THE STATEMENT ON HELPING THE POOR

Today is the feast day of St. Vincent DePaul, considered by many to be the “star” saint of Christian charity and concern for the poor. Many people, including those who don’t know that much about this great saint from the 17th century, know of the work of the Saint Vincent de Paul Society, which is active in so many parishes and dioceses around the world bringing direct help to people in need.

Recent statistics sadly remind that today the poor do need a champion. Michael Powell, writing earlier this week in the New York Times “Gotham” blog, notes that while economic conditions have started to improve for some, there are still a shocking number of other people for whom poverty persists, if not worsens, and a recovery is nowhere in sight. The statistics are overwhelming. For instance, Powell notes that both The Bronx and Brooklyn have unemployment rates above 13 percent, and, he adds, “Fully 21 percent [of New Yorkers] live below the poverty line; median income declined in nearly every group; 1.8 million New Yorkers now rely on food stamps.”

You can find great contrasts within a few miles of each others. In some communities families are finding decent jobs and earning sufficient income to provide for themselves and their families. Thanks be to God. However, close by, many other families do not have enough to eat, face the threat of eviction because of the disparity between their income and the rent payment. One poignant statistic – in one zip code on the Eastside of Manhattan the average household income is about $101,000. In the South Bronx another zip code’s average income is about $19800.

This is not something confined to New York City, of course. The basics human needs of good jobs, food, and housing continue to challenge tens of millions throughout this country.

At the same time we are fortunate that as a society we do try to provide for those struggling. Government programs provide enormous support to poor Americans. In addition generous Americans contribute billions to charities each year. And so there is much to be grateful for.

However, two things must be said.

1) It is not enough. Even with the generosity of the American people, and the work of groups like the Saint Vincent de Paul Society and so many others, much more needs to be done, and not just by private charity. The government must continue to play its part as well.

2) There are very darks clouds. Too much rhetoric in the country portrays poor people in a very negative way. At the same time, this persistent sluggish economic and slow pace of recovery does two things that hurt the poor: it does not provide sufficient jobs for poor people to earn decent living to support themselves, and it provides less resources for government to do its part for Americans in need. This is creating a situation that is devastating to struggling families throughout the country.

As the Church celebrates the feast of St. Vincent DePaul, we affirm that the poor must receive our special attention to ensure that they have basic necessities of life. While St. Vincent de Paul may be the “star” saint, the commitment of the Church to the poor comes directly from Jesus and was first formally recognized by the appointment of deacons to cares for the Greek speaking
widows. Throughout the history of the Church there has always been a preferential option for the poor. Archbishop Charles Chaput, the Archbishop of Philadelphia, said it simply and straightforwardly: “Jesus tells us very clearly that if we don’t help the poor, we’re going to go to hell.”

This commitment and dedication continues and grows today throughout Catholic hospitals, charities and educational institutions. All of these in their own way make service to the poor the hallmark of their work in building the common good. Catholic Charities in the Archdiocese of New York and the Diocese of Brooklyn serve literally hundreds of thousands of people each year – the neglected child, the homeless family, the hungry senior, the new immigrant to our shores – through our soup kitchens, homeless shelters, family and youth services, and so much more.

There is too much finger pointing and not enough joining hands. Solidarity is critical to ensure the dignity of all.

Highlights of the address:

• “Giving in Faith and Love” [theme of the Assembly]  goes to the heart of what it means to be a follower of Jesus Christ and a bearer of the Vincentian charism. Jesus’ life was one of complete ‘giving in faith and love.’
• Focus on two crucial issues for women today
  • feminization of poverty : “in the USA, it is a fact that women are often underpaid, limited in their access to education and advancement, and face greater obstacles as single parents and sole providers for their families. Indeed, the feminization of poverty has occurred alongside another misery which includes both women and men; namely, that of the working poor.”
  • human trafficking: “…originally believed to occurring largely in developing nations, we now know how prevalent it is throughout the world. It has destroyed the lives of so many young women and girls… It is also a reality on our own shores, with estimates of nearly 18,000 people who are trafficked yearly to the USA. Among these people are the most vulnerable, including minors and the undocumented”
• “To be ready to serve as Jesus and our founders did, I suggest a three-fold way I call the “Vincentian Family Triple A”:
  •  accompaniment – “Rooted in Christ, Vincent and Louise are our models of Christian accompaniment. Their conversions occurred by allowing themselves to be led by the Spirit of Jesus into accompanying the poor.”
  •  action – “Vincent de Paul said that «the aid contributed should be organized in a way that beneficiaries are gradually freed from their dependence on others and become self-sufficient.»”
  • advocacy – “As advocates for the poor, you realize that behind every statistic, there is a person. Every underpaid or unemployed worker is a human being with the same economic needs as you or I”.
• “A contemporary way to understand and incorporate the “Vincentian Triple A” into your life and activity as Ladies of Charity is by a methodology called “Systemic Change”. It has become an important tool for reflection and action within the Vincentian Family.”

Read the full text (to download click on the “slideshare” button):

Monsignor Raymond East of the Archdiocese of Washington was another  speaker and his speech on “St. Vincent de Paul and the New Evangelization,” uniting Vincentian charism with Pope Benedict’s enthusiasm for 21st century methods of spreading the gospel very much concretized and developed the presentation by Superior General.

Sister Carol Keehan, DC, President of CHA was speaking another day, Saturday on  “St. Vincent de Paul and the Care of the Sick: What Would He Do Today?” Her presentation is available in another post here.

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MESSAGE OF HIS HOLINESS BENEDICT XVI TO MR JACQUES DIOUF,
DIRECTOR GENERAL OF FAO ON THE OCCASION OF WORLD FOOD DAY 2010

H.E. Mr Jacques Diouf
Director General Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO)

1. The annual celebration of World Food Day is an occasion to draw up a balance-sheet of all that has been achieved through the commitment of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) to guarantee daily food for millions of our brothers and sisters throughout the world. It also provides a suitable occasion to note the difficulties that are encountered when the necessary attitudes of solidarity are lacking.

Too often, attention is diverted from the needs of populations, insufficient emphasis is placed on work in the fields, and the goods of the earth are not given adequate protection. As a result, economic imbalance is produced, and the inalienable rights and dignity of every human person are ignored.

The theme of this year’s World Food Day, United against Hunger, is a timely reminder that everyone needs to make a commitment to give the agricultural sector its proper importance. Everyone – from individuals to the organizations of civil society, States and international institutions – needs to give priority to one of the most urgent goals for the human family: freedom from hunger. In order to achieve freedom from hunger it is necessary to ensure not only that enough food is available, but also that everyone has daily access to it: this means promoting whatever resources and infrastructures are necessary in order to sustain production and distribution on a scale sufficient to guarantee fully the right to food.

The efforts to achieve this goal will surely help to build up the unity of the human family throughout the world. Concrete initiatives are needed, informed by charity, and inspired by truth – initiatives that are capable of overcoming natural obstacles linked to the cycles of the seasons or to environmental conditions, as well as man-made obstacles. Charity, practised in the light of truth, can bring an end to divisions and conflicts so as to allow the goods of the earth to pass between peoples in a lively and continuous exchange.

An important step forward was the international community’s recent decision to protect the right to water which, as FAO has always maintained, is essential to human nutrition, to rural activities and to the conservation of nature. Indeed, as my venerable predecessor Pope John Paul II observed in his Message for the 2002 World Food Day, many different religions and cultures recognize a symbolic value in water, from which there “springs an invitation to be fully aware of the importance of this precious commodity, and consequently to revise present patterns of behaviour in order to guarantee, today and in the future, that all people shall have access to the water indispensable for their needs, and that productive activities, and agriculture in particular, shall enjoy adequate levels of this priceless resource” (Message for the 2002 World Food Day, 13 October 2002).

2. If the international community is to be truly “united” against hunger, then poverty must be overcome through authentic human development, based on the idea of the person as a unity of body, soul and spirit. Today, though, there is a tendency to limit the vision of development to one that satisfies the material needs of the person, especially through access to technology; yet authentic development is not simply a function of what a person “has”, it must also embrace higher values of fraternity, solidarity and the common good.

Amid the pressures of globalization, under the influence of interests that often remain fragmented, it is wise to propose a model of development built on fraternity: if it is inspired by solidarity and directed towards the common good, it will be able to provide correctives to the current global crisis. In order to sustain levels of food security in the short term, adequate funding must be provided so as to make it possible for agriculture to reactivate production cycles, despite the deterioration of climatic and environmental conditions. These conditions, it must be said, have a markedly negative impact on rural populations, crop systems and working patterns, especially in countries that are already afflicted with food shortages. Developed countries have to be aware that the world’s growing needs require consistent levels of aid from them. They cannot simply remain closed towards others: such an attitude would not help to resolve the crisis.

In this context, FAO has the essential task of examining the issue of world hunger at the institutional level and proposing particular initiatives that involve its member States in responding to the growing demand for food. Indeed, the nations of the world are called to give and to receive in proportion to their effective needs, by reason of that “pressing moral need for renewed solidarity, especially in relationships between developing countries and those that are highly industrialized” (Caritas in Veritate, 49).

3. The recent worthy campaign “1 Billion Hungry”, by which FAO seeks to raise awareness of the urgency of the fight against hunger, has highlighted the need for an adequate response both from individual countries and from the international community, even when the response is limited to assistance or emergency aid. This is why a reform of international institutions according to the principle of subsidiarity is essential, since “institutions by themselves are not enough, because integral human development is primarily a vocation, and therefore it involves a free assumption of responsibility in solidarity on the part of everyone” (ibid., 11).

In order to eliminate hunger and malnutrition, obstacles of self-interest must be overcome so as to make room for a fruitful gratuitousness, manifested in international cooperation as an expression of genuine fraternity. This does not obviate the need for justice, though, and it is important that existing rules be respected and implemented, in addition to whatever plans for intervention and programmes of action may prove necessary. Individuals, peoples and countries must be allowed to shape their own development, taking advantage of external assistance in accordance with priorities and concepts rooted in their traditional techniques, in their culture, in their religious patrimony and in the wisdom passed on from generation to generation within the family.

Invoking the blessing of the Almighty upon the activities of FAO, I wish to assure you, Mr Director General, that the Church is always ready to work for the defeat of hunger. Indeed, she is constantly at work, through her own structures, to alleviate the poverty and deprivation afflicting large parts of the world’s population, and she is fully conscious that her own engagement in this field forms part of a common international effort to promote unity and peace among the community of peoples.

From the Vatican, 15 October 2010

BENEDICTUS PP. XVI

[From Vatican Press Office: Vatican.va]

You may also be interested in reading: “Ways to fight hunger this World Food Day“