"Faith, Hope, Love, and Welfare Reform"
by Patrick Hynes - January 25, 2008
Reprinted with permission from our good friends at InsideCatholic.com, the leading online journal of Catholic faith, culture, and politics.
Who Really Cares: The Surprising Truth about Compassionate Conservatism
Arthur Brooks, Basic Books, 250 pages, $16.95
Charity, Pope Benedict XVI reminds us in his first encyclical, is the highest form of love. St. Thomas Aquinas called it the "form, mover, mother and root of all the virtues." If we reach it "we shall find rest," St. Augustine tells us. Without charity, Paul said, "I am nothing" and "I gain nothing." Jesus issued a "new commandment to his followers: "Love one another. As I have loved you, so you also should love one another."
Real charity, then, involves more than simply giving your time or money to the cause or non-profit organization of your choice. Caritas is that perfect manifestation of love of God and love of neighbor.
Arthur Brooks, professor at Syracuse University, approaches his study of charitable giving in America from an entirely pragmatic perspective. He has no qualms arguing:
Charity depends on behavior, not on motive. Looking for motives leads to the nonsensical argument that someone who gives nothing but supports the idea of helping others is more generous than a person who donates the charities and causes but who has no apparent great love for mankind. Although this argument might have theological merit, it is not useful for understanding private generosity and its benefits for society. (And it sounds suspiciously like an excuse not to write a personal check.)
Catholics will wonder at these occasional sections in Who Really Cares where Brooks dismisses any examination of motives; after all, his pragmatic view is quite a bit different from the definition of charity offered in Catholic Encyclopedia: "a divinely infused habit, inclining the human will to cherish God for his own sake above all things, and man for the sake of God." And yet Catholics – particularly Catholics on the conservative end of the political spectrum – will vigorously agree with virtually every other section of this book.
In 1997, Vice President Al Gore and his wife, Tipper, reported charitable donations totaling $353. Within two years, Gore was the Democratic nominee for president, running on a populist platform and claiming the Republicans were "for the powerful, and we are for the people." During his career as a wildly successful trial attorney, former U.S. Senator John Edwards took no pro bono cases. Today, Edwards is one of the frontrunners for the Democratic presidential nomination. He is running on a populist "two Americas" theme: one America for the rich, and another for everyone else who probably can't afford him.
