Public Assistance, Or Private Charity?

One common criticism of public assistance or government welfare programs, that they are poorly managed, should be taken not as a rationale for scrapping all such programs, but rather as incentive to reform them. Also, the same criticism could be made of various charitable organizations, many of which are run by scandalously wealthy executives, while only a fraction of what they take in goes to the supposed recipients. See Charity Navigator for information on which organizations actually give most of their proceeds to charity.

But what about the other common criticism: that when people’s needs are met through government welfare programs, it deprives others of the opportunity for charity? The general idea is that receiving assistance through bureaucratic programs is a soulless business, whereas in the case of true individual charity the beneficiary is blessed by the love of her neighbor, and the neighbor is blessed through his chance to show love.

It’s true. And yet, it isn’t the whole picture.

One problem with relying on private charity to meet the needs of the poor: will people actually give? I’m going to take this one on the basis of my own experience. While gradually inching towards the comfortable middle class, I’ve suddenly found that I have so many needs and expenses. I can finally repair the car windshield. We can take our first family vacation. Should we be taking that family vacation, while other families go hungry? I wonder this, and it makes me uncomfortable. On some level I think I probably should not be taking that family vacation. But I’m still going to do it. I still give to charitable organizations, donate to fundraisers, and help my neighbor, but not with wild abandon. I admire St. Francis and Dorothy Day, but carry on with my petty little life. On an intellectual level I take very seriously the gospel mandate to give to the poor, but still I find excuses to spend on other things. Yes, some really do follow Christ’s command far better than I do, but I suspect that in our materialistic society – that never was particularly Christian in the first place – the majority of well-off persons wouldn’t even think of the gospel mandate. It’s more important to acquire possessions and flaunt wealth. A perverted distortion of Christianity that prevails in our society actually teaches that wealth is a sign of divine favor. And even in Catholic circles you see that the fine chair is always reserved for the wealthy important guest, that the good education is only available for the rich, that employers find countless excuses to pay poverty wages in the name of their God-given mission.

But let’s suppose more Christians began acting like Christians. Can we give enough? Is it even possible, should a person become ill and be hit by insane medical expenses, for her community to care for her? What if someone is destitute and the only people close to him are on the edge of poverty themselves? When one gives of the little one has, there is indeed benediction in this, but when poverty is rampant in a community, this may mean one person has to give up buying a Christmas present for her child, in order to keep a neighbor from being evicted. On one hand, this is a sign of a true community caring for its own, and such communities may indeed be happier than others where riches abide. Yet in a nation as wealthy as America, it is unjust that in one village a child should have to be deprived of even a basic gift while others have so many material possessions they’re bored by them. There needs to be better wealth distribution, even if we disagree about how to manage this.

But here we come to the real crux of our confusion about care for the poor: when we place the emphasis on how blessed the giver is, this distracts from the immediate need of the recipient. A poor father with rent due can’t wait on the munificence of some well-off person in a mood to be blessed. Children shouldn’t starve because there was no one around who could give freely and thus receive the joy of it.

This is not to distract from the moral and spiritual good of freely giving. But we are blurring the distinction between two different religious obligations. Fundamentally, care for the basic needs of others is justice, not charity. Recently I was struck by how many Old Testament verses speak of divine justice not with fear, but with longing. Justice and peace come hand in hand. Psalm 7:17: “I thank the Lord for his justice; I sing praises to the Lord, the Most High.” Justice is something in which we are to rejoice. And justice repeatedly has to do with care for the poor and oppressed: Isaiah 1:17: “Learn to do good; Seek justice, Reprove the ruthless, Defend the orphan, Plead for the widow.” Deuteronomy 27:19: “Cursed is he who distorts the justice due an alien, orphan, and widow.'” Psalm 82: 3: “Defend the poor and fatherless: do justice to the afflicted and needy.” The Hebrew word here, “mishpat,” suggests “giving everyone his due.”

If justice is terrifying to us, perhaps this is because we are doing injustice. Not in the sense of robbing and murdering and raping, but in keeping to ourselves that which is due to others, luxuriating in wealth which is not rightly our own. I worry about the day of justice. But the poor and afflicted receive justice with joy.

And charity, what of that? It seems perhaps we have whittled charity down into a narrow, bourgeois little privilege. “Charitable givers” have plaques commemorating their generosity set up in public places. Is this the charity Jesus spoke of? We get tax write-offs for our charitable contributions to any number of organizations that have institutionalized giving, and this is a good thing, but is this charity?

Charity comes from the Latin caritas, a word used to imply divine rather than human love, a gift from God, a care for all creation, love of God, neighbor, and self. And it is a translation from the Greek agape, which was developed in early Christian thought to refer not only to affection but to the love God has for all creation. The mandate and the gift of charity, then, is about loving all that exists the way God loves it.

We need both justice and charity, rightly understood. Justice requires that we give the poor their due, whether we like it or not, and this is a condition of a well-regulated society, however we decide to implement it. Charity is a love for all creation, a willing that it be, a saying “this is good” – and it endures beyond the conditions of this or any society, even after all injustice has been mended.

public assistance, or private charity?