Poverty is okay but exaggerating is not and above
all we should not be misled by media that use Pope Francis’ words to
counter the Church’s alleged wealth.
This is according to Archbishop Jozef Michalik who wrote an article for Polish newspaper Niedziela, criticising the tendency of some Polish media to sugar-coat their coverage of news relating to Francis’ pontificate. He says articles are often one-sided and focus exclusively on the Pope’s messages on poverty.
In his article, the prelate warns against a trivialisation of the Pope’s real message. Not giving too much importance to material goods is a positive thing but popular and ideologically-biased media try to attack the Church which they claim is too wealthy, using the Pope as a pretext.
Michalik stresses the importance of covering other areas of papal teaching too, such as work, family ethics and courage in faith. Poverty is a spiritual gift and must not be linked to misery and deprivation or with praise for destitution, the archbishop writes, pointing out that John Paul II was not tied to material goods at all.
According to the President of the Polish Episcopal Conference, clerics must of course avoid luxury as they are supposed to live off the offerings of faithful. But luxury does not mean owning a car or a PC.
These things are useful for work. Michalik concludes by saying that the Polish Catholic Church is rich in human not in money terms, as the number of donations demonstrate for example.
It was thanks to the generosity of faithful after the recent floods in Argentina that Caritas Polska managed to raise 50 thousand dollars to send to those whose lives were devastated by this tragic natural disaster.