Poverty and the Catholic Way of Mercy

There’s a Catholic way to think about poverty, a pattern shared by some people from other religious traditions. There are many non-Catholic ways, ways unfortunately shared by some Catholics. The Catholic way doesn’t start with economic theories, political talking points, or tribal memes about poor people. It begins with mercy and compassion for the suffering. It starts with the fact that this person is suffering now. And it asks, “What can I do to help?” Not, “Who’s to blame for this?”

Helping the poor really is that simple. You don’t need to complicate it with theories of economic inequality or effective altruism. You don’t need to know their job history, credit history, medical history, or criminal record. You don’t ask whether they “deserve” their poverty. You don’t need to feel personal guilt over your excess to take personal ownership of one person’s deficiency. The Catholic way doesn’t require you to impoverish yourself or default on your other financial obligations. Evangelical poverty is not a universal calling or duty. Besides, only the haves can help the have-nots.

Oh, it might help in the long run if the poor person had a set of desirable skills that could merit a job paying a living wage. Can you give them those skills right away? Can you give them a job immediately that would feed, clothe, and house them immediately? If not, why even think about “the long run”? Without short-term help, the person might not have a long term. The poor have problems right now that a dream job in a potential future does nothing to address. The Catholic way helps the here-and-now person here and now.

Does the poor person have a car or a smartphone? Those may be luxuries in some remote corner of the world where nobody has to email resumes, call or receive calls from employers, or drive to work. They’re necessities in a culture where long-term survival depends on mobility and connectivity. I can tell you from experience that people without phones or cars are generally low on prospective employers’ desirability scales. Americans with cars and smartphones may not be impoverished by Mumbai standards, but they’re not in Mumbai, and neither are you. The Catholic way doesn’t use irrelevant comparisons to move the poverty goalposts.

Are you worried that they’ll spend on drugs the money you give them for food? Then buy them the food. Open a soup kitchen if you want to ensure that the people you’re convinced are drug addicts get hot, nourishing meals between fixes. Or, better yet, stop imposing judgmental life stories on people you don’t know. There’s no single, universal cause that brings people to such a state. Looking down on other people doesn’t oblige them to look up to you.

Do you have food, water, clothes, shelter, a job, some money in the bank? Be grateful you have them. You’re not a bad person for having these things, so you don’t have to convince yourself that they’re bad people for not having these things. You don’t have to explain to anyone—especially not to them—why they’re poor and you’re not. You don’t have to justify their poverty or your (relative) wealth. And if you’re not going to help because you don’t want to help, such self-righteous rationalizations won’t validate your moral superiority.

I’m not talking about government fiscal policy or social safety-net programs. I’m talking about you and me, Joe and Jane Catholic, and the poor people we encounter in our own lives. The poor are not problems to be solved or broken machinery to be fixed (or thrown out). They are neighbors you can help. You don’t deprive them of their dignity or pass judgment on their souls. You do what you can when you can, without asking anything in return … not even a “thank you.” Is that so difficult to understand?

Feeding the hungry, giving drink to the thirsty, clothing the naked, sheltering the homeless, tending the sick, and visiting the imprisoned. Six of the seven corporal works of mercy come from the Judgment of the Nations passage (Matthew 25:31-46), in which Christ equates our treatment of others with our treatment of him—God the Son. They’re works of mercy because they spring not from justice, from reckoning what is due by right, but rather from one’s generosity and gratitude. We show we’re grateful to God for what we have by giving from what we have to those who have not.

Judging the worthiness of others puts us in a false position. Saint Paul tells the Corinthians, “I am not aware of anything against myself, but I am not thereby acquitted. It is the Lord who judges me” (1 Corinthians 4:4-5). Our psyches have a large array of defenses to protect our self-images. We rationalize, rewrite, and even omit the least bearable of our self-accusing memories. We may not be that bad, but we may not be as good as we think we are. Our sins may be greater than our pride allows us to believe.

No one merits or deserves mercy or forgiveness because neither takes account of merit or deserving. We didn’t earn Christ’s redeeming sacrifice on the Cross. It was not an act of justice but rather one of mercy. It was God’s free choice and gift to us whom He loves. Likewise, Christ forbids us from judging the worthiness of others (Matthew 7:1-5), for those who withhold forgiveness will have forgiveness withheld from them (Matthew 6:14-15; cf. Matthew 18:23-35). Those to whom God has shown mercy we must not call unworthy (cf. Acts 10:9-16).

The point is not to beat yourself up with your sins but rather to remember that you and I are sinners too, and we stand in the same dock with those whom we would judge. We extend mercy because we too stand in need of mercy: “Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy” (Matthew 5:7). Jesus taught that those who are forgiven much will love much (Luke 7:47), but the reverse is also true: Those who love much will be forgiven much.

We’ve passed through Lent, a season in which we focus on repentance of our sins. Now we are in Eastertide, living in the light of the Resurrection. We have been the recipients of the most incredible work of mercy possible. For not all the good works of human generations gone nor all the good works of human generations yet to come shall ever suffice to merit the death of God’s only begotten Son on the Cross nor deserve His Resurrection.

We who would benefit from such a generous display of divine Love must learn to show that love to others, even to those the secular world insists aren’t worthy of it.