Despite Gospel counsels about almsgiving, this ancient practice can arouse negative feelings. Every day whether by phone or mail, agencies plead for donations. To those in extreme indigence like The Bowery Mission, immediate relief must come. Still, you can almost read people’s thoughts: ‘Do they think we’re human ATM machines?’
Americans, and certainly Catholics, are generous people. The Church has a 2,000-year tradition of caring for the needy, a tradition bolstered by papal...
