I would, on this Feast of the Queen of the Most Holy Rosary, beg her intercession for peace, justice, and creative compassion.
What is the point in institutionalizing poverty? Respectfully, that is the Catholic policy; we give a man a fish. And we solicit those fish, those food donations, as groceries bought from stores where donors pay retail. RETAIL! Why no Catholic food clubs? The teamsters union, the food combines and grocery store chains luv us. May such insanity must stop now and forever.
We have all that brain power and cash and all we do is polish the brass, pass out fish, and beg for government welfare given to us for the poor?
Here’s one possible scenario. Dolan could ask each parish in the diocese to plant three apple trees and three pear trees to offer or distribute free to the community who cannot pay, and solicit donations for the rest. Donations would be earmarked for installing solar generators in each Catholic parish that would sell directly back to Con-Ed to pay for utility aid for the poor, with 10% of that going for medical tuition grants for nurses and doctors who will work for three years in low-income clinics.
The utilities, and grocery chains, and truckers, and apple and pear lobby would kick like the dickens and promise to withhold funds from the new million-dollar addition to the Catholic clinic that functions most as a methadone treatment center. We continue to give a man a tax-paid fish. Queen of the Most Holy Rosary, give us God’s vision for being wise as serpents and harmless as doves; and make us lovingly hear and obey God’s leading, all for His honor and glory. AMEN
How about employing some of the unemployed or underemployed people/families to work part-time in Catholic (or not Catholic) Farmers’ Markets, while also feeding them from there? How about sustainable farming for communities, in which the poor who benefit from that also contribute a little work? (No, I’m not an eco-nut; I’m just agreeing that traditional retail, yes, does increase the cost of goods.) At the very least it would reduce the need for retail fresh fruits and vegetables.
I find it ironic that many U.S. Catholic international social justice projects (by Orders, for example) teach and assist the poor outside the U.S. to become independent, but a similar philosophy is not employed here in the States.
On a different thread I discussed some of the causes of contemporary unemployment, relating to a lack of adaptation to current market needs, and a lack of preparation for that. (That’s on top of under-education.) A Catholic initiative, even locally, not to mention nationally, could focus on How to Sustain Self and Community. That initiative would be funded by cash donations to Catholic causes (“Catholic Charities,” etc.) to inaugurate re-training in one or more areas (depending on available staff & resources).
There is a religious Order in my region which serves the urban poor en masse, locally. Yes, they do distribute free meals daily/weekly, but they also conduct workshops addressing various aspects of poverty, such as reversing chronic unemployment, and they provide networking, information, employment counseling, training resources.
I also think that rich and poor alike would beneift, on several levels (including spiritually), from pastors addressing from the pulpit, and the hierarchy addressing as well, the disproportionate focus on materialism and commercialism, everywhere. We don’t need nearly as much “stuff” as we all are accustomed to. And when corporations engage in their routine, auto-pilot “giving” initiatives, those are impersonal, removed, and inevitably promote retail marketing in some fashion. (Distributing back-packs to needy communities, and including in those back-packs brand-name junk food and brand-name inedible junk – knick-knacks, etc.
in a transparent effort to promote those brands.)
Frankly, as an educator I can tell you that the widening educational gap between rich and poor in this richest of countries demands more educational initiatives and fewer corporate “giving” (commercial) intiiatives for more “stuff.” Instead of cash hand-outs, or hand-outs of "things,"I would prefer to see credit hand-outs for tutoring sessions at low-cost tutoring centers, and/or I would like to see some tutoring centers/programs which both serve the poor and are subsidized by Catholic Charities or some other Catholic (or combined Christian/Catholic) intiatives.
That brings up another topic: The Church could combine its charitable resources and initiatives with other Christian Churches in some of these ways above, ways which would be narrowly limited to specific projects (and thus not conflict with any doctrinal differences).
I think I see the point of the poster above, if it is that overall, the institutional Church contributes to a dysfunctional, layered structure of “charity,” which (if that’s what he means) does not promote independence and therefore tends not to liberate from poverty.
I also think that any individual or institution (NGO) which is skill-based, training-based, education-based, and information-based in its charitable efforts could be subsidized in some way or portion by the government, for those dimensions of its charity. I think such taxation, based on sustainable empowement vs. merely end-point commodities (and food is a commodity, btw), would be more universally supported by the electorate than the sink-hole approach which does not regenerate persons or economies.
