How Long Will There Be So Much Greed?

A few days ago I read a phrase by Paul VI, who will be beatified this coming Sunday, October 19, saying that avarice is a sign of moral underdevelopment. It struck me as a very strong phrase and made me think: how much moral underdevelopment there is in our country and in the whole world! I felt real sorrow for so many people who live their lives in an unbounded urge to have more and more and more so they can spend, spend and spend!

With that materialistic urge to have and have, corruption has reached unimaginable limits. What we are seeing in our country is truly nightmarish. And the saddest thing of all is that people no longer even feel ashamed of being corrupt. As Pope Francis said when he was Cardinal in Buenos Aires: “The corrupt put on a face as if they had done nothing. They should be given an honorary doctorate in social cosmetics.”

And those people don’t care at all that others see how they squander what they have stolen from the Nation, from the people, on mansions, planes, yachts, jewelry and so on. As Pope Francis also said very recently: “The corrupt throw parties with the money of the poor.”

Sometimes I ask myself: when will these people become aware of the harm they are doing to others and to themselves? When will they stop behaving this way? How long will we keep hearing news of fraud, corruption, bribery, theft and so on? What is happening in the world that every day it seems the most important thing is to make a huge amount of money, no matter how, no matter whom you have to trample, no matter the harm you may do even to your own children?

Avarice is rightly a capital sin, because there are people who, to have more and more and more…, are capable of Anything (with a capital A). And sometimes you wonder: why on earth do they want so much money, if it has been proven throughout history that money is not what gives true happiness?

Don’t the greedy read the news about the “rich and famous” who live in endless depression, not to mention their vices, drugs and so on? Or the news about “white-collar” swindlers who robbed crowds of people and ended up behind bars with sentences of more than 50 years? One of those corrupt men, while in prison, lived through the tragic suicide of his eldest son after the son found out how his “powerful” father had made his fortune. In short, that life of supposed happiness ended for them in a second.

And that’s not even to mention what has been done in our beloved Venezuela, where, thanks to the corruption of a few, the country is without food, without medicine, with hospitals in ruins… a country destroyed…

But how can we put an end to so much greed? It will happen the day we put money where it belongs. No more and no less. Money is a tool that helps us live with dignity (which does not mean in luxury), and if by some miracle we have some left over, it is to save for our old age and/or to help those who need it most.

You may tell me: but the media push the idea at us from every direction that material things are what make me happy; all those magazines show us mansions, yachts, parties, designer clothes, trips and so on, and now there are even TV shows that show us how billionaires live. Well, that’s one of the points. In any Venezuelan family with a little common sense, we cannot afford (at this point in our history and with the country as it is) to live shut up in a magazine or movie fantasy.

We will put an end to greed when we truly live detachment from material things; when we couldn’t care less about so-and-so’s yacht, what’s-his-name’s plane, someone else’s iPhone or somebody’s car. We will put an end to greed the day we put God first in our lives, because “you cannot serve God and money,” and pass this on to our children by example and not only by words.

We will put an end to greed when we teach everyone around us that money is earned by the sweat of one’s brow and not “overnight” through one or more dishonest deals.

We will put an end to greed when we raise a generation that knows that what counts is what they are and not what they have, and that to “be” they have to work hard, study, and live to serve and to stand by others.

We will put an end to greed the day we stop indulging our children’s every whim. How many of us have known “little tyrants” who “skillfully” manipulate their parents until they get what they want? That is where greed, among other faults, begins to develop.

Parents often believe their children’s happiness depends on the things they give them, and they haven’t realized that what matters most to children is the amount and quality of time they can share. That unique time to help them and watch them grow, to talk with them, to really know them, so that one day they don’t suddenly find themselves facing an adult they don’t know!

If only all the families of Venezuela, and of the world, could live like the vast majority of those parents and grandparents “of old,” who sweated for every cent they earned, counted every coin they spent, and were always there, ready to help anyone who needed them. And all of that in a simple, happy home, fragrant with values, with self-giving and with great faith. Only then will there be an end to so much greed!