With all due respect, your question to me is phrased as a statist would approach the problem of poverty.
“How do we define the poor? Who gets to receive help and who should be considered ‘rich’ enough to not require help?”
This is precisely how the Pope is NOT approaching that issue. The Pope is proposing that everyone everywhere be open and caring towards the plight of the poor. That is, simply be a human being as God intends.
He is not saying we need to insert atheistic mechanisms to “define” the poor in order to “help” them; he’s trusting we all have the sense to know a poor person when we see a poor person and to act accordingly, both as individuals first then as a society (fraternity).
Therefore he’s simply, ultimately saying, when you witness poverty personally, get off your duff and do something about it, either with your own wealth, or time, or energy; either invested personally (one on one) or more corporately (such as donating money, time or talent to a charity). If people from any religious background would just do that, we would take a giant leap towards peace.
And that’s what this is all about: Peace. Don’t loose that focus. It’s not honest to read/listen (to anyone) without doing so with the intention of first understanding what they are trying to say and why.
Some freepers confuse poor, sick and hungry with laziness, thievery and feeling entitled.
No, he discusses mentions Gov't intervention not just personal charity. If he was only talking about personal charity I would back him completely. But he promotes Gov't activism.
The irony is, the poor would be helped if Francis took the opposite approach, preached for Gov't to remove itself from markets, and promoted capitalism. He denigrates free markets but it is the current socialistic policies that keep the poor down. The other day he decried youth unemployment. Well, if he really was looking for answers on that score he would help to "unbridle" capitalism from it's shackles.