A reader sent along these comments from the great Woke Liberal Fathers of the Church Gregory Nazianzen, Ambrose, and Gregory of Nyssa, demonstrating that it is false to claim that help for the Least of These must not involve the state and that all care for the poor is strictly to be handled by private individuals (who thereby retain the godlike power to decide who “deserves” help and who are lebens unwertesleben meriting abandonment and even death). That, like the claim that Catholic social teaching is just trendy Marxism infecting the Church is bass-ackwards. Marxism is borrowing heavily from the Christian tradition and the Hebrew prophets.
Maybe you think that philanthropy is not necessary, but voluntary? Maybe you think that it does not comprise a law, but a counsel and urging? I would very much like it if it were thus. And thus I thought of it. But whatever the Scripture says about those who, on the day of Judgment, the Just Judge will place on His left, as a habitation, and He condemns them, scares me (Matt. 25:31-46). They are not condemned because they stole or robbed or were lewd or did whatsoever else of whatever God forbids, but because they didn’t show care for Christ through the unfortunate man. – St Gregory Nazianzus
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“Justice, then, has to do with the society of the human race, and the community at large. For that which holds society together is divided into two parts —justice and good-will, which also is called liberality and kindness. Justice seems to me the loftier, liberality the more pleasing, of the two. The one gives judgment, the other shows goodness.
“But that very thing is excluded with us which philosophers think to be the office of justice. For they say that the first expression of justice is, to hurt no one, except when driven to it by wrongs received. This is put aside by the authority of the Gospel. For the Scripture wills that the Spirit of the Son of Man should be in us, Who came to give grace, not to bring harm [Luke 9:56].
“Next they considered it consonant with justice that one should treat common, that is, public property as public, and private as private. But this is not even in accord with nature, for nature has poured forth all things for all men for common use. God has ordered all things to be produced, so that there should be food in common to all, and that the earth should be a common possession for all. Nature, therefore, has produced a common right for all, but greed has made it a right for a few. – St Ambrose of Milan
This one on the MAGA antichrist cult’s embrace of the Trump aesthetic is good too:
Do not indulge in a frenzy of pleasures. Don’t make yourself a destroyer of absolutely all living things, whether they be four-footed and large or four-footed and small, birds, fish, exotic or common, a good bargain or expensive. The sweat of the hunter ought not to fill your stomach like a bottomless well that many men digging cannot fill. Our gourmands do not, in fact, even spare the bottom of the sea, nor do they limit themselves to the fish that swim in the water, but they also bring up the oyster banks, one pursues the search urchin, one captures the creeping cuttlefish, one plucks the octopus from the rock it grips, one eradicates the mollusks from their pedestal. All animal species, those that swim in the surface waters or live in the depths of the sea, all are thus brought up into the atmosphere. The artful skills of the hedonist clearly devise traps appropriate to each.” – St Gregory of Nyssa, On the Love of the Poor: 1 “On Good Works”, in Susan R. Holman, The Hungry Are Dying: Beggars and Bishops in Roman Cappadocia (New York, Oxford University Press, 2001), p. 198
Compare and contrast this with the great spiritual light of the MAGA antichrist cult:
More tomorrow on another falsehood being sold by Word on Fire.
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2 Responses
MAGA believes the poor are poor due to character flaws, such as sloth, drug addiction, etc. Thus, we are not obligated to help them. There are of course people who fit this category. However, most of the poor, especially children are not poor due to character flaws. The poor being poor due to “bad character” gives MAGA the excuse to throw them under the bus.
It’s bad enough for Catholic laymen to espouse this hateful nonsense, but when Priests or even Bishops adopt it, they are grossly in error. Barron is shilling for the billionaires. At what point does he realize this?
MAGA would have a point if they came strong on subsidizing children born in poor families. Throw the adults under the bus, but take away their children so they don’t continue down the generational poverty spiral. If the children can’t be taken away, then provide three free meals to them daily, provide quality education and healthcare, provide them with a safe haven where they can do their homework and socialize with other children, provide a roof over their heads if they need to get away from abuse at home, give them the tools they need to succeed in adult life.
By all means, set up a specific date when you take away their safeguards. It could be the day that they turn 18. This gap may be filled by charity of others.
But if MAGA is so strong on pelvic issues, does not acknowledge that minors engage in sexual activity and recognizes them as children and statutory victims of exploitation, then this attitude should absolutely extend to considering that they’re victims of their families’ circumstances and they need assistance in getting out of poverty.