European Editorial: Poverty and the Christian perspective

Why Poverty? is a question that European radio, TV and web broadcasters have been asking as part of a continent wide debate on what defines poverty and what can be done to improve the lives of the poor – in rich countries as well as in the least developed nations. In the seventh editorial of this series, Philippa Hitchen reflects on the Church’s specific contribution to the discussion:

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“It’s all about right relationships,” a wise Franciscan friar said to me once, many years ago. “About understanding our place in the ecosystem of life. About realising our dependency, not only on God, but on each other and on all of His creation.”
Over the past two decades our understanding of poverty has moved away from the ‘less than $1 a day’ concept, coined by the World Bank in 1990 to describe those facing a daily struggle for survival. Today, as the Millennium Development Goals remind us, it’s less about dollars and cents in people’s pockets and more about access to education and health care, about providing clean water and protecting the environment, about fighting ignorance, promoting gender equality and increasing participation in the political process.
As we look beyond the 2015 deadline for halving the number of people living in poverty, it’s also increasingly about access to on-line information: according to Cardinal Turkson, president of the Pontifical Justice and Peace Council, the most urgent need that people in Congo talk about today is poor communication networks. A lack of all these things keeps people locked in a downward spiral of deprivation, humiliation and lack of control over their lives.

While it took decades for secular institutions and financial organisations to wake up to the errors of the ‘top down’, ‘one size fits all’ approach to international development, the Church has long been spearheading a social doctrine based on empowerment, inter-connectedness and a holistic vision of human dignity for all. What else do countless men and women religious do in the remotest parts of the globe through education, sanitation, healthcare or income generation programmes that help people help themselves, rather than relying on handouts from the West?
While these frontline sisters and friars have been putting God’s love into action in a myriad of practical ways, popes and other Church leaders of the past century have developed the principles of social justice in their contemporary contexts: think of British Cardinal Henry Manning’s mediation in the London dock strike of 1889, followed by Leo XIII’s encyclical Rerum Novarum two years later, the Justice and Peace Council’s 1986 document on international debt, prefiguring the Drop the Debt campaign, or Pope Benedict’s recent encyclical Caritas in Veritate challenging governments, banks and big companies about the root causes of poverty today.

But why does this rich and articulated teaching on human dignity and global solidarity still struggle to make its voice heard? Why is the social doctrine of the Church still described as its best kept (or wilfully neglected) secret? Why was Irish rocker Bono back in the Vatican recently urging Cardinal Turkson to do more to raise the Church’s profile in the anti poverty campaign?
Partly because, as people of faith, we prefer to quietly get on with the job and leave the high profile rhetoric to politicans and pop stars. Because we tend to be wary of working alongside anyone who might challenge our way of doings things. Because there are those who don’t see justice and peace as an integral part of the Catholic faith – why else would social doctrine courses still be optional in some seminaries? And because, if we take the Gospel message seriously, it means radically challenging our own lives and relationships, not just with family and friends, but with those on other side of the world too. It means finding better ways of investing our time,
energy and money, changing our relationships in business, in politics, in economic partnerships.

Are we able this Advent season, to follow the model of St Francis and put self-interest or self righteousness aside? To give – not just to church collections or charity donations – but to give ourselves in service to others, as God came into the world to give Himself for us? That’s a gift that really might make a difference this Christmas.