HELPING WITHOUT HURTING: WEEK 5

Controlling the Lake

As the old proverb goes, Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day; teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime. This is a good insight, but who owns the lake?

Addressing poverty also requires us to look at structural problems. The global economy and American society is stacked against those who have less. How can we ensure that our societies provide a "preferential option for the poor," as our faith calls for?

The Lake's Potential

But what happens when the fish disappear from the lake due to pollution and overfishing?

Then it's time for a change in strategy.  Someone has to figure out how to get control of the lake: stop the pollutants, issue fishing licenses, put wildlife-management policies in place. Teaching a man to fish is an individual matter, but gaining control of the lake is a community issue.

That's why we call it "community development" and not human services. While those of us in community development value personal, hands-on, high-touch ministry, we also see that there are larger issues that have an impact on a person's potential for growth. What good is job training if the available jobs won't enable a man to support his family? Or what benefit is homeownership if the home is in a deteriorating, crime-infested neighborhood? If we are to teach people to both fish and thrive, we must figure out how to make use of the lake's potential.
Robert D. Lupton
Toxic Charity: How Churches and Charities
Hurt Those They Help (And How to Reverse it)

Pope Francis on poverty

In The Joy of the Gospel, Pope Francis addresses poverty at length.  Here are some quotations from it:
Each individual Christian and every community is called to be an instrument of God for the liberation and promotion of the poor, and for enabling them to be fully part of society.... A lack of solidarity towards his or her needs will directly affect our relationship with God. [187]
[I]t means working to eliminate the structural causes of poverty and to promote the integral development of the poor, as well as small daily acts of solidarity in meeting the real needs which we encounter. [188]
[Solidarity] refers to more than a few sporadic acts of generosity.
It presumes the creation of a new mindset which thinks in terms of community and the priority of the life of all over the appropriation of goods by a few. [188]
Changing structures without generating new convictions and attitudes will only ensure that those same structures will become, sooner or later, corrupt, oppressive and ineffectual. [189]
We are not simply talking about ensuring nourishment or a “dignified sustenance” for all people, but also their “general temporal welfare and prosperity”. This means education, access to health care, and above all employment, for it is through free, creative, participatory and mutually supportive labour that human beings express and enhance the dignity of their lives. [192]
[T]he worst discrimination which the poor suffer is the lack of spiritual care. The great majority of the poor have a special openness to the faith; they need God and we must not fail to offer them his friendship, his blessing, his word, the celebration of the sacraments and a journey of growth and maturity in the faith. Our preferential option for the poor must mainly translate into a privileged and preferential religious care. [192]
I want a Church which is poor and for the poor. They have much to teach us. Not only do they share in the sensus fidei, but in their difficulties they know the suffering Christ. We need to let ourselves be evangelized by them. [198]
Our commitment does not consist exclusively in activities or programs of promotion and assistance; what the Holy Spirit mobilizes is not an unruly activism, but above all an attentiveness which considers the other “in a certain sense as one with ourselves”. This loving attentiveness is the beginning of a true concern for their person which inspires me effectively to seek their good. This entails appreciating the poor in their goodness, in their experience of life, in their culture, and in their ways of living the faith. [199]
No one must say that they cannot be close to the poor because their own lifestyle demands more attention to other areas. This is an excuse commonly heard in academic, business or professional, and even ecclesial circles. [201]

Two Infographics on Poverty from KQED

Wealth Inequality in America

9 Out Of 10 Americans Are Completely Wrong About This Mind-Blowing Fact