“To those who are now promising to fix all your problems, I say, ‘Go and fix yourself.’ . . . Have a change of heart. Get to confession, before you need it even more! The current crisis will not be improved by magicians from outside the country and nor will [improvement] come from the golden mouth of our politicians, so accustomed to making incredible promises.”
Thursday, March 14, 2013, 8:50 AM
March 14th, 2013 | 5:17 pm
The practical wisdom and prudence of this remark by his eminence (now pope) cannot be over-stressed. It does call on us to plumb the depths of ‘self-reliance’ and ‘close-community reliance’ inasmuch as all such resourcefulness comes from God, acting as it were “in the margins”. It is especially pertinent to realize that politicians and ‘big government’ or ‘big brother government’ are not God.
And this is not a heartless ‘opiate’ as some critics imply. After all a statement like A implies ( => ) B; such as ‘God helps those who help themselves’ in the form A: helping self => B: being helped by God; does not mean that notA => notB. It only means that notB => not A: if you were without help then, among other reasons God might have, you mayn’t have been helping. God may well – and through intercession for instance and through Christian charity – bring help to those who are not helping themselves even by prayer. But A => B does mean “at least, pray; as we ought always do”.
On another hand, the insight also doesn’t mean that helping through state organs is futile, like tax relief for charitable donations. The cardinal, now pope, would call as vocally for equitable tax laws etc. to help families as any spiritual lord must do. In fact the degree to which tax provisions are harsh to small businesses and family enterprises is deplorable.
The formulation A => B (God helps those who help themselves) is also not a constraint on God as if, by law and entitlement, God must always so help, or help any who does help himself. It is not a universal predication, for reasons like purity of motives, to what comparative good is one seeking help, and other questions of distributive justice that only God can see. To think otherwise would be like using God as a bank-card, or to infer that a statement of His like “the love of money is the root of all evil” means…
March 14th, 2013 | 10:56 pm
Put not your faith in princes…
No kidding!
Oh, and by the way, Jesus told US to help the poor, as individuals, using whatever resources or money we had. He NEVER demanded that Caesar or any local governor take from one subject to give to a poorer one.
I am not Roman Catholic myself, but rather, Orthodox Christian. Even so, I sincerely hope that the Pope will have the courage to keep his word about THIS.
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