The sick, the poor, and the outcasts were high on his priority list. Thus, churches (being the extension of Jesus' ministry), should focus their efforts on those exact same people.

But the data says that is not happening. Just the opposite in fact.

Religion in 21st century America has become an enclave for people who have done everything "right."

They have college degrees and marriages and children and middle-class incomes.

For those who don't check all those boxes, religion is just not for them.

The conclusions are unmistakable: Religion has become a luxury good, and that's leaving most of society on the fringes yet again.

Let's start with that old chestnut that I roll out from time to time — the basic relationship between education and religious disaffiliation.

This is 15 years of the Cooperative Election Study. These samples visualized here represent over 570,000 total responses, and in many years, the individual sample size is north of 60,000.

It doesn't take a statistical wizard to figure out the general trend line here.

People with higher levels of education are less likely to identify as atheist, agnostic or nothing in particular when it comes to religion.

Yes, if you include atheists and agnostics, the trend reverses itself.

But nonreligious people are not just atheists and agnostics.

In fact, most nonreligious people are nothing in particular when it comes to religion.

More educated people are more likely to claim a religious affiliation on surveys.

It's true in every single wave of the Cooperative Election Study. It's also the case in the Nationscape survey, which has 477,000 respondents. They even have 4,000 people with doctoral degrees in their sample.

The most likely to be non-religious? Those who didn't finish high school.

As education increases, so does religious affiliation.

The group with the highest level of religious affiliation is those with a master's degree. I think this is likely due to the fact that the majority of folks with master's degrees are in not purely academic pursuits. Instead, they earn graduate degrees in things like education and business.

Of those with doctorates, 24% are non-religious.

That's the same rate as those with a four-year college degree.

Again, it's hard to look at these numbers and make some big claims about how education chases people away from religion.

Obviously, affiliation is just one piece of the puzzle, though. Religious attendance is another key component to the religiosity story.

So, I did the same general analysis with the CES data, but this time just focused on those who attend religious services weekly. Again, all 15 waves.

Their trend is just as unmistakable: Those who are the most likely to attend services weekly are those with a graduate degree.

Those with a high school diploma or less are the least likely to attend.

And these aren't small differences, either.

The last few years have seen nearly a 10-point gap in attendance from the bottom to the top of the education scale.

Let's take this a step further and inject income into the mix as well.

So, I divided respondents into those with a high school diploma or less and those with a four-year college degree or more and then calculated the share who attend religious services weekly across the income spectrum.

The first to note is that college-educated people attend church at higher rates than those with a high school diploma or less.

That's consistently the case across almost all income brackets.

A few little squirrely things happen at the very top end of the income spectrum, but that's probably due to small sample size.

But notice the overall shape of the orange lines, especially in the last few years of the Cooperative Election Study.

They are curvilinear in shape — meaning low on the edges and high in the middle. That's certainly the case in 2016, 2020 and 2022.

That tells an interesting story about the interaction of income and religious attendance.

The group that is the most likely to attend services are not the poor nor the wealthy. Instead, it's people who smack in the middle of the income distribution.

This analysis points to the following conclusion: The people who are the most likely to attend services this weekend are those with college degrees making $60K-$100K. In other words, middle-class professionals.

Let's throw another factor into the mix now — marital status. The imagined ideal for many for a good American life is a college degree, a good job, and stable marriage.

Does religion have any place for those who are not married? Or are divorced or separated?

The Cooperative Election Study only asks about current marital status, so if someone has been divorced and remarried, that wouldn't really show up in this data.

But, good gracious, this is a crystal-clear result.

Married people are much more likely to be in a religious service than those who are divorced, separated, or never married.

And these are not small gaps, either.

Among 40-year-old married people in the sample, nearly 30% are attending services weekly.

Among those who are separated, divorced or never married — it's half that rate: just 15%.

That gap persists all the way through the life course, too.

Even among 60-year-olds, it's still there.

About 30% of married retired folks are in churches; it's just 20% of those who are not married. Marriage leads to much higher levels of religiosity — at any age.

One last little bit of analysis before I stop; just put a finer point on this.

I divided the sample into four groups based on married or not married and parents of children or not, then calculated the share attending weekly.

The clear outlier here is folks who are married with children.

Among those who fit both criteria and are under 30, 37% attend weekly.

That does begin to decline as the age category moves up. I am guessing that's because folks with children tend to be less religious later in life, but that's just a hunch.

Among those who are married without children, attendance is fairly high in their mid-20s.

But then it drops down to being no different than those who are not married, have no children, or are not married but are parents.

These results are hard to ignore and should sound some major alarms for any person of faith who is concerned about the large state of American society.

Increasingly religion has become the enclave for those who have lived a "proper" life: college degree, middle-class income, married with children.

If you check all those boxes, the likelihood of you regularly attending church is about double the rate of folks who don't.

This is also troublesome for American democracy, as well.

At its best, religion is a place where people from various economic, social, racial and political backgrounds can find common ground around a shared faith.

It's a place to build bridges with folks who are different than you.

Unfortunately, it looks like American religion is not at its best.

Instead, it's become a hospital for the healthy, an echo chamber for folks who did everything "right," which means that it's seeming less and less inviting to those who did life another way.

Do I think that houses of worship have done this on purpose? Generally speaking, no. But they also haven't actively refuted this narrative.

I was always told that the job of a preacher is to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable. Maybe we need a lot more of the latter going forward.

• Ryan Burge is an assistant professor of political science at Eastern Illinois University, a pastor in the American Baptist Church and the co-founder and frequent contributor to Religion in Public, a forum for scholars of religion and politics to make their work accessible to a more general audience.
• First published in ReligionUnplugged. Republished with permission.

Walking the talk and supported by generous local businesses, Caritas and the Sant'Egidio community, Francis hosted a lunch for 1,300 poor and homeless.

As well as lunch, other initiatives for the disadvantaged offered throughout the week in St Peter's Square also included health services.

The mobile clinic facilities in St Peter's Square provide medical checkups and medicines, including screening and treatments for HIV, hepatitis and tuberculosis.

The services have returned to the square after a two-year halt due to restrictions imposed by the Covid-19 pandemic.

At Mass coinciding with the sixth World Day of the Poor, Francis was at his challenging best.

Francis advised that when humanity is suffering from multiple crises, including war, climate change, the Covid pandemic, and social and economic injustice, it is not the time to listen to the prophets of doom.

As an alternative, Francis urged people to do something to help and to "seize opportunities to bear witness to the Gospel of joy and to build a more fraternal world.

"If our heart is deadened and indifferent, we cannot hear their faint cry of pain, we cannot cry with them and for them, we cannot see how much loneliness and anguish also lie hidden in the forgotten corners of our cities.

"It is important to be able to discern the times in which we live in order to remain disciples of the Gospel even amid the upheavals of history."

In tough and challenging times, Francis encourages people to do something good and for each person to start with themselves, even when it is not ideal.

"It is a skill typically Christian not to be a victim of everything that happens, but to seize the opportunity that lies hidden in everything that befalls us, the good that can come about even from negative situations.

"Every crisis is a possibility and offers opportunities for growth.

"We realise this if we think back on our own history: In life, often our most important steps forward were taken in the midst of certain crises, in situations of trial, loss of control or insecurity."

In 2017, Francis decreed that the Catholic Church worldwide would set aside the 33rd Sunday in Ordinary Time every year to "reflect on how poverty is at the very heart of the Gospel."

Francis concluded his homily by urging Christians to care for the poor, in whom we find Jesus.

Sources

• America Magazine
• Reuters
• CathNews New Zealand
• Vatican News

But even with the best prognosis, age is catching up to Francis.

Barring a miracle, he will only be expected to continue as pope for five or six years. We may look back at his hospitalisation as the moment that marked the beginning of the end of his papacy.

If that's the case, we will also be able to count incredible achievements.

As a pastor, Francis has caught the imagination of the world with his compassion and openness to all people. He has put love, especially love for the poor, centre stage in his peaching of the gospel.

As a world leader, he has put his papacy squarely on the side of migrants and refugees. And he has been a prophetic voice against global warming and the excesses of capitalism.

And within the church, he has encouraged dialogue and a more consultative style of governance: Put bluntly, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith no longer acts like the Inquisition it once was.

In short, Francis has rebranded the papacy for the 21st century with a pastoral, prophetic and inclusive voice.

Where he has been less successful is in winning over the clerical establishment to his vision for the church. In his eight years as pope, Francis has hardly dented the clerical establishment that he inherited.

Many bishops and priests in the Roman Curia and around the world think his election was a mistake and they are hoping for a return to what they regard as normalcy in the next papacy.

They feel he has not emphasized dogma and rules enough, so they are not cooperating.

Yet Francis has treated these opponents with the gentleness of a pastor who hopes for their conversion.

Any other CEO would simply replace those who are not on board with his agenda, but Francis refuses to fire people.

As a result, he has waited until curial officials and bishops reached retirement age. For such a strategy to have an effect requires a very long papacy, such as the 27-year reign of John Paul II, followed by eight years of Benedict.

During this 35-year period, John Paul and Benedict remade the episcopacy in their image.

The litmus test was loyalty and orthodoxy as they defined it.

Anyone who questioned the papacy's position on birth control, married priests or women priests was disqualified.

These bishops then revamped the seminaries that have produced the clergy we have today.

One of the best examples is the United States, where neither the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops nor the seminaries are bastions of Francis supporters.

Bishops who embody Francis' values make up only 20 to 40 of the 223 active U.S. bishops.

And among the clergy, Francis receives his greatest support from older priests, who are dying off, rather than younger ones who are the future of the church.

Instead of taking to heart the axiom that "personnel is policy," he left in place a Benedict appointee, Cardinal Marc Ouellet, as prefect of the Congregation for Bishops, the office that vets candidates for the episcopacy.

The nuncios, who suggest episcopal candidates, were also trained and advanced under John Paul and Benedict, and for the first three years of Francis' papacy, Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò, an archenemy, served in that role in the United States.

As a result, even the American bishops appointed under Francis are a mixed bag.

Finding young candidates for the priesthood, meanwhile, who support Francis and want to be celibate is like looking for Catholic unicorns, and if you were to find some, they aren't likely to be welcomed by conservative seminaries.

As a result, the laity who are encouraged to come to church because they like Francis are unlikely to find him in their parishes or dioceses.

Reforming the Catholic Church takes decades, not years.

If his papacy is reckoned a failure, it will be because Francis failed to replace or outlast the clerical establishment put in place by John Paul and Benedict.

His papacy will only succeed if he is followed by popes who are in sync with his approach to Catholicism, and this is not guaranteed.

He has appointed sympathetic men to the College of Cardinals, but conclaves are unpredictable as his own election showed.

• Thomas Reese SJ is a senior analyst at Religion News Service, and a former columnist at National Catholic Reporter, and a former editor-in-chief of the weekly Catholic magazine America. First published in RNS. Republished with permission.

Gordon, the Archbishop of Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago, said, "Find someone you know, reach out to one poor person. Not just to give money, but stop, speak, ask questions," Gordon said.

"One thing the poor do not have an opportunity to do is to tell their story with dignity."

The World Day of the Poor was instituted in 2016 by Pope Francis, this year it fell on Nov. 15.

The 2020 theme is 'Stretch forth your hands to the poor.'

Gordon said, "Stretching forth our hands to the poor, is stretching forth the hands of love, the hands of mercy, the hands that will help."

"Stretching forth the hands will demonstrate our own commitment. We recognise, as Pope Francis says, that we are brothers and sisters. By stretching forth our hands, we join in a common humanity."

"When we meet and encounter the poor, it asks about our indifference and how we are responding to the poor. So often, we don't build social relations with those who are poor and marginalised."

Gordon said poverty does not only relate to the lack of money. It also relates to the lack of participation and lack of dignity. It means some children do not have the same opportunity for education as other children.

Pope Francis celebrated Mass in St. Peter's Basilica to mark the World Day of the Poor. He urged Christians to spend their lives in prayer, charity, and witness to the Gospel on behalf of those in need.

Pope Francis recalled an Italian priest who was killed two months ago while serving the poor.

Fr. Roberto Malgesini was murdered at his parish of Saint Roch (Rocco) in the Italian city of Como.

"This priest was not interested in theories," said Pope Francis. "He simply saw Jesus in the poor and found meaning in life in serving them. He dried their tears with his gentleness, in the name of God who consoles."

The Pope concluded his homily holding up Fr. Roberto as an example of a faithful servant whose life was centred on the poor.

Sources

• Newsday
• Vatican News

Increased inequality and a worsening of the wealth gap are likely outcomes of the Official Cash Rate (OCR) falling below zero, warn ASB economists.

The ASB warns that from a longer-term perspective zero interest rates could actually create wider inequality within society.

"Monetary policy is a blunt instrument. Lower interest rates reward those able and willing to borrow and penalise those who save. They also tend to boost asset prices and the wealth of the ‘haves' relative to the ‘have nots,'" the bank says.

The impact of negative interest rates is particularly harsh for older New Zealanders who have worked and saved for their retirement.

News of negative interest rates comes as Green Party and Government minister, Julie Anne Genter told a Newstalk ZB small business panel discussion the Greens election tax policy would be a 'bottom-line' condition that must be met for her part to join into a coalition government with Labour.

The Greens election policies include a plan to make Kiwis with a net-worth greater than $1 million, for example, including the family home, shares, Kiwi-Saver, and savings, pay 1 percent of their wealth to the government as a tax.

Pressured to explain, Genter defended the policy saying it would only impact the wealthy.

However attempting to quell the uncertainty, Revenue Minister Stuart Nash says "the wealth tax would be very difficult to implement," and confirmed that Finance Minister Grant Robertson has repeatedly ruled out a wealth tax.

Under some heat to comment, Green Party leader James Shaw said the Greens don't have bottom lines, but would advocate strongly for key policies if in a position to negotiate after the election.

As an alternative to negative interest rates and in terms of the overall economy, ASB economists say they prefer an overstimulated economy and toleration of a period of high inflation rather having the economy too "undercooked" and running the risk of deepening the downturn.

They say they expect the OCR to hold after dropping to zero and that it is unclear how easy it will be for the economy to extricate itself from the negative interest rate environment.

With the Reserve Bank of New Zealand likely to leave its current policy setting "untouched" negative interest rates are almost certain warns Kiwibank economist, Jarred Kerr.

"The reason interest rates are falling, and will likely go negative (for wholesale rates), is because the RBNZ (Reserve Bank of New Zealand) believes there is not enough stimulus in the economy to return us to full employment," he explained.

"If we had done too much, interest rates would be rising. The fact we haven't done enough means interest rates will keep falling. It's that simple."

Sources

• Newstalk ZB
• NZ Herald
• NZ Adviser

Those warnings fell on deaf ears as Vientiane — hell-bent on becoming the "Battery of Asia" — borrowed heavily and built hydropower dams to sell electricity into neighbouring countries, plus highways, bridges and railways.

It was an unfathomable wish list.

Like many countries in the region, Laos has felt the full economic impact of the Covid-19 pandemic. Remittances from foreign workers have evaporated alongside tourism income and exports from its state-run factories.

The upshot is that this tiny landlocked country is facing a sovereign default as its foreign reserves slump below US$1 billion, with China taking control of an electricity grid once touted for future prosperity but in reality just another debt trap.

It has been an exercise in economic stupidity, with its dams contributing heavily to the dismal plight of the Mekong River, which is suffering a second year of drought that is threatening the livelihoods of 70 million people who live hand to mouth in downstream countries.

According to the Financial Times, Laos' annual debt payments will be more than $1 billion a year until the end of 2024 while its current reserves stand at just $864 million.

The World Bank said in June that Laos' debt levels would reach up to 68 per cent of gross domestic product in 2020, up from 59 per cent last year. Total GDP is less than $18 billion, and most of its borrowings are coming from China with state assets serving as collateral.

According to China's state-run news service Xinhua, Chinese investment in power, transport and other projects already tops $10 billion.

As a result, Moody's Investors Service has downgraded Laos' rating to Caa2 from B3, which puts its debt quality firmly amid the ranks of "junk" with a negative outlook. Fitch Ratings has also downgraded Laos' ability to repay debt and changed its outlook to negative.

Laos also consistently ranks near the bottom of the heap on Transparency International's index on perceptions of corruption. Its accounts are opaque and, as with one-party states the world over, are not fully trusted.

The last Asian country to default on its sovereign debt was Myanmar in 2002. Thailand also did so as the Asian financial crisis erupted in 1997. The prospect of Laos being forced to suspend repayments and go cap in hand to the International Monetary Fund and ask for help is real and embarrassing.

That probable ignominy follows reports that a deal has been reached between state-owned Electricite du Laos and China Southern Power Grid Co, with Laos ready to cede majority control of its electricity grid.

Details of the deal are scant but the Chinese embassy in Laos reportedly said on its website that Laos could gradually repurchase shares, assuming returns from operations are sufficient.

China has earned itself a notorious reputation for laying debt traps in cash-strapped countries from Africa to Sri Lanka to the Pacific and now — it would appear — Laos. It has a habit of lending too much, then seizing control of assets when a nation fails to repay. Its economic colonialism makes American imperialism look benign.

And at the heart of the problem remain inept politicians and unsubstantiated allegations of big kickbacks from huge projects. A 10 per cent cut from a dam worth more than $3 billion is a substantial reward for signing off on a project sold to the public as in their interests.

China is thin-skinned and whinges loudly when criticized by outsiders. Its motives should not be questioned and criticism from within is met with the full force of a state apparatus designed to shut people up, enabling a communist hierarchy and a coterie of wealthy elites to do as they please.

It's a dreadful combination that should serve as a warning for other small, less developed countries like Timor-Leste with ambitions of borrowing and spending their way into higher standards of living.

The bishop of Vientiane once remarked that the Laos Church is poor but beloved by Pope Francis. It's a comforting notion that will be sorely tested in the coming years when struggling Laotians will be forced to make good on the promises of a few and repay their debt.

• Luke Hunt
• First published in UCANews.com. Republished with permission.
• The views expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of CathNews.

The survey, released Monday by the Pew Research Center, revealed a gaping "God gap" between relatively rich and poor countries.

In Kenya, for example, the country with the lowest gross domestic product per capita in the survey, 95% of people said belief in God is necessary for a person to be moral.

In Sweden, the richest country, just 9% of people connected God with good morals. (The survey did not break down respondents by religion.)

Even within countries, the rich and poor don't agree on God and morality, the survey said.

In the United States, to take one example, there is a gap of 24 percentage points between high and low income Americans. The poor were much more likely to say belief in God is necessary to be good.

"People in the emerging economies included in this survey tend to be more religious and more likely to consider religion to be important in their lives," wrote the authors of the study.

Pew's study seems to lend weight to the secularization thesis: the idea that nations become less religious as their people get richer and more educated.

For decades, the United States defied this theory by being both rich and religious. But even that is changing, according to a number of other studies.

In 2002, 58% of Americans said belief in God is necessary to be good. In 2019, that number slipped to 44%.

Religion remains a powerful force in the life of people around the world, including the United States. A majority of people in 23 of the 34 countries survey said religion is "very" or "somewhat" important to them. In the United States nearly half — 47% — called it "very important." Continue reading

In reply to them, Jesus says that in the morning when the sky is red and threatening you say that today it will be stormy. "You know how to judge the appearance of the sky, but you cannot judge the signs of the times."

Here we find Jesus rebuking the Pharisees and Sadducees for refusing to recognize in his stunning teachings and awesome deeds the unfolding of the Kingdom of God.

They simply refuse to "judge the signs of the times."

In the Second Vatican Council's "Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World" ("Gaudium Et Spes"), the world's Catholic bishops wrote, "The Church has always had the duty of scrutinizing the signs of the times and of interpreting them in the light of the Gospel."

As you look around, near and far, what do you see as the signs of the times?

Well, who can possibly say that these are not difficult times for so many of us - and for countless others, tragic times. Consider the global pandemic of COVID-19 - resulting in hundreds of thousands of deaths and millions of people suffering from sickness, job loss and debt.

Next, consider the protests around the world in response to the killings of numerous innocent black fellow human beings by some police officers, and the significant failure of local and national governments to adequately address these and other racial injustices.

Other signs of the times are the largely unaddressed life and death issues of ongoing wars, war preparation, the arms trade, nuclear weapons, the ecological devastation of climate change and pollution, hunger, poverty, unregulated raw capitalism, tremendous wealth disparity, lack of universal health care, human trafficking, child labour, unemployment, homelessness, refugees, the death penalty, abortion, infanticide, euthanasia and the growth within many societies of secularism that increasingly has no place for God.

And while it is morally inexcusable that most government and corporate officials just don't seem to care, let us also not forget to examine our own consciences and seek genuine conversion from our own "selfish indifference" as Pope Francis warns.

Take to heart St. Mother Teresa's encouraging words, "Everyone can do something."

In prayer ask the Holy Spirit's guidance. Read articles and documents on Catholic social teaching. Join or help start a parish social justice, peace and pro-life team. Be creative.

Recently three major national and international events converged to assist us in judging the signs of the times.

On June 20, a digital social justice assembly sponsored by the Poor People's Campaign: A National Call to Moral Revival was attended by over 2.5 million viewers.

This campaign is striving to correct the immoral interlocking injustices of systemic racism, poverty, militarism, the war economy and ecological devastation.

Also on June 20 was World Refugee Day - a time to call our attention to the desperate plight of 70 million refugees and internally displaced persons fleeing war and persecution (see: www.unhcr.org and www.support.crs.org/refugees).

And on June 18 the Vatican released "Journeying for the care of the common home," coinciding with the fifth anniversary of Pope Francis' environmental encyclical letter "Laudato Si" - which encourages us to see that everything is interconnected and that when any person or part of the environment is suffering it hurts all of us.

The above are genuine examples of "judging the signs of the times" and responding with active commitment to the supreme Gospel value of love - for God, for God's suffering people, and for God's wounded world.

• Tony Magliano is an internationally syndicated Catholic social justice and peace columnist. He is available to speak at diocesan or parish gatherings. Tony can be reached at tmag6@comcast.net.

As I entered the shop to see my old friend and barber, I noticed - further along the street - the blanket-covered body of someone sleeping rough.

I had thought that most of the homeless in Wellington were being housed at this time so wondered what was happening that someone was so evidently not housed. As the person was sleeping I did not disturb them at that moment.

I was reminded of that person when I was reading some of the comments from people about the nonopening of churches under the current Covid-19 alert level.

It sometimes seems that the measure of a Christian/Catholic life has become the opportunity to worship together.

I too love that opportunity to celebrate the Eucharist - the gathering of the faithful, the encounter with Christ in various ways during the Mass, the profundity of the ritual bringing me deeply into saving story of the Lord's death and resurrection.

However, wonderful, important and nourishing as that is, it's not the test of my Christianity.

The test is whether I recognize and welcome Jesus present in the poor, vulnerable and excluded.

At least that's according to Matthew 25, when Jesus says whenever we did it to the least of his brothers and sisters (hungry, thirsty, homeless, imprisoned, sick) we did it to him.

It is in such people that we encounter Christ also. Could people identify us as Catholics if we had no churches?

For some of our community, returning to our usual liturgical gatherings seemed to become the central issue for us as a Church.

However, our tradition also gives us guidance on considering whether the role of the state to protect the common good can outweigh the legitimate freedoms of citizens to exercise their normal rights.

Getting back to Mass is not the most important thing.

Catholic social teaching sees protecting and fostering the common good as a prime responsibility of the state (in New Zealand commonly called ‘the government' of whatever political party or coalition of parties), but upholding the common good is also our responsibility as a church and as citizens.

The common good is the good of all of us, as individuals and groups within a population, that leads to human flourishing.

It cannot mean any section of the population, especially the poorest and most vulnerable, are left behind or excluded.

Part of the protection of the common good is the recognition of the innate human dignity of persons and ensuring various freedoms including the right to marry, found a family, voice one's opinion, associate with others, etc.

In times of emergency or special need the state may suspend some individual and group rights to ensure the safety of a population.

During war it may be that the right to travel abroad might be suspended or the right to found a party supportive of a group looking to destroy the state. For example, in England during the war against Nazism my right to found a pro-Nazi party would have been suspended.

In questions of general public health which affect all of us (especially during pandemics), as we have previously seen in New Zealand, the normal rules of society can be suspended.

For example, during polio epidemics in New Zealand schools were closed to stop spread among children - to some extent curtailing the ordinary right to an education.

Likewise, during the current Covid-19 pandemic our rights to move about and to associate have been curtailed. How this has been managed has varied according to ‘alert levels' and the measured progress in this country of the virus.

Now that at least the first wave of the virus seems has been beaten, general freedoms are being gradually restored.

Some asked why freedoms were returned in some areas, such as shopping and some forms of social gathering, but not for church gatherings.

• Did this deny religious freedom?
• Is it to privilege the economic over the spiritual?
• Should not our bishops have "stood up to this (godless) government', as some asked, and not be pushed around by people who side-line religious gatherings as ‘irrelevant' or not ‘essential'?

Where does the truth and best practice lie?

In terms of public health and the common good it is a question of ‘prudential' judgments.

‘Prudence' in this sense means taking into account all the factors and finding what is best in the circumstances.

A government facing a health crisis like the pandemic has a right to prudentially decide which activities to open up at which rate.

However, we also have a role as a Church community to contribute to that decision-making.

Along with government officials, we also need to weigh up our right to religious practice alongside the right to life and health of the most vulnerable among us.

People of faith, including myself, may have wanted the chance to return to ‘normal', as with schools or businesses, and return to regular church attendance.

I, too, deeply missed being able to celebrate Mass on a face-to-face basis and gather with the worshipping community for the sacraments.

However, the other factors here are the dangers of spreading the virus through the kind of intimate gathering that a Mass or a funeral is.

There is good evidence from overseas and here that church services (Masses, weddings, funerals) have been opportunities where the virus has spread easily.

I work among Maori and know that at a time of prayer the urge to touch and hongi in the Mass is extremely high - an ideal chance to possibly spread a virus.

In an ordinary congregation, the sign of peace is a similar opportunity.

It is not that people at religious gatherings cannot learn other ways of behaving in the interim (we have changed previously during the SARS epidemic) but we are asked for a time to forego some standard activities.

The test is not whether we got into our churches to celebrate Mass but our care for one another and for Christ who is present in the poor, the sick, the imprisoned, the excluded.

Religious gatherings can be special opportunities for the spread of some diseases in a way that going shopping or even participating in other social gatherings does not.

We spend much more time together at a Mass than we do in the short encounters with others when shopping.

We may be sitting among strangers, especially in our bigger churches, not with 9 people we know at a social gathering.

The rules were made for all religions, not just Catholics, and other religions have their own customs which can pose a danger.

Does this impinge on our religious freedom?

Somewhat, but not completely.

As Catholics, we do rightly view the celebration in community of Mass, the Eucharist as very important - the source and summit of worship and of our community expression.

But access to our churches is not the only expression of our faith activity - prayer (which can take place anywhere) and action in love for the reign of God are keys for our faith.

The test in Matthew 25 (whatever you did to the least of my brothers and sisters, you did to me) is not whether we got into our churches to celebrate Mass but our care for one another and for Christ who is present in the poor, the sick, the imprisoned, the excluded.

It's a tough request and it is not to deny the importance of prayer or the Eucharist. But it is to recognize that there are ‘two tabernacles', as Pope Francis said on the feast of Corpus Christi, 2018.

At the Corpus Christi procession in Ostia, outside Rome, Francis took up the theme of Matthew 25.

He spoke of the Eucharist as the ‘beating heart of the community' and of making the Mass a priority for encountering Christ.

But he also spoke of finding Christ not in ‘exclusive, select places' but rather in ‘uncomfortable places, untouched by hope, untouched by love' and of people who are ‘lonely, troubled and in need' as ‘lonely tabernacles'.

So, difficult as it is to accept, getting back to Mass is not the most important thing.

The health of the community is a key part of the common good.

As Catholics, we should support that and remind ourselves of our priorities.

The Mass is indeed central, and I am privileged as a priest to be able to celebrate it and have access to Eucharistic communion.

Will that save me if I neglect those in need?

No.

• Monsignor Gerard Burns is Vicar General for the Archdiocese of Wellington.

This is not a celebration of poverty equated with that type misery that should be eradicated, but of poor women and men who cannot be eradicated, because they are people.

Christ told us the poor will always be with us. But why?

We always imagine the poor trailing behind, at the back of the throng of humankind, unable to keep up with the rhythm of the world, able only to slow down progress.

Yet the poor are not behind us, but in front of us.

In humanity's war against itself, they on the front lines.

They are the first to suffer the effects of global warming.

It is their roof that is blown away when the hurricane strikes.

They were the first to pay when the American financial system played Russian roulette.

It is their children that are sold when children become commodities.

Because they are on the front lines, the poor are also the ones to benefit from the true progress of humanity.

When vaccines become free, the most vulnerable are the ones who are saved.

And when Jesus declared there were no slaves under God's heaven, the slaves, not their masters, were the ones who knew something was happening.

Being at the vanguard of the world's forward march, the poor are the signpost of humanity's true progress. Continue reading

• Martin Steffens is a professor of philosophy. He specializes in the philosopher Simone Weil.
• Image: KTOTV

The Green Affordable Housing Project is uniting Catholics and Buddhists in three US cities to provide a home for poor and homeless people. Read more

Gathering the heads of some of the world's largest oil and gas corporations - including ExxonMobil, BP, and Royal Dutch Shell - to the recent "Energy Transition and Care for our Common Home" Vatican conference, the pope told the CEOs that meeting the energy needs of everyone, especially the more than 1 billion people without electricity, must urgently be undertaken, but in ways "that avoid creating environmental imbalances resulting in deterioration and pollution gravely harmful to our human family, both now and in the future."

The pontiff appealed to the energy executives to see the necessary moral interconnectedness of the elimination of poverty and hunger - including providing "energy for all" - with "sustainable development of renewable forms of energy" to replace dirty fossil fuels that are greatly contributing to a dangerous rise in global temperatures thus leading to harsher environments, and not surprisingly, increased poverty.

"Temperatures over the planet as a whole continue the rapid warming trend we've seen over the last 40 years," said NASA scientist Gavin Schmidt.

According to NASA, during the past century the Earth's average surface temperature has risen about 2 degrees Fahrenheit - largely due to increased human-made global warming emissions like carbon dioxide.

Hottest since 1880

And the past four years are the hottest years on record - since 1880.

"Our common home," as Pope Francis likes to call our planet, is indisputably warming up causing more frequent, more intense hurricanes, wildfires, floods, droughts and heat waves.

The Holy Father reminded corporate oil executives that the 2015 Paris climate agreement signed by 196 nations to make the necessary changes to limit global warming was not on track, and that there is real concern that carbon dioxide emissions and other greenhouse gases still remain dangerously high.

Here it is important to note that President Trump pulled the U.S. out of the Paris climate agreement, despite the fact that historically the U.S. has put more greenhouse gases into the atmosphere than any country, and is currently the world's second largest emitter of heat trapping gases.

Poor countries suffer most

And the world's poor nations, which have generated the least amount of global warming gases, are the countries that are, and will, suffer the most. Here Pope Francis laments, "It is the poor who suffer most from the ravages of global warming, with increasing disruption in the agricultural sector, water insecurity, and exposure to severe weather events.

"The transition to accessible and clean energy is a duty that we owe towards millions of our brothers and sisters around the world, poorer countries and generations yet to come.

"There can be no renewal with our relationship with nature without a renewal of humanity itself."

Appeal to oil and gas leaders

In a heartfelt appeal to oil and gas corporate leaders, the Holy Father asked them to put their skills and privileged positions to "the service of two great needs in today's world: the care of the poor and the environment."

And with urgent warning to all of us Pope Francis concluded: "There is no time to lose: We received the earth as a garden-home from the Creator; let us not pass it on to future generations as a wilderness."

• Tony Magliano is an internationally syndicated social justice and peace columnist. He is available to speak at diocesan or parish gatherings about Catholic social teaching. His keynote address, "Advancing the Kingdom of God in the 21st Century," has been well received by diocesan and parish gatherings from Santa Clara, Calif. to Baltimore, Md. Tony can be reached at tmag@zoominternet.net.

Among the major reasons poverty exists are unemployment, underemployment, lack of health care and education, hunger, homelessness, undocumented immigration status, climate change and war.

But a strong case can be made that the tremendous income and wealth inequality that exists between the haves and the have-nots is the most serious reason poverty exists.

It has such a powerful negative influence that it also greatly fuels all the other causes of poverty.

Just last year alone, four out of every five dollars of wealth generated globally flowed into the wallets of the richest one percent, while the poorest half of humanity received nothing.

Oxfam's Executive Director Winnie Byanyima said, "It reveals how our economies are rewarding wealth rather than the hard work of millions of people. ... The few at the top get richer and richer and the millions at the bottom are trapped in poverty wages".

And in the U.S. wealth inequality is at near record levels.

"Servant of God" and co-founder of the Catholic Worker movement, Dorothy Day, said "We need to overthrow this rotten, decadent, putrid industrial capitalist system."

While not putting it as bluntly as Day, a new authoritative Vatican ethics in economics document, nonetheless, strongly challenges the grave moral injustices of the dominant global economic system that is increasingly putting profit before people.

It states: "No profit is in fact legitimate when it falls short of the objective of the integral promotion of the human person, the universal destination of goods, and the preferential option for the poor."

Produced by the Holy See's Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development and the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, the document Oeconomicae et pecuniariae quaestiones in quoting Pope Francis states, "Today, with a view towards the common good, there is urgent need for politics and economics to enter into a frank dialogue in the service of life, especially human life."

The document attempts to awaken consciences to the sad fact that "the number of people who live in conditions of extreme poverty continues to be enormous" - 767 million people according to The World Bank.

Reflecting on the recent Great Recession, the Vatican economics document laments the failure of political and economic leaders to develop a new economy based on people-centered ethical principles, joined to an "appropriate regulation of the dynamics of the markets." For it is clear that financial markets "are not capable of governing themselves."

Quoting Pope Francis, "Money must serve, not rule!"

But when money rules, it devalues the dignity of the human person, the common good and human work, and pushes people even below the inhumane status of society's exploited and oppressed, to no longer even being the underside of society, but now the outcasts of society - the "leftovers."

In opposition to this sinfully heartless situation the Vatican's document on ethical economics urges us to "construct a society that is a hospitable and inclusive dwelling place with room for the weakest, and where wealth is used for the benefit of all - places where it is beautiful for human beings to live and easy for them to have hope."

Let's get to it!

• Tony Magliano is an internationally syndicated social justice and peace columnist. He is available to speak at diocesan or parish gatherings. Tony can be reached at tmag@zoominternet.net.

"The whole church must become ecological because every Christian needs to live his or her life in harmony with nature and with others," the Archbishop of Huancayo in the Peruvian altiplano, told La Croix on June 12, 2013.

It is clear that Archbishop Barreto is perfectly in sync with Pope Francis in this area — and not simply because, like Jorge Bergoglio, he has been a Jesuit since 1961.

Appointed by Pope Francis as part of the Preparatory Synod on Amazonia, which will take place in Rome in October 2019, Archbishop Barreto, 74, has worked tirelessly to defend the environment.

"Everything that affects the water, the air and the earth also affects people, and particularly the poor!" he said.

"So, defending the environment also means helping the poor to live better," he said in 2013.

After completing his training in Spain, he returned to Peru, where he was appointed as rector of a seminary. Prior to his appointment to Huancayo, he was Vicar Apostolic of Jaen en Peru o San Francisco Javier.

Round table on the environment

After arriving in the Archdiocese of Huancayo, he became familiar with La Oroya, a mining city of 35,000 people, which is often considered to be one of the most polluted cities in the world because of its copper and lead smelters.

Following a miners' strike in 2005, which led to confrontations with the police, Archbishop Barreto established a "round table on the environment" with various institutions in the region.

As a result, the government ordered the US company, Doe Run, which has operated a mine there since 1997, to implement a program to clean up and manage the local environment. Continue reading

The life of the unborn must be "promoted and defended with great determination and given an effective priority," the archbishop told Catholic News Service April 17.

"At the same time," he said, "we must keep in mind that the dignity of every human being is equal and inviolable at every stage throughout his or her life."

In "Rejoice and Be Glad," his apostolic exhortation on holiness, Pope Francis wrote that living a Christian life involves the defense of both the unborn and the poor, and he criticized what he termed the "harmful ideological error" of thinking one's own cause is the only important one.

"Our defense of the innocent unborn, for example, needs to be clear, firm and passionate, for at stake is the dignity of a human life, which is always sacred,"

Pope Francis wrote. "Equally sacred, however, are the lives of the poor, those already born, the destitute, the abandoned and the underprivileged, the vulnerable infirm and elderly exposed to covert euthanasia, the victims of human trafficking, new forms of slavery, and every form of rejection."

Pope Francis' words reminded many people of the "seamless garment" approach to life issues promoted by the late Cardinal Joseph L. Bernardin of Chicago.

While applauding its recognition of the sacredness of all human life, some people criticized the approach, saying it could give people a mistaken impression that, for example, the church teaches abortion and capital punishment are equally serious sins.

Others worried that some Catholics would claim their defense of life in one area meant that they did not have to pursue the protection of life in other areas.

"We must keep in mind that the dignity of every human being is equal and inviolable at every stage throughout his or her life."

But "Pope Francis has reaffirmed that abortion is evil without mincing words," Archbishop Paglia said. At the same time, he asks that "the pro-life commitment be enlarged." Continue reading

• Image: The Papist

For Pope Francis, it was just a couple of weeks ago.

On Nov. 19, the Holy Father celebrating the first World Day of the Poor broke bread with not only one poor person, but with some 1,200 poor brothers and sisters (see photos: http://bit.ly/2ArCdTT).

And in doing so he gave us a humble example of what being in solidarity with the poor looks like.

In the homily during the Mass (see: http://bit.ly/2zQK1OM) which preceded his meal with the poor, Pope Francis reflected on Jesus' parable concerning the talents given to three servants in Matthew's Gospel.

Now while talents in the New Testament refer to large monetary units, the church has traditionally expanded the meaning of talents to refer to all of the generous gifts God has given each of us.

A central meaning of the parable is that each of us is expected by God to seriously use and develop the gifts he has given us in the ways that please him.

So the Holy Father asked "How, in practice can we please God?" He said, "When we want to offer something to the Lord, we can find his tastes in the Gospel."

Citing the last judgment scene, he pointed out that God is most pleased when we tirelessly serve our poor and vulnerable brothers and sisters - "the hungry and the sick, the stranger and the prisoner, the poor and the abandoned, the suffering who receive no help, the needy who are cast aside."

The pope reminded us of the Master's strong rebuke of the servant who did not use his talents to bear fruit, but only gave back what he received.

The pontiff said that the servant's evil was that of failing to do good. Here he warns us to attentively avoid the serious sin of omission and indifference towards the poor.

"All too often, we have the idea that we haven't done anything wrong, and so we rest content, presuming that we are good and just. But in this way we risk acting like the unworthy servant: he did no wrong. … But to do no wrong is not enough."

What are we doing with the talents God has given us? Are we steadfastly developing our gifts for the greater glory of God by generously and justly using them in tireless service to our needy brothers and sisters near and far?

And are we insisting that our regional and national representatives in government use the financial gifts we have entrusted them with - namely our taxes - to adequately serve each and every poor and vulnerable human being?

Although 300 million children go to bed hungry every night according to the U.N. Children's Fund (see: http://uni.cf/2pL2UKf), the U.S. Congress allocates only less than 1 percent of the federal budget for poverty-reduction aid. That is shameful.

Persistently lobbying our legislators to provide much more of our tax money towards ending hunger and poverty is one essential way to faithfully use our talents.

And how can we more effectively use the collective talents in our parishes to meet the immediate needs of the poor, and attack the root-causes of poverty?

Pope Francis wisely urged us to "not seek for ourselves more than we need, but rather what is good for others. … What we invest in love remains, the rest vanishes."

• Tony Magliano is an internationally syndicated social justice and peace columnist. He is available to speak at diocesan or parish gatherings about Catholic social teaching. His keynote address, "Advancing the Kingdom of God in the 21st Century," has been well received by diocesan and parish gatherings from Santa Clara, Calif. to Baltimore, Md. Tony can be reached at tmag@zoominternet.net

The Washington Post and the Kaiser Family Foundation asked 1,686 American adults to answer that question — and found that religion is a significant predictor of how Americans perceive poverty.

Christians, especially white evangelical Christians, are much more likely than non-Christians to view poverty as the result of individual failings.

"There's a strong Christian impulse to understand poverty as deeply rooted in morality — often, as the Bible makes clear, an unwillingness to work, in bad financial decisions or in broken family structures," said Albert Mohler, president of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary.

"The Christian worldview is saying that all poverty is due to sin, though that doesn't necessarily mean the sin of the person in poverty. In the Garden of Eden, there would have been no poverty. In a fallen world, there is poverty."

In the poll, conducted from April 13 to May 1 and has a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 4 percentage points, 46 percent of all Christians said that a lack of effort is generally to blame for a person's poverty, compared with 29 percent of all non-Christians.

The gulf widens further among specific Christian groups: 53 percent of white evangelical Protestants blamed a lack of effort while 41 percent blamed circumstances, and 50 percent of Catholics blamed a lack of effort while 45 percent blamed circumstances.

In contrast, by more than 2 to 1, Americans who are atheist, agnostic or have no particular affiliation said difficult circumstances are more to blame when a person is poor than lack of effort (65 percent to 31 percent).

The question is, of course, not just an ethical one but a political one, and the partisan divide is sharp: Among Democrats, 26 percent blamed a lack of effort and 72 percent blamed circumstances.

Among Republicans, 63 percent blamed a lack of effort and 32 percent blamed circumstances. And race mattered, too: Just 32 percent of black Christians blamed a lack of effort, compared to 64 percent who blamed circumstances.

A statistical analysis of the data showed that political partisanship is the most important factor in views on the causes of poverty, but religious identity stands out as one of several important demographic factors.

Theologians point to passages in the New Testament that shape Christians' views on poverty, from the verse in Thessalonians that says, "The one who is unwilling to work shall not eat," to Jesus' exhortations to care for needy people, including those who are sick and in prison, to the many interpretations of his statement quoted in Matthew, Mark and John, "The poor you will always have with you."

Helen Rhee, a historian who studies wealth and poverty in Christianity, attributed Christians' diverging viewpoint first to scripture and second to a theological divide in the early 20th century.

At the same time that fundamentalists were splitting from modernists over whether Christians should accept Charles Darwin's theory of evolution, an academic split emerged: premillennialists vs. postmillennialists. Continue reading

• Image: Share Your Essay

If the President-elect hurts those on life's margins, Francis says he will step in.

Otherwise, he wants to give Trump a chance.

Francis consistently shows concern for the poor and marginalised.

On Friday, as the Jubilee Year of Mercy came to an end, Francis welcomed 6,000 poor people to the Vatican.

Most were homeless people from around Europe.

They were there at his invitation. Their expenses were met by charitable organizations.

People with physical and mental disabilities were also welocmed to the end of the Jubilee celebrations.

Prisoners from around Italy have also enjoyed the Pope's company over the past few weeks.

Francis says the barriers dividing the rich and poor should be torn down.

He would like to see inequality leveled and human rights and freedoms improved.

"What we want is a fight against inequality. This is the greatest evil that exists in the world," he said.

"Christ spoke of a society where the poor, the weak, the marginalized are empowered... it is they who must help to achieve equality and freedom."

Source

• CBN News
• Christian Today
• Crux
• Royal Doors

The Pope's message for Lent 2016 warned about the corrupting influence of money and power.

And it pointing out that caring for the poor, and not just praying for them, is the path to genuine conversion.

"The corporal and spiritual works of mercy must never be separated," the Pope wrote.

"By touching the flesh of the crucified Jesus in the suffering, sinners can receive the gift of realising that they too are poor and in need."

Too often, he stated, "the real poor are revealed as those who refuse to see themselves as such . . . . This is because they are slaves to sin, which leads them to use wealth and power not for the service of God and others, but to stifle within their hearts the profound sense that they too are only poor beggars".

The Pope counselled against the "illusion of omnipotence", "which reflects in a sinister way the diabolical ‘you will be like God' (Gen 3:5) which is the root of all sin".

This illusion can take social and political forms, as in past totalitarian systems, and more recently "by the ideologies of monopolising thought and technoscience, which would make God irrelevant and reduce man to raw material to be exploited".

The Pope sounded a warning to "wealthier individuals and societies", which refuse to even see the poor.

"Yet the danger always remains that by a constant refusal to open the doors of their hearts to Christ who knocks on them in the poor, the proud, rich and powerful will end up condemning themselves and plunging into the eternal abyss of solitude which is hell.

"The pointed words of Abraham apply to them and to all of us: ‘They have Moses and the prophets; let them hear them' (Luke 16:29)"

Sources

• Religion News Service
• Pope's 2016 Lenten Message
• Image: DICI