Authentic Prophetic Witness of Religious Poverty in Solidarity with the Poor

Abstract

This paper attempts to demonstrate that the authentic prophetic witness of religious poverty needed in the world today should be pursued in solidarity with the poor by challenging those unjust institutional structures which keep people poor. The discourse on religious poverty largely focusses on its meaning, purpose, and practical details at the individual and communal levels from scriptural, doctrinal and/or historical perspectives. However, they often omit considerations of the poor in advancing their views on religious poverty. A concern about this is highlighted by Aylward Shorter who laments the sadness and incomprehension felt by many poor African Christians that the Church seems irrelevant to their struggle for survival. This is mainly because those vowed to religious poverty are distanced from the material conditions of the poor.1 This sentiment is not limited to Africa alone but appears to be a concern for 
religious everywhere. The conception and practice of religious poverty may be regarded as having lost touch with the realities of our contemporary times for it seems not to have evolved through the age rather, it seems to have remained, the way it was in the early Christian ages. This begs the question of the place of religious poverty in the face of pervasive poverty and in the lives of the poor in the world. It links to the broader question of the Church’s role in the modern world. Therefore, this paper incorporates 
insights from various sources to present distinctly new challenges to the meaning and practice of religious poverty today. In addition, it proposes a slightly expanded, more far-reaching, and radical reinterpretation of religious poverty in solidarity with the poor and in furtherance of the renewal of religious life commenced by the Vatican II.