Do not Fall Prey to Indifference: Religious Poverty in a Continent full of Bad News

Abstract

This article situates the discussion on religious poverty in the context of a continent full of bad news and suffering. It begins with painting the picture of the scale of the specter of poverty on the African continent and considers the implications of the fact that many professed religious in Africa come from those contexts. In many cases, the families of African religious are affected by the challenges posed by economic poverty, a reality that often places pressure on those religious. With the institutional failure to address their burning needs, those pressures pose for them the risks of their enslavement to material goods and corruption. The article demonstrates that the Society of Jesus has useful provisions to reinforce stricter poverty among its members while also addressing this institutional failure. It concludes by making the call against indifference through an evocation of Mveng’s idea of anthropological pauperization.