In a recent article published in the Las Cruces Bulletin, Christopher Erickson, Ph.D., a professor of economics at New Mexico State University concludes that after “50 Years, U.S. War on Poverty largely won.” Actually, the struggle against the effects of poverty has been waged for many centuries before President Johnson’s well known 1964 State of the Union address in which he declares “war on poverty,” Dr. Erickson makes a myopic and mistaken conclusion that poverty equates with the condition of “malnutrition”.
The larger condition of “poverty”
is a much more complex phenomenon than Dr. Erickson’s simplistic equation of
“Poverty equals malnutrition.” Political declarations of war on the condition of poverty are at best rhetorical and
skim the surface of what is required to act responsibly toward our neighbor in affliction. Two thousand years ago Jesus of Nazareth recognized
that “the poor will be with
you always. (Matt 26:11) Christian tradition teaches its members that true
justice concerning the poor is derived from the remarkable cornerstone of an
intrinsic dignity of the human person seen by Jesus Christ. Neither the Church
nor secular humanitarian approaches have ever reduced understandings of poverty
to be physical hunger alone.
Various
modes of governance have approached alleviation of poverty in public policy as
part of the governance’s responsibility for the “general welfare.” “The poor”
are not a faceless class to be easily forgotten, ignored and treated as
political pawns in the chess game of prosperity. For this reason,
Judeo-Christian traditions have approached the problem of injustice and its
effects proactively and in the front lines. Only by such face to face
interaction can we be compelled to reflect upon the poor as individuals with an
indelible dignity and right to freedom. The success of our endeavors regarding
poverty rides heavily upon what we consider to be just action in regard to
human dignity under the weight of affliction. This is the role the Catholic
Church has championed for so long. Christians and humanitarians alike, lunge
at the high goal of alleviating and even eliminating poverty as a condition.
Regardless of faith perspective, we must attempt to alleviate the condition of
poverty to the individuals who suffer its ramifications: hunger, loneliness,
homelessness, depression, disease, prejudice, alienation, violence, among many
others. The “fish net” underlying the Christian perspective toward the
poor is that there is no shame or net loss to the inherent dignity of those who
suffer it. Rather, the poor have faces and names. They rise to a special status
and are to be interacted with as Christ’s “little ones” (Luke 6:20) as a
priority.
The
present reality of poverty in America defies draconian equations like “poverty
equals hunger.” The condition of poverty arises from underlying societal
injustices. To be sure, it is both an individual and a societal problem.
Injustices of any kind assault human dignity. In the wake of injustices, the
poor starve for more than food. The poor starve for fairness, opportunity,
work, and especially recognition of their given dignity as children of God. In
the end, such a war must be fought by each of us as a matter of personal and
ethical responsibility to act cooperatively answering “yes” to the question:
“Am I my brother’s keeper?” Or better yet, let’s keep in mind the parable of
the Good Samaritan as the model of determining “who is my neighbor” in response
to the commandment that we “love our neighbor as ourselves.” (Luke
10:25-37)(Lev 19:13)
The
poor live and struggle within our own back yard here in southern New Mexico. I
interview individuals and families who present their cases to Catholic
Charities of the Diocese of Las Cruces. I witness the specter of homelessness,
unemployment, underemployment, and substandard living. I am not alone in this
to be sure. A quick tour of some of the colonias in our own southern New Mexico
area will very quickly give a dramatic picture that impoverished conditions are
real. The number of people availing themselves of soup kitchens and food banks
is growing in southern New Mexico. In spite of it oil rich resources,
educational institutions, and defense related research laboratories, the
southernmost 10 counties of New Mexico are considered among the poorest in the nation.
The colonia communities of Columbus, Vado, Anapra, and Chaparral are
remote geographically to be sure. However, those who live in these communities
are further alienated by virtue of their present struggle to thrive even in the
most prosperous nation on earth. Our public policy indecision relative to
immigration from Mexico and Central America has intensified and complicated
these effects locally.
The
Church’s 2000 year old war has never been on poverty, but rather, upon the
specter of social injustice. Ultimately, such a war is waged within each of us
to stop or lessen our individual and societal proclivity to harden our hearts
toward our neighbor in need. Pyric victories as declared by Dr. Erickson result
in an individual and societal blindness to reality, or worse, an indifference
to it. Christianity, other main stream religious traditions, and even secular
humanitarianism, demand vigilance against this tendency.
Reference
Material:
“The
Church’s love for the poor... is a part of her constant tradition.” This love
is inspired by the Gospel of the Beatitudes, of the poverty of Jesus, and of
his concern for the poor. Love for the poor is even one of the motives for the
duty of working so as to ‘be able to give to those in need.’” [Catechism of
the Catholic Church, 2444]
“The
Church has to play her part through rational argument and she has to reawaken
the spiritual energy without which justice ... cannot prevail and
prosper".
(Pope Benedict XVI, Deus Caritas Est, 28) According to Pope John Paul II, the
foundation of social justice "rests on the threefold cornerstones of
human dignity, solidarity and subsidiarity." (Bl. Pope John Paul II,
1999 Apostolic Exhortation, Ecclesia in America, 55)
Catholic
Church teaching zeroes in on what individual, social, political and economic
foci should be: “In its various forms—material deprivation, unjust
oppression, physical and psychological illness and death—human misery is the
obvious sign of the inherited condition of frailty and need for salvation in
which man finds himself as a consequence of original sin. This misery elicited
the compassion of Christ the Savior, who willingly took it upon himself and
identified himself with the least of his brethren. Hence, those who are
oppressed by poverty are the object of a preferential love on the part of the
Church which, since her origin and in spite of the failings of many of her
members, has not ceased to work for their relief, defense, and liberation
through numerous works of charity which remain indispensable always and
everywhere.”248 (386, 1586)(Emphasis added)[Catechism of the Catholic Church, 2448]
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