicted with a terrible disease. To Job, it is unthinkable that God should have caused
this in punishment for any sin. To Job's friends, who come to console him, Job suffers because he has
sinned, consciously or involuntarily. Job insists that he is innocent. He protests loudly and at length against
the treatment he is receiving from God.
In the end, Job is seen sitting on his dunghill, covered with sores, rejected by his friends, and his wife, and
seemingly abandoned by God. But God, in a dramatic turnaround, gives his approval to Job, and condemns
the friends who defended Him "for not speaking truthfully about me" (Job 42:7). The friends are to ask Job
to offer sacrifice and to pray for them. The writer of the Book of Job clearly wants us to face the fact that
goodness is not always rewarded and evil is not always punished here on earth.
In the Legal Tradition
Covering as it does the entire Pentateuch, this view of the poor is entirely drawn from the Exodus
experience. The writers constantly recall that the Israelites were once themselves slaves and poor and
without hope in Egypt, and the Lord in his goodness looked down upon them and saved them from "that
house of slavery." The whole community, under the leadership of Moses, was led to Mount Sinai to receive
the law which would teach them how to live in justice and peace as God's chosen people. The Ten
Commandments state the basic rules of justice for a people who were intended to be set apart as a
distinctive people belonging to the Lord. One characteristic of this people was that there should be no poor
among them (Deut 15:4).
The legal tradition has a communitarian view of things: it is a people which the Lord has saved, it is a
people that is called to holiness, and it is a people that has to eliminate poverty from its midst.
Poverty is a sign that things are not going right. Certainly among fellow Israelites, poverty was a scandal.
Even the needs of the non-Israelites among them should be a concern of Israel. They were reminded that
"you were once strangers in Egypt."
In the Prophetic Tradition
When the prophets saw that the nation was developing the same kind of injustice that had existed in Egypt,
they began to speak with all the force that was available to them. When the rich oppressed the poor within
Israel, the prophets heaped on the wealthy words of severe condemnation. The poor were always the
touchstones of the people's fidelity to the way of the Lord. The prophets also deepen their thoughts on the
poor. With all this attention being given to the poor, something of major importance was being overlooked:
God created his people out of the poor. The Hebrew slaves in Egypt were not only the objects of God's pity.
They were the objects of his hope. He saw in them a future based on them, because of their humility
(Zephaniah 3:11-13).
The prophetic tradition comes to its high point on the subject of poverty in the Songs of the Suffering
Servant (Is 42:1-9; 40:1-6; 50:4-11; 52:13-53:12). The Servant (representing the People of God and the
Messiah), suffers and gives his life not for his sins but for the sins of others. He wins the salvation of many
by his suffering and death. He will be recompensed generously by God.
Bishop Frederick Henry – Diocese of Calgary
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In the Gospels
Jesus did accept the fact observed by Wisdom literature that the poor will always be with us. And so there
will always be a need to help them (the sick, disabled, etc.) While our Lord did have some funds to give to
the poor from the common purse (Jn 13:29), He is never seen actually doing this. He is always shown
enabling people to be integrated in the community (lepers cured), or to be able to fend for themselves
(cripples healed). The man who lay for years on the side of the pool of healing waters is questioned about
his motives, before being healed.
Jesus does expect us to give money to the needy (Lazarus and the rich man); he did speak of the care of the
least "of his brothers" as a sign of doing God's will (Matt 25).
He also said it was nearly impossible for the rich to be saved (Matt 19:23) and he spoke of the way of the
rich to be doomed (Luke 6:24). The reason for this dismal assessment is that the wealthy are simply beyond
change, they are beyond conversion, except by a miracle of God's omnipotence. The rich are enslaved by
the need for more and more profits (more barns). They need neither God, nor their neighbour; they only
want more wealth.
The wealthy and the self-sufficient are the same. One does not have to be materially wealthy to be rich. The
Pharisees "loved money" (Luke 16:14), and so they are among the rich. The rich do not need God. They do
not feel indebted to God. Quite the contrary, God needs them and is in debt to them. Nor do they need other
people; they are self-sufficient. They look down on the poor as inferior types, clearly sinners, including the
company Jesus keeps. The Pharisees, like the rich, are beyond changing (children in the market).
Jesus takes the notion of poverty and places it in the centre of his Gospel. We are, of course, to help the
materially poor in any way we can. It becomes a measure of our devotion. But, there is more than this
contained in his statement, "Blessed are the poor in spirit . . . " (thoroughly poor), or "Blessed are you poor.
. . " Those who are or who have accepted to be poor, are in the right direction, the right way. The direction
of poverty is the right direction. The direction of wealth is the wrong direction, and leads to doom. Poverty,
on the other hand, expresses one's neediness before God (access to salvation), of one's need for others
(possibility of community), and of one's need of money (sharing it with others). In terms of being disposed
to change, disposed to conversion, the poor have nothing to lose; they are in a much better position than the
rich.
It is this sense of poverty as a virtue (power) which makes the community of Acts possible. The poor, as
described by Jesus, are in fact the basis for any hopeful change, and change for the better. The poor cannot
simply be the objects of our charity. They must become the subjects of their own history. They are
especially prepared for this by the disposition of humility which poverty promotes. The rich, to be saved,
must become poor.
The poor can create history, but they cannot do it on the basis of poverty alone. They will have to discover
their need for other people, the willingness to share what money they have in order to enter a living
community of God. They can always count on the help of God; of this they can be sure, for the poor are
preferred by Him, whether on Job's pile of refuse, or on the Cross, or in our slums.
Catholic Social Teaching
Once upon a time there was a town that was just beyond the bend of a large river. One day some of the
children from the town were playing beside the river when they noticed three bodies floating in the water.
They ran for help and the townsfolk quickly pulled the bodies out of the river.
One body was dead so they buried it. One was alive, but quite ill, so they put that person in the hospital.
The third turned out to be a healthy child, who they then placed with a family who cared for it and who
took it to school.
From that day on, every day a number of bodies came floating down the river, and every day, the good
people of the town would pull them out and tend to them - taking the sick to the hospitals, placing the
children with families, and burying those who were dead. This went on for years; each day brought its own
quota of bodies, and the townsfolk not only came to expect a number of bodies each day but also worked at
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developing more elaborate systems for picking them out of the river and tending to them. Some of the
townsfolk became quite generous in tending to these bodies and a few extraordinary ones even gave up
their jobs so that they could tend to this concern full-time. And the town itself felt a certain healthy pride in
its generosity. However, during all these years and despite all that generosity and effort, nobody thought to
go up the river, beyond the bend that hid from their sight what was above them, and find out why, daily,
those bodies came floating down the river.
Look at the system (political, economic, social, cultural, religious) within which we live so as to name and
change those structural elements that account for the fact that some of us are unduly penalized even as
some of us are unduly privileged.
We have a rich resource in Catholic social teaching that enlightens and guides us in putting our faith vision
at the service of society - especially of the poor. A summary description of Catholic social teaching is that
it is a teaching that helps us to have right relationships with God, our neighbour, and with nature. It builds
on the intimate interconnectedness of all creation which we have long known by revelation and is now be
confirmed by recent discoveries by science. Our social teaching can be summarized in a few core principles
from which many other more specific principles and values can be derived. These are:
1) The inherent dignity and worth of every individual created in the image of God with a unique identity
and culture.
2) The social nature of each person and his/her solidarity with the whole of creation. We are one family
under God socially responsible for one another as brothers and sisters as well as for our use of private
property and the earth.
3) The principle of subsidiarity. Decision making power, in society, must remain as close as possible to
those it affects, and so facilitate the empowerment of ordinary local people to participate democratically in
governing themselves and thus thwart potential abuses of totalitarianism in its many forms.
4) All our thinking and action must be marked by a preferential option for the poor and excluded in human
society.
When we look at a particular political or economic happening or proposed legislation we can check
whether they are moving in a direction that respects these values and principles and, most decisively, we
can ask how will this action or initiative affect the poor and excluded in society.
While Catholic social teaching does not pretend to offer certain solutions for particular complex social and
political problems, it does offer clear values and directions to guide us through the present minefield of
political, cultural and economic uncertainties. A positive sign of the times is that these principles and
values are found to some degree or other in all world religions.
Our provincial government recently announced that Albertans receiving Assured Income for the Severely
Handicapped (AISH) will get up to $100 more each month starting April 1, 2005, and an additional $50 per
month starting next year to bring their monthly living allowance to a maximum of $1,000.
After much discussion re the impact on small businesses but not on whether a person could live on such a
level of subsistence, the Government of Alberta also announced that the minimum wage, currently $5.90 an
hour, will be raised to $7.00 an hour on September 1, 2005.
Never mind that a single parent earning the current minimum wage and supporting one child must work
over 80 hours a week to earn the Low Income Cut-off (LICO) for a two person family ($24,745 annual
income).
Never mind that the average hourly wage Albertans make is $18.55 an hour.
Never mind that 26,480 Calgary families live just above the LICO. Two thirds of Alberta’s “poor families”
have incomes less than 75% of the LICO, while more than one third have an income of less than half of
LICO. Never mind that 14.8 % of Calgary children lived in poverty in 2002, up from 11.1% in 2001.
Bishop Frederick Henry – Diocese of Calgary
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Practical and Pastoral Observations
1.) The poor around us are often invisible.
They aren’t in our “networks” - they aren’t at the same gatherings, don’t belong to councils or committees,
aren’t on invitation lists, don’t always go to church (and if they do they try hard not to look poor), don’t
bump into us at the mall or supermarket., don’t get parish bulletins, don’t see or respond to flyers.
To find the poor you have to go out of your way. You must look with different eyes, for the poor feel that
we do not want them in those parts of our lives. So they disguise themselves or absent themselves. It takes
initiative and creativity to reach the poor
2.) The biggest problem is the “undeserving poor”
Place a child before us with a hungry face and ragged clothes, and we jump at the chance to help.
Children haven’t done anything to makes themselves undeserving. They haven’t made bad choices that
landed them in this mess. They haven’t failed to lift a finger to help themselves, because children can’t help
themselves anyway. They really can’t help it if they are poor.
Poor children don’t make it hard to help the poor. Poor adults who have had bad luck don’t make it hard to
help the poor.
The problem is the undeserving poor. They are the ones who made the bad choices or failed to make any
choice at all. They are the ones who have been there before, and it didn’t help. They are the ones who
expect us to bail them out and who hardly say thank you when we do. They are the ones who take
advantage of the system, of other people.
Help them anyway. If you start to distinguish between the deserving and the undeserving poor, you are
finished.
We should always try to help the poor help themselves out of their poverty. But be careful about meting out
your help too carefully. Jesus was criticized for his largesse, his reckless mercy towards undeserving
sinners. The memory of Jesus helps us deal with the undeserving poor.
The undeserving poor remind us that something deeper needs to change - whatever it is that makes them
feel so hopeless and helpless. In the meantime, help them. Do not be judgmental or overly careful.
If you are going to err, err on the side of largesse.
3.) If you try to help the poor, you will sometimes get taken
Every parish minister can tell you stories of people who have come with a sad tale. You check it out very
carefully, give them money and later find out that they did the same thing at three or four neighbouring
parishes.
Helping the poor has its risks. You will sometimes get taken. The same is true for forgiveness. If you try to
forgive 70 x 7, you will get stepped on. It’s a darn shame. Be generous anyway. Don’t be foolish, but don’t
overdo the safety rules.
It’s like playing racquetball. You’re going to get hit with the ball now and then, and it hurts. You can wear
safety goggles and learn how to step out of the way of certain shots, but you are still going to get hit every
now and then. The only way to avoid it is to stand in the corner. Learn to write off your losses.
4.) Helping the poor is not always a pleasant experience.
It’s no picnic helping the poor. There is often no feeling of fulfilment. It’s work, like a lot of virtue is work,
like taking care of an elderly parent is work. The poor are just like us. They are mixtures of virtues and
vices. Like us, they are not always grateful. Like us, they don’t always trust. Like us, they don’t always
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respond. Like us they are both generous and greedy. Like us, they are sometimes wonderful and sometimes
awful. Whatever happened to the noble poor? Some are out there, but mostly they are in Charles Dickens.
5.) Food baskets at thanksgiving and Christmas are good as far as they go, but they don’t go very far.
People easily talk about direct help to the poor on special occasions - clothes, food , money. Those fine
things shouldn’t be taken lightly. But that is the easy part. The hard part is trying to do something about the
poor’s state in life. Where do you begin? What do you do? It’s hard when you deal with causes.
6.) Sometimes the poor are overwhelmed into inaction.
People who deal with the poor can tell a hundred stories about how they waste money and opportunities.
You bring food to their homes and notice a large-screen TV. You give them money and they buy groceries
at the nearby convenience store where prices are much higher and send their children to the mall to have a
good time. You arrange to have their car fixed and discover that it’s a Buick LeSabre. Whenever you visit,
they are watching TV.
Why? Let’s try to put ourselves in their shoes.
You are thinking about cleaning the garage or your basement. Actually you’ve been thinking about it for
since last winter when you were trying to find room in the garage for the snow blower.
It’s a hopeless mess, but today is the day you are going to tackle it. Getting started is the problem.
Because with a mess like this there is no logical place to begin.
So you decide to have a beer first and watch a couple of inning of the ball game.
Hold that thought. Right there, in that moment, you are in their shoes. You may spend only half an hour
watching the game, and you will eventually get around to your task, but in those 30 minutes of doing
nothing you know exactly how they feel all day, every day. At least with cleaning the garage there is an end
in sight. But for the poor the task seems to have no beginning and no ending. They can’t get enough
together even to get started - a down payment, transportation, protection from an abusive husband, and
education.
Their life is like that all the time. It’s too big a mess even to know where to begin. So they try to forget it by
enjoying some “luxuries,” a smoke, a beer and watching TV.
Don’t judge laziness too quickly.
“The Cry of the Poor” - What does it mean for you?
Pope John Paul II has repeatedly reminded us that we must choose between a culture of life and a culture of
death. We can transform the world only when the Church, the people of God, become witnesses to nonviolence, forgiveness and evident love of God, neighbour and nature.
Bishop Frederick Henry – Diocese of Calgary
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