Priest Advises Poor to Shoplift

What happens when someone gets busted, and then tells the court “God told me to do it?”

What does the court do? Either the court has to say “sorry, god doesn’t exist”, or it has to accept it, or it has to say “not guilty by reason of mental illness”…

So, if you shoplift from a big chain store, it’s OK because it only affects the employees of that big chain store and their families, not the employees and families of a small business… oh wait. People are people, stealing is stealing.

Stupid, illegal, and immoral. How about instead of advising poor congregants to break the law, you remind them that people are more important than things? Or advise well-to-do members to look around for ways to help? Just because one views “society” as having “failed” doesn’t mean you go ahead and return evil for evil by stealing!

Here’s an idea, if the Pope is really so compassionate, maybe he could, i don’t know, sell off some of those jewel-encrusted hats he likes to wear and feed some hungry people. Vow of poverty my rear.

“How about instead of advising poor congregants to break the law, you remind them that people are more important than things?”

Yeah, that’ll fill their bellies.

hot issue, of course… I don’t think telling anyone to steal is going to really be the answer. Stealing is not going to fill your belly long-term, either…and it won’t help your self-esteem.

Comments here look like a FreeRepublic message board. Thank you, MadMolecule, for putting a little perspective in this. I seriously doubt the priest was talking about stealing things like flat-screen TVs & the like. I’m sure he meant food, clothing, etc. which sounds reasonable to me. Especially given violent/self-destructive crimes as a possible alternative. The priest is right: society has screwed the poor.

He should’ve advised poor people to steal wi-fi instead, cuz that’s not stealing …

So a socialist country (in this case, England) can’t afford to help the poor? And how will the US fare once it becomes socialist?

It stretches belief to the breaking point to call this guy a Christian. Apparently he does not read the commandments (“Thou shall not steal”) nor how people, even through the church, are to help each other.

Why not do what my church is doing? Typically, we have a free will offering that goes to those who are needy–we used to collect this monthly, now we are collecting it twice a month. Allows those who have money to help out those who need money/food/shelter.

I can’t believe he would actually advise people to steal. Shoplifting is stealing regardless of the size of the business or who owns it. It’s coming out of someone’s pocket somewhere down the line regardless. Plus, stealing is absolutely against the Christian religion, I can’t imagine a church leader teaching his flock to sin. There’s no rules in the Bible about “Thou shalt not steal except shoplifting from big stores when you’re having financial hard-times”.

I would think that if he had enough financially needy people in his congregation that he needed to address the situation in his sermon, he would have been better off to address the issue by working to connect his congregation with social services and charities that could aid them.

@Melissa (and the entire darn universe)

Charities and social services aren’t working, that’s his point. They serve to whitewash the issue, cleanse the middle-class guilt over how they molest the poor on a daily basis. The situation the way it is now is not acceptable. So we need radical solutions for radical problems – maybe not stealing, but at least he’s giving the dialogue some urgency.

Ok, it’s wrong to steal. What would you call the hundreds of billions that have been stolen from the American people over the last few decades, whether from corrupt businesses or their collaborators in government. Those men did not have an urgent need to steal, and yet they did and, in most cases, got away with it.
It seems the U.S. government has given its blessing to these business practices – why should the starving be exempt from the right to profit from the work of others?

And if you want to get more “philosophical” about it, aren’t all English people thieves already? They have museums full of stolen artifacts reminding of us of that history. The rampant consumption on display over the holiday is another good reminder of how we, at this very moment, are exploiting developing nations, wasting resources and generally manipulating and destroying things that “are not ours to take”.

You say stealing is stealing regardless of size. If a a industrial country pollutes the waterways of a developing country on the other side of the globe, robbing people of their livelihood, is that any different? When a government forces you to bail out thieves is that any different? Have you ever downloaded a song illegally, Melissa? So on and so on.

I’m not asking you to agree with what the priest is saying, but at least allow for the fact that stealing takes many forms and right now small-scale shoplifting for sustenance is hardly the most pressing kind.

This is an issue that requires you to address the idea of property, capital, right-of-ownership, and several other key ideas. It simply isn’t as cut-and-dried as it’s made out to be.

Which of the other nine Commandments is it okay to ignore?

You have to remember he said only take what you need. If you can survive off a loaf of bread, then you would take just that. I doubt you would get any more than a slap on the wrist, and you’re not starving. What we should be criticizing is not those poor who are pressured to steal, but US, for not even thinking to provide for people who are starving. Obviously people could use his sermon with selective hearing to justify evil, but people do that with the bible every single day.

He would be much better off organizing and mobilizing his congregation to do something to help the poor, like offering a weekly meal for those in need. Food bought in large quantities is much cheaper than the small packages that the poor would likely try to steal. They could feed a whole bunch of hungry for $1-2 a meal if they put out a little effort.

So is it okay to rob a house if the homeowner is insured? Not hardly. It is never acceptable to steal.

@ “society had failed the needy”

Excuse me? Aren’t most poor people poor because they make poor choices? Why is this my problem now? I don’t want to spend higher prices at my grocery store because some self-righteous Jeebusfreak is stealing from the frozen food section. I get enough of that with the standard shoplifting crowd as it is.

I give to one charity and one only: mandatory taxes. If my government does not think you deserve to be on their aid programs, then there is probably a reason for it.

I’ve been on government aid myself when I was between jobs; I can vouch for it being sufficient for people who live responsibly.

Religion is such utter shit anyway. I hope this gathers a lot of negativity.

@ Zaulankris:

“Aren’t most poor people poor because they make poor choices?”

No. I know it’s hard, but it’s important to understand that we live within a complex network of forces and are not, each of us, born at the same exact level with the same exact potentials and options. Have a gander at, I don’t know, India, and ask yourself if the millions of destitute people there each simply made some bad decisions in an otherwise completely open and potential-rich environment. I’m not even sure why I’m saying this; it’s so stunningly obvious. Unless you’re trolling, in which case, well done.

When I was completely out of money and trying to go to college at the time, I stole food from the supermarket a couple of times.

I don’t the solution is to steal food, but I don’t think anyone who has food to eat on a daily basis should take the moral high ground. There are people in real desperate situations, and sometimes you have to take drastic measures.

When he said: “I offer the advice with a heavy heart and wish society would recognise that bureaucratic ineptitude and systematic delay has created an invitation and incentive to crime for people struggling to cope.”

This is not clear enough. He should of quoted quoted Ghandi, who said, “We have enough for everyone’s needs, but we don’t have enough for everyone’s greed.” It’s pitiful that billions upon billions of dollars are wasted on war, entertainment, and greed while adults and children go hungry and homeless. There’s no justification for it.