There is some discomfort in my heart with much that happens in the contemporary Church with regard to the poor and the nations that are yet to develop. I see a lot of irrelevance in the way we go about. If our concern for the poor has to become relevant there should be a shift towards the perspectives of the poor. “Justice” not “charity” that should be the priority. C.S. Song, a prominent Asian Theologian once said, “compassion that does not oppose injustice is not true compassion; it becomes an accomplice of unjust power” (C.S. Song, Theology from the Womb of Asia, London: SCM Press, 1988. p.156).
Christian concern for the poor must enhance the self-worth of the poor by working towards justice. Feeding, clothing, housing, teaching, counselling, training, loving, and so on that fills our Christian activism must transform the “doer” to accept the recipients of our doing as humans and equals.
The “doing” in our Christian concern for poor must decrease “dependency” and increase “self-reliance”. Christian activism must move towards finding more “permanent” solution, addressing the cause of poverty instead the symptom by constantly challenging false answers, overcoming prejudices, and eventually moving towards one community – no rich, no poor.
And this requires, first, a vision of the reality of the poor through the eyes of the poor. Therefore, Virgil Elizondo and Leonardo Boff, two prominent Latin American Liberation theologians, calling this as the Church’s preferential option for the poor, wrote: “When we enter the continent of the poor and try to think through their eyes and from their social position, we discover their strength, their resistance, their courage and their creativity. It then becomes clear that the society within which they live and suffer and from which they are marginalized has to be fundamentally transformed. From the position of the poor the urgency of liberation is beyond doubt.” (This and other quotes below are taken from their “‘Editorial: theology From The Viewpoint Of The Poor’” in Concilium – Option For The Poor: Challenge To The Rich Countries, Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark Ltd, 1986.)
Second, they argued, in preferential option for the poor, we take up the cause of the poor. For Elizondo and Boff: “The cause of the poor is the cause of life and means of life such as work, bread, clothing, housing and basic education. The cause of the poor is a new society in which the vital questions which concern all citizens without distinction are given priority, in which relations of collaboration and equity prevail over exploitation and domination.”
Thirdly, Elizondo and Boff affirmed that in preferential option for the poor we take up the struggle of the poor. They wrote: “It is the oppressed who bring about liberation. They become aware of their dignity, organize their action, form links with other groups, which, like them, want a different society. The churches should join this struggle, make their specific contribution as religious bodies, reinforce the power of the poor to enable them to press for changes and participate in their implementation.”
Fourthly, they believed that option for the poor means taking up the life of the poor, as they wrote: “The option for the poor is not authentic unless we participate, at least a little, in the life and suffering of the poor…Support for the struggles of the poor frequently means suffering misunderstanding, persecution and even moral and physical injury.”
Fifthly, for Elizondo and Boff, preferential option for the poor, involves an identification of the mechanisms, which produce poverty. “The poverty of the poor is a result of a combination of causes, and first the international capitalist system and the relations of dependence and oppression it establishes between the nations at the center of the system and those at the periphery…The benefits are, on the whole, accumulated by the countries which are already highly developed or by the social classes in the poor countries which exercise social control in association with the multi-national interests of capital. The sacrifices are borne by those who are already poor and exploited. Development and underdevelopment are linked by a causal connection which makes them two sides of the same coin…If the churches and the theologians do not develop a critical attitude towards the socio-economic system within which they live, they run the risk of becoming mere reformists, reproducing the system in slightly improved form, rather than allies of the poor, who are demanding a once-for-all replacement of the existing system by another which makes possible more equality and life for all.”
And finally, they see preferential option of the poor redefining the task of theology for them and others who are committed to the poor, the oppressed, and marginal people in the world. “A theology today which does not place at the center of its concern the poor, justice, freedom and liberation will have difficulty in refuting the accusation of alienation and even cynicism, and will in the end become totally irrelevant…Without the poor the church loses its Lord and theology its evangelical content.”
Catholic Latin American Liberation theologians generally accept Pope John XXIII as the source of this revolutionary concept. For Pope John XXIII even prior to the Vatican II viewed the Church to be “the Church of all, but principally the Church of the poor.” And it is also accepted Pope John Paul II keeps repeating and reaffirming the same when he says: “The option for the poor is my daily concern.”
Thus, we may note, the Christians committed to the concern for the poor and the marginal today have been moving towards a bias towards the poor accepting the broad conceptual leadership provided by the Roman Catholic Church. This is very clearly reflected in the prayer used by the Canadian Christians following the ecumenical lectionary. Hence one of the prayers set aside for fifth Sunday after Pentecost reads: “We thank you, O God, that you favour the poor, the meek, the oppressed, the homeless, and the hungry. Make your compassion contagious that the rich might share with the poor, the strong befriend the weak”. The pastoral stance for the option for the poor is actually a response to a theological realization that God favour’s the poor, an aspect that is a guiding thought to the liberation theologies that takes the cause of the poor with utmost seriousness.
However, those who used the phrase “option for the poor”, particularly the Latin American Liberation Theologians, were aware that this was no small concern but one that involves large shifting for the Church that was not poor and hitherto had the sympathies and appreciation of the rich. These theologians were aware that this phrase was not for a mere announcing to the poor: “God loves you by preference” and do nothing. But closely connected with the words of Jesus to the learned lawyer to whom Jesus related the Parable of the Good Samaritan and said: “Go and do likewise”. In this regard Berryman makes an obvious but important point recognizing in it a call for a “change of heart” for the non-poor, for it is only the non-poor who can opt for the poor.
From this we learn that the challenge before the Christian community in Canada is, as Alfred T. Hennelly, another Jesuit commentator of liberation theology from United States puts it, “not only to accept and embrace this preferential option, but above all to translate this theoretical commitment into a creative and effective action on behalf of the poor majority of humanity”.
Christian concern for the poor must enhance the self-worth of the poor by working towards justice. Feeding, clothing, housing, teaching, counselling, training, loving, and so on that fills our Christian activism must transform the “doer” to accept the recipients of our doing as humans and equals.
The “doing” in our Christian concern for poor must decrease “dependency” and increase “self-reliance”. Christian activism must move towards finding more “permanent” solution, addressing the cause of poverty instead the symptom by constantly challenging false answers, overcoming prejudices, and eventually moving towards one community – no rich, no poor.
And this requires, first, a vision of the reality of the poor through the eyes of the poor. Therefore, Virgil Elizondo and Leonardo Boff, two prominent Latin American Liberation theologians, calling this as the Church’s preferential option for the poor, wrote: “When we enter the continent of the poor and try to think through their eyes and from their social position, we discover their strength, their resistance, their courage and their creativity. It then becomes clear that the society within which they live and suffer and from which they are marginalized has to be fundamentally transformed. From the position of the poor the urgency of liberation is beyond doubt.” (This and other quotes below are taken from their “‘Editorial: theology From The Viewpoint Of The Poor’” in Concilium – Option For The Poor: Challenge To The Rich Countries, Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark Ltd, 1986.)
Second, they argued, in preferential option for the poor, we take up the cause of the poor. For Elizondo and Boff: “The cause of the poor is the cause of life and means of life such as work, bread, clothing, housing and basic education. The cause of the poor is a new society in which the vital questions which concern all citizens without distinction are given priority, in which relations of collaboration and equity prevail over exploitation and domination.”
Thirdly, Elizondo and Boff affirmed that in preferential option for the poor we take up the struggle of the poor. They wrote: “It is the oppressed who bring about liberation. They become aware of their dignity, organize their action, form links with other groups, which, like them, want a different society. The churches should join this struggle, make their specific contribution as religious bodies, reinforce the power of the poor to enable them to press for changes and participate in their implementation.”
Fourthly, they believed that option for the poor means taking up the life of the poor, as they wrote: “The option for the poor is not authentic unless we participate, at least a little, in the life and suffering of the poor…Support for the struggles of the poor frequently means suffering misunderstanding, persecution and even moral and physical injury.”
Fifthly, for Elizondo and Boff, preferential option for the poor, involves an identification of the mechanisms, which produce poverty. “The poverty of the poor is a result of a combination of causes, and first the international capitalist system and the relations of dependence and oppression it establishes between the nations at the center of the system and those at the periphery…The benefits are, on the whole, accumulated by the countries which are already highly developed or by the social classes in the poor countries which exercise social control in association with the multi-national interests of capital. The sacrifices are borne by those who are already poor and exploited. Development and underdevelopment are linked by a causal connection which makes them two sides of the same coin…If the churches and the theologians do not develop a critical attitude towards the socio-economic system within which they live, they run the risk of becoming mere reformists, reproducing the system in slightly improved form, rather than allies of the poor, who are demanding a once-for-all replacement of the existing system by another which makes possible more equality and life for all.”
And finally, they see preferential option of the poor redefining the task of theology for them and others who are committed to the poor, the oppressed, and marginal people in the world. “A theology today which does not place at the center of its concern the poor, justice, freedom and liberation will have difficulty in refuting the accusation of alienation and even cynicism, and will in the end become totally irrelevant…Without the poor the church loses its Lord and theology its evangelical content.”
Catholic Latin American Liberation theologians generally accept Pope John XXIII as the source of this revolutionary concept. For Pope John XXIII even prior to the Vatican II viewed the Church to be “the Church of all, but principally the Church of the poor.” And it is also accepted Pope John Paul II keeps repeating and reaffirming the same when he says: “The option for the poor is my daily concern.”
Thus, we may note, the Christians committed to the concern for the poor and the marginal today have been moving towards a bias towards the poor accepting the broad conceptual leadership provided by the Roman Catholic Church. This is very clearly reflected in the prayer used by the Canadian Christians following the ecumenical lectionary. Hence one of the prayers set aside for fifth Sunday after Pentecost reads: “We thank you, O God, that you favour the poor, the meek, the oppressed, the homeless, and the hungry. Make your compassion contagious that the rich might share with the poor, the strong befriend the weak”. The pastoral stance for the option for the poor is actually a response to a theological realization that God favour’s the poor, an aspect that is a guiding thought to the liberation theologies that takes the cause of the poor with utmost seriousness.
However, those who used the phrase “option for the poor”, particularly the Latin American Liberation Theologians, were aware that this was no small concern but one that involves large shifting for the Church that was not poor and hitherto had the sympathies and appreciation of the rich. These theologians were aware that this phrase was not for a mere announcing to the poor: “God loves you by preference” and do nothing. But closely connected with the words of Jesus to the learned lawyer to whom Jesus related the Parable of the Good Samaritan and said: “Go and do likewise”. In this regard Berryman makes an obvious but important point recognizing in it a call for a “change of heart” for the non-poor, for it is only the non-poor who can opt for the poor.
From this we learn that the challenge before the Christian community in Canada is, as Alfred T. Hennelly, another Jesuit commentator of liberation theology from United States puts it, “not only to accept and embrace this preferential option, but above all to translate this theoretical commitment into a creative and effective action on behalf of the poor majority of humanity”.
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