To Fox News on Pope Francis: Every Disagreement Is Not a War

Adam Shaw, an editor for FoxNews.com, a self-identified Catholic who writes about Anglo-American and Catholic issues, posted to Fox News’ site last week his take on Pope Francis and capitalism, Pope Francis' War on Aspiration.

Here follows my response to Mr. Shaw.  Fox’s site doesn’t allow for comments, so you won’t see it there.  But I did send it to Mr. Shaw as an e-mail.  I have yet to receive a response.

In your post, you say, "The pope’s snub of the struggle for prosperity is a typically derisive attitude toward the American quest for self-development, and an attitude that is often encountered among rich European liberals, or, in this case, clergymen who have not had to work to provide a better life for their families."

While your next paragraph clarifies that you focus on the family part (as opposed to the "Clergymen who have not had to work" part), the facts suggest otherwise when it comes to whether this pope 'had to work' or not, knows privation or not:

1.  The Pope was born in the 1930's.
2.  He has described his own family's loss of everything during that time, in which his own father had no money and no job prospects.
3.  He worked as a janitor and a bouncer, as well as a chemical factory worker before entering seminary.

Not a Catholic myself, I am no defender of the Pope as pope.  But to dismiss his thoughts and views because he does not have children to support, while perhaps noteworthy, is not dispositive.  Even you do not think so, or you would not study the teachings of anyone who did not share your own life experiences, which would mean that you could not be a Christian, Jesus himself having not had (at least to our knowledge) a family himself.

Did he have 'credentials' necessary to speak about that which he did not know from personal experience?  The problem I see is in your logic more than in your own personal conclusions.  Agree with him; disagree with him, but it's problematic, I think, to dismiss Pope Francis because he does not have the life experiences you deem necessary from which to draw.

You then accuse him of 'blundering in', implying that his writings on capitalism, socialism and poverty arise in a vacuum of ignorance.

Consider, please, that the very dismissal you accuse him of you do yourself:  ignoring his context as you say he has ignored yours.  This pope is a man of South America.  Liberation theology, coming specifically out of the Central and South American context, did not arise in a vacuum.  It arose out of the context of massive exploitation of the peoples there economically, socially, politically and spiritually.  This pope speaks the language of liberation theology, a theology that is explicitly about experience.  His people have experienced capitalism first hand in a radically different way that we living in North America have.  It is from that context that he makes his conclusions.  They need not be yours.  But dismissive insults do little to further the dialogue.

Further along, you state, "Yet it is those evil capitalist Catholics who pay for the churches, fund the hospitals, the schools, the soup kitchens and everything else that allows the Church to actually help the poor."

I have to admit that one stunned me.  Having visited Catholic churches around the world, I have observed every stripe of believer, from every type of country with every type of government, contributing to the church and its work.  That includes 'capitalist Catholics', but it also includes non-capitalist Catholics.  To infer that somehow, the Catholics of the United States (which was how I 'heard' what you said) are THE source of the wealth and largess of the Catholic church is to (a) ignore history -- a whole lot of that wealth is compounding interest on the investments of centuries and (b) succumb to the pride of the wealthy -- where would you be without me?  (as a citizen in these United States, I consider myself to be one of the wealthy, so I'm speaking from inside the ball park here).

Finally, your closing quote, "Francis must stop making broad judgmental statements about those striving for success and bring himself back into conformity with Catholic social teaching and reality."  makes me smile -- sadly, but smiling I am.

'Francis must . . . bring himself back into conformity with Catholic social teaching' -- what on earth are you talking about?  I, for one, would really like to know.  You're surely not referring to Dorothy Day and the Catholic Worker Movement.  Or the Nuns on the Bus.  Or the Berrigan brothers.  Or Oscar Romero.  Or Gutierrez.  Or Lech Walesa.  Or St. Francis himself.  Or Claire.  Or virtually any of the medieval monastics, who themselves eschewed wealth.  So really, what 'teaching' are you referring to?

You call the pope back to 'reality'.  What I hear (and this is speculation on my part, admittedly) is a young man in a capitalistic country who feels personally attacked by the words of the principal spiritual as well as earthly leader of his faith.

As a person of faith myself, might I offer some unsolicited advice (trust me, it's biblical):  when something said by another of faith makes me angry or uncomfortable, my first steps should not be to tell them why they're wrong.  My first steps should be self-examination (think plank and mote here), as I ask myself why these words spark such a negative response in me and seek out my own fault.  It's perhaps the hardest thing for any human being, including we Christians to do:  to intentionally engage in a wee dose of humility.

Because you are a fellow Christian and because you have such a broad public venue for your own thoughts and musings, I beseech you to do that work first.  It might just take you to a different place.

I know it smacks of pride on my part to presuppose that you haven't prayed, meditated, reflected, listened, etc. before coming to and publishing these thoughts of yours.  I make that inference based not on what you said, but based on what you didn't say, for you did not say anything about his context, except in dismissive tones.  You did not say anything about the southern (hemisphere) context out of which he comes.  You did not acknowledge the journey, let alone the autonomy and context, of the other.

I pray that in future, you will.

Yours in Christ,
Beth Pyles

[And what I didn't say then]  This should have been the main point rather than a post-script.  My lapse.

Living in the United States and having a job, family or no family to support, puts you and I ahead of a healthy percentage of the world's population.  It is, may I gently suggest, a bit presumptuous for either you or I to speak 'on behalf of'' the poor or identify ourselves as such, as you at least implicitly do when you refer to your challenges in providing for your family.  That is not to say you don't have challenges.  It is to say that those challenges are nowhere near the challenges of poverty and it is less than honest to say or think that they are.  That life may be difficult does not make one a victim.  That life's difficulties are unjust and threaten to take away life itself does.

Alas, and not surprising, a quick Google search revealed no quotes, comments, articles, blog posts, or analyses of Pope Francis' take on economics by anyone who is actually poor.  I wonder what they make of your Pope?

Praying on the Impoverishment of My Generosity

Rereading me some liberation theology – condemned, as always, but this time, struggling not to be bogged down in guilt (that I am not poor, but wealthy, very wealthy, by the standards of the world) – I stand indicted by some of the first words of the original Introduction to Gustavo Gutierrez’s A Theology of Liberation: “My purpose is . . . to let ourselves be judged by the word of the Lord . . .”

Sigh.

And yet I recall to memory that to stand in judgment before my Lord is not to be bent down as a broken and caught-out criminal, but rather to stand in glory side-by-side with all, claimed, loved, redeemed, set and sent for purpose, fulfilled and unfulfilled, and that judgment this side of heaven is not my rod so much as my guide.

Yesterday we marked the anniversary of the declaration of war on poverty.  It sounds a bit ridiculous, all this war-declaring we seem to like to do.  But the impulse (I leave to others far brighter than I to judge sincerity of intentions at the time) to eradicate (at least some of) the problems associated with poverty – economic, educational, and health care lack – is a good one.

That the conditions of poverty are (often if not always) institutionally created, it also seems good to me that we endeavor to address them in institutional ways, ever mindful of my far more progressive friends’ mistrust of all things institutional.

But if dismantling is not to our liking, maybe what we need is more mantling – more cloaking, but with what?  Perhaps with righteousness – an unpopular word in my time and place.  But even more, perhaps, with love – the act of actual care, of walking alongside, of doing better at doing better.

This, then, in observing yet another anniversary of human (claimed) desire to eradicate the misery of poverty, oppression, injustice, is my prayer . . .

Lord, I hear You telling me that sitting at table together, being the guest rather than always the host, matters.  For the gifts I have received from those with so much less in a material way than I, I give you thanks.  For the lessons in humility, I give you thanks.  For Your ways not being our ways, my way, I give You thanks.  For Your not-always obvious or even apparent ways of blessing the poor, I give you thanks.  When I have trivialized Your beatitude bestowing upon them by trying to make it about something other than genuine material lack, I regret.  When I am impatient because the solutions are hard and often not obvious, I regret.  When I am tempted to judge the worthiness of another before I bestow Your graces shared with me upon them, I regret.  Help me to do better at doing better.  Amen.

Why the Anger at the Poor?

If you’re not poor, I’ve got a question for you.  Have you found yourself angry of late with those who have less than you?  And a follow-up, if you would allow me: why?

Why, oh why, oh why, are we so angry with the poor?  Why do commentators trash talk folks who work at MacDonalds and other fast-food chains for staging a walk out seeking higher wages?  Is it wrong to protest?  What’s so bad about going public with your desires?  About banding together with others in similar situations?  About exercising the same power that the corporations use in order to try to change your circumstances?

Whether you think someone ‘deserves’ a higher wage isn’t the point in a protest by workers.  This isn’t about changing existing laws.  This is about employees seeking a raise.

To compare your situation when you were 16 and presumably living at home with no expenses save those your parents assigned to you to the situation of someone who actually must survive on their wages is specious and insulting.

To tell someone who may only ever be qualified for a minimum wage job to move up the ladder is condescending.

The valuation of labor in a society has little to do with intrinsic worth to the society.  A corporate CEO is not inherently more valuable to a society than a food service worker.  Think of it this way: one of them, if they get it wrong, could actually kill you on the spot.  (Hint: it’s not the CEO – it usually takes a CEO much longer).  And while I enjoy sporting events as much as the next person (well, okay, I probably don’t), intrinsic worth has nothing to do with their levels of pay, especially at the higher end of the scale.  Ditto movie stars.  Ditto, ditto, ditto.

If we measured pay based on intrinsic worth, wouldn’t we begin with those who provide food and shelter?  The farmers, grocers, restaurant workers, home builders (meaning the actual carpenters and joiners and not the company’s head), etc.?

Walking in the shoes of another is more a good and healthy exercise than it is a catchy bumper sticker.  The next best thing is to imagine those shoes.  Imagine trying to actually live on a minimum wage.

It’s not, perhaps, that it can’t be done.  I’m not in a position to say.  But even if it can be done, the thing is that there’s no margin for error – none.  There is no breathing room.  One blip and the whole house can come tumbling down.  One trip to the emergency room and the budget’s shot for months, if not years.  One request home for money for a school trip is a family crisis.  And one family member with out-of-the-norm expenses (such as an on-going medical problem) renders the entire family unit unviable.

When those who have groan and worry, those who do not have have long been beyond the place of groan and worry and wonder what all the fuss is about.  When those who have lament, those who do not have pray, not necessarily because their faith is deeper, but because there is no other place to go.  I think, anyway, for I’ve been either blessed or cursed never up to now to have to know.

But this I do know: it is unseemly at best for we who have so much to begrudge those who do not in trying to attain more.  And if you think organizing a labor movement isn’t work, I suggest you give it a try.

Years ago, I asked my uncle Harvey, who worked his adult life as an executive for Good Year International, what the solution is to low wages, inequalities, and poor conditions in the work place.  His answer was quick, unequivocal and clear: labor unions.  Genuine, international, independent labor unions.

I was surprised at the answer coming from him as it did – this, after all, was a man who spent his adult life on the corporate side of the equation.  It took me years to understand that his work had actually given him a bird’s eye view, leading him to the obvious conclusion that only with parity of power can there be fairness.

So to the fast-food workers who go on strike seeking higher wages and benefits, I say well done and Godspeed.

And shame on you, Brian Kikmeade, Steve Docy, the Employment Policies Institute, Neil Cavuto, Tracy Burns, for a failure of moral imagination that at the least, cannot appreciate folks with less using the same strategies that you use to advance in your own lives (making allies, expressing your concerns, seeking advantage, working together cooperatively, to name but a few).

Worrisome, Woeful Wednesdays

Holy Week Wednesday in Mark’s gospel highlights the contrast between faithful following and falling away.  How ironic, how cruel, really, that centuries later, we claimed faithful followers take Jesus’ words to the very proto-betrayer Judas Iscariot (you will always have the poor with you. . .) and turn them into a command to ignore the needs of the poor, as if in that ignoring is found love rather than blind indifference, faithfulness rather than falling away.

So here is how I hear Jesus’ words to Judas that fateful Wednesday . . .

Really, Judas?  You’re going to throw up care for the poor to me?  Really?  You (of all people) are really going to chastize this woman for anticipating your deed, your betrayal?  Well, son, you’ve got the money purse in your hands – why don’t you take that money and provide for the poor?  Oh – we have need of it, do we?  Well, that’s different then, isn’t it?  Ah, Judas, how very sad you make me.  That bribe money you’re going to get?  It’ll burn a hole in your hand, you know.  Poor folk need you too, Judas.  They need you to be caring and providing, but they also need you to be humble and a little less sure that you’ve got the answers to their problems.  They and I need you to listen to us instead of the voice in your own head for a change.  Could you do that for us?  No?  I was afraid of that.  It – you – could have been so different, you know.  The poor you speak so passionately about?  They’ve been standing right in front of you your whole life.  Where was your concern for them yesterday?  Where will it be tomorrow?  No, Judas, this isn’t about the poor.  It’s about you.  You’re watching a funeral happen right in front of your own eyes and because we laugh and celebrate, you mistake it for a party.  Life is a celebrating thing, Judas.  Why can’t you see that?  Why can you not see that caring for each other – all of each other – is a blessing, not a burden?  Oh, Judas, I had such hopes for you.  It’s not too late – you know – for you.  You can still change your mind, change your course, change your destiny.  It’s possible.  And it’s up to you.  Just don’t throw the poor in my face.  This – her love and your betrayal – have nothing to do with the poor.  Stop blaming them and choose your own life.  I am begging you, Judas.  Do not do this.  And yes, Judas, you will always have poor folk among you – folks like you, sadly, will make sure of that.