Can the Catholic Church in the USA be “a Church for the poor”?

Pope Francis has repeatedly expressed his concern at the scandal of poverty in a world of plenty. He said he wants the Catholic Church to be “a Church which is poor, and for the poor”. His call has reached the hearts of many people across the world, and it has inspired a Californian bishop, Robert W. McElroy, to write a seminal article in “America”, the US Jesuit magazine, entitled, “A Church for the poor”, in which he explores how the US Bishops Conference might respond to the Pope’s call.


McElroy is one of the intellectual heavyweights in the American Church. He holds degrees from Harvard, Stanford and the Gregorian universities and, after being ordained priest at the age of 36, served as Vicar-General in San Francisco archdiocese under Archbishop John R. Quinn and Cardinal William Levada. Pope Benedict appointed this talented pastor as auxiliary bishop of San Francisco in 2010.


In this interview for Vatican Insider, I asked Bishop McElroy to explain how the American Church can be a Church for the poor.


Pope Francis has on various occasions denounced the scandal of poverty in a world of plenty. In your article in ‘America’ magazine, you describe his words “as a piercing moral challenge for the Church and the whole human community.” Could you explain this?
«I believe that the great sin of the rich man in the parable of Lazarus was not conscious exploitation, but a continuous and ingrained insensitivity to the plight of the poor man who stood at his doorstep every day. We in the United States live in the richest country in the world, yet we have reneged on a commitment to provide less than one percent of our national income to the poorest nations of the world in official aid, a commitment which could save the lives of millions every year. We are architects and partners in an international trading and financial system whose byproducts include inhumane labor conditions and the destruction of infant industries in developing nations. Domestically, the United States has witnessed an immense increase in income inequality and decrease in economic mobility. Yet for the most part, we either ignore these realities or rationalize them. This is the heart of the scandal, a reality that the Pope has so powerfully captured in his concept of “the globalization of indifference”.


Pope Francis repeatedly places the face of Lazarus before us, calling us to recognize the patterns of our global, national and personal lives that sustain poverty and exploitation. In a very real way he is forcing us to confront our identity as the rich man in the parable, with the consequent very sobering recognition of the judgment that fell upon him in the Gospel».


How has his denunciation been received in the Church in the U.S.A.?
«The statements, the actions and the gestures of Pope Francis have illuminated the scandal of global poverty not with harshness, but with a gentleness of truth that stirs the conscience to recognize realities that one already knows, but prefers not to recognize. I have been amazed at how effectively the Pope’s mixture of lived simplicity, compassion, and dialogue has opened up the hearts of many to reconsider their perspectives on issues of global poverty, income inequality and personal struggles with materialism. This is particularly true among the young. Francis has found in his compassion for the poor a real bridge to bring young adults back to the Church and to reassess the role of materialism in their lives».


In your article you say, “If the Catholic Church is truly to be a ‘church of the poor in the United States, it must elevate the issue of poverty to the very top of its political agenda? What in practice would this mean for the Church in the USA today?
«First of all, it would mean that the bishops of the United States would explicitly declare that the alleviation of poverty both within the United States and globally constitutes a preeminent claim upon government in the Catholic vision of the common good. In recent years, the conference of bishops has labeled abortion and euthanasia as the preeminent issues in the political order, but not poverty. This has had the effect of downgrading the perceived importance of poverty as a central focus for the Church’s witness.


Secondly, the Church in the United States must reject the argument that issues of poverty are merely complex questions of prudential judgment on which people of good will can disagree. This falsehood, widely reflected in Catholic political conversation, analytical commentaries, and even subtly in some official Church policy documents, has the effect of neutralizing the moral claim of the issue of poverty on many Catholics in the United States. It is true that political efforts to alleviate poverty within the United States and throughout the world require prudential judgment for their specification and implementation. But so do efforts to address abortion, marriage and religious liberty. The Church has core teachings on the requirement of societies to provide threshold supports for income, housing and health care domestically, as well as to address dire poverty and inequality throughout the world. As a consequence, patterned voting by elected officials or citizens to diminish the already meager support for the poor either domestically or internationally is not merely a difference in prudential judgment, but a rejection of the Church’s core teachings on poverty and human dignity. The Church in the United States must witness to this reality.


Finally, the Church must educate its own people about the true nature of poverty in the world. Polling data indicates that most Americans believe the United States devotes approximately twenty percent of its budget to foreign aid. The actual figure is one percent. The Catholic community of the United States should be invited to engage once again in the kind of broad and sustained dialogue on justice and the economy that occurred in the Church in American during the l980’s. We must confront with full energy the face of Lazarus, wrestle with the reality of global poverty, and seek structural reform».


Some decades ago, the US Bishops Conference was very concerned about the questions of the economy, and by extension poverty. Why is the issue of poverty no longer a priority for the Conference?
«I would not agree that poverty is no longer a priority for the Conference. During the past three years the Bishops advocated vigorously to block draconian cuts to poverty programs at the state and federal levels and achieved some very significant successes.


But it is true that poverty has not received the level of sustained attention at the Bishops Conference that it has in the past. The inability of the Conference to issue a pastoral statement on the devastating impact of the recession on the lives of the poor within the United States and globally is a powerful sign that the Conference has not placed poverty at the center of its energies and focus in recent years. It also reflects, I think, a greater reluctance within the Conference to critique publicly the use of America’s economic and military power in the world».


What led the US Church to shift direction and opt for a focus on matters that are labeled as “intrinsically evil (such as abortion and euthanasia) and to give much less attention to issues such as poverty and war?
«The shift toward prioritizing questions of intrinsic evil is in part a response to governmental policies and media trends that seek to incorporate abortion more and more deeply into American culture, law and medicine. This focus has also been accelerated by a perception of many bishops that the push to enact laws allowing gay marriage and the Obama administration’s implementation of its new health care law pose urgent threats to the Church’s freedom in the United States and the stability of marriage and family life».


You advocate in your article that the US Church should focus again on “structural sin.” Could you develop this idea?
«This goes back to your first question, and the parable of Lazarus and the rich man. The sin of the rich man was a refusal to recognize that his very way of life helped to create the terrible poverty that afflicted Lazarus. Structural sins constitute the effect of personal sins that collectively create social structures fundamentally imbued with selfishness and evil. The dire poverty that exists in our world reflects structural sin. The existence of war reflects structural sin. Racism reflects structural sin. Pope Francis captured the essence of this moral reality at Lampedusa, when he asked “Who is responsible for the blood of these brothers and sisters of ours (who died in the shipwreck)?” “Nobody! That is our answer. It isn’t me. I don’t have anything to do with it; it must be someone else”.


Honesty about structural sin recognizes that much of the evil that we create in this world arises not from direct personal action, but from tolerating and habitually legitimating the structures of poverty, war, and racism in our world».


You said that the Pope’s teachings on the rights of the poor “have enormous implications for the culture and politics of the United States, and for the Church in this country?” Could you unpack this statement?
«On the level of substance, the Pope’s teachings on the rights of the poor make it impossible for the Church in the United States to treat both domestic and global poverty as an issue which is secondary, or optional, or too complex to be morally binding.


On the level of moral perspective, Pope Francis’ teachings on the rights of the poor challenge the Church in the United States to recognize in priority, energy and support the equal pathways that structural sin and intrinsic evil constitute in the Church’s moral mission in the political order.


On the level of pastoral style, Pope Francis statements on the rights of the poor challenge us all as bishops, teachers, priests, religious, lay leaders and citizens, to proclaim the Church’s message with a truly dialogical and engaging tone that is in sharp counterpoint to both the polemics of the culture warrior and the silence of those who refuse to become engaged in the social mission of the Church».


Do you really think that Pope Francis’ words on poverty, and on the need for a person-centered economy, will be listened to by the world of finance? What signs should we be looking for here?
«I do not mean to suggest that Pope Francis’s statements about the rights of the poor are going to lead to a transformation of the trading or financial structures in the world. But I do think that they can generate a new level of openness to structural reforms that could be possible without undermining the system as a whole. I think of the effort to address the debt crisis in the developing world more than a decade ago. Through the cooperative work of religious leaders, national governments, international agencies, and a surprisingly large number of financial institutions, some genuine strides were made. I think the test of the effectiveness of Pope Francis message upon the business and financial community will occur when other such moments of possible progress emerge in the coming years. For now, I think it is clear that at least seeds of moral questioning have been planted».


Are you confident that the U.S. Bishops Conference can pick up on the challenge issued by the Pope regarding poverty and the need for a poor Church that is a Church for the poor? A Church that will raise this issue with Congress and the Administration?
«I am confident that the U.S. Bishops Conference will take up the Pope’s initiative in speaking out more powerfully on behalf of the poor in American political, social and economic life. I am not sure about the issue of becoming a poor Church, in part because I am not yet clear what that challenge means in the concrete».


Where do you think resistance will from to the Pope’s focus on poverty?
«I think that resistance will come from three places: 1) individuals and groups motivated by partisan politics; 2) business and financial leaders who perceive a threat to their economic interests in the Pope’s message; and 3) those who believe that poverty in the United States is primarily a matter of bad choices that people make in life».


Why do you see the need to prioritize the focus on poverty and at the same time on abortion?
«I think that both issues should be intertwined in the Church’s approach to advancing the common good in the political order because I believe that it is compassion which morally unites these two issues – compassion for the suffering of the poor and compassion for the unborn. I still am a believer in the underlying logic of Cardinal Bernardin’s seamless garment approach that saw all life issues as part of a continuum linked by the Catholic notions of compassion and justice».