Yes, Francis does not say what Christ said. Pope Bergoglio has no problem criticizing practicing Catholics for their fertility, while he bows to the population “experts.” He says that every child is a treasure, BUT twice in the same airplane interview (on the way back to Rome January 19), he tells how he “reproached a woman” for her “irresponsible” eighth pregnancy. Dorothy Day would have not accepted his latter statement; she defended mothers of large families in print.
Is Dorothy Day’s remark to you quotable or published? I’ve read a lot of her writing, and she frequently criticized “luxuries”: “If I wrote to Archbishop Cooke and asked that Nativity Church be kept open, I wonder if the pastor and curates would agree. Of course, things would get stolen. If there are curtains, heavy rich red plush ones, in front of the confessionals, they might be taken home to be used as covers in the cold tenements, where too often the furnace breaks down. Or the candlesticks might disappear from the altar, to supply the light when the welfare check was used for food and the gas and electric was shut off” (”Catholic Worker,” October 1968).
She said it to me. She wasn’t talking about luxuries, but about the fact that being poor is not some romantic state that the poor secretly enjoy. Furthermore, while a gesture such as going to share their poverty may make you feel better, the poor really aren’t impressed by your making a gesture and joining them in poverty; they’d prefer not to be poor themselves. Poverty is not fun and it’s not a good thing.
Wallowing in luxury may not be, either, but that wasn’t what she was proposing as an alternative.