SOLVING THE PROBLEM OF POVERTY
JAN.
2002.
There is no solution to poverty; and anyone who claims to have a
solution is just running for a political office. The Catholic Church
has a way of handling it but does not have a way of eliminating
poverty.
Christ,
Himself, said, "The poor you will always have with you."
St. Augustine explains that God made the poor man poor, and the rich
man rich (though all rich men think they made themselves rich). He
made the poor man poor because that's the best way for him to go to
heaven -- by bearing his poverty. He made the rich man rich because
that' the only way he can go to heaven, by generously giving to the
poor. This is clearly shown in the parable of Lazarus and
Dives.
The
poor man needs only his poverty to save his soul. The rich man
needs the poor to be saved. Note that in the mentioned parable
the poor did not need the rich to be saved; but the rich needed the
poor to be saved. The reason Dives went to hell is because he did
not take advantage of the presence of Lazarus and use his riches to
save his soul. If poverty is abolished, the rich man has no way by
which to save his soul; if he had other ways of being saved, God
would not have made him rich.
Now,
how should the rich and poor relate to one another?
The
Catholic Church has no stand on slavery. During the age of slavery ,
the Church was silent. However, the Church, as in the case of St.
Paul, commanded the slaves to obey and respect their masters while
with the same breath telling the masters to love their slaves. With
such teachings, soon, the masters gave their beloved and obedient
slaves their freedom and the slaves remained faithful and loyal
friends of their former masters. That was the end of slavery. It
only returned when Europe turned Protestant. Slavery returned with a
vengeance.
The
Church never condemned riches while praising poverty. She taught the
poor to be contented with what they have, never to steal, never to
go on strike or attend demonstrations. While with the same breath
telling the rich to give generously to the poor, not only once a
year, but continuously. The result is, as St. Paul described, the
poor were never in want and the rich did not have too much in
excess. Now that is a Catholic Society. But who will tell the poor
not to go on strike and tell the rich to give more generously? No
one. And herein lies the problem. Outside the Christian solution,
there is no other solution. It is said that the solutions of the
Catholic Church were not tried and found wanting. They were never
tried. As it is turning out, we are a Catholic nation with a
Protestant, Calvinistic social and economic setup.
The
Catholic ethic would never make a nation into an economic giant.
Pope Leo XIII had delineated the Catholic option in his Panis
Humanus, the just wage. This concept can never make any
businessman or nation very rich because a big portion of the profits
goes to the poor workers. While the poor are contented because their
needs are met.
Nations
in Europe, who adopted economic systems close to the Catholic
system, are labeled backward, like Spain, Ireland and even Italy;
while thoroughly Protestant economies, like Switzerland, the
Scandinavians, Germany, Britain and the United States are very
progressive. The state of the Philippines being the only Catholic
nation in the Far East is similar. She is behind Japan, Singapore,
Hong Kong. But Catholic nations are catching up in that they are
becoming Protestant in their economic outlook wherein the poor is
neglected that profits may grow and business capital increase. When
Catholic businessmen become un-Catholic, the poor in turn would
become un-Catholic by going on strike.
Our
present economic system was pioneered by the anti-Catholic Huguenots
in France. The Calvinists actively fostered it. The Catholic nations
of Europe rejected it and remained "backward." Calvinism
works on the concept of keeping the workers fed enough to work well
but poor enough to need the job. It is a form of slavery of the poor
by men who have power just because they have wealth. They control
the poor by arbitrarily depriving them of their livelihood. They
enslave the poor because of their power to deprive the poor of food
from their table and a roof over their heads. In a true Catholic
state, no citizen is at the mercy of a mere possessor of
wealth.
This
Calvinistic economic system, wherewith man is used for the
accumulation of wealth, is antagonistic to the Catholic Spirit. The
Church has nothing against one possessing some machineries or stores
for a living; it even respects the rights of man to acquire
property. We are taking notice to the way an economy is
handled.
It
is, therefore, un-Catholic to say to the poor: it is your right to
fight the rich merely because they are rich and in order to make
yourselves less poor...which is the foundation of all revolutions.
You can only say: I have the right to prevent the conditions of my
life from becoming inhuman...which is the rationale for strikes. But
neither can happen in a Catholic situation. It can happen in all
other situations.
The
problem in most economies is its origin, the Protestant ethic. The
solution can only come from a Catholic ethic. The problem is due to
a denial of Catholicism; the solution is an affirmation of
Catholicism.
CONCLUSION:
When the Catholic Church solved the problem of slavery, the slaves
remained slaves and the masters remained masters. But because of
Christian charity, the slaves were not treated as slaves but as part
of the family and the masters did not behave arrogantly. The same
applies with the poor and the rich. In a Christian society, the poor
remain poor but are never lacking in their needs; while the rich
remain rich, but not so rich because of their charity towards the
poor.
But
with the disappearance of Catholic ethics even in Catholic
countries, slavery is coming back like a tide. It is all over. There
is absolutely no charity between rich and poor, in fact, in the
whole of society. The world economy is moving towards the
re-establishment of a servile state, a new age of paganism...wherein
man presumes to solve the problems of life with a non-existent
future economic program...a power God never gave mankind.
The
Catholic solution repeated so often through history and lastly
enunciated by Pope Leo XIII is the only appropriate response to the
problem of poverty. Only in a truly Catholic state can man live
freely with a measure of joy and free from penury. We must solve
this by starting from the beginning. But maybe its too late.
(updated 01-07-02)
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