Not from me. Maybe the old “Catholic guilt.” I have come to realize that it is very hard to square the lifestyles of most Americans with Jesus’ teachings. Let alone rich Americans. Just look at this forum. American Catholics spend so much time debating things that are truly trivial - the minutia of the rubrics, how one cleric framed an issue versus another, disputes over ecclesiastical issues and political nonsense. Theological trivia, at best, and things Jesus never talked about. But we don’t really like to talk about the thing Jesus talked about the most, and talked about very plainly.
Sorry if I have been a bit strident, but given all that, when I saw a thread complaining about how put upon the rich are, and how we should be nicer to the poor rich people, I just couldn’t let that go.
Do you actually know “rich” people?
EVERYONE of us is richer than someone else. Think about that. YOU are very wealthy compared to many Americans. And I may (or may not) be very wealthy compared to you.
You might be surprised to meet actual rich people. My brother is very wealthy–he owns over 40 properties, including a farm in Northern Illinois (some of the best soil in the world). But you would never know it to look at him.
If you met up with him in the diner where he eats (little Mom and Pop place, not a chain), you would get into a conversation with him (because that’s why he goes to that diner–to meet people and get to know them), and you would think at first, “He’s just an old, not very clean, man who lives in a van down by the river and knows a lot of history. Probably doesn’t do much all day except read old books. Poor thing–I’ll pay for his meal on my way out.”
And when you got up to the cash register and told the clerk that you would like to pay his check, she would tell you that he has already paid yours.
And you would tell her that you hate to take money from a poor old man, and she and all the other wait staff and the cook would start laughing fit to bust a gut! Because they know him well enough to know that he is not poor. Far from it. He works full time as a welder and mechanic, usually putting in 18-hour days.
And he almost always pays bills for other people in the restaurant without telling them. In fact, he stepped up when the restaurant was forced to move its location, and helped pay for the move, not even blinking when he handed them a big…a really big check.
You would be surprised how many rich people are like my brother. They live beneath their means because they love to help people.
You might think someone is “obscenely rich” as someone in the thread stated.
But for all you know, they are actually giving away a great deal of their money and living way beneath the way they COULD be living.
Or…sadly, they may not be rich at all, but living on credit.
Unless you KNOW someone, don’t even think of judging them.
Remember the wise words of St. Paul “…aspire to live quietly, to mind your own affairs, and to work with your hands, as we directed you, so that you may behave properly towards outsiders and be dependent on no one.”
