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.

Increasingly, in social settings like dinner parties, the person I am talking to will take a serious tone and say something along the lines of: “This homelessness seems to be getting out of hand.”  Then, with a manner that is genuine in both concern and resignation, they will ask: “What can possibly be done about it?”

I have found over the years that my answer to that question takes far too long. After a while, there is a glance at a watch or scan the room for other conversations. The reasons for homelessness, and the poverty that causes it, make for bad dinner- party conversation.