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Last week Pope Leo spoke about how water should not be a commodity but rather something offered up freely. Right on cue, the usual suspects accused him of being a Communist because apparently real Christians don’t believe in charity, only profit.

Indeed, a few years ago I noted this belief that profit is somehow a sacred duty. I’m not sure where this idea entered Christian thought, but I’m going to blame the Calvinists because a significant share of the worst features of modern Christianity are Calvinist in origin. The whole concept of predestination and a knowable “elect” who are visibly prospering as a sign of God’s favor seems the most obvious explanation for “the rich are just better than you” mentality.

The flip side of this is “poor people are just lazy” which naturally leads to “learn to code” whenever your good-paying job is shipped overseas to a sweatshop.

In truth, Pope Leo is generally a pretty solid moral authority (sadly not the case with his predecessor of blessed memory). This is usually obscured by the tendency of modern media to chop down quotes and the need for content farmers to drum up outrage clicks. There is very much a segment of Catholic media that derived immense profit from being offended by Pope Francis and they are determined to force him into the same template, reality be damned.

One of the key themes of his first encyclical, Magnifica Humanitas, was the importance of work. Catholic clergy have often conflated government welfare programs with Catholic social teaching, but Pope Leo made a clear distinction between the two, noting that paying someone not to work is immoral and harmful. People need something to do with themselves, and society should be ordered to that end.

One would think the “Protestant work ethic” types would be thrilled by this, but as noted above, much of contemporary Christian commentary is about outrage clicks, not serious thought.

It is worth highlighting, however, especially on Labor Day. Labor unions in the US have gotten a bad (but fully deserved) reputation for defending lazy, unproductive workers and essentially trying to bankrupt their employers. Government employee unions are an abomination, creating an unaccountable labor cartel at taxpayer expense.

But there was a time when some sort of workers’ association was needed to contain the worst excesses of the industrial revolution. It is important to recall just what a huge rupture factory work was from pre-industrial society, which moved in rhythm with nature and while the hours of planting and harvesting were long, there were intervals throughout the year that were filled with feasting and rest.

Factories do not care for such things, and as far as their owners were concerned, if the gears weren’t moving, money was being lost. The very notion of a “third shift” was unknown to humanity, but we now take it for granted that machines must be served 24 hours a day.

One of the unexpected blessings of the Covid lockdowns has been the disruption in the labor market, which has caused many businesses to abandon the 24-hour, 365-days-a-year business model. Holidays are once again observed, and many businesses have returned the practice of closing on Sunday – or at least having shorter hours.

The false god of efficiency is yield ground to the true God of love and mercy. While the usual suspects want to equate any check upon unbridled greed as a form of Communism, in fact charity is a core feature of the Christian faith, as is the notion of the worker being worthy of his pay.

And yes, the idea that a poor person shouldn’t have to pay for a glass of water is actually in the Bible. Helping the poor is a recurring theme. It’s kind of hard to miss.

The key is not to assume that emphasizing this automatically means creating a government program. In his encyclical, Pope Leo specifically denounced welfare programs. It is also true that water requires labor to secure, and protect and purify, so the idea that providing charity is cost-free is absurd.

So is the idea that only the government can make things “free.” Since my wife began volunteering with various Catholic charities, I have been amazed at how much they accomplish with so little. With a budget less that amounts to less than a single civil service salary they are able to help thousands of people.

I think the pope is pointing us to a new “third way” between private enterprise and government programs where society provides direct, personal assistance and the massive, expensive, useless and often corrupt bureaucracy is dismantled.