The Church Desires the Amelioration of Poverty.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XIX, Issue 43, 31 July 1891, Page 5

The Church Desires the Amelioration of Poverty.

Neither must it be supposed that the solicitude of the Church is so occupied with the spiritual concerns of its children as to neglect their interests temporal and earthly. Its desire is that the poor, for example, should rise above poverty and wretchedness, and should better their condition in life ; and for this it strives. By the very fact that it calls men to virtue and forms them to its practice, it promotes this in no slight degree. Christian morality, when it is adequately and completely practised, conduces of itself to temporal prosperity, for it merits the blessing of that God Who is the source of all blessings; it powerfully restrains the lust of possession and the lust of pleasure — twin plagues which too often make a man without self-restraint miserable in the midst of abundance;* it makes men supply by economy for the want of means, teaching them to be content with frugal living, and keeping them out of the reach of those vices which eat up not merely small incomes, but large fortunes, and dissipate many a goodly inheritance. Moreover, the Church intervenes directly in the interest of the poor by setting on foot and keeping up many things which it sees to be efficacious in the relief of poverty. Here again it has always succeeded so well that it has even extorted the praise of its enemies. Such was the ardour of brotherly love among the earliest Christians that numbers of those who were better off deprived themselves of their possessions in order to relieve their brethren ; whence neither was there any one needy among thern.f To the order of Deacons, instituted for that very purpose, was committed by the Apostles the charge of the daily distribution ; and the Apostle Paul, though burdened with the solicitude of all the churches, hesitated not to take laborious journeys in order to carry the alms of the faithful to the poorer Christians. Tertullian calls these contributions, given voluntarily by Christians in their assemblies, deposits of piety ; because, to cite his words, they were employed in feeding the needy, in burying them, in the support of boys and girls destitute of means and deprived of their parents, in the care of the aged, and in the relief of the shipwrecktd.% Thus by degrees came into existence the patrimony which the Church has guarded with religious care as the inheritance of the poor. Nay, to spare them the shame of begging, the common Mother of rich and poor has exerted herself to gather together funds for the support of the needy. The Church has stirred up everywhere the heroism of charity, and has established Congregations of Religious and many other useful institutions for help and mercy, so that there might be hardly any kind of suffering which was not visited and relieved. At the present day there are many who, like the heathen of old, blame and condemn the Church for this beautiful charity. They would substitute in its place a system of State-organised relief. But no human methods will ever supply for the devotion and selfsacrifice of Christian charity. Charity, as a virtue, belongs to the Church ; for it is no virtue unless it is drawn from the Sacred Heart of Jesus Christ ; and he who turns his back on the Church cannot be near to Christ. It cannot, however, be doubted that to attain the purpose of which We treat, not only the Church, but all human means must conspire. All who are concerned in the matter must be of one mind and must act together. It is in this, as in the Providence which governs the world ; results do not happen save where all the causes co-operate.