How Catholic Anti-Poverty Crusaders Harm the Poor, by Eric Sammons

By Eric Sammons, Crisis Magazine, Sept. 1, 2021

Eric Sammons is the editor-in-chief of Crisis Magazine. His most recent book Deadly Indifference (May 2021) examines the rise of religious indifference and how it has led the Church to lose her missionary zeal.

By now, most Americans have noticed a disturbing trend: prices are going up. In some cases, way up. Last summer I built a treehouse for my kids, and I’m grateful that I did it before I needed to be Warren Buffet to afford a 2×4. And it’s not just lumber: used cars, groceries, housing (both rent and ownership), and many other items are all rapidly increasing in price.

For upper class Americans, this is mostly an annoying inconvenience, but for the lower class and even the middle class—many of whom live paycheck-to-paycheck—rising prices can lead to some hard choices. Can I afford the groceries this week? Am I able to buy my daughter clothes for the new school year? But I’ve yet to hear one word about this issue from those Catholic leaders who most want the Church to be the “Church of the Poor.” Why is that? Spoiler: because the very public policies they most advocate are a primary cause of these price increases. …

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