SUnhealthy Families

Families can become very closed and shut off from other people, places of mutual protection, jealously guarding their possessions and inheritance. Is that not why in certain Asian and Latin American countries, ten percent of the population owns seventy five percent of the land? Obviously, in this kind of situation, wealthy families can help the poor in a paternalistic way, taking care of them when they are ill or in dire need. However, they do nothing to share their land or wealth, or to change an unjust situation. We can understand the reaction which can come from the anger of those who are oppressed and who see the family as a ‘bourgeois’ reality that supports the rich.
- Jean Vanier, Our Journey Home, p. 180
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