Poverty and Property

Thus the title of one of Archbishop Fulton Sheen's episodes of "Life is Worth Living" which was rebroadcast this morning on EWTN. Three notes.

• The most basic instinct is that of property/territory.
• Freud was wrong because everything is not reducible to the sexual drive.
• The communists were wrong because possession of property is a basic universal natural instinct.

He also explained that Poverty is not a problem but a mystery. This distinction between problem and mystery is central to the philosopher Gabriel Marcel whose works had some influence on the thought of Saint Pope John Paul II and Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI.

The problem is property. Property is a problem because it is a reality which is objectifiable and we are to manipulate it at will for personal and common benefit.

Poverty is a much deeper human reality because it involves the relative condition of persons. It is a personal problem. As such it is not a problem but a mystery and therefore involves each of us personally and cannot be properly objectified but must be grappled with in the same way that one approaches persons, not with selfishness but with the attitude of another self. This involves me. This is my problem. Poverty is not a problem outside of me, it is my problem! The anguish of others necessarily involves me! That is a basic mystery, the universal human family is interrelated and mutually responsible.

N.B. The outlawing of homelessness in America!

Notice the Gospel today (Matthew 13:44-52) speaks twice of the Kingdom of Heaven being like selling everything you have and buying the one most precious thing in the world. Getting rid of everything! Poverty! For the sake of the kingdom of heaven. This has been the way of Catholic religious like Saint Francis of Assisi and Saint Dominic, from the beginning! One way to solve the problem of property (recommended and personally practiced by our Blessed Lord Himself) is to personally get rid of it and to embrace the mystery of poverty under God.