They Call Me a Communist


“When I give food to the poor, they call me a saint. When I ask why they are poor, they call me a communist,” said Hélder Pessoa Câmara, the Brazilian Catholic priest who became known as ‘The Bishop of the Slums”. He was clearly on the side of the urban poor.

But didn’t Jesus say “The poor you will always have with you” ?Yes. He was quoting the Torah. Those who heard him would have understood the reference and understood  that he was advocating helping the poor.

If among you, one of your brothers should become poor, in any of your towns within your land that the Lord your God is giving you, you shall not harden your heart or shut your hand against your poor brother, but you shall open your hand to him and lend him sufficient for his need, whatever it may be … For the poor you will always have with you in the land. Therefore I command you, ‘You shall open wide your hand to your brother, to the needy and to the poor, in your land.’ (Deuteronomy 15:7-11)

Some people on the Right quote Jesus as saying “Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day; teach a man to fish and you feed him for the rest of his life.” They use this as justification for not giving. Only Jesus didn’t say it. It was Lao-Tzu and it was an exhortation to educate.

If only there was a way to find out who spends more money on public education!

Keep politics and religion separate? How can you? HOW CAN YOU? Jesus beat the exploiting bankers outside the Temple with a rope and kicked their stall over. Be like Jesus,