Millennial writer Meghan Clark for Catholic Women Preach:

In the parable, three encounter the wounded man but only the Samaritan allows his perspective to shift. The shift he makes, according to Dr. King, Jr is from being concerned with what would happen to himself to ask what will happen to the wounded man if I do not act? Our moral obligations to respond to our neighbors in need is tied to both actual need and our ability to act. It is an individual and a communal question. Dr. King preached on the Good Samaritan while urging solidarity with striking sanitation workers.

Today, we need to ask ourselves this question on a global scale. Over the last few months, I have spent a lot of time explaining and defending USAID- the US Agency for International Development. As Americans, USAID was an example of practicing compassion, a collective response to global poverty.  For decades, its largest non-governmental grant partner has been Catholic Relief Services. As Catholics in the United States, CRS is our official ecclesial response to global poverty and development. In over 100 countries, CRS delivers emergency humanitarian assistance, maternal & child health programs, like ones I saw in Northern Ghana, addresses hunger, and much more. Compassion and solidarity lived out through partnerships and community building. Practicing compassion and solidarity is not weakness, it is a sign of our common humanity.

Millions of our poorest neighbors relied on the USAID funding for addressing basic needs like food, clean water, and medicines. While it was only 1% or less of the federal budget, in the last 20 years, the Lancet estimates that USAID’s work saved 92 million lives in 133 countries. As of June 30^th, USAID no longer exists. Among the humanitarian projects canceled are many CRS projects on global health and development. Only 11% of USAID maternal and child health projects survived the cuts. If these cuts are not restored, Lancet estimates that as a result 14 million people, including 4.5 million children under age 5 will die by 2030.

God calls to us from the depths of our own hearts. Christ calls to us in our neighbor.  How then can we together advocate for compassion and resist indifference, resist pretending nothing is wrong? That is the message I hear a new as I return once again to the parable of the Good Samaritan.