GregoryPalamas:
That is a very thoughtful explication and much appreciated. What seems clear is that there is probably much more want than need in the clamour for better housing, etc.
Yes, my experience has been that there is much more want than need in better housing. Note I did not say
for better housing. I said
in better housing.
First of all, let me say that economics and the Church is not just about housing. Nor is it just about feeding the poor, clothing the poor, getting doctors to the poor, and so on.
It is about holding forth with the
entire Gospel of Life. God already had a vision. My experience has been that housing-alone, soupkitchen-alone, freeclosets-alone are stopgap gestures. My experience has been that those folks we were attempting to help eight years ago on an urgent basis are still out on the street!
How can this be? Would socialists not actually want to see that their neighbours are provided for? No. Those same socialists who know every tactic for obtaining goods for themselves demonize those who are on the street. All these programs have been disjointed, disparate, fractured and ineffectual in getting folks off the street. Why? Because the Gospel of Life and the Real Presence are not what is driving socialism.
Well, is it true that street people are lacking in some way? Mentally ill perhaps? The statistics refute this. We have whole families on the street. We even have people with jobs on the street. Most of us in Canada are about one or two months away from being on the street. In any case, is there a law which says that the mentally ill have to be on the street? If so, what happened to all the mentally ill – or morally ill might be more accurate – who are in social housing?
GregoryPalamas:
I gather that if we tithed and gave alms the housing problems would disappear among the members of the Church.
Not if what we do is not God’s will. If God calls us individually to step forward, then nothing can stop us. If we are stepping forward out of our own selves – even in an effort to interpret Scripture – any gains we make will be shortlived.
The poorest of the poor are surely the unborn at the mercy of the abortionist’s knive; the old or sick who are shunted into the lineup for euthanasia; the disabled whose grasp of social housing is really tenuous.
Yet we attempt to provide for these people without God and without providing for ourselves first. Going to confession and taking communion is critical. Beyond that, I think it would be very helpful for Churches to create Life cells: groups of parishioners who meet regularly to study and to live out the Gospel of Life in its entirety. Surely out of such abundance, then we will begin to see the poor experience miracles.
Yes, we will be providing money, houses, food, clothing, medicine, and so on. But the poor will also be in the presence of God. They will finally understand that God is for each individual one of them. And they will finally have Life and freedom. Life is the miracle.
What I am saying is that we have compromised and settled for less than what God wants for us and certainly much less than what God wants for our neighbours. We have settled for socialism and Catholicism is not socialism.
