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PAGE 5—January 31, 1974
Christians Can’t
Ignore Poverty
BY RUSSELL SHAW
Whatever happened to poverty?
A headline-grabber in the 1960s, the problem of poverty has
receded into relative obscurity in the United States today.
Banners no longer wave in the war on poverty and the war itself
seems to have ended in a ceasefire.
Does that mean that the problem of poverty has been solved?
Hardly. It only means that poverty and the poor, having
enjoyed their brief time in the spotlight of attention from
public figures and the media outstayed their welcome and have
been elbowed off the stage. It is not the first time this has
happened, nor is it likely to be the last.
The poor are still there - between 25 million and 29 million
of them in the United States alone, even according to the
government’s unrealistically low definition of poverty. These are
the people to whom the 1971 World Synod of Bishops referred
as “silent, indeed voiceless, victims of injustice.”
Even worse than the fact of poverty is the attitude of the
nonpoor. Many people are not merely indifferent to the poor
but actively hostile. They seem to have a strange notion about
the subject of poverty - the notion that poverty is the fault of
the poor themselves and that to be poor is the sign of bad moral
character.
How else explain the slighting remarks so casually and
callously made about the poor? “If those people were good for
anything, they would take care of themselves instead of looking
for handouts.” Or: “There’s nothing wrong with people like
them that a little hard work wouldn’t cure.”
The central fact about poverty, both within the United States
and on the international level, is that it is not the fault of the
poor. A second crucial fact is that poverty imposes so many
disadvantages on the poor that they are nearly powerless to
escape from poverty without help. Pulling oneself up by one’s
boot-straps is a reasonable self-help formula only for the man
who has boots.
The first and essential requirement for eliminating poverty in
this country and abroad is that the rest of us must really want
the poor to become non-poor. No doubt many affluent
Americans would insist that they do desire this. Unfortunately,
however, their “desire” is not always expressed in action.
There is no secret about why this is so. The plain fact is that
if the lot of the poor is to improve, it will be necessary for the
rich to share more of what they have - and sharing does not
come easily. The thought of actually giving up some of our
wealth is hard for most of us who always were, at heart,
pacifists in the war on poverty.
Poverty in the midst of plenty is one of the most painful
paradoxes of our country and indeed of the entire
contemporary world. It is a scandal which no Christian can
ignore and for which Christians share much of the blame.
Poverty can be ignored and hushed up - something that seems
to be happening now in this country - but it will not be cured
until the rich determine that it shall be.
(NC Photo by Paul Conklin, Office of Economic Opportunity)
“BANNERS NO LONGER WAVE in the war on poverty and the war itself seems a tenant farmer’s home in the Mississippi delta country of eastern Arkansas,
to have ended in a ceasefire.” Children and chickens roam in the muddy front yard of
f ~ —>
(All Articles On This Page Copyrighted 1974 by N.C. News Service)
.Know Your Faith
< a - >
With Poverty
BY FATHER CARL J. PFEIFER, S.J.
“How come poor people have big TV sets?” “That’s the first
time I went into somebody’s house and found it colder inside
than outside.” “What struck me right off were the big cars
parked in front of those dingy houses.”
Those were some of the observations of a teenage group who
visited a section pf the city where they had never been before.
The visit to homes of poor persons had a mixed impact on the
group. Their first impressions seemed to center on the apparent
paradox of obviously poor homes with big television sets and
large cars out front. The visit brought these middle-class
suburban youth to face new questions arising out of a first-hand
meeting with disadvantaged inner-city families.
In the following weeks of religion classes, the teenagers
continued to discuss their experience. They did research into
causes of poverty and unemployment, the psychological effects
of poverty and discrimination and programs devised to cope
with poverty in an affluent society. They searched the Gospels
and other Christian sources to discover what Christ and the
Church taught about poverty. Gradually they deepened their
understanding of the complex reality of poverty. To some
extent their attitudes towards the poor - and the wealthy -
changed.
What most impressed me were the spontaneous things they
did outside of the requirements of their religion class. One boy
took an afternoon to become more closely acquainted with the
more impoverished sections of the city. He drove and walked
alone, attempting to feel his way into a way of life that was so
foreign to him. At one point in his exploration, he noticed a
small girl playing in the street without shoes. As he watched her,
he thought of his own younger sister who had a closet full oN
shoes at home. He was so touched by the experience that he
quickly drove to a store, bought a doll, and drove back to find
the little girl. But she was gone.
Several other teenagers went back to one of the houses they
had visited. It belonged to a crippled old man. The youngsters
had noticed how cold it was inside on their first visit, and
realized the old man could not do much about the situation. So
they spent about eight Saturdays fixing up his house. They
bought an old, used stove, and installed it, replaced broken
windows, insulated the doors, and then painted the whole
interior of the house. They did this completely on their own
initiative.
The whole experience of visiting disadvantaged families and
then dealing with their own reactions to poverty was a practical,
creative model of religious education that is in touch with life.
Some of their reactions were typically adolescent in their
idealism and directness. Yet the personal, immediate
involvement motivated a great deal of study, discussion, action,
and prayer. Through experience they grappled with the reality
of poverty and the Christian response to it.
Religious educators, beginning with those who are most
effective, namely parents, need to help their fellow Christians
become more aware of and responsive to poverty. The Second
Vatican Council urges this “since the greater part of the world is
still suffering from so much poverty that it is as if Christ
Himself were crying out in these poor to beg the charity of the
disciples” (Church in World, 88).
The Council goes on to remind us that “it is the duty of the
whole people of God, following the word and example of the
bishops, to do their utmost to alleviate the sufferings of the
modern age.” It is one task of religious education to help
Christians learn about and fulfill this challenge. For that one
group of teenagers, coming face to face with poverty in their
own city was a first step in meeting Christ’s challenge to help
the poor.
Nineveh--Jonah’s Nemesis
“THE LORD SENT A LARGE FISH (there are no the belly of the fish. (NC Photo)
whales in the story) that swallowed Jonah.” Jonah in
BY STEVE LANDREGAN
Nineveh was one of the great cities of the ancient world. It
was the capital city of Assyria and occupied a position of
pre-eminence from the 11th to the seventh centuries before
Christ when it was destroyed by the Babylonians and the Medes.
Its ruins today can be found across the Tigris River from the
modern city of Mosul in Iraq.
It was to Nineveh that the citizens of Israel were exiled at the
fall of the Northern Kingdom in 721 B.C. They never returned,
possibly lured from their true faith by the grandeur of the
Assyrian city and the worship of its pagan gods.
.In any event, Nineveh was to Jews the symbol of all that was
evil. It was the wellspring of idol worship and corruption that
was a constant threat to the very survival of the worship of
Yahweh.
Because of this feeling, Nineveh is the star of one of the most
delightful stories of the Old Testament. . .the Book of Jonah. It
is one of the shortest books on the Bible and one that should be
read by every Christian because of its powerful message.
Jonah, like most Israelites, was really much more interested
in seeing the enemies of Israel and the enemies of Yahweh
punished than in seeing them converted.
So when Jonah was called to preach to the Ninevites, he had
no heart for the job. In order to evade Yahweh’s commission to
preach to the Assyrians, Jonah went to Joppa and boarded a
ship for Tarshish, a destination in the opposite direction.
The ship was caught up in a great storm and the crew decided
that they had stirred up the wrath of the gods. They cast lots to
determine who on board had angered the gods in order to rid
themselves of his presence and lift the curse. Jonah was singled
out as the cause and admitted he was running away from the
Lord.
As the tempest grew more severe, Jonah volunterred to be
put overboard and was cast into the sea by his shipmates. The
sea immediately became calm and the storm abated.
The Lord sent a large fish (there are no whales in the story)
that swallowed Jonah. The prophet remained in the fish’s belly
for three days during which he sang a Psalm of Thanksgiving.
Finally, the fish vomited Jonah out on the shore and the Lord
told him again to “set out for the great city of Nineveh and
announce to it the message I will tell you.”
A chastened but still reluctant Jonah began his journey. When
he reached the city, he was told to announce to the Ninevites,
“Forty days more and Nineveh shall be destroyed.” The city
was so large that it took three days to walk through it. After
only one day of his preaching, the pagans of Nineveh repented
and turned to God. Seeing this, God forgave them and did not
carry out His threat of destruction.
Jonah, being a loyal Israelite, had hoped to see Nineveh
destroyed and was angry that the Lord forgave the city’s
citizens and king when they repented and were converted. He
was so upset that he asked the Lord to take his life because he
couldn’t face the prospect of going home to tell the folks that
he had preached to the hated Ninevites and they were
converted.
He went out of the city to pout and built a small hut for
protection from the blazing sun. The Lord permitted a gourd
plant to grow nearby to provide shade for Jonah and the
prophet was very happy over the plant.
The next day God sent a worm to attack the gourd plant. The
plant died and the wretched Jonah, steeped in self pity, again
asked God to take his life.
The book ends abruptly with the Lord explaining that if
Jonah was so angry and upset over the destruction of a gourd
plant which he didn’t even plant, that surely the prophet should
understand God’s being upset over the possible destruction of a
great city with more than 120,000 persons.
A Liturgy
For Others
BY FATHER JOSEPH M. CHAMPLIN
It is an uncomfortable principle widely accepted these days
that worship around altars should grow out of and flow into the
World beyond chapel walls. Liturgy and everyday life must be
connected.
This means today, among other things, a worshiping
community particularly sensitive to needs of the local, national
and international poor. Sunday and special occasion Masses can,
at the same time, intensify parishioners’ awareness of
contemporary poverty while they alleviate, in a small measure,
the plight of the impoverished.
A few steps taken over the past two years in that direction at
Holy Family proved highly successful.
* The Thanksgiving Day liturgy in our parish is a beautifully
moving religious experience. A full church of young and old
persons gather to say “thank you, Lord” by participating in a
concelebrated 10:00 a.m. Mass and sharing their abundance
with the poor.
We encourage each member of every family to bring an item
of food to that Eucharist. During the presentation of gifts, these
individuals (about 750) bring forward cartons, bags, jars and
cans of edibles, which are received by the two priests and
heaped in front of the altar.
The next day we divide this huge amount of food and
distribute it to needy individuals and homes.
In passing, I would like to suggest here that we widen our
delineation of the term “poor.” Normally thoughts in this
connection turn to such persons as migrant farm workers,
families on welfare, penniless retirees in nursing homes. These
people do need our love and assistance. But what about, for
example, the working husband and wife with many children or
the lower-middle-class couple struggling to send two students to
college?
Despite the appearance of a pleasant home and the income
from a substantial salary, they may well feel the pain and worry
of inflationary prices more acutely than some farther down the
economic, social scale. They certainly could benefit from the
generosity of others, but probably would either never ask for
help or protest the offering, however delicately done.
* Love in marriage should reach out beyond man and wife,
father, mother and children to needy persons not in the family
fold. Love given does not diminish, rather deepens the love
possessed.
We invite engaged couples at Holy Family to include in the
wedding ceremony a symbolic gesture of their willingness now
and in the future to help those who come seeking aid.
A basket of staples placed in front of the altar beforehand or
carried there in procession at the presentation of gifts does just
that. We leave this collection of non-perishable items in the
sanctuary over a weekend, then a few days afterward take the
food to an appropriate family.
Once the procedure has been explained to the entire
congregation, baskets before the altar on Sundays remind all
present of a couple united in matrimony a day earlier who
began their life together in a very Christian manner.