What do we owe to the poor?

That question underlies much of our current political and social discourse. We ask it — perhaps subconsciously — when we encounter someone on a street corner asking for money, when we drive through struggling neighborhoods, or when we read about the human impact of government shutdowns or freezes on benefit payments. How we answer the question of what we owe our poor reveals something profound about our understanding of charity and justice.

Dominating the skyline of 1200-year-old Hamburg, Germany, stands the towering ruins of St. Nikolai Church.  At the time of its reconstruction in 1874, it was the world’s tallest building. Today it is a blackened skeleton of its former glory and a haunting reminder of one of the most devastating bombing campaigns of World War II. In July 1943, the Allied Combined Bomber Offensive launched Operation Gomorrah, a multi-day campaign that culminated in some of the war’s most devastating firebombing.

To this day, I can recall watching “Predators of the Mara,” a rerun of “Mutual of Omaha’s Wild Kingdom,” on a quiet Sunday afternoon in the early 1980s. In that episode, a cheetah chases down and kills a young wildebeest. It is a remarkably brutal scene of struggle for the wildebeest to get free from the cat’s jaws locked on its neck. The horror I felt as I watched one animal kill another was tempered only by the calming voice of Marlin Perkins, who explained that the herd was ultimately stronger because predators in the Maasai Mara National Reserve helped to cull the sick and the weak. This was natural selection — survival of the fittest.

Over 10 years ago, as I was preparing to come to work for Catholic Charities, a friend suggested I read “Evangelii Gaudium” (The Joy of the Gospel), Pope Francis’ first apostolic exhortation. In those pages, I found not only an articulation of Catholic Social Teaching that would provide the practical foundation for the work of Catholic Charities, but also the honest voice of love and mercy that Pope Francis brought to the world. In that way, he has always felt like a guide in this work, and, like so many, I am deeply saddened by his passing.