Many of us feel that when we have gained any wealth be it big or small, it is because we were good and it represents rewards for the efforts we have made or the hard work we have done. It was well-deserved. Enough of us do not see our well-deserved wealth as an opportunity to assist others and improve their lives, which is part of our collective responsibility.

Many of us are so consumed with earning wealth, because we see wealth as an end in itself. This leads us to achieve it by any means necessary often engaging in immoral or unfair practices and in some cases illegal activities. 

“Goods, even when legitimately owned, always have a universal destination; any type of improper accumulation is immoral, because it openly contradicts the universal destination assigned to all goods by the Creator. Christian salvation is an integral liberation of man, which means being freed not only from need but also in respect to possessions.

 ‘For the love of money is the root of all evils; it is through this craving some have wondered away from the faith’. The Fathers of the Church insist more on the need for the conversion and transformation of the consciences of believers than on the need to change the social and political structures of their day. They call on those who work in the economic sphere and who possess goods to consider themselves administrators of the goods the God has entrusted to them.”

“Riches fulfill their function of service to man when they are destined to produce benefits for others and for society. ‘How could we ever do good to our neighbour?’ asks St Clement of Alexandria, ‘if none of us possessed anything?’

In the perspective of St John Chrysostom, riches belong to some people so that they can gain merit by sharing them with others.  Wealth is a good that comes from God and it is to be used by its owner and made to circulate so that even the needy may enjoy it.

Evil is seen in the immoderate attachment to riches and the desire to hoard. St Basil the Great invites the wealthy to open the doors of their storehouses and he exhorts them: ‘A great torrent rushes, in thousands of channels, through the fertile land: thus by a thousand different paths, make your riches reach the homes of the poor.’

Wealth, explains Saint Basil, is like water that issues forth from the fountain: the greater the frequency with which it is drawn, the purer it is, while it becomes foul if the fountain remains unused. 

The rich man – St Gregory the Great will later say – is only an administrator of what he possesses; giving what is required to the needy is a task that is to be performed with humility because the goods do not belong to the one who distributes them. He who retains riches only for himself is not innocent; giving those in need means paying a debt.”

Next week we move to Section II of the Chapter on Economic Life – Morality and the Economy.

Interested in purchasing the Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church? Please contact the Catholic Commission for Social Justice, Archbishop’s House – 622-6680.