Fascinating piece on homelessness by William Vollman in the Vatican newspaper yesterday.
Not linking it, though, since I had the same reaction to it as I did to the original papal document. The reactions of (even excellent) clerics and picaresque novelists don't always describe the thing itself very clearly. The graphic nature of the article is shocking, yes, but the shocking nature of it also has the unfortunate effect of supplying a certain social logic, in that it is the shocking people who have no homes. The truth of it is that you can be the most clean-cut, clear-thinking one in the room, sometimes even the strongest in the room at whatever the task is, and if you offend the wrong groups of people (remember Madison: the danger of faction), you will possibly be due for extreme misfortune. Granted, when the home is lost, almost everyone falls apart after a few days, and then the picaresque novels and the socially conscious colportage has a foothold. But the implication that all of its victims lose the plot once their plot of land is taken away is dangerous. There are clear-eyed, very intelligent, and puritanically clean-living folks at Mass every morning and pacing the streets in the evening. When he visited the big city, Christ often slept on the side of the Mount of Olives.
A democracy, or really any state, relies on the public understanding of its present nature. Part of the present problem might be that those with sufficient wealth and property, thanks to the media, can have an understanding of the present politics that's a bit attenuated from reality, both conceptually and also as to what it means to actually live there, in a place not insulated from the contact with the full spectrum of people in the society.
Most critically: do not assume that this is a meritocracy, or that there is a workable social logic determining who is wealthy and who is fighting to survive. Knowing that (1) you are good and (2) that you are momentarily safe from want is not sufficient proof of the health of the republic.