The Church Must Love the Wealthy, Too

 
Pope Leo XIV’s twenty-page Apostolic Exhortation Dilexi te (“I have loved you” On Love for the Poor) nags thoughtful consciences  despite the excellent truism that all Christians must be properly dispositioned towards and ever responsive to the needy.  Snubbed is the wealthy corporate capitalist especially when referencing Rerum Novarum and emphasizing the workers’s rights.  Yet, the late 19th century Pope Leo XIII recognized property ownership and discouraged socialist solutions.   In other areas of Dilexi te, subtle suggestions tout worldly institutions and structures, including top down (global) government organizations and oversight.  No where is there repudiation for co mingling counter-Christian plans with the salvific mission of the Church.

 
Four foundational premises would have well rounded this Exhortation:  Love for both the poor and wealthy; recognition that poor souls cannot be sold out for “bread alone”; many religious and laity apostolates have been and are powerful in serving the poor, materially and spiritually, without compromising with worldly powers;  and acknowledging faithful and sacrificial wealthy in the past and now, including saints and other holy persons, who forfeited their inheritances. 

Love for the Wealthy, Too!

Authentic love for the poor should bring both the giver and recipient to eternal union with the  Sacred Heart of Jesus.  Such ardent devotion accepts that the world is flawed and fraught with temptation for both avarice and envy; crippled by human judgment and embittered sloth; and lured by false secular messianic promises that compromise courage and conviction to humbly and sacrificially live out the Faith at all costs.  Rich, poor, or in between, each and everyone of us is lovingly called to carry the Cross.  The rich need assistance in that, as well.

 
It was also dismaying that there were no references to successful, private Christian run enterprises.  The contributions of successful entrepreneurs are not even mentioned, let alone encouraged. Yet, to whom does the same Church that swipes at corporate capitalism turn when a church, school, or hospital is needed?  In the past, Legatus International, founded in 1987 by Thomas Monaghan (Domino’s Pizza)  spearheaded the idea that business leaders should be “ambassadors for Christ.”  Recent examples of similar movements include Tom Pagano (catholicentrepreneur.org) who is “passionate about connecting high level talent with mission-based organizations.”); SENT, a network of entrepreneurs devoted to excellence, faith, and stewardship; and catholic professionals.net, to identify a handful. 

 
Salvation of Souls Above All Other Consideration  

 
As I read Dilexi te,  despite numerous references to saints, including Church Fathers, the work tugged at the expectation of temporal objectives rather than a mission of mercy that foremost saves souls though the latter is tucked away in #114:  “In reality, the worst discrimination which the poor suffer is in the lack of spiritual care.”  

 
In a somewhat sorrowful way, Dilexi te jumps from St. Francis who “had a great concern for the poor” (#7) to global initiatives spearheaded by irreligious committees.  Ignored in between are all the incredibly sacrificial apostolates and religious orders that gained an abundance of graces for the poor and wealthy alike.  Furthermore, not expanded upon are the white and red martyrs, from all walks of life,  who have most inspired self giving. 

 
The exhortation would have been greatly strengthened by examples of individual heroic endeavors like Mother Teresa’s Missionaries of Charity, the genuinely Catholic followers of Dorothy Day’s Catholic Workers Movement; the Society of St. Vincent de Paul; Human Life International, and organizations like the Guild of St. Benedict Joseph Labre for the mentally ill, to name a few.  For it is in the person-to-person encounters of daily life that charity knows its primary seeding and full bloom though its effects may only appear minuscule and ineffective for broader objectives.

 
The Poor are Ever with Us, but  Hopefully Also The Wealthy

 
Jesus Christ Himself taught that the poor will always be with us, ironically by the same Scriptural passage (Matthew 26::8-9, 11) cited in this document to more emphasize even small gestures of compassion.  Still, Popes Francis and Pope Leo XIV seem to bolster the notion that poverty can be eradicated if only the rightful structures are put in place, including through the currently anti-Christian United Nations and charitable—in name— organizations with questionable links to pro contraceptive and abortive planning, along with mixed messages on sexual identity.  

 
How much damage has been done to the poor, as well, by partnering with anti-life agents?  In one cruel irony, Denver’s Little Sisters of the Poor were all but crushed in their mission for courageously standing against the evil of contraception, and one home for needy seniors was eventually closed.

 
And does money funneling, alone,  truly eradicate poverty and misery, anyway?   Here I think of Nigeria and Sudan, decades of conflict and grave deprivation not significantly “touched” by massive, international and Church generated funding in recent history.  So, would it not be also charitable to hold accountable the forces that have wrought these evils, but that is a different thesis.

 
For the Needed Wealthy Were Never the Sole Culprits Anyway 

 
While Jesus Christ warned of the dangers of wealth, He never condemned it outright.  After all, Job  received many fold what he had lost, but the distinction was in that he humbly surrendered all he had to begin with.  

 
Dilexi te could have highlighted that not all are called to a beggar’s life, and, in fact, if we are all beggars, who will produce the food, clothing, and housing?  Some Catholics must be the developers, inventors, and business stewards  This, too, is a calling though fraught with tremendous temptation and in need of the virtues of Lot and prayer by the Faithful.  On the other hand, current global political elitists, at best, stroke communistic concepts that, not grounded in Faith, or worse grounding out Faith, fail.

 
For one example, intense conflict has arisen between worker and gargantuan, anti-Christian unions at odds with the typical faithful worker who is used more than served in many cases.  These are not the unions of the earlier 20th Century.  And, certainly current government is no Catholic friendly tier.  Compelling taxation without representation is the antithesis of charity.  Most troublesome is when bully unions and “liberal” government cooperate with each other.  Minimum wage, for example, sounds great on paper but can lead to a host of unintended consequences.  Punitive laws against property owners and business tycoons to theoretically “even playing fields” can flip justice to harm growth and therefore workers, more than build up.  Ironically, these glossy frameworks often lead to greater impoverishment and then bitterness of the have-nots as well as depression of spirit.

 
What the prudent should acknowledge is that the world will never be the conduit for utopia, though to a certain extent, following the principles of solidarity and subsidiarity, overarching systems of care can bear some desired outcomes.  However, even for modest success, there must be virtue development and glaring awareness of the snares by the Evil One and his minions, masters at pitting us against each other.  Absent grace, charity loses its heart.  Absent heart, social justice becomes merely a tool of the manipulating “competent authorities” of “redistribution.”

 
I dread that Dilexi te, at best, is lulled by false promises and justice warriors ever battling longterm wealth disparity in certain quarters of the world, such as South America.

 
These are the people who knowingly but also at times, ignorantly promote expedient and non personalized principles and objectives in the vain attempt of equalizing wealth on the coattails of Scripture but may simultaneously contradict truth by distorting social doctrine.

 
Pope Leo XIV does highlight the necessity of work and underscores alms as currently disparaged but good.  Yet, this is found towards the conclusion that again amplifies institutional responses.  This not only counters the principle of subsidiarity, but history teaches that grand structures, like the United Nations’s Millennium Goal of eradicating poverty, are as misguided as President Lyndon B. Johnson’s 1960s War on Poverty.  At least then, though, many more Americans believed in God.

 
Global initiatives are not solely villainous, as in the United States, the very political body that claims to care most for the poor, the Democrat Party, has been infiltrated by a similar secular spirit that has caused the poor to stumble into worse circumstances. 

 
In all, there are many fine points and examples in Dilexi te, but hopefully Pope Leo XIV can revisit the content and more encompassingly listen to other voices about ways to uplift the poor, most fruitfully, given the limitation of a temporal world, ground up and top down, to nurture and save souls, in this month of All Souls.  Perhaps he will call forth the wealthy… lovingly.