By Delaney Newhouse | Focus Editor
How do we prefer the poor?
The Catholic teaching of a preferential option for the poor is a key component of liberation theology. According to the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, it is a special commitment of the church to strengthen the whole of a community by uplifting its most vulnerable.
Heather Reynolds, Michael L. Smith managing director for Notre Dame University’s Lab for Economic Opportunities, expressed her own need to serve those experiencing poverty while sharing her methodology in doing so. While speaking on Wednesday at the Baylor Collaborative for Hunger and Poverty’s 2025 Together at the Table Hunger and Poverty Summit, Reynolds used her own experiences to encourage others to find motivation to act to alleviate poverty and food insecurity in their communities.
In her own work, Reynolds spoke about preferring the poor in three ways.
“I think it’s pretty darn simple right now that we can demonstrate how we prefer the people experiencing poverty by showing up, shining brightly with a hopeful optimism and activating truth for the greater good of humankind,” she said.
Dr. Thomas Hibbs, Rayzor Professor of Philosophy and dean emeritus at Baylor, introduced Reynolds to the audience of students and professionals seated at small, round tables throughout the banquet hall. Hibbs emphasized Reynold’s work experience not only in researching solutions to poverty at Notre Dame, but also as CEO of Catholic Charities Fort Worth, a job which Reynolds later described being eased into despite her own feelings of inexperience.
“I think she started there at 12,” Hibbs said. “She developed in that Catholic Charities at Fort Worth the most innovative and effective anti-poverty program in the entire nation of all Catholic Charities.”
Reynolds originally began working for Catholic Charities Fort Worth as a therapist, and used stories of her experience providing counseling to Lois, an older woman for six months to exemplify the first of her methods for preferring the poor, showing up.
“For almost 10 years following my time with Lois, I would get a Christmas card from her, sharing what a difference I had made in her life,” she said. “Difference? If you ask me, Lois overpaid for that weekly counseling session. I just showed up.”
Reynolds continued, drawing on her own Christian faith and appealing to that of many audience members, using the example of Stephen, the first martyr in Acts, as an example of the hopeful exuberance she saw as essential to the work of alleviating poverty.
“Our hope is in a vision of what is to come,” she said.
Reynolds described her third means of action “activating truth,” as use of evidence-based practices in fighting poverty. Only 1% of money used in programs and policies to fight poverty has data-based evidence to back its use, Reynolds said.
Reynolds reemphasized these three core methods not only as a means through which one seeking to alleviate poverty can better oneself, but a way to better alleviate poverty.
“When we are all a little bit better, our service to those experiencing poverty is just that much better,” she said
The Together at the Table Hunger and Poverty Summit will continue on Thursday from 8 a.m. to 7 p.m. with more keynote speakers, presentations and breakout groups.
