On the Gap between the Rich and the Poor

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Franciscan Wisdom Series

Some years ago, I was in Guatemala for the summer serving as a chaplain at a hospital, one which cared for those who could not afford treatment at the government-sponsored clinics. One day, I met a husband and wife from the poorest and most remote region of the country; they were there with their baby daughter of only a few months who had a cleft lip and palate. The couple had heard about the hospital and brought their daughter for treatment, as they had nowhere else to go.

However, in their simplicity, they did not understand that even though the hospital could do it, the procedure required more than just a single visit; they would have to return with their daughter for the surgery itself, whereas they believed that they could take her and have it done in a day or two. As we were talking, they explained that they had saved up all of their money for months just to get there; and while they had intended to beg or borrow enough to return, now they had to save up enough again for another round-trip entirely. I asked them how much the travel cost, which they told me: the equivalent of 20 US dollars. I never looked at $20 the same way again.

There are any number of studies or statistics to describe the great disparity between the rich and the poor in our world. Such numbers are important and illustrative and probative; however, that is what they remain for most people—numbers. Yet, those figures have stories; they are people, and the only way to face that reality is to look the poor, to look our brothers and sisters, in the face.

On many occasions, I am invited to bless the houses—to be technical, apartments—of those who live here in Isla Vista, a town in California composed essentially of two groups of people: immigrants and students. When I walk in, I am always moved by the ways in which the people live; most recently, I blessed the 2-bedroom apartment of an immigrant family who had just upgraded units in the same place so that all three of their daughters in their 20s could fit into a single bedroom without one needing to sleep out in the living room, which was itself contiguous with the kitchen. Later that night, I did not rest with an easy conscience in the friary, for my single bedroom was equivalent to their two. I could not offer them what I had (as it was not mine to give), and yet I was at a loss as to what to do.

As these things turn out, a sportscar-driving parishioner of a certain age and station in life would come to complain to me that the parish was not doing enough to support immigrants and that he was deeply disturbed by the change to the seating arrangement in the church. For frame of reference, the altar had been in the center of the church with the seats around it, and now the altar had been moved to the front of the church with the seats all facing towards it; the reconfiguration was occasioned by a need to maximize space for the families and friends of the many, many people receiving their sacraments at Easter this year, which included the two eldest daughters of that family whose apartment I visited. The contrast between the two was suddenly apparent in my mind—a man of privilege complaining about the inconveniences in his life and a family of immigrants asking for a blessing upon theirs—and a question then coalesced—who really gets their voice heard in this world? Thinking about this family and their right to have a place at church, I pointed out to the parishioner the logical inconsistency in his position, namely that making room for the immigrant in society also meant making room for them in the next pew; the man left the parish and took his donations with him.

There is a cost to doing what is right, one that sometimes can be measured in real dollars and real cents, and the disparity between the rich and the poor in how they are treated can be seen both in the macro and in the micro. Yet, it is not necessary to mine the depths of the Franciscan tradition to find a precedent or guide for how to address it: it is present from the first, in Francis’ own Testament and in the Earlier Rule. As he himself attests, at the very start of his conversion, Francis went among lepers (Testament, 1-3), a group who were socially and economically disenfranchised. This distance is the backdrop for the story of Francis meeting the singular leper in the valley below Assisi, which undergoes a noticeable hagiographical development in the writings of Thomas of Celano (cf. 1C 17 and 2C 9); yet, while Thomas of Celano increasingly identifies the leper with Christ, he is compelled to incorporate the correction from the Legend of the Three Companions that Francis was very much involved in giving alms and money to lepers when he was still in the world (cf. L3C, 11).

This practice, moreover, was continued as the Order began to develop, but there was a new challenge attending it. Whereas the initial struggle for Francis was the physicality of the lepers’ disease, the subsequent issue for the friars as a whole was their poverty: when Francis was in the world, he could give money to support lepers; but when the friars disavowed its use as a constitutive part of their life, it became difficult to know how to serve that same group. Hence, in the Earlier Rule, different lines seem to reflect different stages of practice, as the friars try to figure things out: they are not to use money in any way (ER 8, 8), yet they can perform services for those in need (ER 8, 9), while for lepers alms may still be sought (ER 8, 10), but care must again be taken against monetary alms (ER 8, 11). Underlying this text is the basic fact that such prescriptions would not have been created unless they were needed.

Indeed, Francis and the early friars found themselves between two different groups: there were the lepers who were with a disease and without money, and there was the rest of society who was without the disease and with money. By refusing to use money, the friars were like the one and, by not having the disease, could still engage with the other. And there, it is to be argued, is the Franciscan intuition, governing everything from the theology of the Incarnation to the machinations of the market: to operate from a middle, mediating position. Truly, the early friars espoused a fraternal economy by being brother to both the poor and the rich; it meant identifying with the former, while speaking to the latter—but importantly, not vice-versa. And as in the first years of the Order, so now, the Franciscan approach to the gap between the rich and the poor is simple, but hard: cross it.