Think about it, where would the poor rather be poor?
Pope Francis, as part of his first visit to the United States, is scheduled to go to Philadelphia later this week to participate in “The World Meeting of Families, visit a jail, and, no doubt view first hand conditions suffered by those in poverty in that city.
A note of caution to the “poor” of Philadelphia: Pope Francis is much occupied with concerns about “inequality”. You may want to carefully consider how the conditions of the poor in this community come across to His Holiness. What Francis sees this week in Philly may persuade him that there is indeed inequality in the plight of this city’s poor. But the inequality Francis is apt to see will be most apparent when compared to what he has recently encountered in the countries in his native Latin America . The “poor” in Philly, in Francis’s perception, may not be suffering equitably enough.
From another brilliant mini-essay by the celebrated economist, Thomas Sowell, it highlights the erroneous focus Pope Francis brings to the issue of world poverty and the capitalist philosophy:
“Both the authors of the bishops’ Pastoral Letter in the 1980s and Pope Francis today blithely throw around the phrase “the poor,” and blame poverty on what other people are doing or not doing to or for “the poor.”
“Any serious look at the history of human beings over the millennia shows that the species began in poverty. It is not poverty, but prosperity, that needs explaining. Poverty is automatic, but prosperity requires many things – none of which is equally distributed around the world or even within a given society.”
. . .
“In 1900, only 3 percent of American homes had electric lights but more than 99 percent had them before the end of the century. Infant mortality rates were 165 per thousand in 1900 and 7 per thousand by 1997. By 2001, most Americans living below the official poverty line had central air conditioning, a motor vehicle, cable television with multiple TV sets and other amenities.”
Excerpts above are from The Left Has its Pope: Francis’ native Argentina thrived until ‘progressive’ ideology took hold.
DLH
