Poverty is a complex word. It has negative and positive meanings at the same time: it is associated with lack and deprivation, but also with bliss and aspiration for life. The poor man is to be pitied, he is guilty of his condition, or he is a saint, who has understood the secret of a happy life. He is a person to help, or an example to imitate.
The Iranian economist Majid Rahnema, in his book When poverty becomes misery identifies five forms of poverty:
“The one chosen by my mother and my Sufi grandfather, like the great poor of Persian mysticism; that of some poor people in the neighborhood where I spent the first twelve years of my life; that of women and men in a world in the process of modernization, with insufficient income to follow the race for the needs created by society; that linked to the unbearable privations endured by a multitude of human beings reduced to humiliating forms of misery; that, finally, represented by the moral misery of the property classes and some social environments that I encountered in the course of my professional career “(2005, Einaudi).
Five forms of poverty, but not all curses; some even ways to happiness. There is indeed poverty and … poverty. The original title of the Iranian economist’s book is much more eloquent than its Italian translation: Quand la misère chasse la pauvretéthat is When misery drives out poverty. In certain circumstances, in fact, misery is so serious that it is impossible to live poverty understood as a freely chosen virtue: if I do not have the money to feed my children, or to care for them, it is impossible to choose a sober and generous life. “For the man with an empty stomach, food becomes God,” Gandhi said; and when man is in such a condition, he easily becomes a slave to whoever promises him that food. The economist Alfred Marshall also put it this way in 1890: “It is true that even a poor man can reach the highest happiness in religion, family affections and friendship. But the conditions that characterize extreme poverty tend to kill this happiness ”. We could therefore say that poverty is a blessing and misery instead a curse. Poverty must therefore be fought, poverty can become an ideal of life, which leads to happiness. This last connection is difficult to understand: why can voluntarily depriving ourselves of goods and riches make us happy? “Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of heaven” (Lk 6:20). The poor experience the kingdom of heaven already on this earth: «A kingdom where providence is known, which only the poor experience: providence is for Lucia, not for Don Rodrigo. The most beautiful feasts are the feasts of the poor: perhaps there are no more joyful things on earth than weddings and births celebrated by the poor in the midst of the poor “(Luigino Bruni,” Avvenire “2015).
Women and the poor: a double marginality
Unfortunately, even when we speak of misery and compulsion to a poor life, we must note that there are differences between men and women: not even misery levels genders. I recently met a woman who for 13 years worked as a caregiver without protection: she is now unemployed, without the possibility of a pension, desperate for an opportunity, and therefore ready to remain invisible in order to have food. Here she opens the issue of the lesser financial autonomy of women which exposes them to greater fragility in the face of unfortunate events. Most women do not have a bank account, if married they do not have account ownership, and, having less practice, they are also less competent in these areas. And unfortunately there is a well-documented correlation between financial autonomy and domestic violence: the women most prone to domestic violence are those who do not have the freedom and autonomy to distance themselves from abusive husbands. Violence is now a known phenomenon, but there are many other areas in which women are not known and recognized, especially when they risk impoverishment and exclusion.
Sometimes, in fact, the data we collect distort reality, often because they were conceived by men and having man as the norm. It is the thesis of Caroline Criado Perez, which in her book Invisible women: exposing data bias in a world designed for men (Chatto & Windus, London 2019) cites many examples of how statistics do not see the specifics and needs of women, and therefore return a deformed picture of reality. And if the policies are based on these data, it goes without saying that women have a harder life. According to the author, women are invisible in everyday life: let’s think of domestic work (associated with women) which is seen as a normal phenomenon; in the planning of cities: how many urban plans take into account who normally moves to do the shopping ?; at work: the wage gap between men and women for carrying out identical tasks is now known; in technology: just to cite an example, Google’s software designed for dictation decrypts the male language with a 70 percent higher probability than the female one; in the medical field: taking the male body as a paradigm and object of study still leads to a greater number of misdiagnoses for women, and limits research on typically female pathologies.
If we remembered more often that human beings are male and female, actions to combat poverty would also be more effective.
Poverty is a choice only when poverty has been overcome
Returning to the difference between poverty and misery, it is important to recognize a link between these two conditions: only those who freely choose a poor lifestyle, only those who renounce goods and experience the condition of poverty, can help the poor to recover. On the other hand, everything that comes from top to bottom, and sees the condition of deprivation only as a problem to be solved, will never have the right keys to effectively combat misery. Luisa de Marillac, Francesco di Sales, Giovanna di Chantal, and then Giovanni Battista Scalabrini (made a saint on 9 October by Pope Francis), Giuseppe Benedetto Cottolengo, Giovanni Calabria, Francesca Cabrini, Giovanni Bosco, Mother Teresa, choosing the path of poverty, they received eyes to see in the poor, the shameful, the derelict, the street children, the immigrants, the sick, even the deformed, something great and beautiful for which it was worth spending their lives and that of hundreds of thousands of people who followed them, attracted and inspired by their example. In this trail of precursors and prophets, the figures of women stand out for their courage and ability to go against the tide, given the fact that they have generally been relegated to the background. Unfortunately, the example and deeds of these women, many of them founders of religious institutes and orders, is less known than that of their male “colleagues”. Even today many religious institutes for women are on the frontier of what we could call misery in the misery of many women: human trafficking and sexual exploitation of women, literacy and financial education, especially in countries where women are not given access to ordinary paths. of education, help to motherhood, where one can easily die in giving birth to a creature.
The work of consecrated women is not that of an NGO
How does the work of so many consecrated women on behalf of other women differ from that of so many international agencies? First of all, the purpose: to make alive the words of Jesus “I have come to bring life and life in abundance” (Jn 10:10). Bring the tenderness of God for every creature, especially for the marginalized and excluded. Secondly, there is a how, which is an already and a not yet. A Christian proposal so that we are not excluded, that of the communion of goods. In the first Christian community, we read in the Acts of the Apostles: «Those who owned fields or houses sold them, brought the amount of what had been sold and placed it at the feet of the Apostles; and then it was distributed as needed ” [At. 4, 34-35]. The sharing was free and spontaneous, and the goods were distributed according to need. The consequence of the sharing is that in the Community “there were no needy”. When in a community one gives joyfully and shares everything, there are no needy people. A choice of individual sobriety shared among many generates inclusive communities. The apostle Paul, in every small church he founded, organized the collections and in his letters he explains how to carry them out, for this he insists, recalls and thanks. From Saint Paul we learn that goods are shared, but also one’s work, so that everyone has something to give and that Providence is a fundamental actor in sharing: “Each one gives according to what he has decided in his heart … He who administers the seed to the sower and bread for nourishment, he will also give and multiply your seed ” [2 Cor. 9, 7.10].
Providence and the hundredfold are not always manifested on the same level as the gifts and goods that are placed in communion. To deprive oneself of material goods, for example, can correspond to an unexpected fruitfulness of work, and vice versa. In this regard, a passage from the Letter to the Romans: «Macedonia and Achaia wanted to make a collection in favor of the poor who are in the Jerusalem community. They wanted it because they are indebted to them: in fact, having the pagans shared in their spiritual goods, they are in debt to render a sacred service in their material needs “(cf. Rom 15: 20-27). Communion of spiritual and material goods, therefore.
The path of communion of goods depends on the commitment of all and on the contribution of each. It is no coincidence that the first disagreement in the first Christian community is the episode of Ananias and Sapphira. [At. 5, 1-11 ] They, while sharing the goods, also try to keep something for themselves, lying to Peter. The first problem of corruption in the Community does not concern doctrine or faith, but the communion of goods. Is it perhaps because of this episode, and of the many episodes in which personal interests prevail over the common good, that today little is said about the communion of goods as an ideal and a way of life that would solve the problem of the discarded at the root? Yet many religious institutes, many Christian communities and movements, without making too much noise, are living this ideal and they are germs, sketches of how the world could be if we thought of it with the eyes of it is discarded and we all understood the bliss of poverty.
by Alessandra Smerilli
Daughter of Mary Help of Christians, economist, secretary of the Dicastery for the service of integral human development