One of the maladies of today’s Catholic Pastoral activity is that its practitioners usually speak about what they do not know – or about what they know only by hearsay; that is, they deal with what they have not experienced, or lived, or closely contemplated. In one word, they speak about the brimboriow; or about commonplaces, if one wants to use a term which is more accessible to the ordinary folk who have no easy access to dictionaries (although the word brimboriow cannot be found in any of those old relics of language known as dictionaries, for let us not forget that nothing is known about it). Those who are more radical and partial to using strong language would use the term largely trite, for they are bent on making themselves understood.

            Let us give some instances, taking the usual care not to be too prolix. Countless are the expert alchemists in pastoral activities who dedicate their time to either writing Pastoral Letters or penning exhortations or instructions about that pastoral activity which they have never practiced. And here we must call the attention of the reader to the authors of specialized Pastoral Manuals (manuals about young people, the sick, the immigrants, the workers, the marginalized, etc., etc.) Those authors almost all have the same thing in common: they have never dealt with young people (except for some rather weird and strange youngsters); nor have they ever visited sick people; they ignore what it means to be seated in the confessional hearing confessions; they have never lived among workers; they have not…etc. And we are not considering here the most peculiar authors of this lot: those who write about spirituality but have never practiced any kind of spirituality. In connection with this, I remember something that happened to me in my young years. I had to attend a metallization workshop held in Madrid, in preparation for my imminent pastoral work in South America whereto my bishop had the brilliant idea of sending me. I realized there, rather surprisingly, that none, absolutely none, of the “professors” had ever been to America; neither in North America nor in South America. It was then and there that a strong suspicion took hold of me for the first time: Logic, as part of Philosophy, has never enjoyed much acceptance among ample sectors of the clerical establishment.

            In this connection, in part one of this editorial we have seen that our Prelate of Cáceres, according to his own declaration, does not even envision Christianity if it is not mediated by our commitment to the poor. We must admit that His Excellency is absolutely right, that he is but stating the same truth that is affirmed by everybody; that is, a truth proclaimed aloud, left and right, by all.

            And herein lies the problem –which usually passes unnoticed. Everyone who wants to be acknowledged as an apostle –a “pastoral agent”[1] if he is a layman; a much more orthodox term nowadays— is carrying this flag. But poverty, when it is properly understood as a Christian virtue, is something far too serious, too important, too sublime…and too difficult to practice.

            I am certain that the Bishop of Cáceres has sufficient experimental knowledge about this issue so as to speak about the need for commitment to the poor. And I have no doubts about the seriousness of those words.

            But there are other cases in the Church. There are many who, taking advantage of this stale commonplace, use it without knowing the least thing about it (in the first place) and for their own particular varied purposes. All those purposes coincide in one thing: their trying to obtain prestige, numerous perks, and, above all, not a small degree of richness. Yes, I have said richness. Indeed, not a few Spiritual Families have obtained a multitude of possessions, assets, and money by proclaiming to all and sundry their extreme poverty. I am aware that this statement will become a stumbling block for many, but that is the risk one has to take if he uses platitudes; that is, what everybody knows but nobody says.

            As for me, I owe God the invaluable grace of having lived several years among the poor: there, on the almost 12,000-foot-high Andean plateau of Ecuador where the Indians shivered with cold and never saw their hunger satisfied. I also lived in the most humble and dangerous barrios of the great cities of Venezuela, like Barquisimeto, where misery was the very air we breathed and a violent death could be the normal ending to anybody’s life. Nobody who lived in the great city dared to enter my barrio after sunset. And so on.

            Of course, I am not so mad as to pretend that because of this I have known what poverty is. The best I can say in this regard is that I have seen it at close quarters.[2] The respect that this important and most beautiful virtue deserves and love for the truth do not allow any other thing.

            But that respect, and for the same reasons, causes in me a deep feeling of pain when I see how they desecrate words and ideas which are something more than sacred because of their being deeply rooted in the Gospel. What I mean is that some people boast about them without ever having known them. And what is worse, these people take advantage of those words and ideas to procure for themselves precisely that which they claim to denounce and abhor: the riches of this World.

            Be that what it may, the Church should be more firm and demand from her Shepherds (those who are most exalted and the less important as well) never to speak, here and with other matters, about the brimboriow; that is, about what they do not know. Indeed, Can the blind lead the blind? Do they not both fall into the pit? (Lk 6:39).