poverty Archives - Catholic Herald

poverty

British Catholic bishops highlight ‘grave violations’ of human dignity scarring modern world

April 10, 2024

The Catholic Bishops’ Conference of England and Wales has welcomed the Vatican’s declaration on Human Dignity for highlighting an issue that lies at the heart of the mission of the Church and for highlighting the “grave violations” of human dignity that scar the modern world. The main novelty of the document – which is the fruit

Being pro-life, like being Christian: It’s about what you do, not what you protest

July 09, 2021

A friend had taken a perilous road trip, to save a family in danger of being killed. My friend’s a pro-life activist, who stands outside abortion clinics and talks to people in a friendly way. If expectant mothers going into the clinic are willing, she befriends them, and she gets them what they need so

Sometimes You’ll Get Conned

May 19, 2021

Angel was in need, and friends were happy to help her, until they discovered that she wasn't in the need she'd said she was. If you practice the works of mercy, sometimes you're going to get conned. Practice them anyway.

The Homeless Can’t Come In Out of the Cold

January 04, 2021

The first Catholic church to be built on that spot was begun in 1830, constructed with the labor and funds of the working class children of Irish and German immigrants. Their descendants only come here for Mass. This is the normal ebb and flow of the tide of American cities. We come here as riffraff, live downtown in squalor, build a church, and eventually our descendants become people who want nothing to do with the squalid riffraff that live downtown.

‘Are Those Table Runners?’ Asked the Woman Who’d Lost Everything Just Before Christmas

December 21, 2020

She had her left leg on one of those little scooters people use when they’ve broken an ankle. She’d asked the clerk at St. Vincent de Paul to take a drip coffee maker out of the box. It was new, still in the wrapping, and cost about $2.00, maybe $3.00. Everything’s sold as is and

I Speak Too Well to Be Poor: An Advent Reminder

December 11, 2020

I speak too well to be poor. Even as I’m weeping on the phone, and the very kind woman is explaining to me that I had to make more before the pandemic to qualify for help, and I try to explain to her that there was no way to make money before the pandemic, and

That COVID-19 Comes to Appalachia

November 27, 2020

The cold came on so fast this year. We’d had a couple of cold snaps in northern Appalachia this fall; it even snowed a little on November first. But the real wintry cold came in with a wind storm this weekend. It went from t-shirt weather to near freezing in six hours, and this time

Why are addicts and outcasts so often strongly religious?

February 27, 2017

Many people on the streets are holding fast to God when every other social tie has failed them