Cathedral of the Poor and RCIA

[Michaeljc4]

Hello, friends. On Sunday, I attended the RCIA ceremony at the Cathedral of the Holy Cross in Boston, MA. If anyone has been to our cathedral, they can attest to how magnificant it is. Utterly beautiful. Throughout the day, there were two different services to accommodate all of the people who are catachumens, as well as their sponors (like me) and their parish leadership. It was a wonderful experience: there were people of every size, shape and color in attendance: white people, black people, brown people, Asian people, old people, young people, abled people, disabled people…it was a true mosiac of humanity, and it really showed me how universal the Catholic faith is.

And yet…just across the street from the Cathedral is a large public housing project. Another housing project is a block away, and in these projects, there is tremendous violence, substance abuse, illness, hopelessness, and sorrow. I have to admit that, even as I marvelled at the beauty of the cathedral, I wondered where Jesus would have been were he walking around Boston that day. Would he have been in the cathedral with us, smiling and celebrating and enjoying the richness of the building, or would he have been with the poor outside the cathedral walls?

I sometimes think that we become too enthralled by the beauty in our faith tradition, and that we lose sight of what our mission here on earth actually is. All of those people in the cathedral that day (and there had to be a thousand, all said and done) could have been out in the community, helping the needy, serving the poor, showing them what Christians do, or are suppossed to be doing, instead of being in a beautiful building that must cost hundreds of thousands of dollars to maintain each year. Wouldn’t service to the poor be a better evangelism tool, and a better lesson for our new members, than a big, gorgeous building? I mean, our nation is hurting terribly in this economy. People are in deep trouble. How can we, as the disciples of Jesus, justify paying for these giant structures–as beautiful as they are–while people are, quite literally, going hungry outside their walls?

Any thoughts on this?

 

[ChadS]

Your concerns certainly aren’t new and people have asked the same questions for years about how Catholics can worship in beautiful churches while people are outside suffering. I don’t think the answer has to be an either/or proposition. These churches and cathedrals that are in these terrible neighborhoods were often started by immigrants that had little more money than the people that are outside the churches now. But their sacrifices went into building beautiful temples to worship God in. At the same time though the church has helped those same people with food kitchens, food banks, homeless shelters and numerous other social services. The problem isn’t that we have these huge churches it’s that people aren’t going to church and giving money and supporting these services like they used to. Over the years those services had to do more with less and were in the unfortunate position of having more people to help and less money to do it with.

ChadS

 

[kage_ar]

The Catholic Church gives more to the poor than any organization on the planet.

Jesus would have been both places, He attended services in the beautiful temple and also cared for the souls of the poor.

Notice, Jesus did not hand out money to the poor, He cared for their spiritual needs. I would imagine that Cathedral is there for everyone, rich and poor.

 

[puzzleannie]

And yet…just across the street from the Cathedral is a large public housing project. Another housing project is a block away, and in these projects, there is tremendous violence, substance abuse, illness, hopelessness, and sorrow. I have to admit that, even as I marvelled at the beauty of the cathedral, I wondered where Jesus would have been were he walking around Boston that day. Would he have been in the cathedral with us, smiling and celebrating and enjoying the richness of the building, or would he have been with the poor outside the cathedral walls?

Any thoughts on this?

that is the point
you meet Jesus in the Cathedral, that is through the sacraments of the Church, and learn to know and love Him. Through him you learn to know and love the poor, and when you leave it is you who are being called to confront what you see outside. That is why you are being empowered with the sacraments–to serve.

 

[littlequestion]

Those poor would be there whether you are Catholic or not, whether the cathedral is there or not. Who was it who said “the poor shall always be with you”??

Fact: the Catholic churches historically have belonged to the Catholics who built them. There is no barrier to having access to that beauty, unlike having access to the beauty in some private country club or expensive museum. Nowadays it might be different, but I really get sick of seeing people who live in housing that yuppies don’t like, being pitied and assumed to be hopeless, drug addicted, etc. and people who live in equally poor settings having to sit there in the Church and listen to themselves being described as pity objects.

Jesus did not see poor people. He saw people. The poor guy sitting on the steps of a city building is no more pitiable than the well-dressed guy sitting in an expensive psychiatrist’s office.

You are seeing people in your cathedral who live in poor housing. They are well dressed for Mass. They don’t show themselves to people who they know would behave appallingly like intrusive social workers if they invited them home, but they are there.

The Catholic church did not create the conditions that lead to poor housing in the centers of cities where the churches build cathedrals. Look to Wall street and look to the government itself, especially the explosion of regulations against employing decent honest Americans for even the simplest jobs because such people will sooner or later have a parking ticket or some kind of complaint or rumor of a complaint that makes them unemployable. Foreign-born workers, however, are employable because their entire lives are not on record and available to all the 1-800-sue-for-bucks people who sue companies if they can show that the companies employed an American who once got arrested driving home from a wedding, or some such thing.

I’ll tell you one thing, I was really happy to see the economy start crashing enough so that all the self-righteous middle-class who’ve been looking down their credit-card nose-jobs at blue-collar Catholics are discovering that there is nothing really wrong with wearing old clothes as long as they’re warm, and a small apartment that you can afford is very comfortable compared to a suburban mcmansion that costs a mint to heat and cool for two working adults and a poodle. Now I am waiting for the blow-back, which is that all these ridiculous gossip-based barriers to employment of native-born Americans will start to unravel and someday we may be back to just letting people work and live, love and pray, and let God Himslef sort out the question of who belongs to His family according to His own schedule and preferences, which are different from ours. He waits til we’re in the grave to judge us, after all.

 

[kage_ar]

You are seeing people in your cathedral who live in poor housing. They are well dressed for Mass. They don’t show themselves to people who they know would behave appallingly like intrusive social workers if they invited them home, but they are there.

The Catholic church did not create the conditions that lead to poor housing in the centers of cities where the churches build cathedrals. Look to Wall street and look to the government itself, especially the explosion of regulations against employing decent honest Americans for even the simplest jobs because such people will sooner or later have a parking ticket or some kind of complaint or rumor of a complaint that makes them unemployable. Foreign-born workers, however, are employable because their entire lives are not on record and available to all the 1-800-sue-for-bucks people who sue companies if they can show that the companies employed an American who once got arrested driving home from a wedding, or some such thing.

I’ll tell you one thing, I was really happy to see the economy start crashing enough so that all the self-righteous middle-class who’ve been looking down their credit-card nose-jobs at blue-collar Catholics are discovering that there is nothing really wrong with wearing old clothes as long as they’re warm, and a small apartment that you can afford is very comfortable compared to a suburban mcmansion that costs a mint to heat and cool for two working adults and a poodle. Now I am waiting for the blow-back, which is that all these ridiculous gossip-based barriers to employment of native-born Americans will start to unravel and someday we may be back to just letting people work and live, love and pray, and let God Himslef sort out the question of who belongs to His family.

It is amazing to me, people who are unable to scrape together two dollars, yet they REFUSE to live in “the projects” because people will look down on them. Sad sad sad.

We need to just see people, amen!

 

[Michaeljc4]

LittleQuestion wrote:

Jesus did not see poor people

You might want to check that one out, my brother. Jesus spoke quite specifically about the poor, over and over again. Likewise, in our Catholic faith, we are to be concerned for the poor to the point of making a ‘preferential option’ for them in our private lives, in our public policies, and everywhere in between.

I grew up in public housing, as did my parents, uncles, aunts, etc. I’m not sure who these yuppies are that have so offended you, but I’m not one of them, my friend.

I agree that a beautiful church is inspiring and transformative. I do wonder, though, at the expense of maintaining them when so many people are hurting. Likewise (and here I think I agree with LittleQuestion) I am…disappointed by Catholics in leafy–green suburbs (like the one I now live in) who act as though poverty is someone else’s business instead of the core of our Christian discipleship.

 

[littlequestion]

LittleQuestion wrote:

You might want to check that one out, my brother. Jesus spoke quite specifically about the poor, over and over again. Likewise, in our Catholic faith, we are to be concerned for the poor to the point of making a ‘preferential option’ for them in our private lives, in our public policies, and everywhere in between.

I grew up in public housing, as did my parents, uncles, aunts, etc. I’m not sure who these yuppies are that have so offended you, but I’m not one of them, my friend.

I agree that a beautiful church is inspiring and transformative. I do wonder, though, at the expense of maintaining them when so many people are hurting. Likewise (and here I think I agree with LittleQuestion) I am…disappointed by Catholics in leafy–green suburbs (like the one I now live in) who act as though poverty is someone else’s business instead of the core of our Christian discipleship.

You left out the rest of the quote: “Jesus did not see poor people.* He saw people.”*

That changes my statement completely. You also completely missed the point. The last thing we need in the projects are more suburban do-good Christians or similar who think they have anything at all to offer the survivors of this decadent and condemned culture.

I have seen so many Christian college kids (Catholic and otherwise) with the evangelical gleam in their eyes proclaiming themselves as the “voice of the voiceless” that it is embarrassing. Who is teaching people that it is ok to look upon perfectly decent human beings and stifle them enough to call them “voiceless”? Who are any of these Catholic brethren of mine to be standing in judgement over whole neighborhoods of people, and in the schools oppressing children with horrible labels just because they have an address that makes the yuppies go “e-eww” when the yuppies also might be smugly acting as if they understand the fantastic art that is hanging in some gallery, and never connect that the most creative and intelligent people usually choose to live in those urban neighborhoods that look so bedraggled to outsiders?

If they took the time to get to know people as PEOPLE, not as “POOR-PEOPLE” they’d see some beautiful interiors in those projects, they’d see books and good taste.

And that’s when it would get real interesting, because as soon as they see anything good, the hate would kick in. “Why, they’re not really poor at all! My gosh, I’m struggling to pay a mortgage and that loan I took out for my vacation package in Cancun, and some of these people are living well! How dare they!”

You might say, well, if these poor are so smart, how come they are not volunteering in the food pantries?

Think about it. Nobody with those addresses is ACCEPTED as volunteers by the social-work types who run those food pantries and such, because the directors know that as soon as people are seen doing the work of their own neighborhood, the food pantries will be attacked and accused of some kind of fraud. The only “fraud” actually is that poor people are not always living down to the image of helpless and voiceless that the public demands.

There are other aspects to this too, but they run off into other topics…

 

[Michaeljc4]

It’s interesting that you are so offended by the stereotyping of the poor by yuppies and do-gooder suburbanites and the ‘self-righteous middle class’…all of whom you are busily stereotyping quite nicely on your own. Something about the mote in one’s eye comes to mind.

Jesus, of course, did see people. All people. With that said, he mentioned the poor–specifically and on numerous occassions–throughout the Gospels. Perhaps he was trying to tell his disciples something? The Catholic Church certainly thinks so.

 

[kage_ar]

You might say, well, if these poor are so smart, how come they are not volunteering in the food pantries?

Think about it. Nobody with those addresses is ACCEPTED as volunteers by the social-work types who run those food pantries and such, because the directors know that as soon as people are seen doing the work of their own neighborhood, the food pantries will be attacked and accused of some kind of fraud. The only “fraud” actually is that poor people are not always living down to the image of helpless and voiceless that the public demands.

There are other aspects to this too, but they run off into other topics…

Not in my neck of the woods. As someone who runs two food pantries and organizes volunteers for many other activities, as long as someone is willing to work and is Virtus trained - I will find something for them to do.

I’d be asked to step down (and rightly so) if I ever did not accept someone’s generosity because of their address or socio-economic situation.