Poverty

“Reportedly about two-thirds of the $66 million collected in 2018 was spent making up for shortfalls in the Vatican budget.” - Fox

“Who Killed Civil Society?: The Rise of Big Government and the Decline of Bourgeois Norms argues that ‘formative’ efforts by private organizations to prevent social problems from appearing … have been supplanted by the ‘reformative’ efforts of government programs to remedy problems once they appear.

“If you think that volunteering for an organization that is raising funds to provide food and housing, among many other services, for the needy is an inherently praiseworthy act, you haven’t been following the woke left-wing activists cutting a swath through American culture.” - National Review

“Christians who oppose government intervention are often accused of harboring indifference, or antipathy, for the poor. But an abundance of evidence from two continents shows that welfare state policies actually reduce the wealth of the poor and raise prices, while benefiting the upper-middle class and well-connected corporations at taxpayers’ expense.” - Acton

“Sanders’ statement takes on greater significance given the context of his interviewer’s question: Bernie Sanders credited capitalism with lifting 1.2 billion people out of extreme poverty.” - Acton

“What Barr describes is a long-term shift from an understanding that a robust civil society, including religious institutions, could promote healthy norms such as sobriety and self-discipline to a belief that government could be relied upon for rehabilitation, the term emphasized by the Kennedy administration when it first authorized federal grants for social services.” - National Review

“To the extent that flourishing economies burst forth from fertile soil, it’s worth asking whether economic experiments like these can aid us in understanding how soil that is currently infertile might be enriched. But we should also ask whether some of our current efforts are poisonous rather than enriching.” - Acton

“… if we recognize the inherent value of the individual we would aim to restore that person to a condition of personal freedom and independence. Our goal would be to raise the poor to a place where they are personally responsible for their own lives.” - IFWE

“The economy is a system through which we exchange value and make a contribution that benefits both ourselves and others. Accordingly, it would be tempting to arrive at some judgment of our own value as a person based on the rewards that arise through our economic participation. Of course, that isn’t true or even mostly true.” - Acton

“The church, government, and business are all ordained by God and each have a very important role to play in poverty relief. But each exists for a much different purpose than the other.” - IFWE