As a friar, I do not have a bank account to this day in my home country or in the US. The practice in my home country was to ask for the money that you need for travel or purchase from the community, and submit the balance. The method here is to make a budget for the year's expenses, such as travel, clothing, toiletries, etc., and submit it before the beginning of a financial year, and after doing any transaction that comes under your budget using the credit card that is provided, and make an online note on what each of the credit bills. Therefore, there is generally no need to handle the liquid cash. Despite all this, it must be admitted that cash/money is always a security. To be frank, in my case if I don't have at least a little liquid cash in hand, I feel a little bit insecure! That's me!
Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio was was a Pope for 145 months. The Catholic Church provide him with a decent stipend for his services. But, in his case he never took the stipend he was provided with. He had given instructions to use all of it for charitable purposes. However, the Church leadership was depositing a very small amount in his account.
Pope Francis visited a prison in Rome several times in the course of his tenure, and washed the feet of the inmates on Holy Thursdays. He had boundless compassion for them. Four days before his departure - on the Holy Thursday - he visited them again. The prison authorities had seated the inmates on an elevated platform so that he could wash their feet while sitting on his wheelchair. But it seems that he was only able to wash the feet of one person. In any case, he said that he had a great desire to wash the feet of everyone else. 'Even if I'm unable to do it, I won't forget you', he told them. The next thing what he did was to write a check for two hundred thousand euros that was in his account - for the inmates in the prison. Thus he left with all that he had -his material possessions. Love is not an emotion, it is the heart - the soul of a person. That is, it is the word, the action, and a person.
It has become an accepted custom to help one's family and relatives with the benefits and wealth one has access to.
However, Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio never visited his home country, Argentina, or Buenos Aires, where he was the Metropolitan, since he was elected Pope.
Although he made calls to his only surviving sister every week to check on her well-being, he never helped financially this poor lady living in an institution run by nuns. Mauro, the nephew through his deceased brother, and his wife flew in from Argentina to attend the Pope's funeral. And that was only because a local travel agency came to know through a television interview that they couldn't go for lack of money, had provided them with free tickets!
What is evident from these details is what I would call love and right stance. And that's what most people fail to understand these days!
