Gary N. Smith, S.J.
Gary Smith is a Jesuit priest who has spent much of his life caring for the poorest of the poor. This is his account of living with the homeless and nearly-homeless of Portland, Oregon. Fr. Smith isn’t a great writer, in fact, he can be a bit irritating, as when he seems to assume that all prosperous people are without problems or compassion, but despite this it’s a book that everyone should read.
Everyone should read “Radical Compassion” because everyone has seem these people, and many of us have told ourselves the “it’s their fault”, or “the government should do something”. Few of us know what this kind of extreme poverty is like or the path people take into its depths. As a result we tend to be unsympathetic and inert when confronted with the poor, these poor who are the same poor that Christ commanded us to care for.