From “readers” distilled.
QUAERITUR:
You haven’t commented on Pope Leo’s new document? How come?
The problem is that, by the spiritual abuse and constant drubbing we have had, over the last years, with the looming threat of some other looney off the cuff remarks or bizarre footnote even more bizarrely defended, many people have a kind of PTSD or the effects of moral abuse.
I remember back when we heard that a new papal document was about to come out and we would rub our hands together in anticipation. We’d get it and work through it looking for all the good stuff.
Then, more recently, we hear there is a papal document and many say, “no, not another”. Then you spend a week with the sort of dread you have on a Sunday Mass in a suburban parish wondering how cringeworthy the sign of peace will be…but it takes a “week”. You ring your hands and look to the exits. Then, when they get the document, their first impulse is to look for the bad stuff. And they find it.
That’s NOT their fault.
We need now years of healing. The damage of moral abuse does not go away easily.
That said…
This is not Leo’s intentional document, that is, programmatic for his pontificate as Redemptor Hominis was for John Paul II.
The document. It isn’t all that interesting. Take care of the poor. Okay! Greed is bad. Okay! Heaven is more important than earthly wealth. Okay!
There are a lot of contingents to be sorted and people will have different solutions.
It seems to be a continuation in some vectors of what we had before which was profoundly uninteresting because of its lack of balance. For example, it isn’t just to speak of what everyone is supposed to do for a massive illegal influx of people across a sovereign nation’s border, without also addressing the disappearance of hundreds of thousands of children probably to trafficking of the worst sort, or the massive disturbance the newcomers make within a nation’s borders thereafter.
Gotta let’em all in is just shallow. Does that also include single men of military age from China?
The walls around the Vatican remain very much standing.
However, I will also say that although there are many statements we can’t merely accept without reservation, this document is great for the depth and breadth of its scriptural, PATRISTIC (a main interest of mine), and historical treatment of poverty in the teachings and apostolic works of the Church throughout two millennia.
As for the usual suspects talking and writing about it making videos, etc., who pop up like midnight mushrooms now, I suggest that they at least get the NAME of the document right. Its Dilexi te… not Delixit te (to the guy who decided not to respond to my multiple emails back when).
Just sayin’, friend.
Let’s take a look at a paragraph and see what can be extrapolated from it.
13. Looking beyond the data — which is sometimes “interpreted” to convince us that the situation of the poor is not so serious — the overall reality is quite evident: “Some economic rules have proved effective for growth, but not for integral human development. Wealth has increased, but together with inequality, with the result that ‘new forms of poverty are emerging.’ The claim that the modern world has reduced poverty is made by measuring poverty with criteria from the past that do not correspond to present-day realities. In other times, for example, lack of access to electric energy was not considered a sign of poverty, nor was it a source of hardship. Poverty must always be understood and gauged in the context of the actual opportunities available in each concrete historical period.” [10] Looking beyond specific situations and contexts, however, a 1984 document of the European Community declared that “‘the poor’ shall be taken to mean persons, families and groups of persons whose resources (material, cultural and social) are so limited as to exclude them from the minimum acceptable way of life in the Member States in which they live.” [11] Yet if we acknowledge that all human beings have the same dignity, independent of their place of birth, the immense differences existing between countries and regions must not be ignored.
I can’t shake the idea that this means that if you don’t have a mobile phone and internet, you are “poor”.
On the the hand, I remember times when you were thought to be “poor” when you couldn’t get work.
Having stuff or not is not a measure of poverty. We mustn’t discount the spiritual poverty which Mother Theresa underscored and we must forget John Paul II on the dignity of work.
Now, it seems to be access to stull. Mostly free stuff. And there is no such thing as “free stuff” because ultimately someone had to pay to produce it.
Remember “Obama phones”? I remember videos of people in Detroit lined up for free phones. Asked where they came from, laughter, “I don’t know… his stash!”.
It is a corporal work of mercy to give aid to the poor. This is an imperative from Christ.
However, I am not sure that this globalistic labeling of “poor” is what we are to be on watch for in our daily lives.
I’m reminded of Screwtape who told his student Wormwood to get his “patient” interested in “the poor”. “The poor” … out there, the concept. Not the poor guy right in front of you.
Keep it abstract.
A take away is that this document from Leo could prompt people to do deeper dive into the more profound social teaching documents which popes gave us some, say, 15 years ago and more.
In sum, this document… okay. I look for something better, and more concrete, that says something new, down the line. Still, repetitia iuvant.
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I suppose I will get around to reading it when out from a couple of crises. Until then, I have a few questions I will bring to the table:
God loves the poor (that’s the point of the verse in Revelations from which comes the title). So: does God love them precisely because of and AS “poor”? Not if we mean merely that they are financially poor, little money and little material wealth. You can be a mass murderer and poor, or a saint and poor, in neither case is it “poor” that makes that person lovable. It is, first, having a rational, spiritual soul capable of freely loving God, and secondly, bearing the imprint of Christ on your soul through sanctifying grace. Neither of those is characterized primarily out of “poverty”.
Does God want everyone to be poor and remain poor? Not really: if that’s what God wanted, then why would the Church tell us to relieve their poverty by giving them goods? If relieving their poverty takes them away from the state God wants everyone to be in, we shouldn’t be relieving their poverty.
Should we want to be poor in eternity? Not hardly: in heaven, will will be filled with the riches of the inexhaustible treasury of the Beatific Vision. That’s not “poor” under any definition. We won’t be bothered with material wealth, of course, but then we won’t have any USE for material wealth either.
Does God want people who are poor and fathers of families to attempt to get out of poverty? The usual Christian answer is yes. If so, then poverty ITSELF is not an object to be sought for its own sake. (Even in those in religious life who make vows of poverty, the poverty is not for its own sake, is it?) So, God’s desire for the poor is not that they remain poor, and if they have gotten out of poverty, it is not that they return to poverty merely to be poor and for no other point. He doesn’t love the poor by way of a desire to keep them poor.
So, does Dilexi te make such clarifications, or does it hide them, obscure them?
Regarding #13 above: I recognize a valid point about “relative” poverty that comes from a relation to the wealth around you, rather than the absolute quantity of wealth. I also recognize a vast, vast room for envy to hide under the mantle of “inequality” and “the wealth gap”, and suspect that it is at least as big a moral danger in a free and wealthy society. I recall 20 years ago the Washington Post headline declaring “shrinking middle class”, when the actual data (in the inside pages) showed that BOTH the lower class AND the middle class had shrunk, the wealthier class had gotten larger. If the statistics say the trend (at that time) was overall for more people to move upwards on the ladder even while the absolute quantitative size of the wealth gap increased, is that “bad” overall, or “good” overall? Does Dilexi te give us the tools for questions like that, or does it merely elevate “inequality” without making distinctions?
Also worth noting by way of historical analogy, this is Leo’s equivalent of Lumen fidei — in the words of Pope Francis when he issued it, “a document written with four hands.”
My gut is Leo’s primary contribution was probably adding the patristic references to what Francis had already written, probably removing a few controversial lines given his emphasis on unity in the media, and then issuing it in a gesture towards the memory of his predecessor, which is a classy thing to do regardless of one’s opinion on the predecessor. Like you said, Fr. Z, it’s not him laying out the intentions of his papacy.
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The first major thing to point out is that the entire document is basically from the hand of Pope Francis. Pope Leo explicitly acknowledges this, and adopts the words as his own, perhaps with revisions and additions, but essentially, he’s emphasizing continuity and union with his immediate predecessor.
The issue of immigration and enforcement is particularly thorny for me and my brethren here in the Sonoran Desert. We know exactly where my bishops stand on this. Now apparently they are being “treated inhumanly” and our leaders “cannot be pro-life” because of this.
The issue of immigration is fraught with enormous pitfalls for the 21st Century Catholic Church, for perhaps 3 main reasons.
1. It is essentially a labor issue. Our peasant class, working men and women, are either imported voluntarily, imprisoned, literally enslaved and exploited via Amendment XIII, or formerly middle-class families must commit to blue-collar, thankless careers that are steps down from our forebears. The Church, obviously, chooses immigrant labor, especially for the heavily Latino, Catholic adjacent cultures.
2. The Church herself must currently rely on generous immigration policy for her own clergy and religious. One of our best American Cardinals just emigrated to Vatican City/Italy! Many many parishes and provinces are importing Africans, Indians, anyone from thriving mission fields to evangelize the States, and we cannot afford revoked visas and deportation of our own servant leaders, or we really, really will have a vocations crisis. Imagine every Nigerian priest ordained just to be trapped ministering in Nigeria.
3. The Church has enormous undeniable financial interests in settling refugees. The USCCB funds those programs directly with federal taxpayer funds. (Exactly like every other essentially charity.) Uncle Sam pays the bills and calls the shots. If the tide turns against immigration, Mother Church loses bigtime, and cedes hegemony here. Probably forever.
That being said, and with all the condemnations that our leaders are issuing, I believe there is a bright side. I believe that the MAGA movement and Trump administration is cleverly implementing the Jubilee Year of Hope 2025. In terms of ICE raids and deportations and farm labor shortages: a traditional Jubilee Year means the right of return to ancestral homelands. Reunion of families. The release of slaves and indentured laborers. The fields must lay fallow. The national reserves gleaned by the poor and needy.
In 2025, you cannot implement a secular Jubilee Year without coercion. Hopefully, our Jewish and Christian leadership recognize this action for what it really is, but they are duty bound to publicly denounce it, because by nature, it must be implemented coercively. But President Biden is Catholic. SCOTUS is Catholic-Protestant-Jewish. Melania, Vance, Secretary Karoline. Surely they know that a purely spiritual Jubilee is somewhat worthless without authentic Sabbatine practices.
I am sorry that my Chicano brothers and sisters are gripped with fear and terror. I am sorry they can’t just drive to Mass and get their Sacraments without risk. But this is a Jubilee Year, to proclaim liberty to captives, and justice for the oppressed. God’s justice; Thy will be done.
@ Elizium23:
1) issuing what Francis wrote doesn’t necessarily signal continuity any more than issuing LF signaled continuity with Benedict under Francis. Apparently issuing unfinished works of a predecessor has become a precedent.
2) I live in a community where Latino immigrants with US citizenship are Ubering to work because ICE and crew doesn’t check status before detaining people. One can have a legitimate diversity of opinion on the best way to regulate immigration, but I don’t think the tongue-in-cheek references to the Jubilee of Hope and right of return are really appropriate. The fact that people who are in the US legally with work authorization and sometimes even citizenship are afraid to work or go to Mass is the type of inhumane implementation of policies the Holy Father has been forceful in condemning. That’s separate from any question on how to best deal with the overall issue and people without status.
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The thing I noticed was that, in the Bible, there’s a lot of fairly different words that get translated as “poor.”
Hebrew ana’ and ani’ are Greek mikroi, the “little ones,” the low status people, the humble. It can also mean poor, afflicted.
Hebrew dal means “skinny,” and dalla’ means “drooping, pining, hanging down.” They can also mean poor.
Hebrew ‘ebyon means “needy” or “needing help,” and that’s also translated “poor.” But sometimes it’s translated “beggar.”
It’s pretty interesting to notice this, because the OT is pretty careful to say “Don’t do stuff to the ‘ani guy” when it’s a matter of power or status, and “Don’t do stuff to the ‘ebyon guy” when it’s actual survival. There’s some cases when a guy is both ‘ani and ‘ebyon, and we get instructions about that, too.
The Greek is either “penes” for poor (used tons in the LXX OT, but only used once in the NT), or “ptochoi,” which also can mean “the poor” or “beggars.” There’s also “mikroi,” little low-status people, as noted above.
The Latin has ‘pauper’ for poor, and ‘egenus’ for needy, pretty consistently.
I never really thought about it, but obviously somebody can be in need while still having money, and somebody can be poor without actually having need right that minute. They kinda bleed into each other, but they aren’t the same.
Myself, my brothers, and so many people at my parish all don’t have smartphones. We have flip phones or “dumbphones”, as we call them. Many of us had smartphones but actually got rid of them due to a variety of issues, but mostly so that we could more disconnected with the internet and more present in reality. It has been healthy.
I do think that poverty does depend, to an extent, on context.
In some places not having a car is poverty. If you don’t have a car, and if reliable public transit is limited to non-existent, your ability to work is heavily impacted. In such circumstances, a vehicle is not a luxury item, but a necessity.
Like it or not, mobile phones are more than mere entertainment devices now- they are becoming (or have become for some time) a sort of necessity. Looking for work, communicating with employers, often needed for the job itself. Beyond employment, not having a phone severely limits access to information, to education, connectivity to family, to social services, the list goes on.
Two centuries ago, indoor plumbing was a luxury. Today, not having it would certainly be an indicator of poverty. Education is no longer a luxury for the few- lack of it undoubtedly indicates poverty.
I won’t belabour the point further. Long story short, I’d be careful about defining poverty strictly as living in a dirt shack and subsisting on crusts.
Before this came out, Canadian Catholic Brian Holdsworth did a good video about our duty to the poor: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D8F4HzpmurA (I haven’t gotten to his reaction to the new Papal document yet; like Fr. Z hints, I wanted to let the document stew for a bit before diving into reactions.)