1) This article from the weekend edition of the Wall Street Journal focuses on the importance of maintaining directed charitable funding to direct treatment of AIDS sufferers in Africa, but it also reminded me of the ancient role the Church has played in charitable works.
2) The pagan world preceding the Sinai Covenant was not one that leaned towards taking care of others less able to take care of themselves but tended more to slavery. It was not a world where the dignity of human life was held high.
From the beginning the Catholic Church helped the poor, the sick, the injured, the imprisoned, and the book by Thomas E. Woods, Jr., Ph.D. How the Catholic Church Built Western Civilization, states that the Catholic Church virtually invented charity as known in the West, as Woods (2005) noted:
“In the early fourth century, famine and disease struck the army of the Roman emperor Constantine. Pachomius, a pagan soldier in that army, watched in amazement as many of his fellow Romans brought food to the afflicted men, and, without discrimination, bestowed help on those in need. Curious, Pachomius inquired about these people and found out that they were Christians…
“Even Voltaire, perhaps the most prolific anti-Catholic propagandist of the eighteenth century, was awed by the heroic spirit of self-sacrifice that animated so many of the Church’s sons and daughters…
“It would take many large volumes to record the complete history of Catholic charitable work carried on by individuals, parishes, dioceses, monasteries, missionaries, friars, nuns, and lay organizations. Suffice it to say that Catholic charity has had no peer in the amount and variety of good work it has done and the human suffering and misery it has alleviated. Let us go still further. The Catholic Church invented charity as we know it in the West.” (pp. 169-170, italics in original)
3) Finally, let me share information about one of those Catholic organizations that is doing wonderful work, Catholics in the Military, whose work helps those who do the most for all of us in meeting our responsibility to protect others, and so many of whom pay the ultimate price.
Lampstand Foundation website, http://www.lampstandfoundation.org/
"The sinner is at the very heart of Christianity. Nobody is so competent as the sinner in matters of Christianity. Nobody, except the saint." Charles Peguy (1873-1914)
About
- David H. Lukenbill
- I am a California native, married, we have one daughter and live close to the American River with two cats and all the wild critters we can feed. I am a management consultant to nonprofit organizations and have an Associates of Arts degree in Administration of Justice from Sacramento City College, a Bachelor of Science degree in Organizational Behavior from the University of San Francisco and a Master of Public Administration degree, also from the University of San Francisco.