Timothy Birdnow

I watched the high mass on EWTN yesterday, broadcast from the National Shrine. I had to; they didn't have mass in the chapel at the hospital and I didn't want to miss now, more than ever. So I put on the television and watched the mass.

it was very llong and while beautiful the homily enraged me. The priest was essentially attacking Trump (while not mentioning him by name) over the shutdown and how terrible it was to not give out SNAP benefits. He complained "I don't know why we have 40 million people on SNAP to begin with but that's another matter" and spoke about how as Christians we had a duty to feed the hungry and so we had a duty to make government pay these people.

I wanted to shake the Bishop; we have 40 million people on SNAP precisely because IT'S FREE and everyone knows it. Why not take a freebie? I guarantee you many on the program hide assets or income to get it too.

I used to date a woman (before meeting my wife, of course) who worked for the Missouri welfare bureau and she told me all the tricks the clients used to get on the dole. One woman was denied because she was covered with expensive jewelry, about ten grand worth, according to my old girlfriend. She was denied and so left for two days, came back without the bling and said "that was my boyfriends and we broke up and he took it back" and by the rules they had to follow they had to give it her the relief.

When I worked in real estate I often encountered this too; Section 8 people with brand new SUV's, new computers, cable t.v. etc. living better than I could.

Groups like the Urban League run programs to teach people how to game the system.

So the fact remains there are forty million on the program because it's there, not because they need it. And by the very fact those not in need take the money we have the truly needy unable to access it. They get pushed out by the goats, by the many snouts in the trough.

The fact is we have plenty of private charity and those do far better at serving the poor than do government programs. Oh, and people give to charity voluntarily whereas government steals money from taxpayers to fund the lifestyles of those who may not be in need at all.

I once wrote an essay at American Thinker about this fact. As I pointed out Jesus did not tell Caesar to give to the poor, he told YOU to do so. God as I pointed out, was the creator of poverty as a curse on Mankind for disobedience, and God can end poverty any time He likes. Povery serves a number of purposes in the Divine plan, and one of those is to give His People the opportunity to be charitable and to render aid and assistance to those less fortunate. This is half of the equation. The Bishop celebrating mass seems completely oblivious to any of this.To him it was just a straight line "they don't have and so society must give" with no considerations to any practicality or human nature. The road to Hell is paved with good intentions; this guy was nothing but good intentions, and in fact was judgmental towards those who considered the practicality.

These are the kinds of people who now run the Church; ivory tower academicians or simple-minded do-gooders who wind up making most situations they involve themselves in worse. The fact is Jesus said to be wise and "cunning as serpents" in our practice of faith, not just soft hearted and softer-headed.

Mos of the Catholic heirarchy is just that; soft of heart and softer of head and what they promote has been horribly destructive to those whom they are intending to help.

It is not love to give people whatever they want. We do that all the time with children, deny them things they want for their ultimate benefit. If we were to give children teh food they want they would eat nothing but ice cream and soda and candy.

There was a wonderful episode of the Andy Griffith show where a hobo who made friends with Opie asked Andy "why not let him choose for himself" and Andy gave a very wise answer "because you can't do that. Because they will grab the first shiny thing that comes along and when they realize there's a hook in it it's too late." In the case of the American poor (who ae wildly wealthy by international standards, I might add) that hook was set purposely by the Democratic Party to make these people dependent on them and on government and thus voting for Democrats forever. Of course the GOP isn't innocent on this either and never tried to rein in the massive spending on welfare programs and other assistance. They just promised to spend the money more wisely. But both offered poisoned fruit to the poor, and to the middle class as well. Now we are tasting the bitterness of that.

I know it's tough to lose a stream of income, especially all at once as is the case with this government shutdown, but unfortunately growth always involves pain. And there is nothing loving about keeping people stuck in permanent adolescence, forever forced to take what you give them and pretend to like it. Government "charity" always provides just a meager life, one outside of your control. Serfs and slaves had the same conditions imposed on them. Granted the poor can choose to work and get off the dole and a slave or serf could not, but how does one get off in the first place? The allure of free money is just too great.

If the Church truly wants to love people and obey the precepts of Jesus they would reject govenment aid and do the job themselves. The Catholic Church is fabulously wealthy; spend more of that money on helping the poor instead of helping promote caravans of illegals to invade America, or for building big Cathedrals, or for so many other things they do with the money that could be used to feed people. If they had to actually do it themselves they would be much wiser stewards of the wealth they are proposing to redistribute.

Aid is not charity. The Catholic Bishops need to grow up and understand that simple fact.

Posted by: Timothy Birdnow at 09:47 AM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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