Is Wealth Accumulation Moral? [PODCAST]

Is Wealth Accumulation Moral?

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Is wealth accumulation moral.

Ben Martinek: [00:00:22] Hello, everyone. Thanks for joining us today. I am with Deb Meyer and Rob friends are actually, how do you say your last name? Rob? I should know this by now, but I, I suppose. Brainer. Okay. There. I thought it was close Frazier. So Rob, thanks for joining us. And this I'm Ben Martin and our topic for today as part of Catholic or the Catholic money mastermind podcast is to discuss this question.

That's come up within our group of whether or not wealth accumulation is really moral or acceptable within the eyes of perhaps of the church or ultimately within Jesus is teaching you know, to phrase it another way. Can we be good followers faithful followers of Jesus and have plans or be [00:01:00] working towards accumulating wealth at the same time?

Are, are we perhaps serving two masters in doing this? And so we thought this was a great great topic. We discussed it at length actually a few weeks ago, amongst ourselves within the group. And we have Deb and Robert here today to kind of lead the charge to Le to share their thoughts on the subject, along with what we had kind of concluded.

So, yeah, with that introduction, Deb, if you wouldn't mind w what are your thoughts? I mean, can we all only accumulate wealth as Catholics, as Christians and not have that become a morally troubling in terms of our walk with Jesus.

Deb Meyer: [00:01:32] Yeah, it's a great question then. I think unequivocally, yes, I do think it's okay. But we also have to keep it in mind of kind of where that wealth is stemming from. So if you think about it just from a foundational concept, you know, Jesus is the. Person that's providing everything for us, right? God is the provider.

He's the one that wants us to live abundantly. And as long as we keep our eyes focused on our [00:02:00] relationship with him as Catholics, we can. Still have some financial blessings delivered. It's just a matter of how we're actually using those blessings. Is it for our own personal gain or is it for the development of other people and, and helping not only our immediate families, but broader communities, just understanding that it's Our goal as Catholics is to really be men and women for others and not just focused on internally, you know, accumulating as much as we possibly can financially.

Just recognizing again, that it's all stemming from God.

Ben Martinek: [00:02:36] Yeah, that's a great answer, Deb. Thanks. I've got some questions. Follow up questions there, but before we get underway Robert, what, what, what are your thoughts on, on the subject? Does it seem moral or acceptable to accumulate wealth?

Robert Franer III: [00:02:46] In general, I agree with Deb. I it's, we all have our own callings as Catholics. And particularly for those of us with families. You know, at the very least [00:03:00] at a minimum, we have to be able to care for those families, you know, over and above that too, to an extent it depends on why you're accumulating it and how you're accumulating it, but it certainly is inherent in our responsibilities that we should be accumulating song.

Ben Martinek: [00:03:20] Right. Yeah. I mean, how are we supposed to take care of others? If, if we don't have the ability to take care of ourselves, right? I mean, if we're not doing enough fair. And so do you see maybe as a definition, perhaps we should define wealth a little bit. Is this just a matter of us attempting to take care of ourselves?

Is there, is there a point in which we would say wealth is excessive or we're not just by having a mass, a certain amount, having done that we have done more than what we should have, and we haven't actually been exhibiting a care. Or focus to others, relationship wise, you know, so we're saying we should be focused on others.

Do we think there's moral boundaries as to how much we should accumulate before it becomes struggling? Dad, do you, do you have some thoughts on it? [00:04:00]

Deb Meyer: [00:04:00] I always have thoughts. I know I'm teasing. No, but it is an interesting question because I do, I kind of look at it in a different respect. I look at it more as. How can I start building my own financial foundation while blessing others? And that might not be monetarily, but maybe it's the volunteerism if you're struggling with debt.

And it's just hard to keep up with the day-to-day bills for running your household. Obviously you don't have a lot of extra cash to be donating to charitable causes, but yeah. Those charitable organizations are still existing. They still need volunteer support. They might need your skills in a special area, you know, from a career perspective, if you know how to help with website development, and they're really looking for some new website skills, they might not be able to pay you full price as to what you would normally be accustomed to, but maybe they can pay you something.

So to say, Hey, thank you for [00:05:00] your time and effort. There's a lot of different variances to Giving that I don't think are just monetary. And that's where stewardship really comes into play. It's all about time, talent, and treasure. And at any given point, you might have one thing outweighing the others, but the ideas.

Stewardship incorporates all three of those elements. And to the extent that you can really be benefiting other people while furthering your own financial foundation is, is going to be the path to, to choose as a young Catholic family, especially starting out.

Ben Martinek: [00:05:35] Right. I mean, it's not as if Jesus taught us to mismanage our finances like that. If you want to follow him, you need to destroy your finances. I mean, there are no scriptural passages that say, you know, if you're not willing to leave, father and mother are leaving. Leave the cow behind in the field. I don't remember verbatim, but if you don't do this, you're not worthy of me.

You're not, you're not able to follow me. Like there's kind of a, an urgency to the call. I think of responding to Christ and a willingness to [00:06:00] detach and let go and to place Jesus as really the number one priority. But none of that necessitates, I think that. Okay. Now you have to go blow your finances up.

And if you haven't done that, you haven't really been faithful to me at the same time. Right. As a great expression, that's come across me recently of, of this question of do we have to be poor, to be pious is probably another way to really capture all of this. And I, I don't think that's the case. I don't think God is calling us.

To to poverty simply because God is one of abundance, right? I mean, that's ultimately what we believe would be so odd for us to think of God calling us to poverty or scarcity. When, in fact, he's the one who's created all of this, a welcome creation and it's rather glamorous. So it doesn't seem like God is one of, of, of nothing, but it comes back to this relationship.

It seems. And, and Robert, why don't you chime in a little bit about that perhaps what's, you know, what is it about this relationship with God that we're supposed to be learning? When it [00:07:00] comes to managing our money, that would be, make it excessive. When, when are we getting into trouble? When it comes to our money?

Robert Franer III: [00:07:07] sure. Right. I generally experience seems to be we're in trouble when we're accumulating for accumulation sake or for the sake of an easy life. You know, my And I'm not just saying this because he might listen to the podcast. One of my one of my larger clients has accumulated a lot of money.

Now, if he had knocked on that, if he had given it all away minus what he needed to live on there would not be an or oratory here in Cincinnati. There would not be a new order of nuns here in Cincinnati, because he's essentially the, any, he hasn't solely financed it, but without his help, they wouldn't have gotten off the ground.

So where it really becomes immoral. In my opinion, I'm no priest or I'm not a specialist in [00:08:00] this, but it's when you're accumulating it for yourself just to make your life easy. You don't have to count on God. You don't have to count on other family members. You don't have to count on anyone because you have all the wealth you need.

Ben Martinek: [00:08:15] Right. It's really kind of flipping that scarcity item on, on the head because only you accumulate wealth and keep it all in your reserves, which there's yet another parable associated that with, you know, the man who virtue mandatorial his barns down so he could build bigger ones. And accumulate even more.

And you know, Jesus only told them, you know, what are you only losing, you know, in the process of this, if you die this evening, you know, w what are all these riches? And I don't quite remember the passage for, for Beetham, but it comes, comes to mind. It comes from a scarcity mindset. Don't you guys think, but I mean, why you accumulate and harness all this for yourself is you're afraid that you won't have enough for yourself for the future when.

Well, we have this whole abundance theme. I think that does come to us [00:09:00] in our teachings. That God is one who is always, who is abundant. Dentist's capable of providing for you. And that we he's not scarce and we don't need to be scariest either. And part of the flip side of being scarce is us being so worried about tomorrow, that all we do is accumulate for ourselves and not think of anyone else, Deb, do you think that's it is this kind of like a scarcity thing that Alma is really what's behind all of this.

Deb Meyer: [00:09:24] I think a lot of it. Yeah, it is. You know, the clients that I have seen struggle with this where I know they're Catholic, but they're not really living out their faith through their financial decision-making. It's because they grew up in an impoverished situation where there wasn't enough. There just wasn't and then if they get to a certain level of success financially with their current role you know, the earnings only go so far, if they're always in this perpetual cycle of more wanting more, right.

And again, they're not focused on their relationship with God so much, and what, what that wealth could [00:10:00] be used to, to like help others, but they're focused on, gosh, I had it so bad here. I need to make up for lost ground and some other realm. And that's not always, you know, it's not 100% of the time, but generally more times than not.

That's what I've seen with clients that are having a hard time, even with strong incomes saving for the future, giving generously those kinds of things. So I would say a lot of it is about understanding. Who you're doing this for that you truly are a steward. It's a gift from him. You want to use it as wisely as possible.

And some of that is looking out for your own financial future for your family, having a retirement plan, you know, the idea isn't that you're going to work until you're 83 being able to save for college and things like that for your younger kids. But I don't think it's There comes a certain point at which you're accumulating enough [00:11:00] financial wealth, that you can look at generosity and radical generosity and an even bigger respect.

And the opposite spectrum is, is when you have that scarcity mindset. And you're just focused on the here and now trying to make today's, you know, pay today's bills.

Ben Martinek: [00:11:16] right. Right. Well, I mean, there's, you know, you think of the, the, the parable of the five talents you know, in the distribution of one talent, three talent or five talents, you know, it's pretty clear that we all haven't been given equal gifts. And you know, those guests vary in their strength and their capacity.

And you know, some people are simply, I think, better at managing money and, and knowing what to do with it than others. Well, when could maybe save it, they were given five talents, you know, so, you know, Jesus only scolded the one who had received the one talent and only didn't do enough with it. He didn't have problems with the fellow who had five talents and came back with five talents more.

We've only had a good return on, on what he did with the money. So is this just a matter of it? Our, our focus should be, to make the most of what's been given to us [00:12:00] and, and recognizing that what has been given to us isn't ours. Is that what you think it comes down to Robert

Robert Franer III: [00:12:06] Yes, certainly. I love the point that it's, it's not ours, whatever we have, whatever we've grown is because God gave us the gifts to grow it. And as such to go back to stewardship. If we're going to mistreat it by say, given away frivolously, you know, you just dish out money until you have nothing left and then someone else has to care for you because you don't want, you know, you don't want to accumulate anything.

I do have, I have seen folks do that and consider doing it, but it's. It touches on whether or not we are treating what we were given by God appropriately.

Ben Martinek: [00:12:52] right. I mean, if I'm the guy gave us these gifts and we don't make good use of them. And one of the natural consequences of us [00:13:00] using these gifts could be that we accumulate wealth and we do well for ourselves. We might be in more trouble to fail in that regard. We've done nothing with them, just so that we could stay impoverished or have less income than to have brought ourselves, put ourselves out there into the world to do well.

And so it's not so much the wealth, I think, but it's the troubling aspect. It's what we do with what God is asking us to do is whether or not honestly, maybe it just comes down to, are we responding? So the call that God has given to each of us, the very individual unique call. And are we fulfilling out that, that mission, that task and it very well could be that it's part of your calling, maybe not for everyone's calling, but it could be part of some of our colleagues for sure.

To to do well for ourselves financially. But when I think the question that's still kinda nagging in my mind, but I wouldn't mind getting your thoughts on. Is, is there a point in which we feel like it gets too much or excessive you know, should we put a dollar sign on that? Can we put a dollar sign on that?

Is there a point where we one [00:14:00] could accuse someone of saying you're, you know, you're. Yeah, you were given five talents, but I mean, all you want to do is make 20 talents off of that, or, I mean, you know, your focus is wrong. Is there a dollar sign with it or is it really just a matter of the heart? I mean, can we make a judgment there or is it just best that this is obviously, I mean, all of this clearly is between God and the individual person.

We don't, none of us thinks that we are in a position to judge anyone, but you know, we're wanting to have this conversation about being, putting ourselves in trouble with God. When do we think someone could get in trouble? As they are becoming wealthy and not just somewhat wealthy, let's say really wealthy on a 50, a hundred million dollars.

I mean, they're really billions of dollars. They've really done well for themselves. When would we feel that they aren't doing enough? If, if they've done, if they've received all of that debt, do you have any thoughts?

Deb Meyer: [00:14:52] Yeah, it's it's a tough question. I do think some of it is more qualitative and not a, a definite [00:15:00] number. When I look at it from my own family's perspective, I do see that God has blessed us abundantly, especially in these last couple of years financially. And it's one of those areas where I don't, and I'm not, I'm not, I'm not a multi-million, you know, I'm not a $50 million person, like you just said, but there comes a point at which I say, okay, what do we actually need to live on as a family?

And whatever's above and beyond that after the taxes are paid and the just typical investments are made, whatever is above and beyond that, could we give that all away? And, and honestly, that's a model that I read about recently in a book called God and money. And it's really it just an interesting perspective on, on shaping the kind of definition around giving, like what, what are your basic living needs?

And above and beyond that, you really do have the capacity to [00:16:00] perhaps give all the rest away. That's also a big piece of why I think just having an individual budget for your family is so important just to understand, okay, my budget's going to look different than a family that has 10 kids. I have three kids but it's also going to look different from someone who has no children, right?

It's a young married couple, but with no kids. So in any. Dynamic. I think you have to take some of your own personal facts into consideration and pray about it and really think, okay, is God calling me to something different here? One example I'll share. We were in church, this was about a year and a half ago and we were getting ready to move to Florida relocate from St.

Louis. To Florida and our house, we had one house under contract, but we weren't getting any, our, our current house was for sale. We weren't getting any offers. And we heard a missionary talk about these homes. They were [00:17:00] constructing for $5,000 overseas homes like to change people's lives. And I said, you know, This house that we're currently building is like $20,000 more than this other house we can get in the same community.

And I could actually like help this family change their lives. So I told my husband, I'm like, I'm really thinking of writing the check for like the $5,000 to help buy that house for that family. And it was like, Such a big conversation for us because we had never made that kind of contribution before, but it was like, okay, we're still able to get in a great house in the same community.

Like why not change that family's life. So, and the cool part about that missionary that day, he said, it's a matching program. So if you make the donation. They'll build a second home for somebody else. So just full circle of like, Hey, God's at work. He's, he's got his eye on, on [00:18:00] you. And he just wants you to, to use the gifts that you can.

So it might be making a frugal decision over a house or a car or whatever it is, but understanding that you could use that differential to help somebody else genuinely change their lives.

Robert Franer III: [00:18:14] Yes.

Ben Martinek: [00:18:15] Robbery is that's your followup.

Robert Franer III: [00:18:18] Well, it is great. And I think, you know, to me, there's no number there's not a hard number. It's the more you accumulate, the more careful you need to be, that it's becoming. Could be a problem. And I really think in the end, that's a prayerful conversation between you, your family. And hopefully through family has a spiritual advisor, but no, I don't see a problem even accumulating a hundred million, 150 million, but I also think that when you start hitting the millions is when you.

Really neat [00:19:00] to look at why you're still accumulating, not just don't set aside what you're doing, continue to make the money because whatever you're doing, you should be doing well. But look at why you're holding onto it.

Ben Martinek: [00:19:17] Right. Well, I mean, we do have only the challenge of good saints, right? To remind us of what, what to do or what you could do. And, you know, the state that always comes to mind for me is I've been in this business at St. Catherine and Drexel. Who, if you don't, aren't familiar with her grew up in a very wealthy family from a Philadelphia banker in the 18 hundreds.

Family was very well to do, and sadly her parents passed away quite young. And so at an early young age of, in our young twenties, she was the inheritor or inherit trust. I don't even know how you use it, but when she re inherited or received about $250, $250 million adjusted to today's dollars and No, no one, there was no expectation that she had to give this money away.

Perhaps [00:20:00] just as an example for all of us, that's exactly what she did. I suppose. That's one way that'll make you a Saint, right? I mean, if you can receive $250 million, that then managed to say goodbye to it all in service to God, it's pretty remarkable. And so maybe we should just keep that as an example, that wealth isn't wrong.

We didn't think that the Catholic family accumulating that wealth was wrong. We didn't think that the other people who had received it was wrong not to give it away. But, yeah, isn't that just the remarkable story of perhaps what is being placed in our hearts is how can we display this abundant generosity that we've received as generosity to others?

And with that, I think we're going to have to probably wrap this call up. This is a great conversation, everyone. I really enjoy Robert and debt-free of being on the call with me and stay tuned for future conversations like this from the advisors of the Catholic financial. Planners network. I we'll have another good episode coming to you soon on Catholic from the Catholic money mastermind.