Evangelical Poverty
before the malice of drug addiction.
The exhortation to love the poor occupies the center of the Church’s teaching and activity. In this, the rich and extensive tradition converges, which includes the writings of the Holy Fathers. Poverty is a permanent reality, but it takes different forms according to political and economic fluctuations; before it, the charity of Christians inclines. Doctrinal orthodoxy, guarded as a treasure, must be accompanied by mercy; without it, without bending before the needy, it resolves into Pharisaism, because the poor constitute the center of biblical revelation and the Gospel.
The most widespread and most deeply inhuman form of poverty is addiction to drugs. Powerful organizations thrive on the expansion of the phenomenon of incorporating more people into the slavery of “consuming.” The Christian vocation demands opposition to that trade and a merciful gaze on the victims, who must be freed from that degrading poverty. Even more, it could be said that they must be invited to participate in authentic poverty, human and Christian, source of true happiness.
First of all, it is essential to foster family life. To the family, constituted by the marriage of man and woman, it corresponds to care for the children, preparing them to avoid being dragged by “what everyone does.” Currently, they must be helped to think rightly about true integrity: physical, psychological, and spiritual, which is proper to the human condition, as God has willed and endowed it. To the Church, updating its catechesis, it corresponds to preach and teach that it is a sin to voluntarily surrender to consuming drugs. The question of sin is a fundamental approach; few think to see drug consumption as an evil. The Church must not fear affirming, even, that according to cases it may be a mortal sin; the drug “bosses” are public sinners. The hell of consumption devours freedom and anticipates the final hell, in which an inhuman fate ends.
The school also has an unavoidable role to fulfill. A realistic and complete education includes precise instruction on the malice of consumption and its consequences. This function of the school must be specified in plans that include broad information on the path of drug diffusion, and the necessary argumentation to avoid incurring it. The educational aspect of the fight must be coordinated at the national level, where the plans that are imposed in all instances originate. Catholic schools must be the first in the formation that must be imparted to children and adolescents, with clarity and language appropriate to the age.
Love for the poor, especially those who live in marginal neighborhoods, includes the warning about the malice of drug addiction, and at the same time demands guiding them to games and challenges that enthuse and orient in the hope of an authentically human poverty; that makes worthy of the Beatitude that the Gospel destines for it. Christians have, in their message and in their means of charity, the solution so that a tormented world reaches, beyond relief, the grace of happiness.
It would be good to read the apostolic exhortation of Leo XIV, Dilexi te, which has inspired this article.
+ Héctor Aguer
Emeritus Archbishop of La Plata.
Buenos Aires, Saturday, January 31, 2026.
Memorial of Saint John Bosco, priest. –