I just came across a piece by Jack Nicastro which was cited on FEE:
@ShinjisHardDrive
Who’s More Dangerous?
Work or Starve
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/33-gInV-Iy8
His point is basically, "if Capitalism is coercive, so is Communism" and cites:
"He who does not work, neither shall he eat"
From Article 12.
If you think that is Biblical, think again. Here are the actual words of St. Paul:
For also when we were with you, this we declared to you: that, if any man will not work, neither let him eat.
[2 Thessalonians 3:10]
Note, he does not say "does not work" but "will not work" = "is not willing to work" ...
So, is at any time begging justified?
Well, there are those who can not work, because they have an inherent disability. If you have a broken leg, you can't shove a wheelbarrow. If you sit in a wheelchair, you are not fit to get grapes from the stock to the press (or to a larger collector which then takes them to the press). If you are blind, you could have problems as a proofreader ...
There are also those who can not work, because their qualifications will not give them a work to do. St. Thomas considers that in such a case, someone has the right to beg as long as he has not acquired a qualification for a job and no one offers him to work up his qualifications. Here he draws a distinction. Christian humility would oblige to be an apprentice, even at advanced age, or at least as an adult, as often as is necessary, until one has acquired at least one qualification which will provide at least one paid work. However, he notes, according to the laws of the emperors, there is a limitation, and I think he means Holy Roman rather than Constantinopolitan ones, the Frankokratia ended in 1261, which ws before he died, but not all that much. Renewing rules from before it would hardly have been on St. Thomas radar. The limitation is, if you are not able to get paid for work in either of two trades you already know, you do have a right to beg. St. Thomas considers a Christian in the state of grace owes the virtue of humility to go beyond that, and learn even more trades, until he finds one to give him actual pay.
However, this is about begging while giving nothing in return. This is not about busking or preaching as a friar. If you actually provide a service and instead of charging a set fee admit people to remunerate you as they like, that's technically begging, but it is not like begging and giving nothing in return. A friar who promises to pray for people has to work against temptations to stay in the state of grace and also to work to keep the hours of prayer and possibly extra prayers like the rosary. A street singer (which I was prior to 2006) needs to work to know songs and performing them is itself work even if you do know them. Back in the time, I could not keep singing for longer than say 30—45 minutes, but in good places, that certainly WOULD give me sufficient for the day or at least for the morning or evening. In France, I came across less good places, and in 2006, I got my voice marred, so I haven't been singing since then. I did not learn an instrument prior to leaving Sweden, and so, once the good voice was gone, offering music was gone.
Between the preaching of a friar and the entertainment of a song text that's at least moderately edifying*, you have sth like essays to read. That's what I am offering now.
In Communism, as well as in some versions of Capitalism, I would be punished if begging, and therefore condemned to get employment or starve. In other and freer societies, where Capitalism hasn't that much destroyed the Catholic respect for beggars, and this is where I have seen France, I can both beg, and write, and offer what I write to those who give when I beg. In the totality of the free world, it is at least theoretically possible for people who have more resources than I and who appreciate my writings to start a publishing house to get themselves as well as me an income from what I write.
There have unfortunately been some campaigns around where I beg to stop this, and to make sure as many as possible give without looking at my URLs or pass the URLs on to someone else, perhaps in the Chinese Communist Party, perhaps among Protestants in Singapore, perhaps among some German Protestants who are both very liberal about Biblical inerrancy and very anti-Catholic about what they do take seriously in the Bible, and obviously Muslims who don't like the Trinity of calling the Blessed Virgin Mother of God, or alcohol or not having an employment, especially if this in the immediate term means I have no income, and Jews who don't like my take on IDF and their hatred of the cross on a grave, and a few others are very happy if as few as possible ask what I wrote latest and as many as possible ask when I'll ask for work.
This is however not the manners of a free country, it's more becoming to a Communist Tyranny. Yes, some of the Protestant Conservatisms had similar manners even before the Russian Revolution, and England was one of them. That is part of what Chesterton was writing against. But even that is a far cry from societies with real Catholic heritage.
Meanwhile, it is very disingenious to cite the Bible, when in fact I am not just willing to work, but actually do lots of work, on writing. It is also read, but sometimes by the wrong people. Wrong for my best interests in this world that is, they could be providing some kind of mission field, but I didn't exactly sign up as a missionary. I'm an apologist, responsible to provide answers, not a missionary, responsible to sacrifice myself to win souls.
Hans Georg Lundahl
Paris
St. Raphael Archangel
24.X.2024 (postponed one week)
Festum sancti Raphaelis Archangeli, cujus dignitas ac beneficia in sacro Tobiae libro celebrantur.
* While the texts of Goliards were not edifying, their songs were sometimes outlawed conditionally, for instance the melody could not end in the same cadence as one used by the Church, and that's why we have secular music as a by-product of street musicians having no right on Church melos, but the idea that they were just lazy and offered nothing did not really occur to people. Obviously, if when I was a singer I took care to not be scandalous in any text, I am somewhat above their moral position, and the same applies today.
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