This Article Addresses a Point if View Regarding the Poor--Thoughts?

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I think it was St Thomas Aquinas who said you can’t offer salvation to someone who is starving, you have to feed them food first.

When we in the US talk about poverty, it is generally on a completely different scale than when the Pope does. There are poor people in other parts of the world who are literally (and by that I mean actually literally) dying of starvation. There are people for whom a trip to the doctor requires a 50-mile *walk. *There are people who live in shacks, in hovels, in the trash dumps.

Seen in this light, the Pope’s concerns might be clearer.
 
Are you kidding? So caring for the poor, and working for justice and providing the basics for those who are in need is out of date? Have you ever been poor? Do you have friends or family who are actually poor?

I’m a former Franciscan, so I know St. Francis and the history and religious life. I also spent a couple years when I had to live with friends or family because I couldn’t afford my own place, even with working a job, but a low paying job with no or few benefits. I can tell you that “voluntary poverty” is a heck of a lot more romantic and easy to live with than actual involuntary poverty.

When we’re talking about the poor, we’re talking about people who can’t cover the costs of their basic needs, many of whom have to work 2 or 3 part-time jobs to make ends meet, people who have to choose between medicine or food! We’re also talking about many, many individuals and families who are just this side of homelessness. People who lost everything because of medical bills.

Do you realize that there are strict limits on how much “welfare” individuals can receive over time here in the US? Do you also realize that most adults who are working age who receive welfare benefits receive them for a short period of time only? Do you realize that most of the poor are elderly, disabled and/or children?

Few, if any, of those who are poor want to be millionaires. They just want a decent standard of living where they won’t have to worry about being one paycheck away from homelessness. Is it unreasonable to be able to take a day off work with pay if they’re sick, or live in neighborhoods which are safe, have decent schools, and even grocery stores where they can purchase healthy food at affordable prices. Is this what you’d consider envy or jealousy of the rich? Those I’ve experienced who feel entitled are the wealthy.

If the teachings of St. Francis and the pleadings of Pope Francis to consider how we live our lives in comfort while ignoring the cries of the poor are out of date, we might as well admit that we believe the same of the teachings of Jesus.
 
Another thought… One of my favorite quotes is from Stephen Colbert. I think he hits it on the head when he said:

“If this is going to be a Christian nation that doesn’t help the poor, either we have to pretend that Jesus was just as selfish as we are, or we’ve got to acknowledge that He commanded us to love the poor and serve the needy without condition and then admit that we just don’t want to do it.”
 
catwhiskers said:
Are you kidding? So caring for the poor, and working for justice and providing the basics for those who are in need is out of date? Have you ever been poor? Do you have friends or family who are actually poor?

I’m a former Franciscan, so I know St. Francis and the history and religious life. I also spent a couple years when I had to live with friends or family because I couldn’t afford my own place, even with working a job, but a low paying job with no or few benefits. I can tell you that “voluntary poverty” is a heck of a lot more romantic and easy to live with than actual involuntary poverty.

When we’re talking about the poor, we’re talking about people who can’t cover the costs of their basic needs, many of whom have to work 2 or 3 part-time jobs to make ends meet, people who have to choose between medicine or food! We’re also talking about many, many individuals and families who are just this side of homelessness. People who lost everything because of medical bills.

Do you realize that there are strict limits on how much “welfare” individuals can receive over time here in the US? Do you also realize that most adults who are working age who receive welfare benefits receive them for a short period of time only? Do you realize that most of the poor are elderly, disabled and/or children?

Few, if any, of those who are poor want to be millionaires. They just want a decent standard of living where they won’t have to worry about being one paycheck away from homelessness. Is it unreasonable to be able to take a day off work with pay if they’re sick, or live in neighborhoods which are safe, have decent schools, and even grocery stores where they can purchase healthy food at affordable prices. Is this what you’d consider envy or jealousy of the rich? Those I’ve experienced who feel entitled are the wealthy.

If the teachings of St. Francis and the pleadings of Pope Francis to consider how we live our lives in comfort while ignoring the cries of the poor are out of date, we might as well admit that we believe the same of the teachings of Jesus.
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Brilliantly said.
 
I would also disagree with some of the statements of the article.

Some (especially US Americans) like to talk about the failures of socialism. Yet, sitting in a western country where people don’t have to hold down 2 (and I have never met, or heard of, an Australian holding 3) to support their families, where health care is affordable, education within reach, I wonder what they’re so scared of.

There is a middle ground between US capitalism and North Korean communism and I’ve never understood why so many people (again, especially US Americans) don’t understand this. That middle ground that so many western countries have managed to achieve is what people want. For everyone. Those in the west who live in countries like the US, and those in the African nations who face violence and hungry everyday.

What I hear Pope Francis saying isn’t evil. It isn’t a unjustified preoccupation with the poor. It is common sense. Those who stand against him need to reconsider their views.
 
Call me a skeptic…

It is said that “it is more blessed to give than to receive,”

But I have found that it does not work that way in in real life.

The givers are never blessed; the more they give, the more is demanded of them; complaints, reproaches and insults are the only response we get for practicing charity.

In other words…“Guilt Trip”

It seems to me that if the giver is not kept under a torrent of degrading, demeaning accusations, he might take a look around and put an end to his own self-sacrificing.

Is everyone only concerned with those who suffer and not with those who provide relief from suffering, not even enough to care whether they are able to survive?

When no actual suffering can be found, it appears that someone is compelled to invent or manufacture it.
 
I didn’t like the article at all. Yes, spirituality should be the main concern of the Church, but sharing what you have is what the early Christians taught. No one is going to listen to anything religious you say if you are living high on the hog while refusing to help someone who has legitimate need.
 
Is this a legitimate Catholic organisation? Their attitude seems representative of the ultra tradtionalist sedevacantists.

“it is undeniable that Papa Bergoglio wants the good life for the masses, with that good life defined in material terms”

That’s a repugnant condescension. I wouldn’t give them too much head or heart space based on that offering.
 
catwhiskers said:
Another thought… One of my favorite quotes is from Stephen Colbert. I think he hits it on the head when he said:

“If this is going to be a Christian nation that doesn’t help the poor, either we have to pretend that Jesus was just as selfish as we are, or we’ve got to acknowledge that He commanded us to love the poor and serve the needy without condition and then admit that we just don’t want to do it.”
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There is nothing stopping Christians from helping the poor. The vast majority of Christians already help the poor in some way.

The pope was addressing the United Nations and urging governments to help the poor (via wealth redistribution).

I think this is very dangerous. Empowering a secular government to identify who is poor or what organizations are deserving could be catastrophic. I see a massive bloated bureaucratic “Department of Charity” being created. I envision the expansion of government abortion clinics (to help the poor) or government sterilization clinics (to help the poor)…on and on.

Very scary…😦
 
CatholicSheila said:
I would also disagree with some of the statements of the article.

Some (especially US Americans) like to talk about the failures of socialism. Yet, sitting in a western country where people don’t have to hold down 2 (and I have never met, or heard of, an Australian holding 3) to support their families, where health care is affordable, education within reach, I wonder what they’re so scared of.

There is a middle ground between US capitalism and North Korean communism and I’ve never understood why so many people (again, especially US Americans) don’t understand this. That middle ground that so many western countries have managed to achieve is what people want. For everyone. Those in the west who live in countries like the US, and those in the African nations who face violence and hungry everyday.

What I hear Pope Francis saying isn’t evil. It isn’t a unjustified preoccupation with the poor. It is common sense. Those who stand against him need to reconsider their views.
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I don’t think one can rightly say “U.S. capitalism” is on an extreme end of the spectrum when there are plenty of countries ruled by oligarchies that won’t let a crumb fall off the table to the poor.

The average wage in the U.S. is higher than that of Australia and its compulsory government deductions lower, but neither is all that different.

The main problem in the U.S. right now is lack of job opportunity, and a substantial part of that is due to imposition of additional taxes, government mandates and regulations. And the current administration seems to come up with some new and threatening proposal almost weekly. People are afraid to hire or invest. None of that is due to “capitalism” but to the socialistic notions of its current administration and its fecklessness in floating the occasional radical trial balloon. They don’t act on half of them, but in proposing them, they keep employers and investors in a tentative mood.

Having said that, I don’t see anything Pope Francis has written so far that is in any important respect different from what any previous Pope has written, at least from Pope Leo XIII through Pope Benedict. The leftist media likes to portray him as leftist like they are, and don’t mind misrepresenting him in that attempt.
 
Mickey_Finn said:
Far right wing faction attempting to twist the Churches teachings to support their own ends.

ATB
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Either that or they just haven’t read the Pope’s actual words. Personally, I think theirs is a misjudgment of what Pope FRancis has actually said.
 
St_Francis said:
I think it was St Thomas Aquinas who said you can’t offer salvation to someone who is starving, you have to feed them food first.

When we in the US talk about poverty, it is generally on a completely different scale than when the Pope does. There are poor people in other parts of the world who are literally (and by that I mean actually literally) dying of starvation. There are people for whom a trip to the doctor requires a 50-mile *walk. *There are people who live in shacks, in hovels, in the trash dumps.

Seen in this light, the Pope’s concerns might be clearer.
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There are people in America for whom a trip to the doctor requires this as well and who live in shacks, in hovels, in the trash dumps.

Medical is broken. A lot of places it is advertised accept medical will have delays or problems with accepting it. People too poor to afford doctors can’t get care. That’s why the life expectancy of a homeless person is about 44, compared to the life expectancy of the average american at about 77. In addition, people who are low intelligence or psychologically disturbed often do not know how to get on Medical in the first place.
VIRGINIA BEACH, Va. (WAVY) — Frustrated veteran Donald Jackson claims he may lose his leg because he has had to wait for care. The Virginia Beach resident called 10 On Your Side because he doesn’t think the Veterans Affairs system is working for him.
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The 69-year-old Vietnam vet has diabetes, bruises easily, and has a severely infected leg. Jackson’s primary care physician is at the Veterans Affairs Community Based Outpatient Clinic in Virginia Beach.
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In early March, Jackson showed the infection to his doctor. He never got a referral, so on April 1,
when the infection grew in size, he emailed the doctor: “I do not want to lose a foot because you are over-worked.”
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“She has not responded … the system is broken and somebody’s got to fix it,” Jackson told WAVY.com
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wavy.com/2014/05/21/veteran-says-va-system-could-cost-him-his-foot/
 
So, guess we don’t need those corporal works of mercy anymore, eh? I must have missed the council where we abolished those.
 
VeritasLuxMea said:
So, guess we don’t need those corporal works of mercy anymore, eh? I must have missed the council where we abolished those.
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You are at risk of committing a logical fallacy with this post.
No one ever said that corproal works of mercy were not needed.

I won’t name the logical fallacy you are touching on here, and hope you see it for yourself.

Your freind,
SJ
 
StrawberryJam said:
You are at risk of committing a logical fallacy with this post.
No one ever said that corproal works of mercy were not needed.

I won’t name the logical fallacy you are touching on here, and hope you see it for yourself.

Your freind,
SJ
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It was a condescending joke, it wasn’t intended to be devoid of fallacies. 😛

Curiously, the very same fallacy that you accuse me of occurs in the article as it pertains to Pope Francis:
Papa Bergoglio wants the good life for the masses, with that good life defined in material terms.
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Come now, he has said nothing of the sort.
 
VeritasLuxMea said:
It was a condescending joke, it wasn’t intended to be devoid of fallacies. 😛

Curiously, the very same fallacy that you accuse me of occurs in the article as it pertains to Pope Francis:

Come now, he has said nothing of the sort.
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We could both agree that he could have chosen to be much more clear about what he intended to convey. Maybe a really good teacher can convey things clearly.
 
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