As I have mentioned here, I am Jewish. Be that as it may, I regularly read the publication “Commonweal,” which is edited by lay Catholics (not Jesuits, as I originally sad) and often vigorously agree with its writers. Read this one by John Chryssavgis.
https://www.commonweal-magazine.org/prosperity-philanthropy
At the latest G7 summit in Biarritz, U.S. President Donald Trump reassured the world that “our economy is creating jobs and helping the poor.” A similar confidence was expressed in a recent op-ed published by the Wall Street Journal. It was titled “Making Money is a Patriotic Act” (August 13, 2019). Signed by Bernie Marcus, a cofounder of Home Depot, and the New York City supermarket magnate John Catsimatidis, the op-ed opened with a striking, quasi-religious claim: “The two of us are quite rich. We have earned more money than we could have imagined and more than we can spend on ourselves, our children and grandchildren. These days getting rich off a profitable business is regarded as almost sinister. But we have nothing to apologize for and we don’t think the government should have more of our profits.” The fact that the latter is a prominent member in, and generous donor to, the Greek Orthodox Church in America (as well as to the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of New York) prompted me to reflect again on the age-old question of wealth and poverty in Christian thought. This is a question where Orthodox and Roman Catholic teaching are very similar, if not the same.
Of course, the connection or correspondence between prosperity and philanthropy has long concerned economists, political theorists, and moral philosophers, as well as theologians. Economic resources are indispensable to the church, but the church has an obligation to husband its resources in a way that includes the less fortunate. When it comes to wealth, the focus for Christians should be beneficent compassion (the law of love) rather than brutal competition (the law of survival of the fittest). Proclaiming that greed is neither sinister nor sinful and claiming that the government should not impose higher taxes on the wealthy is at odds with the Christian responsibility to recognize the dignity and parity of the least of our brothers and sisters (Matthew 25:40).
The authors boast of creating employment (albeit at often degradingly low salaries) and supporting charities (while benefiting from generous tax deductions for charitable giving), but they’re also proud of having risen from meager origins to achieve the American Dream. This up-by-the-bootstraps success narrative may be convenient for the Christian right, but it is inconsistent with both Orthodoxy and Roman Catholic social teaching.
Before contemplating the spiritual message, however, let’s consider the economic argument. Fiscal conservatives have long insisted that private charity is better than government handouts; helping hands, they say, should be inspired by a heart of compassion rather than compelled by law. But to suggest that wealthy donors can replace government programs is both arrogant and dangerously irresponsible. Private philanthropy falls off during economic downturns, when poverty rises. In other words, philanthropy tends to be cyclical, whereas public programs are designed to be counter-cyclical, helping the most when there’s the greatest need for help. The idea that faith-based or privately organized charity is more efficient or more effective than government relief has not been true since the industrial revolution. It is especially untrue during a recession.
But much of secular philanthropy is less about providing relief to the poor than about stockpiling tax deductions and/or getting one’s name emblazoned on the front of a new cultural or religious institution. No matter how dizzying the donations of the wealthy, they are in fact a minuscule fraction—economists estimate it’s less than 0.031 percent—of current social needs. It would be wonderful if more of society’s most fortunate members would respond to the needs of the less fortunate. But it is a fantasy to believe that voluntary organizations, including religious ones, could adequately replace the array of government health and social programs that help the most vulnerable.
Take some examples from my own church, which is also the church of John Catsimatidis. How troubled are Orthodox leaders that the tens of millions of dollars worth of donations raised for a church at Ground Zero in New York City—all of which doubtless qualify for tax deductions as charitable gifts—will in no way benefit the underprivileged, in a city where there is visible evidence of material want on every street corner? How often do Orthodox Christians and perhaps especially Orthodox clergy stop to examine their lifestyle in light of their vocation to close rather than widen the gap between rich and poor? And when wealthy Orthodox Christians give, how much do they focus their generosity on impoverished fellow Christians—or, indeed, on impoverished non-Christians?
Recently, at a traffic stop in Lewiston, Maine, I observed a refugee woman cross the road in order to offer money to a beggar. I was instantly reminded of the episode in Luke’s Gospel “when Jesus looked up and saw the rich putting their gifts into the treasury. He also saw a poor widow put in two mites. And he said, ‘Truly I tell you, this poor widow has put in more than all of them; for they all contributed out of their abundance, but she out of her poverty put in all the livelihood that she had’” (Luke 21:1–4). I carry a mite with the cross that I wear—a reminder that the cross entails sacrifice and that my social obligations are central to any spiritual aspiration. This is true for everyone of course, not only the rich; and “rich” is a relative term. But there is no relativizing away the special duty of those who have much more than they need to help provide for those who have less than they need. Complaints about high taxes signal that one thinks of this duty as merely an option.
Even the subtler, seemingly softer mercantilism proposed by the recent Business Roundtable in its August 2019 “Statement on the Purpose of a Corporation,” which seems to reverse course on the priority of maximizing shareholder value, and to soft-pedal the exploitation of offshore labor and ecological despoliation, is not really a confession of guilt but rather an admission that big business now has a public-relations problem.
Saints and mystics have always understood the connection between ascesis and communion: those who are unable to control their appetites—to say “enough” when their own needs have been met—are less likely to notice and respond when their neighbor does not have enough. Luxury is the enemy of solidarity. The tragedy is not just that the rich may never make it to heaven, but also that they may never understand why heaven is beyond their reach.
It may be “easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God…but what is impossible for mortals is possible for God” (Luke 18:24–26). In the larger picture of God’s beneficence, there is always ample room for forgiveness and redemption. Almsgiving allows us to confront our inner brokenness and spiritual poverty by reaching out to others, to the least and lowest in our community until, as Abba John wrote in sixth-century Gaza, “we reach the point of regarding the poor as our equal and as our neighbor” (Letter 636). But to recognize the poor as our equals is to understand that they cannot be left at the mercy of a philanthropist’s whim, and the satisfaction of their needs is not another charitable option, like the construction of a new opera house or university gym. Rightwing philanthropists need to get over their aversion to public-assistance programs and their resentment of the taxes that fund them. And before they write op-eds congratulating themselves for their own munificence or disparaging government programs they dismiss as “handouts,” they would do well to remember another famous passage from Scripture: “Let not your left hand know what your right hand is doing” (Matthew 6:3).
If these billionaires truly cared about the poor and the dispossessed, they would be pushing for universal health care, a living wage, family leave, a 90% top marginal tax rate and strong unions, for example. More likely a camel will open a McDonald’s franchise than the billionaires approving of any of those social programs or initiatives. The right-winger/libertarians are vehemently against universal health care; they say let charity take care of the destitute sick and infirm, a totally bogus pile of garbage argument.
The Überrich need to stop making the poor poor.
I find it hard to understand why people, once they attain great wealth, no longer understand the struggles that hardships bring. They think of themselves as superior and above the needs of those struggling.
Look at self-satisfied wealthy politicians who care nothing for people who lack healthcare or jobs. Destroying the environment, which will ultimately cause plants, animals and ourselves to not exist, doesn’t seem to matter.
There is something missing in human makeup when “look out for myself” is all that counts. True Christianity means looking out for the needs of others and falsely, many consider the United States to be a ‘Christian nation”. Much of our “order” has been founded on injustice.
“The two of us are quite rich. We have earned more money….”
You can stop listening right there. Any time someone talks about “earning” that kind of money, you know they’re full of something. Something not worth paying attention to.
exactly where my mind caught as well: “we have earned…” being code for “we have used financial tactics which favor the wealthy to skim off more wealth”
“we have taken”
Meanwhile, the Kochs spent 127 million dollars funding 92 climate denial groups.
Could it be that the Koch’s are heavily invested in fossil fuels and $100 billion is not enough for them?
“Rightwing philanthropists need to get over their aversion to public-assistance programs and their resentment of the taxes that fund them.”
Social safety nets provide for those that may not be able to provide for themselves. Without them we are living in social Darwinism. I once heard Ron Paul state that neighbors should be able to care for those that are ill in their community. I cannot see this as a meaningful solution when many people are working two jobs. Neighbors may be able to help others that are needy to some degree, but neighborly largesse is no substitute for comprehensive healthcare. In Japan parents traditionally give everything to their children with the understanding that in old age the young people will care for the elderly. Many young Japanese are eschewing this tradition, and Japan now has to figure out what to do with their destitute elderly. Societies needs to provide safety nets for those that cannot provide for themselves. It takes planning to prepare for a common good that will help those that cannot help themselves. It is a moral imperative.
“Are there no prisons?” asked Scrooge
“Plenty of prisons”, said the gentleman, laying down the pen again.
“And the Union workhouses?” demanded Scrooge. “Are they still in operation?”
“They are. Still,” returned the gentleman, “I wish I could say they were not.”
“The Treadmill and Poor Law are in full vigour, then? said Scrooge [Stave 1:50-51]
May the ghost of Jacob Marley (and the 3 ensuing ghosts) visit and torment these greedy billionaires every single night until they start doing what’s right.
“……an admission that big business now has a public-relations problem.”
you think so?
Mr. “Two Corinthians,” Donald Trump is getting religion ahead of his 2020 bid to continue as the Big Boss. Today he is skipping the UN meeting on the “imaginary” climate change crisis to give a speech on religious freedom and persecution, which he has suddenly decided to make a major issue in order to stir up a fundamentalist base. This is how a cynical manipulator works. Which is actually more religious, DT or the pile of dog crap on my lawn? Hard to tell.
Here’s an example of Gov. Brownback screwing the poor and bragging about it. There is nothing like providing ‘economic opportunity instead of government dependency”.
…………
Kansas should cut ties with KanCare call center contractor
SEPTEMBER 18, 2019
On a frozen January evening in 2016, then-Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback bragged to a packed state capital building that his administration was providing “economic opportunity instead of government dependency.” He wasn’t referring to his notorious tax cuts, which had by that time blown a $170 million hole in the state budget. He spoke at length instead about his Medicaid reforms, including privatization under KanCare, which he called “innovation and modernization.”…
The Maximus contract has the telltale signs of the damage that can be wrought by privatizing critical public services.
There’s the cutting of corners. From the start, Maximus understaffed the Clearinghouse, resulting in a backlog of unprocessed Medicaid applications, serious delays in nursing home admittance for seniors, frustrations over poor service, delays in health care providers receiving payments, and other problems. Two years in, the corporation was achieving only 40% accuracy on financial payments, less than half the 98% called for in the contract.
This is par for the course for the $3 billion corporation headquartered in Northern Virginia. Maximus has long profited from privatization of the social safety net, holding contracts nationwide for everything from job training to child support enforcement….
Then, there’s the race to the bottom when it comes to jobs. Workers report that Maximus pays Clearinghouse workers as little as $10.50 an hour. According to contract documents, Maximus has planned to outsource some of the Clearinghouse work to its employees in Colorado — and may have already done so — while paying lower wages to its Kansas employees doing the same work.
Maximus has a long history of labor and employment law violations, including wage theft and violations of anti-discrimination statutes. In fact, the U.S. Department of Labor is currently investigating systemic wage theft at the corporation’s Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services call centers, including one in Lawrence, where wages have been stagnant for years…
https://www.kansascity.com/opinion/readers-opinion/guest-commentary/article235097452.html
Opus Dei info. isn’t available to the public so rumors about Brownback/Santorum and Opus Dei aren’t confirmed.
A current Opus Dei priest, John Paul Wauch, before he took his vows, worked as a political speech writer for William Barr.
Other prosperity, right wing Catholics include Jeb Bush, Newt Gingrich, Paul Ryan, and Marco Rubio.
ODAN.org is one of many sites that provide info. about Opus Dei.
(Rolling Stone)
An influential D.C. priest, McCloskey (Opus Dei) is credited with converting to Catholicism, Gingrich, Brownback and Lawrence Ludlow, Trump’s Director of the National Economic Council. McCloskey is also credited with the statement, a liberal Catholic is an oxymoron
BTW- media reported a rich benefactor paid the tab for a McCloskey scandal.
Allegedly, McCloskey is a supporter of the FBI’s Robert Hanssen, who allegedly had a daughter in Opus Dei. Hanssen is currently in prison convicted of spying for the Russians.
I’ll come back and read to absorb. But may mean we meet again as the spiral of our journeys wound wider and higher. I’ve been saying Marx’s Surplus Value is the same as his social surplus: difference between necessary labor added and Necessary labor consumed, before monetisation for exchange. Better put, and now easy to track and calculate, which was inconceivable in Marx’s time, as Monetized (World Average Labor Time Added minus World Average Labor Time [of others] Consumed). ie M(WALT A – WALT C) =Surplus Value, which, according to Marx his only unique contribution is the source of all Capital growth. In the last decade I’ve taken to saying ‘and this, can and should also be called The CommonWealth.’ I thought it nice to suggest that’s what the British Higher Angels sensed as they launched Capitalism, but couldn’t verbalise because at that stage the SV went back to the ruthless risk taker betting the ship leaving the dock, loaded with rum and guns for Africa; then captive live labor for Virginia; then cotton and tobacco would return a lot more gold than he’d staked. A guy in a community discussion group with me in Victoria Texas, jumped on my saying CommonWealth to hold forth on Commonweal. Come to think of it, the meeting was sponsored by a nun. What does Mary think? I’ll have to come back and read this. It always takes a while for me to rethink and restate M(WALT A -WALT C) = the CommonWealth.
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It is not happenstance that a coalition of evangelicals and prosperity Catholics elected Trump, that Gates is achieving his education brands on a large scale through Catholic schools, that Fox’s owner Murdoch received a papal honor from John Paul II (Knight Commander of the Order of Saint Gregory the Great), that Tom Monaghan and Tim Busch expanded the members of Legatus (Catholic CEO’s and their wives) to numbers in the thousands, that Koch/Gates-linked think tanks praise Catholic schools, that the Federalist Society’s Kavanaugh (Leonard Leo) is on the bench, that Scalia, Alito and Thomas got Supreme Court judgeships, that Catholic Steve Bannon and the Acton and Napa Institutes rose to power…
However, we can pretend tribalism and the attack on women, labor, government and its aide for the poor sprung out of thin air.