Option For The Poor And Vulnerable

OPTION FOR THE POOR AND VULNERABLE

Themes of Catholic Social Teaching #4

It is clear throughout Scripture that God commands us to have a preferential option for the poor and vulnerable. It is clear in the law handed down through Moses in Exodus and Leviticus.  It is pronounced over and over again by the prophets and it is clear in the teachings of Jesus in the Gospels. "I assure you, as often as you neglected to do it to one of these least ones, you neglected to do it to me." (Matt. 25:45) It is a fundamental moral test of a society how it treats its most vulnerable members. Each Pope since Leo XIII has had at least one Encyclical repeating this teaching. So core to our call as disciples of Christ that St. John tells us that the love of God cannot reside in anyone who turns his back on the poor. "I ask you, how can God's love survive in a man who has enough of this world's goods yet closes his heart to his brother when he sees him in need." (1John 3:17)

The Second Vatican Council makes clear our duty as Catholic Christians to those in need. "Therefore everyone has the right to possess a sufficient amount of the earth's goods for themselves and their family. this has been the opinion of the Fathers and Doctors of the Church, who taught that people are bound to come to the aid of the poor and to do so not merely out of their superfluous goods. Persons in extreme necessity are entitled to take what they need from the riches of others.

Faced with a world today where so many people are suffering from want, the Council asks individuals and governments to remember the saying of the Fathers: 'Feed the people dying of hunger, because if you do not feed them you are killing them,' and it urges them according to their ability to share and dispose of their goods to help others, above all by giving them aid which will enable them to help and develop themselves." (The Church In The Modern World #69)

Simply put, if we are not helping the poor and vulnerable we are not living a life of true discipleship because "One who has no love for the brother he has seen cannot love the God he has not seen." (1John 4:20)