With two wings and one heart, the Church flies

January is Poverty Awareness Month. To help raise awareness among Catholics of poverty and its underlying issues, USCCB has updated its website, www.PovertyUSA.org, and launched a Spanish counterpart, www.PobrezaUSA.org. Our blog is also running a series of posts by guest bloggers reflecting on poverty in our country and the world today. Today’s post is by Monsignor Charles Pope.

 

As a priest and blogger, one of my greater sorrows is the experience of the great divide that exists in the two “wings” of the Church. In one wing are those who engage the great moral struggles of our day related to abortion, the proper biblical understanding of human sexuality, marriage and family, and questions related to euthanasia. In the other wing, those who engage the great social and moral issues related to poverty, economic justice, solidarity, unity and mutual respect.

The Church needs both wings to fly, to be credible, biblical and authentic. I live for the day when those passionate in either wing will come to esteem the work of the other, grateful that some engage in caring for the poor, so others can engage in protecting the unborn, that some are engaging the life issues, so others can engage the critical needs of the poor, the imprisoned, the marginalized and those isolated by poverty, mental health, disability, and other struggles. When both wings work together, the church soars.

Both wings, both battles are essential. They are really one battle for human dignity. The Church has an obligation to proclaim the Good News and Kingdom of God in all aspects. We must, as St. Paul says, “proclaim the whole counsel of God.”  And thus we need each other, we need the two wings.

More than ever the poor, the needy, the unborn, our families, our youth and all who are vulnerable in any way need and deserve our Catholic unity, need the whole counsel of God. We cannot allow politics and ideology to go on dividing us and turning us against one another.

Poverty involves complexity, and reasonable men and women differ on the most effective solutions. But here too, the poor need our unity, not our squabbling. Catholic solutions admit of diversity and transcend political categories. We need more willingness in the “wings” to surrender our cynicism and accept that we all want the same thing: that the Kingdom of God be advanced.

I have spent my nearly 25 years as a priest in African American parishes and many of my parishioners would be clear advocates of vigorous government involvement as a solution to poverty. Many can personally attest that it was largely the federal government that served to protect their rights and provide them opportunities for economic advancement in the last 60 years.

I also serve the Traditional Latin Mass community, which tends (along with many who read my blog), to be troubled by what they see as excessive federal involvement in solutions to poverty. They point to the decline in the family structure in poorer black and minority sectors and to the impersonal nature of government that robs the poor of dignity and responsibility and creates a growing “permanent underclass.”

Both insights are important, and a truly Catholic solution will seek to weave together broad-based solidarity with the poor that includes public, private and ecclesial partnerships.

Subsidiarity does not mean there is no government or federal involvement. But it does encourage us to craft solutions that engage the local level vigorously and involve the poor directly in solutions. It also insists on a growing sense of personal responsibility that the poor must have in their own advancement, and that we are all to have in the care of the poor persons we personally know.  

The Church needs two wings to fly. The poor and vulnerable need our unity and are gravely harmed by our divisions and squabbling. Two wings: life and family, love for the poor and hunger for justice. Two wings to fly, but one heart that unites the love of God and neighbor.

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Monsignor Charles Pope is pastor at Holy Comforter-St. Cyprian Parish in Washington and blogs for the archdiocese and Our Sunday Visitor.

Catholics Care. Catholics Vote: Poverty and Helping People to Flourish

"The poor you will always have with you, and whenever you wish you can do good to them," Jesus says in Mark's Gospel.

This would, at face value, seem like a fairly open-ended statement. But it gets a pretty heavy degree of specificity from the U.S. bishops in the introductory note to the reissued Forming Consciences for Faithful Citizenship, when the bishops cite "an economic crisis ... , increasing national and global unemployment, poverty, and hunger; increasing deficits and debt and the duty to respond in ways which protect those who are poor and vulnerable as well as future generations" as one of their six areas of concern going into the 2012 elections.

If these are issues that are supposed to matter to Catholics, the bishops have certainly led by example in this area. For the Church, political engagement isn't just about what happens in a voting booth in November; it's about consistently bringing one's values and perspective to the public discussion. The U.S. bishops have brought their values to the issues of debt, poverty, unemployment and hunger in numerous letters to leaders in Congress. The Vatican has even tackled the more overarching challenge of financial reform.

Of course, every Catholic is called to engage the political process, as voters, lawmakers, advocates, etc. And all Catholics are called to, as Jesus said, do good for the poor, through whatever means are at their disposal, whether they're a teacher educating the next generation, a banker engaging in responsible lending practices or a legislator shaping public policy that will impact millions of lives. In his encyclical Caritas in Veritate, Pope Benedict XVI called this the "institutional path of charity."

On this path, Catholic teaching places a crowded cast of characters, all with their own responsibilities: government, businesses, churches and other organizations, and individuals. The Church's vision for society involves all of these stakeholders working together in a way that allows people to flourish, living life with a sense of dignity and reaching the potential God intended for them. In Catholic terms, everyone has a responsibility to promote the common good. To keep this from becoming stifling or chaotic, the Church prescribes principles like solidarity and subsidiarity.

Solidarity is the recognition of the responsibility of everyone in society to care for those who are poor and vulnerable. (The words of Jesus in Matthew 25 put this in perspective by saying that feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, etc. are requirements for entering the kingdom.) Subsidiarity is the principle that says care for the poor -- and all human problems, in fact -- should be addressed at the lowest level possible and the highest level necessary. It promotes the robust network of relationships in society, from the individual to the global. It can be seen at work when, for instance, funding from the federal government goes to finance anti-poverty programs that are regulated and administered at the state or local level, often by charities, sometimes by Catholic charities.

The goal is always human flourishing. The tangled, interconnected mess of joblessness, the economy, poverty, etc. is a political concern for the bishops because it impacts the lives and dignity of so many. "Work is more than a way to make a living," the bishops write in Forming Consciences for Faithful Citizenship, "it is a form of continuing participation in God's creation." And as so many people struggle in financial hardship to regain that part of their lives, it becomes apparent that "The poor you will always have with you" isn't a license to ignore the poor or assume they will disappear when times improve for everyone. Rather it's a reminder of a duty shared by everyone and articulated by the bishops:  "The economy must serve people, not the other way around."