“Blessed are the poor… Woe to you who are rich.” — Jesus of Nazareth
I. Venice Was Just the Latest Episode
When Jeff Bezos turned the city of Venice into a backdrop for his wedding—a celebration of extravagance so monumental it disrupted public life, demanded private control over historic spaces, and displayed wealth without apology—it became more than a personal event. It became a moral allegory, a scandalous illustration of everything broken in our world.
While many gazed in awe at the guest list and the yachts, others saw something darker: a deepening divide between the powerful and the powerless, a brazen reminder that the super-rich now live in a parallel universe, untouched by the suffering that defines the majority of the human experience.
The graffiti and protests were not mere political statements. They were echoes of an ancient cry—a cry that has risen across centuries every time power insulated itself from pain, and wealth forgot the weight of human dignity.
II. History’s Repeating Shame
The following three examples are just a few among countless moments in history that reveal a sharpening contrast between the privileged and the voiceless.
1. The Fall of Rome
The Roman Empire, in its twilight, was marked by massive inequalities. The elite held lavish banquets with exotic meats and fountains of wine, while the provinces starved and the plebeians cried out. Petronius and Juvenal, Roman satirists, mocked the “decadence of the patricians,” and even pagan philosophers sensed doom. Christianity, in contrast, was born among the poor and persecuted—those pushed to the margins by empire. Eventually, the system collapsed under the weight of its own injustice.
“Bread and circuses,” said Juvenal, noting how the rulers distracted the masses with spectacle while corruption thrived.
Bezos’s wedding was a 21st-century circus—one where luxury is no longer hidden but flaunted, where the elite do not fear backlash, because they believe the system will always protect them.
2. The Court of Versailles
In pre-revolutionary France, the palace of Versailles stood as the symbolic epicenter of opulence. While peasants died of hunger, the royal court dined with gold utensils and danced under chandeliers. Marie Antoinette’s infamous phrase—“Let them eat cake”—whether apocryphal or not, expressed the spirit of a monarchy utterly detached from the people’s agony.
The French Revolution was not simply political. It was a revolt against the moral insult of watching a minority live as gods while the masses died in silence. The guillotine did not fall just on kings—it fell on the illusion of divine entitlement.
Today’s Versailles is digital and global. The ultra-rich fly over poverty in private jets and build space rockets while slums expand beneath them.
3. The Gilded Age and the Prophets of Justice
In the late 19th century, the United States experienced its own age of inequality—the Gilded Age—where tycoons like Rockefeller, Carnegie, and Vanderbilt accumulated unfathomable wealth. Their homes were palaces. Their parties mirrored European courts.
But this era also gave rise to prophetic voices: labor movements, the Catholic Worker Movement, the social encyclicals of Pope Leo XIII (Rerum Novarum), and reformers like Dorothy Day and Walter Rauschenbusch, who insisted that faith must confront injustice, not make peace with it.
History teaches us: when wealth mocks misery, revolutions are born. When luxury blinds leadership, civilizations fall.
And today, we are again on the brink.
III. The Gospel: A Theology of Disruption
Jesus Christ did not merely “care about the poor.” He identified with them. He was born in a stable, lived without possessions, wandered without a home, and was executed by a corrupt alliance of political and religious powers.
“The Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head.” (Luke 9:58)
He denounced the rich:
“Woe to you who are rich, for you have already received your reward.” (Luke 6:24)
He warned that wealth enslaves the heart:
“Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” (Matthew 6:21)
He overturned the tables of merchants in the temple, signaling that no economy, no institution, no empire is above divine scrutiny.
So when we see billionaires today celebrating amid hunger, privatizing beauty, and buying indulgence, we must ask: Whose table would Jesus overturn now?
IV. The Vincentian Charism: Christ in the Poor
The life and mission of St. Vincent de Paul emerge as a prophetic response across the centuries. In 17th-century France, where the nobility indulged itself and the peasants were forgotten, Vincent dared to say: “The poor are our masters.”
For Vincentians, the poor are not objects of pity—they are bearers of Christ’s presence. They are not the margins—they are the center.
Vincent’s revolution was both spiritual and systemic. He:
- Organized confraternities to bring laypeople into direct service of the poor.
- Founded the Congregation of the Mission to preach and work among the forgotten.
- Co-founded the Daughters of Charity, whose vow was to serve “Jesus Christ in the person of the poor.”
- Advocated before kings and elites, not to gain favor, but to demand justice and mercy for the suffering.
The Vincentian response to the current culture of wealth must be just as bold:
- Denounce economic systems that permit grotesque inequality.
- Defend the dignity of the poor, even when it means confronting the powerful.
- Disrupt narratives that justify greed as innovation or excess as success.
- Devote our lives to works of mercy and to the transformation of unjust structures.
V. Wealth Without Soul: A Global Crisis of Conscience
What Bezos’s wedding in Venice symbolizes is not just inequality—it reveals a global loss of soul:
- A world where luxury is normalized and poverty is treated as a nuisance.
- A world where cities are sold, nature is consumed, and the rich are exempt.
- A world where suffering is background noise, unless it threatens profit.
This is a world where Mammon reigns.
And yet Jesus said, “You cannot serve both God and Mammon.” (Matthew 6:24)
What is most disturbing is the indifference. The elite do not merely live differently—they live unaware, or worse, unconcerned. Their moral universe is detached from the Earth’s cries.
This is spiritual blindness.
“Having eyes, do you not see? Having ears, do you not hear?” (Mark 8:18)
VI. A Call to the Church: Silence Is Not Neutrality
Too often, Christian institutions have grown timid. We speak of charity but avoid the root of injustice. We fear offending donors more than we fear betraying the Gospel.
But silence is not neutral. Silence, in this context, is blessing the golden calf.
We need:
- A Church that walks with the poor, not entertains the rich.
- Pastors who speak prophetically, not diplomatically.
- Communities that embody simplicity, not imitate excess.
- A Vincentian family that burns with passion, not conforms for funding.
This is the moment to choose sides. Not left or right. Not progressive or conservative. But Gospel or empire.
VII. Hope from the Margins
And yet, in slums, refugee camps, tenements, soup kitchens, and forgotten parishes, the Kingdom is breaking through.
- A Vincentian sister holds the hand of a dying elder with tenderness that no billionaire can buy.
- A young lay vincentian listens to a homeless man’s story with more dignity than all the banquets of Venice.
- A missionary builds community among the broken and reminds them: You are loved. You are not alone.
This is the real wealth of the Church.
This is Christ present, Christ alive.
Let’s Choose Life
We must recover our prophetic fire.
We must stand up and say: This world is not inevitable. This inequality is not acceptable. This wealth is not invincible.
History has shown it. The Gospel demands it.
And the Vincentian charism was made for this very hour.
Let us live it boldly.
Let us walk with the poor fiercely.
Let us speak with the voice of Christ—crucified in the slums, risen in solidarity, and returning in justice.
“I have set before you life and death, blessing and curse. Choose life.” (Deut 30:19)
The billionaires may have the yachts.
But the poor will inherit the Earth.
Thank you for your bold call to be and do as the prophets, as Jesus, ultimately.
May he share with you, and with those who answer your call, his strength and peace before those who build the tombs of the prophets and adorn the monuments of the righteous, yet end up filling up the measure of their murderous and persecuting fathers.