"What is My Obligation?"

How many of us have walked past a beggar with nary an eye blink? How many of us rationalize away giving to the poor man or woman with their hand out on the street corner? How many of us drive right by the person in the median there at Sam's Club holding the cardboard sign, trying hard not to make eye contact with him or her?

I am surely guilty. I can imagine most of you reading this are.

In a piece sure to get you thinking harder about those decisions, BadCatholic has put up a doozy of a post:

There are two commandments regarding poverty that I have come to dislike. The first is as follows: “Give a man a fish and you will feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and you will feed him for a lifetime.” I do not disagree. I have simply come to the sad conclusion that those most likely to use the phrase are those most likely to neither give, teach, or fish.

The second is my topic: “Never give money to a beggar. They’ll only spend it on drugs.”

The problem with this maxim is its cleverness. I am a man of conflicting desires. On the one hand, I want to keep my money, because I like money. On the other hand, I want to give to the poor, because it is good to give to those in need, and I desire the good. On the other hand, I want to go about my day without the interruption of a beggar, because I am selfish. On the other hand, I — a Christian, and worse, a Catholic — know that Christ wants me to break the pitiful shell of selfishness that petrifies me from reaching out towards my neighbor — to help.

Now the brilliance of the maxim is that it allows me to reconcile these conflicting desires — by doing nothing at all. I may keep my money, and more than that, keep it for the very reason I may have been inspired to give it away — for the benefit of the needy, who are benefited by my not supplying their potential drug addiction. I may walk past a beggar, and do it for the precise reason I may have stopped — I am called to help the poor, and it is no help to give money to a man who will “just spend it on drugs.” Miraculous! I may simulate the whole strength of moral feeling by doing nothing. I may walk past a beggar and say, “Thank you Lord, for helping me to show your love to the poor by aiding them in kicking their drug addictions by way of my generous not-giving.”

See, it is a clever commandment, but I am skeptical of any argument that allows me to do nothing in a spirit of doing something. But let us consider the claim.

It is true that we must give alms wisely. But what wisdom is it to assume a drug addiction of all beggars, and more than that, to assume that your personal act of almsgiving will be used, each time it is given, to that end?

Even if we do not make this assumption of all beggars, only admit the possibility of a beggar using our alms for drugs, our subsequent not-giving still seems based on a false conception of Christian charity. The Christian is not called to give usefully, that is, to give on the basis of the ends of his giving. Who among you buys flowers only on the condition that your gift is used for the ends you have in mind? A gift that is only given on the basis of what will be done with it is not gift, but an investment. As with all investments, it is dependent on the return, the result of giving. Giving on the basis of outcome isn’t necessarily bad, but it is hardly charity. For what is the Christian called to do? To love as God loves. How does God love him? Unconditionally. So, in imitation of our God, we should practice charity without conditions, understanding that a gift is not a philanthropic contribution to known, trusted and worthy cause — a gift that will only have the effects we are satisfied with — but a giving that allows for the possibility of misuse.