"Once, when I was bishop, I was sent an invitation for a benefit
dinner for Caritas. Those who attended were the cream of the crop, as
they say. I decided not to go.
That day, the president at the time
was in attendance and, after the first course, a gold Rolex was
auctioned off.
What a disgrace; how humiliating. That was a bad use
of charity. It sought a person who would use this watch for vanity in
order to feed the poor.
Thankfully, Caritas no longer does this sort
of thing. Nowadays, they work continuously in schools, run shelters
for single mothers and the homeless, run a bakery where they also
sell the handicrafts that the kids in the technical school make. This
is promotion of the poor by the poor themselves. Sometimes things are
done in the name of charity that are not charitable; they are like
crude caricatures of a good intention. There is no charity without
love, and if vanity is part of helping the needy, there is no love;
it is feigned charity."
(Jorge Bergoglio)
