The Vatican will host a concert for the poor and homeless of Rome next month, not only using the concert to raise money for Pope Francis’ charities, but also inviting the poor to attend as the guests of honor.
Called “With the Poor and for the Poor,” free-will donations taken at the end of the concert will benefit Pope Francis’ charitable projects: this year, the building of a new cathedral in Moroto, Uganda, and an agrarian school in Burkina Faso.
The concert will take place Nov. 12 in the Vatican’s Paul VI Hall.
Following the concert, volunteers of the Jubilee of Mercy and members of the choir of the Diocese of Rome will distribute a meal and a small gift to the invited guests as a reminder of the evening.
This blogger wishes to rename the event. Instead of calling it "With the Poor and for the Poor," he wants to call it "Using The Poor To Raise Money For The Church." Maybe he does not understand the article or has misinterpreted it, but based on his understanding or misunderstanding, this is how he reads it:
The Vatican will bus some people around the local area who are supposed to be poor and homeless or who are representatives of the poor and homeless to a concert (perhaps a photograph will be taken of them as evidence of the states of their mendicancy but there will be no scientific record of the pungency of the odor of poverty and homelessness since there is no technology to collect and store it for sale and distribution). They will be asked to go through security and sit still for a period of time without bathroom breaks, listening to music they may or may not enjoy but then who cares. They will serve as props for a fundraiser for which they will receive a "compensation package" consisting of a cold box snack and a token gift. (It would be interesting to find out what kind of "small gift" would be handed out, a religious medal, a rosary, a "selfie" of the pope?) The money they help raise would pay for the pope's "charitable projects" among which are "the building of a new cathedral in Moroto, Uganda, and [the building of] an agrarian school in Burkina Faso," [2] each of which ought to be a self-sufficient revenue generator, if all goes according to plan.
The article did not mention that the very ones who are being used to raise money for the pope's charitable projects will benefit in any way from the fundraiser, although it is clear to this blogger that the funds raised would help pay the administrative costs of running the pope's charities and the costs of having a new cathedral and an agrarian school.
Aside from the questionable tactics used for this fundraiser, this blogger admits that this pope has a brilliant mind for raising funds to fund self-sustaining religious and educational institutions. Perhaps he ought to form at least two tax-deductible charitable organizations [3] to raise funds in the United States, perhaps naming them Francis I Catholic Fund, the Catholic version, and Francis I Poverty Relief, the secular version; that way, he would not have to use the poor to raise money and be criticized by this blogger, but then, what charity does not use the poor to pay its administrators their salaries and other expenses including those necessary to maintain its grounds, its buildings and its on-going existence?
[1] http://www.ewtnnews.com/catholic-news/Vatican.php?id=14484
[2] Ibid.
[3] https://www.irs.gov/charities-non-profits/charitable-organizations/exemption-requirements-section-501-c-3-organizations
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