EDITORIAL

Pope Leo’s wisdom needed again in time of growing poverty

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One hundred twenty years ago Pope Leo XIII delivered the first papal social encyclical entitled Rerum Novarum.

Pope Leo recognized the massive changes in social structures—brought about by a shift from an agricultural to industrial economy—were leading to the emergence of a new class of working poor, and that these working poor were living in miserable conditions. Sadly Pope Leo’s prophetic encyclical is as needed today as it was in 1891. The U.S. Census Bureau’s poverty report issued last week suggests that the poor of our nation have rapidly grown poorer.

The Census report is an annual gauge of the level of economic prosperity and pain affecting the United States. Its findings suggest that the United States is in the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression. Locally in Rhode Island, 142,000 citizens lived in poverty in 2010, according to estimates from the U.S. Census Bureau's Current Population Survey. In fact, the percentage of Rhode Islanders living in poverty rose 2.2 percentage points from a two-year average of 11.1 percent in 2007 and 2008 to 13.3 percent in 2009 and 2010, an increase representing about 23,100 people. Poverty is on the rise and many of our elected officials, from the governor to the president, appear to be ill equipped to stem the steady increase of more Americans becoming poorer while a select few become richer.

In times of economic decline, as politicians consider budget cuts and “stimulus” bills among the solutions to jumpstart an ailing economy, the growing number of Americans and Rhode Islanders living in poverty must not be forgotten. Over a century ago Pope Leo XIII prophetically sensed that the economy of his time was creating a wide gap between the rich and poor and warned that the “public authority” now had a special duty to protect the rights of every individual, particularly the poor. He stated:“…When there is question of defending the rights of individuals, the poor and badly off have a claim to special consideration. The richer classes have many ways of shielding themselves, and stand less in need of help from the State; whereas the mass of the poor have no resources of their own to fall back upon, and must chiefly depend upon the assistance of the State. And it is for this reason that wage-earners, since they mostly belong in the mass of the needy, should be specially cared for and protected by the government." Our elected leaders, especially President Obama and Governor Chafee would do well to read Pope Leo XII’s great encyclical Rerum Novarum and begin to care for and protect the poor among us.