#123

By PETER THOMAS BUSCH

W

hy the poor deserve charity can be explained by poor demographics – apart from the lack of moral compulsion of those players with the abundance that could be used to provide for the needy.

The reality of poverty though is that systemic barriers that developed organically have caused so much collateral damage that the eradication of poverty has become nearly impossible.

The demographics just will not change unless all the players involved begin to intervene in earnest.

Pope Leo XIV describes poverty as a complex systemic issue that has persisted through the ages, in the Apostolic Exhortation Dilexi te of the Holy Father Leo XIV on Love for the Poor, published on October 4, 2025.

More so though, the presence of the poor reflects the precariousness of human existence. (Apostolic Exhortation Dilexi te, para 109).

Jesus Christ not only raised the poor out of poverty, but Jesus himself joined the poor and walked alongside them to share his love as equally with them as with the rest of humanity.

Pope Leo XIV states that all people are equal, in having been equally bestowed with the love of Jesus Christ inside them.

This message from the Vatican underscores that through the inspiration of Jesus, people ought to show charity to the poor and create great works in the name of Jesus that ease the struggle of the less fortunate.

This change in attitude ain’t gonna happen overnight, though.

Society must change the mentality around poverty in a way that impacts ideology on the cultural level, states Pope Leo XIV (11).

The democratic capitalist illusion, that creates consumerism, simultaneously creates poverty because of the myopic greed involved in the accumulation of wealth – and because of the artificial desire for social success based on those increased riches. This imperfect merging of ideology must change, according to Pope Leo XIV.

The imbalance of riches means that not everyone can have the same amount of money and that ultimately a few ultra rich have as much as the many other people combined do not have.

One reason to help the poor is because the rich don’t need any help. Certain people need to nurture others as part of their reason for existing, and the ultra rich would likely reject such assistance out of sheer audacity and defiant irreverence, such as Jeff Bezos, Bill Gates, Elon Musk, and Larry Ellison.

Multiple layers of economic and social impoverishment exist in various forms.

Gender barriers exist that cause poverty among women, although women possess the same dignity and identical rights as men given to them by Jesus, states Pope Leo XIV.  (12)

That gender equality is present through God’s love. Only secular equality is taken away from people based on the political and economic ideologies influencing society. Pope Leo XIV states that poverty is not ‘by blind chance or cruel fate’ and that new forms of poverty emerge as a result of new secular ideologies. (13-15)

The current economic imbalance and increased concentration of wealth among fewer and fewer people is the result of marketplaces that rely on unbridled competition. This absolute insistence on allowing the economic levers to create winners and loser also pushes people onto the margins of society. (93)

No matter what occurs, the wealthy do better than anyone else. Only the ordinary person struggles. And the poor suffer. The wealthy shore up their future against uncertainty with the accumulation of wealth. In extreme situations, the ultra rich can replace a mansion destroyed in a wildfire or replace a yacht no longer anchored in the harbor.

The elite rich are buffered from the impact of a crisis with the immense wealth tucked away in a digital bank vault.

People with less means may survive the cyclone, but they may then be thrust into a cycle of poverty from which they may never reemerge.

Systemic barriers cut against the poor. If the trickle down economic stimulus theory works, the flow of cash stops after the middle class, to leave the poor continually spiraling in poverty, without housing, without jobs that pay the household expenses, and without inclusion in that part of society that does benefit from the prevailing economic policies.

Money may not buy love, but money buys a lot of everything else. The poor are constantly at risk of food insecurity when there is an abundance available for anyone that can afford  everything else.

With too little disposable income there can often be nothing available for the poor. And then when disasters strikes the community…

In a report, Poverty Trends 2024, Finding our Place in Systemic Change, the Citizens for Public Justice underscore the systemic issues that result in poverty in Canada.

Poverty is not just measured by a household standard of living, although many people are prevented from attaining a minimum standard of living. Living with poverty consistently involves low income, food insecurity and inadequate housing.

The report identifies historical factors as well as current socio-economic issues.

Pope Leo XIV points to the formation of cities in the 13^th century as the start of income disparity.

In Canada, cities were not formed until the 16^th century. But the 13^th century and the 16^th century initiated the momentum behind the current systemic barriers, which was given further inertia throughout the ages by colonialism, racism, sexism, and generally systems of oppression that favor the rich and discriminate against the poor.

Furthermore, discrimination prevents equal access to property ownership, education, individual rights and gainful employment. These structural flaws in society have left a proportion of the population on the margins, stuck in a perpetual cycle of disadvantage.

Colonialization, for example, displaced entire indigenous communities from a way of life the indigenous people had relied upon for survival for generations, if not centuries.

The more apparent systems of oppression such as slavery further intensified the disparities between rich and poor. People were never equal, according to the prevailing political and economical ideologies.

Jesus may have still loved everyone equally, but secular society needed them for other purposes.

Citizens for Justice point to discriminatory historical events that have created poverty in perpetuity. The ideology behind slavery in New France, for example, continued to discriminate even after the abolishment of slavery under British Rule in 1834. The ancestors of the 4200 Black slaves recorded in the 1600s remained impoverished as secular society continually refused to restore their inherent dignity and equality.

The Residential School system compounded the problem by separating the children from their indigenous parents so as to be schooled as white Christians. This system of oppression through education and religion not only erased opportunities that ought to have been available for a generation, but caused intergenerational trauma that continues to marginalize indigenous peoples.

Legalized discrimination took other forms, by way of social exclusion. The right to vote was initially limited to white men age 21 or older who owned property. If you didn’t own property, you were out of luck; if you hadn’t turned 21, you were out of luck; if you were not of the male gender, you were out of luck; and if you were not white, you were out of luck for another generation.

Those included with full shares got a head start and continue to lead, while living in poverty becomes perpetually disadvantageous.

Only through the Love of the Lord will people be made whole again.