St. Josemaria, the poor, and Catholic social doctrine

Interview with Fr. Enrique Colom, a Consultor to the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, and was contributing editor of their Compendium of the Social Teaching of the Church.


Q: How did St Josemaría practice charity and solidarity with the poor?
A: St Josemaría taught us that Opus Dei must be present “where there is poverty, where there is unemployment, where there is sadness, where there is suffering: to help people to bear suffering gladly, to make poverty disappear, to banish unemployment by educating and training people so that they can get jobs, and to bring Christ into everyone’s lives in so far as they want, because we are all in favor of freedom” (St Josemaría, speaking on October 1, 1967, cited in Una mirada hacia el futuro desde el corazón de Vallecas, Madrid 1998, p. 135). In this area, as in all others, he asked us for “unity of life”, meaning that we were to allow no separation between our faith and our life. That is why his teachings have inspired so many people to set up projects to help the poor, to enable them to achieve a decent standard of living and education.

Q: Can you give an example St Josemaría’s contribution to the social teaching of the Church?
A: Something I heard him say several times was that he would like to see Catholic catechisms include points showing that social action is a Christian duty, compatible with pluralism of ideas and methods in this field. The Catechism of the Catholic Church, and the Compendium of the Catechism of the Catholic Church, do now include such points, and I hope this may become universal practice in the catechisms published at diocesan level. Then people will learn right from the start that they need to take part in social affairs, in order to make them more human and more in accordance with the teaching of Jesus Christ.
St Josemaría also stressed the political freedom all Catholics have within the moral order. Specifically, he used to say that the whole life of the faithful of Opus Dei is – and I quote – “a service with exclusively spiritual aims, because Opus Dei is not, and will never be – nor could it be – a tool for temporal ends. But at the same time, it is also a service to mankind, because all you are doing is trying in an upright way to achieve Christian perfection, acting most freely and responsibly in all the areas of civil life. It is a self-sacrificing service that is not degrading, but uplifting; it expands the heart (making it more Roman, in the most noble meaning of the word) and leads you to pursue the honour and the good of people of every nation – to try to see that every day there are fewer people who are poor and uneducated, fewer souls without faith, without hope; fewer wars, less uncertainty, and more charity and peace” (St Josemaría Escrivá, letter dated May 1, 1943, cited in Pedro Rodriguez et al., Opus Dei in the Church, Four Courts Press, 1994, p. 107). I could quote plenty more examples, but I think that what I have just quoted summarizes the social teaching of the Church.