Church of the Poor

“I should like to save the Shire, if I could - though there have been times when I thought the inhabitants too stupid and dull for words, and have felt that an earthquake or an invasion of dragons might be good for them. But I don't feel like that now. I feel that as long as the Shire lies behind, safe and comfortable, I shall find wandering more bearable: I shall know that somewhere there is a firm foothold, even if my feet cannot stand there again.”

The hobbits come to mind when I think of Cardinal Jean Danielou's term "church of the poor".   A couple of years ago I read a book of his called Prayer as a Political Problem.     In it, he makes the point that the Church founded by Jesus is open to all and the only qualification is faith.   It didn't matter if you were a Pharisee or a prostitute, a tax collector or a centurion.    He writes:

"The problem, therefore, is to ask what conditions make a Christian people possible.   And to answer that question one must ask what were the conditions that once made a Christian people possible.    It is strange that it is often those who speak most of the evangelization of the poor who are the most hostile to the conditions that make the gospel accessible to the poor."

 By "poor" he does not mean primarily the indigent.  He means the man on the street, the ordinary person, the halfling, people who are living their lives and raising their children.   What makes it possible for them to have prayer in their ordinary lives, short of taking heroic measures like entering a monastery?

His argument is that while the age of the Catholic confessional state is probably over, that does not release society (or the Church!) from its responsibility to make itself conducive to true good for all.   

I think his point above applies to many of the liturgical and theological abuses that have taken place since the 60's and up to the present time.    

A secular society may have some responsibility for the difficulty of living a life of faith today, especially when it is determined to bar any sign of the faith in schools and workplaces and government agencies, but it was Church representatives who despised popular devotions, made jokes or openly spoke against established teachings and morals, and too often made a mockery of the liturgy.

The laity has responded in many different ways.  Sure, they get involved in vigorous and sometimes sterile controversies on the internet, but they've also volunteered and donated and worked towards restoring a lively Christian culture.    Many Christians of good will are too busy and preoccupied, though, to educate themselves, to hold to their rights against authority figures.    They are the "church of the poor" that often fall through the gaps; they stop going to a church that seems to despise them and their efforts to transcend the culture, or if they keep going, their children fall away.   

I am not sure what the answer to the problem is.   In Live Not By Lies,  Rod Dreher speaks to a lot of people who have experienced secularism in its totalitarian aspect, in Communist and Nazi societies.   By looking at what these ordinary people have done, he tries to give an action list to ordinary people in a society opposed to what they believe in.  

Here's a bit more on Jean Danielou's humanism.