Endowment of Destitution

Extract

Relief of distress is one thing, endowment of destitution quite another. Naturally we give the cup of cold water—more probably of hot tea—to the vagrant men and women who ask for it at the door. Naturally the spare coat or shirt goes to the man in want of it. These benevolent acts we all perform, as we supply the match (always supposing we have one) to the casual smoker unprovided with the means of ignition. Which of us would berate the smoker for his carelessness, or require the filling up of a form to explain why he left his matches at home? The natural law enjoins relief of one’s neighbour.

Endowment of honourable and voluntary poverty— dowries and other provision for the sons and daughters of our Lady Poverty vowed to religion—this has been the practice of mankind in many lands long before the coming of Christianity. Plainly it is a matter unrelated to the endowment of destitution.

Nor again because we are bound to do our best for the poor who “are always with us,” the halt, lame and blind, the mentally and physically defective, the orphan, the aged and infirm, must we confound this entirely just and charitable provision with the endowment of persons unwillingly destitute and fully capable of earning their living.

The acceptance of destitution as the inevitable lot of thousands, a merely regrettable feature in our otherwise admirable civilisation, is the shameful thing to-day. Destitution accepted and tolerated by our elected rulers from every political party; accepted and tolerated by our Catholic legislators in Lords and Commons as unprotestingly as by non-Catholic. Only the question of “how much” the destitute shall be given to save them from starvation is hotly debated.