Every Pope, especially our Twentieth Century Popes, has called upon every Christian, especially all Catholics, to spend and expend themselves for the poor ... No Pope, no Saint, has ever said “Ease up. You are doing too much to help the poor”.
John Paul II repeated this Christian challenge when, speaking in Yankee Stadium, he said we must exhibit, “A special sensitivity towards those who are most in distress, those who are extremely poor, those suffering from all the physical, mental., and moral ills that afflict humanity, including hunger, neglect, unemployment and despair.” There are many poor people of this sort around the world. There are many in your own midst.
Within the United States, CHD is the living embodiment and example of Catholics responding to this call and challenge.
All of the holy men and women of history, and all of you today, are responding to Jesus -- the Messiah, the human embodiment of the living God -- for it was Jesus Christ who said that everyone who says “Lord, Lord will not enter into the Kingdom of Heaven, but only He who does the will of my Father” -- He who clothes the naked and feeds the hungry and ransoms prisoners and forgives sin in the name of Jesus Christ and His Father in Heaven.
So my first and most important statement is simply this:
Please continue doing what you are doing! The Campaign for Human Development is the best, nation-wide, organization in the U.S.A. today still dedicated to the principle and ideal that the poor should come first, not last, in our national priorities. More important than Presidents and Senators, more important than church buildings and school buildings and hospital buildings and city hall buildings, and skyscrapers, and airports and superhighways and automobiles and even oil, are the poor themselves as human beings! Until we put God and His human beings, especially the poor, first, we are going to continue to have all our priorities mixed up, confused, upside down.
You are doing the best things, the right things, the most noble and satisfying, and Christ-like things in America. So, again, please don’t stop.
We agree that yours is the most fundamental of all challenges to all Catholics; but we also agree that helping the poor, even preferring the poor and the hungry, the unemployed, the sick, the mentally ill, and the mentally retarded does not mean that we Christians exclude the non-poor from our efforts. Our Lord came on earth to save all men and women -- the poor billions in China and India and Africa and Latin America -- but also the rich millions -- the well-to-do who are playing golf or tennis, watching “Mork & Mindy” or “CHIPS”, or preparing to root for the Broncos with a six-pack of Bud in their laps and mayhem against the Redskins in their hearts.
The trick today is to convince the non-poor in the USA that they are helped when the poor are helped! And, even more important, that they are helped when they participate personally in helping the poor. Preferring the poor sustains the rich; participating with, living with the poor, ennobles the rich; creating communities of both rich and poor would fulfill our national purpose and save the country. That’s a “New Politics”, a “New Vision” for a Christianized America.
Let me explain more fully what I mean.
In many countries where the majority of people are poor, often as high as 80%, Christian preferential love for the poor is easily asserted, manifestly needed, and popular with the masses. Back in the 1960’s when I was running the Peace Corps, I used to say that any revolutionary who could not stir up the people and overthrow the oligarchy in places like Nicaragua or Cuba wasn’t much of a leader. It’s a heady tonic, a real ego trip, to lead the masses against the classes when nearly everyone is part of the masses. That’s why Marxist revolutions have succeeded (contrary to Marx’s theory) only in countries where an overwhelming proportion of the population has been or is composed of peasant masses in revolt against relatively tiny ruling classes.
The challenge of preferring the poor is far more complicated in the United States. In our nation the poor constitute a much smaller part of the population: 11.5%, by official and inadequate measurement. Here, a preferential stance with the poor means to take a position on behalf of the minority of the population. That’s difficult, controversial, and dangerous.
The problem this poses is clear. If Catholics and all other Christians must show a preferential love for the poor, how then can we explain our purposes and enlist the larger segment of the population? Approaching the problem in a more positive light, how can Christians minister to the poor in such a way as to involve the poor, the near poor, and the non-poor, in a common effort of building a just society?
This challenge is further complicated by new problems and new attitudes in this nation. The atmosphere today is different from that of the 1960’s or even from the 1970’s when CHD began.
We all remember the excitement of the 1960’s, the idealism, the enthusiasm. There seemed to be public commitment, not only to assist the poor, but to support efforts aimed at social change that would have lasting benefits for the most disadvantaged. Various Federal programs were initiated that aimed at both advocacy on behalf of the poor, and involvement of the poor themselves in designing the approaches to deal with their own conditions of dependence.
Those were “the Soaring Sixties'; politics was characterized by optimism; the economy was characterized by growth; and concern for the poor was relatively popular. With a rapidly expanding pie it was relatively easy to give a larger piece to the poor. Even then problems abounded. Even then I was sued and denounced more than any other Federal official.
From the Soaring Sixties we moved into the “Stagflation Seventies”. We saw the demise of programs characterized by advocacy and some degree of self-determination. The public mood was shifting. The national commitment to social change was transformed into a tolerance for traditional assistance to the poor.
Emphasis was placed upon “transfer payments” -- that is, taking money raised by taxation of all and distributing that money to the poor. This philosophy of giving “hand-outs” was endorsed and executed ironically by Republicans. The cost of these handouts to the poor far exceeded the cost of Lyndon Johnson’s War on Poverty which was concentrated on “hand-ups”, -- that is, on ways to help the poor help themselves to get out of poverty permanently. The Nixon Republicans followed “The Lady Bountiful” approach giving money to the poor. The Democrats preferred giving jobs, education, health care, legal assistance, community action to assist the poor to pull themselves out of poverty, by work, by training for jobs, by improved health, food, housing, education, by political action. But the poor had to do something, take some action, to participate in the war against poverty. In the seventies they just had to sign up and qualify for handouts.
Unfortunately, the economic pie stopped expanding in the 70’s. Attempts to redistribute the pieces more equitably became increasingly difficult.
We are now in what some are calling “the economizing 80’s”. The squeeze is on! The great material spending spree which we have been enjoying for the past thirty-five years is over. It was based, in large part, on a seemingly endless tide of cheap petroleum and cheap, abundant, raw materials from around the world. The limits of those resources are now clear and the effects on our economy and on our entire society are profound. Our world and our nation are currently undergoing fundamental, inevitable structural changes that will mean readjustments for all of us. And our approaches to poverty and inequality in the years ahead will have to change, too. More of the same will not work. We need, in effect, a new politics to deal with poverty -- a politics grounded not in a nostalgia for the 60’s, but rather in a growing understanding of the possibilities of the 80’s.
Philosopher John Rawls, in his book, A Theory of Justice, offers an approach that might be useful here. Rawls proposes what he calls the “‘Difference Principle”. According to this doctrine, inequalities of goods and resources in a society can be justified only if their arrangement is such that they offer the greatest benefit to the most disadvantaged within society.
In terms of public policies, this principle holds that a society can be measured as just and unjust only if its public policies, its laws, and its institutions are tested and evaluated by the effects they have upon the most disadvantaged within that society.
In less philosophical terms this principle can be restated in the words of Franklin Delano Roosevelt: “The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much; it is whether we provide enough for those who have too little.”
This principle, whether stated by Roosevelt or Rawls, means that the poor have first claim on our wealth, our time, our talents. Their needs are the most insistent, and their human dignity is most deeply threatened. However, in asserting this principle, it is important that we neither romanticize nor idealize the poor. What the poor want is not to be poor. There is nothing holy in being hungry. Like the rest of us, they seek to provide a decent life for themselves and their families and to have some say over their future.
In this Century, the American people have undertaken major effort to alleviate the suffering associated with being poor. It would be a mistake to overlook the important strides that have been taken:
Steps toward income and health security for older Americans have been significant, Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid are successful in keeping millions of Americans from living in poverty.
The battle against domestic hunger has been successful on many fronts -- due in large part to food stamps. This program has gradually been improved and is now an accepted and relatively popular part of our social welfare system.
In housing, it is no longer the case, as it was 40 years ago, that millions of homes lack heat or plumbing. This is clearly a significant improvement.
Unemployment compensation is another instance where important progress has been made. It provides for millions of American families at least a minimal buffer against the ravages of unemployment.
In remembering these signs of progress, let’s not forget there is plenty of bad news to accompany the good. Large gaps exist in the coverage of many programs. Others are demeaning to poor people. And, by and large, income maintenance programs do not keep pace with inflation. Particularly in recent years, the poor have been losing ground.
Let us take a closer look at some areas in which our public policy does not measure up when seen through the eyes of the poor.
Unemployment
Unemployment statistics prove that our economy is failing large numbers of people. Even by Government indicators (which do not even count people who have become too discouraged to look for work) there are about 8 million men and women out of work. Beyond these figures is the stark reality that Blacks are twice as likely to be out of work than whites. Hispanics, too, are far more likely to be jobless than whites. The human, social and economic costs of these wasted lives provide dramatic testimony of how our economy fails John Rawls’ test. High unemployment has been with us so long that we may overlook the real costs of joblessness, and we may forget how desperate people are to contribute to this society and their families by holding a job. Just a few weeks ago in Baltimore word went out that 70 new jobs were available. These were low-paying, low-prestige jobs in categories such as clerical work and warehouse duties. Twenty-five thousand people showed up for those 70 jobs.
Although the official jobless rate stands at 7-8%, the total number of people hit by unemployment in a given year is much higher than the number of unemployed in one particular month. In 1979, 20 million workers were jobless (at one time or another during the year. In 1980 and 1981 that figure is expected to rise to some 2.5 million. Nearly one in every four workers has been out of work in 1979 - 1980.
Income
After all the rhetoric and activity of the last twenty years, we still find 11.5% of Americans below the “official poverty level”. One of every four Black families falls below that level. One of every five Hispanic families are poor by this measure with all its inadequacies. Sixteen percent of all children and forty percent of all Black children live in families below the poverty level. And perhaps most significantly, the percentage of poor families in America is not decreasing. If anything, the situation may have gotten worse in recent years.Housing
Housing is another example to consider. By HUD’s own criteria almost 20 million households in America were inadequately housed in 1976, and Blacks and Hispanics are more than twice as likely to live in that housing. Just to prevent the current housing situation from getting worse, the Government would need to provide low-income housing assistance for over 1,000,000 units each year. The actual level of assisted housing is less than one-third of that.Energy
Energy is a fourth example. Here, as in other cases, the poor lose out as a result of the normal workings of the marketplace. Despite Milton Freidman’s theories, the market does not operate equitably or ethically. As oil and gas prices have been decontrolled, prices have risen dramatically, and the poor have been hardest hit. Low-income households spend about 20% of their annual income on household energy costs -- that is four times the national average. During the five coldest months of 1979-80, the average low-income household heating with #2 fuel oil spent about 45% of its monthly income on energy!! Congress has approved an Emergency Energy Assistance Program for the poor, but it doesn’t begin to meet the increased cost of energy caused by decontrol -- freeing the market lifts oil company profits but not the hearts or incomes of the poor.
As a final example, let us look at tax policy. How well does it serve the interest of the poor? In theory, of course, the tax system is supposed to be “progressive” -- that is, it should decrease the inequality in incomes and wealth. In fact, the system as a whole has done very little over the past forty years to alter extreme inequalities.
The Nobel Prize winning economist, Paul Samuelson, describes the distribution of income in the U.S. this way: “If we made an income pyramid out of a child’s blocks, with each layer portraying $1,000 of income, the peak would be far higher than the Eiffel Tower. But almost all of us would be within a yard of the ground.”
In specific terms, let us look at two recent examples of tax policy. The first is the major tax bill passed by Congress in 1978. Among other things it provided for $13 billion in individual tax cuts. Of that $13 billion, less than one-third went to the three-quarters of all taxpayers who earn less than $20,000 a year. Meanwhile, the wealthiest 2% of taxpayers got nearly one-quarter of the total.
As a second example, look at the Kemp-Roth plan. The key item in this proposal is a 10% across-the-board cut in individual income taxes. Now it doesn’t take a mathematical genius to deduce that 10% of $50,000 is a lot more than 10% of $5,000. For a family of four in the $100,000-a-year income bracket, Kemp-Roth would save $2,100. But for a family earning $17,500, it would mean only $150!! For those too poor to pay taxes, Kemp-Roth reforms mean nothing.
From these few examples, it’s easy to see we have a long way to go in the struggle for social policies that meet the needs of the poor.
So I return to my first question: -- How can Christians help the poor best today? Do we simply need more of the 1960 solutions in the 1980’s or is there something different about this decade -- something different that should challenge us to develop new responses to poverty and inequality,
I think there is something different. Paradoxically, our opportunity -- CHD’s opportunity arises out of the problem itself.
Today millions of American families (the overwhelming middle majority) are one paycheck away from significant economic hardship! Lose that paycheck and they lose their hold on security. Ironically, that’s both an opportunity and a challenge. It’s an opportunity because the majority’s own insecurity can help them to understand the greater insecurity of the poor! But it’s also a challenge. There are some who would exploit the situation to drive a wedge between the poor and non-poor. Politicians can win by playing on the fears of the middle majority that they too will become poor, jobless, helpless. Some politicians are already playing that game. Yet, on the positive side, every public opinion poll, demonstrates that there still is basic support among Americans for providing people with jobs, adequate income, food, and health care. CHD has enjoyed increasing support from the Catholic community -- further evidence that the non-poor are willing to support actions to end poverty and injustice. In my judgment, we make a very serious mistake if we assume that the majority of Americans are “enemies of the poor”.
In this changing situation, CHD is ideally positioned. CHD has the capacity to involve the larger non-poor community far beyond the annual parish collections. CHD reaches into nearly all parishes. You are already approved by the Bishops. You have credibility with the non-poor and the poor. This position of yours is crucial because the struggle against poverty and injustice can achieve lasting results only if that process also includes those millions of other Americans who are not poor. Those who provide the 8 million dollars each year for the grantee projects, they must believe that whatever changes CHD is working for are changes we all need.
If there is a specifically Christian solution to our social problems today, I believe it is not so much in defining the end result in terms of what social or economic system is best. Rather it is in insisting that our movement toward defining a just social order must involve everyone in that process. Participation of the poor and the powerless, yes. But participation, also of the non-poor majority without whose support necessary changes in our society will not occur, except through violence.
This means, very simply, that everyone must be involved. For CHD this means that you must find ways to touch and inspire every Christian.
The question, then, is how to mobilize the middle majority to join the struggle against poverty and injustice?
I believe this can be done only by expanding the concept of the “Campaign for Human Development” by asking the question -- Whose humanity are we trying to develop?
In the War Against Poverty under President Johnson, we focused on the poor -- their development, as we called it. The Campaign for Human Development is doing the same thing. I understand and love your program just as I loved our War Against Poverty. Nothing compares to the joy and satisfaction of seeing thousands helped by programs you started yourself: -- Headstart -- The Job Corps -- Foster Grandparents -- Community Action -- Legal Services for the Poor -- All these filled with hope. And they really helped my human development. Through the Peace Corps, and the War Against Poverty, I got the chance to see the poor, live from time to time near the poor, smell the poor, learn about the poor from the poor themselves. Talk about “The Education of Henry Adams” or the education given at Yale or Oxford, at Harvard or Notre Dame, I got the best education in history from the Peace Corps and OEO.
But most Americans, most Catholics, never get that education -- that exposure. The Middle Majority (including Catholics) get their experience and ethics from TV and advertising, our “cathedrals” are the shopping centers where all our secular needs are fulfilled, our prayers are answered, The heavenly products presented in color on TV are all ours to buy. We don’t have to light a candle at anyone’s altar or pray for what we want. It’s all there right before our eyes. Like the consumers we are, we work and we buy and fulfill the dictates of the Consumer Society. Too bad for those left outside the gate like Lazarus. We are in the church.
But suddenly today, right now in the 1980’s, something has gone wrong. We can’t get all we want. Now: -- our humanity is coming into question. Faced with scarcity are we going to scratch and claw one another in an effort to keep our Consumer Society alive? Are we even going to go to war to protect the lifeblood of our Consumer Society -- oil from the sheiks of Araby?
Or -- Can the Campaign for Human Development turn its saving grace on to us -- help us in the middle majority -- to enlarge our own humanity -- develop our humanity?
I think CHD can help. I know it can.
The middle majority -- especially the Christians within it -- have always sensed that there’s more to life than consumerism.
The young who resisted Viet Nam -- the young who exposed Watergate -- the young who led the impeachment fight -- the young who volunteered for Peace Corps, for VISTA, for Papal Volunteers, for “Special Olympics” -- they, and we oldsters, know there’s more to life than the Pepsi generation reveals.
So I say to the Campaign for Human Development: -- Let’s develop the humanity of the middle majority. Let’s develop our own humanity by enlisting all Christians in “The” Campaign.
How? By asking them to join -- not just with money -- but with themselves!
I am not suggesting that you change your manner of operating. I am suggesting that you go beyond the parameters of your present approach in trying to reach the Catholic community, including those who do not actively participate in parish activities.
For example, this year CHD is financing 146 new projects. Many of these projects, I guess, could use assistance from volunteers, people qualified to help them carry out and expand their work.
Why not organize “Volunteers for Human Development” -- groups of 10 or 12 persons who would help each of these 146 new projects, and for that matter, all your other projects!
The Jews in Biblical times, and even today, believe that public or common worship can only be conducted when a myriad of believers is present -- 12 persons who share a common belief in Judaism. Whenever 12 such persons are present, prayer, work and action can be carried out. Why shouldn’t every CHD project include a minion of Christians to help the project succeed through prayer and services?
Make these volunteers “Members of CHD”. Give them a sense of participation and ownership. Create a base for them in their own parishes wherever possible. Help them to develop a spirituality and practice of reflection that is based on the work they are doing. Ask them to contribute a certain number of hours a month to work with the specific CHD project, or at least be on call whenever the project needs their assistance.
Ask them to be the liaison between the project and their entire parish, educating the parish community to what this project is about, to what CHD is about. Assist them in finding ways to engage the entire parish community in a consciousness-raising process. A process that enables the non-poor lay parishioners to see that the issues addressed by CHD are also their issues.
By volunteers, I mean bookkeepers, lawyers, accountants; nurses, doctors, typists, homemakers, dieticians, carpenters, plumbers; recreation directors, coaches, athletes, high school and college students; housewives, social workers, handymen -- people who can provide practical help.
Mobilize these Middle Americans by giving them specific real work to do for the poor, with the poor. Let them learn for themselves that the poor can teach us -- the middle majority -- what life is all about -- what Christianity is all about.
Let’s turn this idea around. Look at it from a different direction. In many parishes we find different groups of parishioners meeting around different concerns -- the elderly, the handicapped, youth problems, crime. CHD is also funding projects that address these same issues.
Many of the CHD groups are sophisticated in areas of research and analysis, and in action and organizing. Could not the CHD groups become action models to the parish groups which so often remain on the discussion level?
The CHD grantee groups could teach many lay parish groups how to move to necessary action for changes in a particular area that both the poor and the non-poor are concerned about.
CHD, nationally or at the diocesan level, might have to make the linkages, make the introductions. But again, the necessary components for building coalitions are there. Someone must move to put the pieces together.
CHD has ten years experience in working with oppressed and powerless people in this nation. That experience should yield a wealth of information to communicate to the largely non-poor members of the Christian churches. CHD should engage in serious analysis of those issues that the grantees are struggling with -- energy, health care, housing, employment, taxation. CHD can do this better with experienced, trained volunteers to help.
Such an educational effort could greatly assist the task of mobilizing middle America. For most of the issues that the poor are struggling with are the same issues that are now beginning to weigh so heavily upon the great majority of Americans.
Following such research, CHD could convene grantees and volunteers, and all Christians to plan the necessary action to solve or minimize common problems. Analyze the issues. Bring the people together. Develop effective social action networks. Humanize us all. Not just the poor!
Most Catholics can be aligned with the poor, not against them. Appeal to their best instincts, educate them regarding the common forces that oppress the poor and diminish the lives of the rich.
CHD is in touch with those who suffer most physically. CHD has contact with thousands of Catholics suffering spiritually. CHD can build coalitions on critical issues, provided CHD asks for help. Our Lord Himself had to say -- “Come, follow me”. Without that call even the Apostles would never have left their fishing nets, their tax collection tables, their homes.
Can’t CHD say the same thing to rank-and-file Catholics -- “Come, follow Christ! work for the poor. Pray with the poor. Discover Christianity. Join CHD.
That could be the beginning of a “New Politics” – Base Communities, as they say in Latin America – minions as the Jewish people say – Catholic Action as used to say – “Mobilization of the MIDDLE” as we can now say. Small CHD communities for prayer and action focused on the most pressing human problems within our society – unemployment, destitution, hunger, (spiritual as well as stomach hunger), old age, loneliness, cynicism and fear.
