Rev. John Nunes, president and CEO of Lutheran World Relief, and others (me included) attempt to explain how well-intended government programs developed during the “war on poverty” initiatives help to destroy the urban black family, community, and especially low-income black men. Nunes also explains from the New York Times Magazine how there is no evidence that any government program made any improvement in any urban area anywhere. As a matter of fact, the welfare programs of the 1960s made matters worse in the black community.

Pope John Paul II explains how the intervention of the state can be a detriment of both economic and civil freedom when it assumes too much responsibility beyond the capabilities that are proper to it. The intervention of the state, as Rev. Nunes explains, should give us pause because government is ill-equipped to deal with the holistic needs…