The social philosopher Ivan Illich was right when he insisted that the Good Samaritan is about encounter, not social (or even ecclesial) policy. Neighbors, according to Jesus’s telling, are those we meet, in flesh and blood, beside whom God has placed us in whatever odd circumstances, unplanned meanderings, or simple communal proximities. There the... See more

The Church’s “preferential option for the poor” (the great phrase from the 1968 Medellin Conference) may be a proper imperative, but not on the basis of intrinsically different worth among classes. What counts is to offer the depth of God’s love to those with whom one lives. The poor are preferred only because they are “there”—or “here”—but are ign... See more