Poverty and the Church.

It is a wonderful feeling to be a champion of a good cause.   To feel that we are warm and sensitive people fighting for justice.  And yes there is in every human being a loving heart created by God which draws us towards those in peril, those in danger, or those in suffering.   That generous spirit makes us contribute and even offer our services to the poor of the third world whose poverty is caused by lack of development, lack of food, impure water, and Governments that just don't care.  When we turn to Europe there is also a great cry about the neglect of the poor.    Parties attack the others for the poverty in the country, Churches condemn the poverty but since this poverty is not due to scarcity of resources, poor development, and a shortage of food the causes and type of poverty is quite different.   It arises from neglect and to find the source of this neglect everyone in Europe must first examine their own self interest.   I know many families and all of them have one thing in common if they are not single parent families they are families where uncles come and go.  Of course there are families where the parents are unemployed but such families are more resilient because of the love they contain.  The root cause in the majority of cases is a girl who has been used and abused and finds herself raising children on her own, of a once married woman whose husband has just walked out on her and the children.   There are few families who have not suffered either of these and had to pick up  the pieces.   When the Churches then call on the Government to relieve poverty I am quite confused.    The problems I have described are moral problems and should we expect a Secular Government to rectify our failures.    And the failure of the Church it most certainly is,.    Jesus Christ gave us a model of love in the family, he spoke sternly against divorce and after he had done so in the Gospel turned to the little children who are always the ones most devastated by the loss of a Father and Mother.     THE  CHURCH  IN ENGLAND OVER THE PAST 40 YEARS  HAS TAUGHT  THE  INTENTION OF  JESUS  AS  AN IDEAL  SO  LET  US  NOT  QUOTE  THE BIBLE AND  THE JUDGEMENTAL  JESUS.    Of course we cannot hurt people, of course we want to keep them in Church, of course we want to be popular, and most important of all we do not want to hurt anyone but the answer is not to condemn  the Church but uphold what Christ said for the good of others.  Many parents who never went to Church after school return with their children because they want the Church to protect them from the society in which they grew up.   We let them down very badly.   Jesus knew about the anguish of divorce and he wanted children to be raised to love him and give their lives to Him. The divorced and remarried have a place in our Church and that is to protect children from going wrong where they went wrong, that is the loving thing to do.   Those who encouraged by perhaps a priest come back to challenge Jesus are not building the Kingdom.        .