Is a shift in focus to the poor by the Roman Catholic Church a bad thing?

[mrstickball]

It really depends on how they handle it.

If they simply want to promote more church programs to help the poor and needy, then I'm all for it. But if they're going to try to exert political pressure on countries to create more welfare programs... Then there is a huge problem with that. It typically gives governments more power (look at Venezuela and the "Champion" of the poor - good ole Hugo).

Also, like Pope Francis said, they do have to focus on the gospel too, or they stand to simply become an NGO.

So nothing wrong with helping the poor, but the real question is how they handle it.