Poverty for Catholic Christians is above all a moral problem, which "our faith calls us to respond to the cry of the poor with charity and justice, both at the personal level and in creating systemic change," said Father Larry Snyder, president of Catholic Charities USA, during an Orange County conference on March 29.

"Poverty in California: Our Catholic Response" drew some 40 local Catholic Charities workers to Irvine from the dioceses of Orange and San Bernardino and the Los Angeles Archdiocese.

During his afternoon PowerPoint presentation, Father Snyder drew heavily from "Poverty in America: A Threat to the Common Good," a policy paper Catholic Charities adopted last year, calling for a radical decrease in the nation's poverty by at least half by 2020.

"Poverty in the United States is a moral and social wound in the soul of our country," he said, quoting from the paper's executive summary. "It is an ongoing disaster that threatens the health and well-being of our nation. We have the resources, experience and knowledge to virtually eliminate poverty, especially long-term poverty, but we do not yet have the political will."

Father Snyder said the "moral compass" for Christians trying to understand and deal with poverty in their midst should come first and foremost from Sacred Scripture.

Old Testament prophets declared that special attention must be given to widows, orphans and strangers, he noted. Jesus reinforced reaching out to society's neediest in parables, including the well-known story of the Good Samaritan, as well as by his personal examples of sevanthood, such as washing the feet of the apostles at the Last Supper.

No silver bullet
Papal encyclicals - from Pope Leo XIII's "Rerum Novarum" in 1891, stressing the dignity laborers must be afforded, to Pope Benedict XVI's recent "Deus Caritas Est," stressing charity as a responsibility of the Church - have even more explicitly focused on the plight of the poor, noted Father Snyder.

"There is no silver bullet in ending poverty," the head of Catholic Charities acknowledged. "Poverty is not monolithic. There's not one hurdle that people get over and say, 'OK, now I'm not in poverty.' There are many hurdles and there are many, many things that keep people in poverty.

"There is not one face of people in poverty. There are those who are situationally poor, those who are generationally poor, and those who are poor because of debilitating mental illness or addiction. And each group is going to have to be addressed separately."

He said Catholic Charities must be a "convener" in communities, bringing together social service providers, housing developers, educators and government officials to first determine the greatest local social needs, and then devise strategies to address them.

But Father Snyder stressed that his agency, along with the entire church, must do for today's poor what was done for Irish immigrants in the late 19th century, when 70 percent of the residents of "poor houses," more than 50 percent of inmates in prisons and more than 50 percent of children in the child welfare system were born in Ireland.

"It going to take the same kind of will on our part," he said. "Nobody in Washington is talking about poverty, and our elected officials think that there is not the political will in this country to do anything about it.

"I think they're wrong," he added. "But we have to prove that to them. And that means again that we have to get our people mobilized enough for them to say, 'We are concerned about these issues in our community. We will address them locally, but we also need help on a state and national level."

California's subculture
The other speaker at the poverty conference was Patrick Henning, director of the California Employment Development Department. The Sacramento deacon said the Golden State was "totally unique" from others, with 37 million people, plus its varied economy, diverse population and young workforce.

But in terms of the state's overall economic picture, he noted that one striking statistic stood out. "As opposed to the national average, we have 25 percent more low-wage workers in California, and it's growing day by day," he said. "Many are newly arrived immigrants, not all from Mexico, not all who speak Spanish."

Poverty in California, with its sky-high cost of living and multi-economies, especially in urban areas, is also not the same as in other states. But he said the federal government's one-size-fits-all poverty guidelines don't take these factors into account. In pointing out how a family of four had to earn no more than $20,650 to qualify for being poor enough to receive benefits, the administrator, shaking his head, scoffed, "Give me a break! You can't exist in California if you earn that much."

But even using the federal government's official stringent measure of poverty, he reported that 16 percent of Californians were impoverished, with the figure up to 18 percent in Los Angeles County and 28-to-35 percent in the central valleys when harvest season was over.

Henning also talked about the state's "underground" economy, where workers are often exploited, receiving low pay and no health or unemployment insurance. He called the $60 billion-a-year business that employs 100,000 workers the largest growing industry in California.

"Overall, we are not spending money on training the unskilled," he said. "And with the growth of poverty, 25 percent higher than any other state, we are developing a subculture that's going to grow and grow and grow while we turn our back on it. We are not helping those in our midst at all."

Living responsibly
Steve Pehanich, executive director of Catholic Charities of California, said the Golden State, with the sixth largest economy in the world, can really lead the way in reducing poverty by half in the United States by 2020. He explained that individuals do that first by looking closely at their own consuming and spending habits and second by influencing relatives, friends, coworkers, fellow churchgoers and clients.

"I think a lot of it involves people's decisions on what they purchase," Pehanich told The Tidings. "What stores they buy from. Who they hire. How they work with other people. All those things make a difference in how they live their lives.

"And if you try to live socially responsibly, it can be difficult," he pointed out. "But what's important? Are you volunteering some place? Are you providing good stewardship financially with time and energy?"

Msgr. Gregory Cox, executive director of Catholic Charities of Los Angeles, said a vital role his agency plays, besides direct service to the poor, is making people aware poverty exists even in relatively good economic times like today. And one of the most effective ways to do this is by providing volunteer opportunities at agency sites like St. Robert's Center in Venice, where volunteers serve meals on weekends.

"People just don't think of poverty, especially in times when the economy is good and unemployment is down," he explained. "But I think the role of Catholic Charities is to let people smell poverty, let them touch poverty, let them feel poverty, let them listen to poverty. All of that begins to develop a greater awareness."

Msgr. Cox agreed that the church will never have the necessary resources to end poverty, so it must join with the government, businesses, universities, other churches and agencies like United Way. But he observed that individual parishes can offer support for at least some indigent individuals and families. Moreover, wealthier members of the parish can be encouraged to share their blessings with others.

"But for families who are poor and don't have material things, the church's teachings can show that there's still a dignity within their life," he said. "Just because they're poor, they're not less in the eyes of God.

"And that's a very important thing for a person's self-worth and self-value that the church can also give," he stressed. "God loves us infinitely, and that's the basis for our value."