If the rich countries of the West could bring thirty percent, or even five percent, of the poor children of the Third World into Western homes, taking them away from their poor parents and poor grandparents and poor cousins, removing them from the grinding poverty that limits their prospects and shortens their lives,would this be the best thing for these children? The answer to this question appears to be, ‘Yes,’ according to those who support unlimited adoption of the unfortunate children of the world by Western couples.

I say the answer is, ‘No.’  The poor are just like the rich in one respect. They need more than material things. They need their home lands and their people. They cannot be stripped naked of these and be forced to accept a creed of universal liberation. They are human too, not rootless beings fed only by abstractions and material goods.

“If the poor man’s right was only derived from strict necessity, your piddling selfishness would soon reduce him to a bare minimum, paid for by unending gratitude and servility.”

Such are the words of Monsieur le Curé de Torcy, the senior curate of George Bernanos’ The Diary of a Country Priest. He continues to say of  Christ’s claim, The poor you have always with you, but me you have not always with you:

Rich and poor alike, you’d do better to look at yourselves in the mirror of want, for poverty is the image of your own fundamental illusion. Poverty is the emptiness in your hearts and in your hands. It is only because your malice is known to Me that I have placed poverty so high, crowned her and taken her as My bride. If once I allowed you to think of her as an enemy, or even as a stranger, if I let you hope that one day you might drive her out of the world, that would be the death sentence of the weak.

                                           —- Comments ——

Hannon writes:

Kidist Paulos Asrat wrote in the earlier post on adoption and Angelina Jolie:

“This will sound callous, but I think the great suffering people feel in their own country is nothing compared to the great emptiness many feel in countries they feel alien towards. This existential suffering is far worse, far more damaging than the materialistic one. Poverty has always been with us. Societies have always found ways to deal with it. But, I know of no society which can deal with existential emptiness.”

I agree very much with what she says here and know what she means from my experiences in poor countries. Often these people are too busy trying to survive, to avoid suffering, to have room for that lost and spiritually vacant look in their eyes. Material comfort does not provide any essential spark of life and certainly does not bring people together as far as I have observed. The worst of human behavior often derives from the burden of protecting some resource; the poor
have little to protect and so tend to be more open and unassuming as a matter of habit.

It must be noted that in this regard the larger cities always tend to crush humanity; in the countryside one can meet the kindest, most giving people, regardless of their economic position. Some of these instances are among my most treasured travel memories.

I would like to share one such experience briefly. Some years ago in the hinterlands of Honduras we made camp and there appeared to be only one or two houses close by. Some children of varying ages were hanging out while we worked in the evening and we only waved to the matron of the house. The next morning as we packed up she came out and gave us a hot breakfast of tortillas, eggs and beans! It was quite amazing and a most pleasant surprise. Who knows what motivates people in their actsof kindness? All that was apparent to us was her altruistic
compassion, a shot in the arm that reminded us to this day that the good is alive and well, and it shows in God’s unknowable workings.

Hannon continues:

This topic is of great interest to me. I think the label of “poor” is often misapplied, unless it is in the sense of slums on city outskirts. I was in Vietnam recently and we encountered, in a most bucolic setting, a small rice farming community whose residents seemed the most serene, happy and strong people I’ve ever encountered. The adults and children alike waved and smiled and their dirt roads and front yards, even pig sties were immaculate. The rice fields between limestone hills were beautiful. Turns out these were one of the “hill tribes” and not Vietnamese proper.

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