Clean up your own back yard before you complain about the neighbor's yard.
They could call it “Foreign Aid”.
This seems like the Pope is suggesting yet again that private charity is better than government redistribution. I believe that he and JPII have each made more than 10 statements related to this over the decades.
I believe that government redistribution is the path to a godless society.
Several Catholic organizations have been doing this for years. In concept, a good, Christian thing to do. However, it needs to be done in a frame work that allows for those recipients to pursue self-support and self-worth as the eventual goal. Charity is one thing, welfare, another. Part of the problem is that depending in what country the “poor” live, what is causing them poverty? Is it government economic policy, etc. The world will always have it’s poor (Christ said so, although he may have spoken in both economic but I think primarily in a spiritual sense). As for the “rich” parts of the world supporting the “poor” parts, the rich are tottering on economic implosion due to massive indebtedness and corruption, we may all be in the same soup before long.
I would hazard to guess that the Roman Catholic church, besides the antiquity value of its priceless relics, has assets that are far more liquid which would dwarf several countries. One wonders why the Pope calls on other less-fortunate rich people to do what it, with its value, can do on a wide scale.....
There’s a lot to be said for personal charity as opposed to government handouts or international programs. The Christian “foster child” programs where you decide to pay a certain amount per month for a particular child’s schooling, etc. are good examples of this and actually yield results. The Archdiocese of New York started a program where they paired wealthy suburban parishes with poor inner-city parishes, and also encouraged New Yorkers to sponsor individual poor kids at Catholic schools.
There are times - a natural disaster or war or something that destroys a society on a large scale - where help does have to come from a government or large institutions, but even then, much of the work is done by individuals who feel a call to help those in need (for example, people who go to rebuild houses after a hurricane).
It could be a system like sponsoring a poor child now through Christian aid, but a whole family. I’d only go along if there was thorough vetting - no addicts, no abusive individuals or criminals. And if entirely voluntary, not mandated by the state like EITC today.
Charitable giving is always good as long as government is kept out of it.
Third world families beget more families than European families. If your family sponsors third world family, then in one generation, your children’s families will have to sponsor more than one third world family in order to keep up. Third world families beget their next generation in a shorter period than western families. If your family sponsors a third world family, your children will have to start sponsoring third world families (plural, each) before they themselves have started families, if you and they are to keep up.
I just don’t understand why people suggest solutions that simply cannot work. They want your money. They want your freedom. But I don’t know why.
By far the very best, most important thing that can be done to help the poor needs the cooperation of both those of means and the church. It is blindingly obvious but goes dramatically against the prevalent culture.
It is to, by any means, change the culture so that sex outside of marriage is universally condemned. This is because not only does marriage have a vital *biological*, but it is essential to prosperity and success. And this can be backed up with statistics.
1) People have an age window for reproduction, from about age 15 to age 35. *Anything* that inhibits reproduction during those years will demographically harm a society.
2) However, children raised by single parents are 60% more likely to become criminals. This is because such children are raised in a “survival” mode instead of a “success” mode.
3) There are people who medically can have children, but there are also people who should not. Those who should not still crave sex, but they cannot be allowed to interfere with those who should reproduce. Thus society needs to protect breeding couples from them.
4) Even since before the start of the 20th Century, there has been a very strong cultural push to destroy marriage as an enforced social institution, to promote “free love”, abundant contraception to support this, as well as abortion. The across the board destruction resulting from this philosophy has been devastating, responsible for more catastrophe than can be totaled. And it continues today, unabated, a continual stream of propaganda directed at the young and impressionable.
So how can the wealthy and the church put the brakes on this disaster?
To start with, stop funding and supporting the philosophy of “free love”. Stop encouraging sex outside of marriage, along with the restoration of ideas like “adultery”, with profound social sanctions, which are often far more effective than legal or criminal ones.
This also means condemning those who advocate such things by recognizing who they are and what they are doing.
With the restoration of the family, and just basic fairness, prosperity returns, cruelty and murder abate, and society and the world improve markedly.
I would love it to have fewer government run social services and more voluntary social services like we used to have before FDR. Without the government safety net communities found ways to take care of their needy and they would today.
I bet it could be done for only 60 cents a day !
lol
welcome to 1980 Mr. Pope.
I’m all for voluntary charity, but with their long history of violent coercion, I’m skeptical of all papal proposals. If the pope wants to really do something for the impoverished he should liquidate Roman Catholic assets and distribute the proceeds to the poor.
Catholic Inquisition and The Torture Tools
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rx8PdvOELvY&list=PLE1CB721E3CA65D76&index=94&feature=plpp_video
For those who don’t know, the inquisition was directed by a succession of 70-80 popes and historians estimate some 50,000,000 souls were tortured to death. Some of the most horrific torture devices known to history were wielded by the popes. That youtube video features a longtime Dominican priest from Ireland who eventually studied his Bible and by God’s grace was born again. He knows the Catholic church and its history inside and out.
His testimony can be found here: www.bereanbeacon.org
Lord, I pray for protestants worldwide to study their own history and become bible-believing protestants again. Give us the grace to see your truth and not be tripped-up by the subtle lies of this world. Grace us with the power to stand for Christ and His gospel in an ever-darkening world.
Considering some of the most concentrated wealth in the world resides at the Vatican, maybe the Pope could practice a little what he preaches.
Hey Pope baby how about sponsoring me. I think the church can afford me I dont want that much.$1000 a week will be fine thanks.
My wife and I are comfortable, not rich. Via the local, state and federal taxes we support/sponsor many poor people in the USA and internationally.
If I had a choice in the matter, those who benefit from my largess would be like my pets, surgically and permanently neutered.
Why should Catholics with their centuries of choosing sound spiritual and financial paths have it all? Why not ‘share’ with the Jim Jone's kool aid drinkers? Or Scientologists? Lots of failed cults out there that could benefit from the coffers of wiser religions///
To hell with the poor!!!
Make your own way in thios world or quit taking up space on the planet!!!
Clean up your own back yard before you complain about the neighbor's yard.
“Household staff”.
You could confiscate ALL the income of EVERY person in the US, and it would still not be enough to fix the Third World.