“You can’t take it with you,” I think St. Francis once said. O.K., what he actually (maybe) said was: “Remember, when you leave this earth, you can take with you nothing that you have received, only what you have given: a full heart, enriched by honest service, love, sacrifice and courage.”
Franciscan purists will point out that this quotation is only dubiously attributed to St. Francis (like the pithier and better known: “Preach the Gospel at all times. Use words if necessary”). But doubtful attribution and all, it remains a pretty wonderful sentiment.
Here’s a quotation from a church source I’m more sure of: “Giving alms to the poor is one of the chief witnesses to fraternal charity: it is also a work of justice pleasing to God.” You can find that in the Catechism of the Catholic Church, No 2462.
Pope Francis is a big believer in the importance and power of almsgiving, this “work of justice pleasing to God.” While so many of us find ways to rationalize passing by a person in need without even a nod of recognition, Pope Francis implored in his message for Lent in 2018 that Christians not pass by even one beggar on the street: “We [should] see such requests as coming from God himself.”
“Almsgiving,” Pope Francis said, “sets us free from greed and helps us to regard our neighbor as a brother or sister.
“What I possess is never mine alone. How I would like almsgiving to become a genuine style of life for each of us! How I would like us, as Christians, to follow the example of the Apostles and see in the sharing of our possessions a tangible witness of the communion that is ours in the Church!”
And the pope has elevated the role of the papal almoner to new significance, making Konrad Krajewski a cardinal in 2018 and celebrating Cardinal Krajewski’s innovative approach to almsgiving in Rome. (Among other initiatives, the cardinal opened a drop-in center at St. Peter’s where unhoused people in Rome can shower and find medical care.) Pope Francis has dispatched Cardinal Krajewski to the world’s most troubled places to assist people marginalized by poverty, war and migration.
All of this is just to say almsgiving is important, one of the three posts holding up our three-legged spiritual Lenten table alongside the practices of prayer and fasting. So why are Catholics so terrible at it?
To be fair, it’s not so much that we’re bad at almsgiving. Catholics are just pretty bad at giving in all forms. According to a 2017 Giving USA study, Jewish households give the most, averaging $2,526 annually, compared to $1,749 for Protestants and $1,178 for Muslims. Catholics ended up last with $1,142, according to this survey.
And Catholics long ago gave up on tithing, that is, giving 10 percent of our income (pre-tax?) to the church. “The other faiths that I’m familiar with in the charitable space tithe completely differently,” said Anthony Sciacca, the chief development officer for Catholic Charities USA. “Many have formulas or percentages that are pretty firm expectations.”
That is not so true about the nation’s Catholic community, which records significantly lower percentages of families that engage in tithing than Mormons and other denominations. In fairness, only 1 percent of all U.S. Christian households making over $75,000 contribute to charities at tithing levels of at least 10 percent of their income.
In terms of charitable giving, Christians in general are willing to part with about 2.5 percent of their income—lower than the 3.3 percent shared during the Great Depression. And it is perhaps not a shock to learn that households earning the least are regularly contributing comparatively more—giving out of their need, not their abundance—reaching double-digits in percentages of annual income while givers at the top earning ranks often contribute less than 2 percent, even as their overall donations are larger.
Mr. Sciacca sees some evidence of an almsgiving uptick each year at Lent, but the season is not as big a money-raiser for C.C.U.S.A. as other notable periods of fundraising and giving, like Christmas or at the end of year as tax time approaches. Like other Catholic entities dependent on donors, C.C.U.S.A. is aware of the three pillars of the Lenten season and the spiritual importance of making the connections for individual Catholics among Lenten prayer, self-abnegation and almsgving, but it is a tricky balance: No Catholic service provider wants to be perceived as attempting to cash in on what is the most spiritually profound season of the Christian calendar.
Still “we do use [Lent] to talk about our work,” Mr. Sciacca said, likening it more to a period of raising “brand awareness” than a time of aggressive donor solicitation. In its upcoming Easter appeal, C.C.U.S.A. does reach out, he said, in “recognition of our sisters and brothers in need” and drives home a message that contemporary U.S. Catholics are “the hands and feet of Christ in the modern world.”
“We tend to focus this time of year really on our food nutrition work, which is really our largest service,” Mr. Sciacca, “and we like to call our donors to consider those literally who are struggling to meet the most basic needs.”
Each Lenten season offers Catholics a chance to reboot their approach to charitable giving, inviting them to contemplate the added spiritual value of almsgiving. Is there a difference? It’s subtle, but it’s real.
Giving may connect us to what we can do for the rest of our world out of the great abundance experienced by many in the United States. And almsgiving does that too, but it also encourages us to think about what giving may do for us, a means of liberating ourselves from the yoke of wealth accumulation, building that spiritual indifference to the material that can free us from a couple of those seven deadly sins—avarice and envy—perhaps limiting our vulnerability to a few other deadlies that are fomented by hoarding and stinginess.
Christians should learn that they need “inner liberation” to overcome the “temptations of Satan,” Pope John Paull II said, reflecting on almsgiving in 1992.
“We need to overcome selfishness,” he said, “the anxious seeking after material goods, thirst for power and the illusion of immediate success if we want to master ourselves and reach full freedom of the spirit.” Almsgiving is a concrete way, he said, to demonstrate the church’s preference for the poor and its call for an equal distribution of goods.
The editors of this magazine argued in 2020 that almsgiving has become an unappreciated Lenten practice. “Is there any question that almsgiving is the under-practiced, under-encouraged Lenten discipline when compared with prayer and fasting?” they asked, urging the U.S. faithful to “redouble their efforts to give alms this Lent and to reflect in greater depth on the spiritual benefits the practice can bring.”
According to those America editors: “Scripture is replete with instructions to give to the poor: ‘Almsgiving delivers from death and keeps one from entering into Darkness,’ Tobit tells us. Sirach commands: ‘Do not grieve the hungry, nor anger the needy. Do not aggravate a heart already angry, nor delay giving to the needy. A beggar’s request do not reject; do not turn your face away from the poor.’ ‘Give alms,’ Jesus tells us, and we will build up ‘inexhaustible treasure in heaven that no thief can reach nor moth destroy.’”
Catholic Relief Services is “pretty lucky,” said Beth Martin, “that we have incredibly generous donors who give robustly around Christmas and year round. That’s our biggest season, but actually, the season of Lent is our second largest timeframe for receiving donations.” Lenten giving in the first quarter of the year “really helps provide much needed support to enable our work year round in the more than 100 countries that we serve every year.”
According to Ms. Martin, the global relief and development agency’s director of formation and mobilization, C.R.S.’s annual Lenten Rice Bowl collection consciously taps into Lenten spirituality, connecting its three pillars of prayer, fasting and almsgiving “with Jesus’ call to serve our neighbors in need,” she said.
“We know that Lent is a time when Catholics look to reconnect with their faith through prayer and fasting, and the almsgiving component is a way for us to connect and share with others.”
C.R.S. knows from its market research that parents are seeking ways to explore Lenten spirituality with their children, “and they also want ways for their kids to contribute and make a positive difference in the world.” Rice Bowl hits a family sweet spot. “It kind of encourages people to connect the fasting in the Lenten sacrifices as a way to make those alms, so they can turn in the money they save by giving something up or by eating simple or meatless meals on Fridays, and they can turn that into little donations or Lenten alms.”
The traditional Lenten practices of prayer, fasting, and almsgiving, Pope Francis said in his Lenten message this year, “are not mere external practices,” but “paths that lead to the heart, to the core of our Christian life.”
“The path of poverty and self-denial” through fasting, “concern and loving care for the poor” through almsgiving and “childlike dialogue with the Father” through prayer, Pope Francis said, “make it possible for us to live lives of sincere faith, living hope and effective charity.”
Do C.R.S. donors during Lent appreciate almsgiving differently than other kinds of charitable giving? Ms. Martin said that through the Rice Bowl C.R.S. does attempt to prod its young givers to learn about the people and communities their alms are intended to serve, to make connections among the things they are giving up briefly during Lent with the global system of farming and food production that brings a piece of the global abundance into their homes.
“I think the Lenten season invites us to really reflect on: What does it mean for us to be Catholic? How do we live as Catholics in the world?” Ms. Martin said. “And when we connect that Lenten spirituality—connect our prayers, connect our fasting—with a way to answer Jesus’ call to serve our neighbor, to feed the hungry, that really is a powerful way for us to put our faith into action and be able to live out our faith in a more in-depth and concrete way.”
Correction: A quote in the original report was attributed to Anthony Sciacca of Catholic Charities USA when it should have been attributed to Beth Martin of Catholic Relief Services. The story has been corrected and updated.
