- 61 - 8. 14 Destitution Can the members of monastic orders truthfully be called poor? Are they not rather relieved for the rest of their days of all worry on the score of support? Is not the table set for them every day? Is that what you call poverty? If all people were as well off, there would be no poverty in the world. If ideal perfection is to be found in poverty, how is it that so many monasteries are so rich in worldly possessions? If poverty is the ideal condition for the individual, it must also be the ideal condition for the community. Furthermore, why do your clergy, who preach voluntary poverty as one of the highest degrees of perfection, not practice it themselves? Whoever preaches an ideal should surely be t h e f i r s t to practice it. Or do you perhaps call your clergy poor? Is the Pope poor? Are the bishops poor? Are the priests poor? There would be no more poverty on earth if everyone was as well off as those who preach poverty as an ideal. You invoke Christ’s speech to the rich youth to prove that voluntary poverty is necessary to perfection, but your interpretation of his words is quite incorrect. When Christ said to the young man: ‘If you want to be perfect, then sell everything you have and distribute the proceeds to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; then come and follow me’, this advice was for that particular youth, whose heart was set upon his money and possessions, which had become a snare for him and prevented his admission into the kingdom of God. When, on receiving this advice, the youth turned his back on Christ, the Lord said to his disciples: ‘My children, how difficult it is for those who have put their faith in money and possessions to enter into the kingdom of God!’ • Not everyone who is blessed with worldly goods is ‘rich’ in the sense Christ alluded to here, but only those whose hearts are set upon Mammon and who make a god of him. Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Job, and David were rich in material possessions, without belonging to that class of the rich to which Christ referred, for their wealth did not stand in their way on their road to God. Christ would never have told them to sell all they had, in order to become perfect. It was a different matter in the case of the rich youth, whose love of riches was such that it would not let him follow the call of God. He would rather do without the kingdom of God than without his wealth.
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