Not that there’s anything wrong with that …

Not that there’s anything wrong with that …

A front-page Los Angeles Times headline this week reminded me of that old “Seinfeld” catchphrase.

Here’s the headline that the Times ran with a Column One feature:

Argentina’s ‘slum priests’ focus on helping over converting

The subhead:

They hear confessions from drug dealers and hit men and spend more time on problems practical than spiritual. The movement shunned by the church decades ago now gets support from Pope Francis.

So immediately, the idea seems to be that (1) these priests are doing something unique by helping instead of proselytizing and (2) this is a much better way to go because it actually benefits people as opposed to, say, religion itself. Not that there’s anything wrong with that …

Speaking of the priests “hearing confessions,” is that not a spiritual exercise? But I digress.

Maybe I’m reading too much into the head and subhead. Please tell me, kind GetReligion readers, if I’m being overly critical. Or if I’m missing something obvious — wouldn’t be the first time.

Here’s the top of the story:

BUENOS AIRES —  They call the slums villas miserias, or little cities of misery. Instead of names, most have been assigned numbers by the Argentine government. Father Carlos Olivero lives in a small concrete church in the middle of Villa 21-24.

On a recent gray afternoon, he sat sipping yerba mate in a cold meeting room at the drug rehabilitation center he runs nearby. He was in a contemplative mood. A young addict he knew had died the day before.

“He was 24 years old,” Olivero said. “We all loved him. Things like this happen all the time here

Olivero is part of a line of “slum priests” who have worked for decades in the sprawling shantytowns worlds away from the tango salons and Parisian cafe culture of the other Buenos Aires.

He has scuffed work boots and dirty nails and hears confession from dealers and hit men. When residents spot his trashed 4×4 bumping down dirt roads, they call out his nickname: “Charly!”

He spends most of his time addressing practical rather than spiritual problems. That means navigating governmental bureaucracy, helping immigrants obtain state identification cards and finding beds to get addicts off the street.

“If we don’t get people a home, it’s insane to think about other kinds of lives for them,” Olivero said.

So the priest addresses “practical rather than spiritual problems.” Great. But did the Times give any consideration to the possibility that practical solutions might help address spiritual problems? Or am I wrong that this story seems to give a big ole brushoff to organized religion? Not that there’s anything wrong with that …

Later in the story, there’s a mention of the priest shunning “theology from books” and focusing on “a more direct experience with his faith.”

A bit later, there’s this fascinating section:

Olivero says Di Paola taught him that priests must take an activist path.

“The parish is not a building; it’s the neighborhood, it’s the community,” Olivero said.

He said his first focus is on helping people, not converting them. But he believes faith is contagious.

“The best confessions I hear, I hear in the rehab center from kids who were hit men or dealers,” he said. “Kids who have been hurt a great deal, who have suffered a lot, and who have also made others suffer a lot, are baptized, take their first Communion, get married, get their own children baptized. It is really, really beautiful.”

So folks are being baptized and taking Communion? That sounds like conversions, right? Is there a possibility that this notion of preaching with actions rather than words really isn’t such a unique approach? Did Jesus himself ever address the issue of dealing with people’s physical needs first?

Unfortunately, the Times story seems to rely on a lot of assumptions — misassumptions? — without much in the way of context or actual theological insight or reflection. The reporting comes across as pretty shallow, actually.

Not that there’s anything wrong with that …