Wm december2013 issuu by worldmission

inside: a mission in life • a problem of governance • Jacques and Raissa Maritain

francis:

the people´s pope The reasons of our joy The culture of encounter

DECEMBER 2013 • n o. 273 • VOL X X V • 50 pesos • ISSN 0116-8142

ft gi a ve gi an award-winning missionary magazine

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editorial

An irony? The Asian Catholic Monthly Magazine

www.worldmission.ph MAILING ADDRESS: 7885 Segundo Mendoza Street Villa Mendoza Subd. - Sucat 1715 Parañaque City, M.M. - PHILIPPINES TEL.: (+63-2) 829-0740/829-7481 FAX: (+63-2) 820-1422 E-Mail: wm.editor@gmail.com OWNER AND PUBLISHER: WORLD MISSION is published monthly by the Comboni Missionaries of the Heart of Jesus as part of their ministry and program of missionary awareness in Asia. WORLD MISSION magazine is registered at DI–BDT and at the National Library (ISSN 0116-8142). EDITOR: Fr. Dave C. Domingues, MCCJ REDACTION: Corazon A. Uy (secretary), Fr. Jose Rebelo,MCCJ and Fr. Lorenzo Carraro, MCCJ (staff writers) COLLABORATORS: Manuel Giraldes (Portugal), Fr. Joseph Caramazza (UK), Fr. Francesco Pierli (Kenya) and Kris Bayos (Philippines) MANAGEMENT: Fr. Raul Tabaranza, MCCJ wm.administration@gmail.com Ma. Corazon P. Molvizar (secretary) Angeles S. de Vera (circulation) PROMOTION: Fr. Dave C. Domingues, MCCJ wm.promotion@gmail.com ART & DESIGN DIRECTION: Ric M. Gindap GRAPHICS & DESIGN: Victor Garcia SUBSCRIPTION RATES: (11 issues and Calendar) Regular (Philippines):.........................P500.00/year Six months (Philippines):...........................P300.00 Overseas–Air mail: Asia................................US$35 Rest of the world.............................................US$40 DISTRIBUTION: WORLD MISSION is distributed to subscribers by mail. Entered as Second Class Mail at the Parañaque Central Post Office under Permit No. 214-89 (March 9, 1989; valid until December 31, 2013). Published monthly in Parañaque City, M.M. Composition: World Mission. Printed by Lexmedia Digital Corp. Change of address: Please send both the old and the new addresses. Copyright © World Mission magazine. All rights reserved. Contents are not to be reproduced, republished, sold or otherwise distributed, modified or altered without permission from the editor.

rancis, a man who visited slums, cooked his own meals, rode public transportation, mingled with the simple sojourners on the roads of life, this lover of simplicity, has just been ranked by Forbes as the 4th most powerful person in the world. He falls just behind President Putin of Russia (in first place), President Obama (in second) and Xi Jinping of China (in third) – What an irony, don’t you think so? Pope Francis rules over the world’s smallest country, at just 109 acres, with a population of roughly one thousand, but his influence goes well beyond those tiny borders. From the moment of his first appearance as pope, Francis assumed an attitude of simplicity, true humility and service, using his power to serve the poor. This new attitude has sparkled a renewed interest within Church circles and renewed faith and hope among the people – a breath of fresh air to men and women of other religious affiliations or with non-affiliation at all. With his new approach, Francis has breathed a new energy into the Church and has shown us the face of true power – the power of compassion, perhaps the most important mission tasked to the Church. Over and over, Francis has reached out, in presence, word, gestures, phone calls – and through twitter – to over 3 million followers. His effort is to build bridges, overcoming the isolation and the temptation to exclude, by accepting the vulnerability of being nearer, more exposed, more dialogical with peoples of all ages, building empathy and compassion. He has revealed himself as a great communicator of the Gospel in images and experiences and someone accessible to ordinary people. Forbes based its choice on four factors: the number of people a person inf luences, the financial resources he or she controls, the inf luence of the candidate across the world, and

Dave Domingues EDITOR

Francis occupies a position of power that makes billions stop and listen. He has influenced over 1 in 7 human beings on earth. However, it is his compassionate heart that have won over millions.

whether the person actively uses his or her power to change the world. No doubt, Francis occupies a position of power that makes billions stop and listen. He has inf luenced over 1 in 7 human beings on earth. However, it is his new style, attitude, and his compassionate heart that have won over millions. Even his critical approach to those who share power in the Church is far from being empty and reduced to mere harsh criticism. He wants that all of us may rediscover the power of humble but joyful service. Isn’t this what the Christmas message is all about? God humbles Himself to pitch His tent among us, conquering our hearts with the power of His compassionate love? Yes, it is in the simplicity of that manger that the saving power of God draws near to us and is revealed to the nations. It stirred controversy among the leading Jews, even caused persecution and rejection, but it also inflamed the hearts of some men and women with the fire of God’s love which brought them to give witness to their joy before all. Thus, the Church was born, founded on this power that shone amidst the vulnerability of love. Jesus reminds us: "The kings of the Gentiles lord it over them…but it is not this way with you… the one who is the greatest among you must become the least, and the leader, the servant”(Luke 22:25). What an irony? Maybe not. After all, it is the power of God that transforms human hearts and makes us powerful in His merciful love.

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WORLD MISSION

your letters Write to: The Editor, World Mission Magazine • 7885 Segundo Mendoza Street, Villa Mendoza Subd. − Sucat 1715 Parañaque City, M.M. – Philippines • E-mail: wm.editor@gmail.com LEARNING A LOT The November issue of World Mission is extra special because it helps us counter our fear of death. Your editorial says it all: death is the BEGINNING, NOT (the) END. I love the insights of EVERY article! Let me share some that touched my inner being: You transported me to South Sudan (Tali Post) while I read about the “Oasis of peace and faith.” You truly have a missionary heart and, you and your brethren, immerse yourselves into the local people’s way of living. They have a lot of hardships, probably like being in purgatory on earth, but their smiles seem like they are in paradise. It is great that these people who were treated like trash by some, have been elevated to being humans again. Thanks to the missionaries, for giving them back their dignity. Tali is a wonderful community and I am blessed to sort of having travelled with you through your story. Dr. Analyn Salvador-Amores, through her article, “DEATH: A celebration and continuity of life,” opened my eyes to the beliefs of the people from the Cordillera Autonomous Region. "Death is a celebration and a continuity of life; it strengthens their social relations with their ancestors, perpetuates tradition, and unites the community together." I thank you and the people who help spread the good news through the WM magazine. The whole family is an avid fan of World Mission. In the past, I was the one subscribing for us, but this time, my dad was faster to do that pleasant task. Keep up the good work! « Lara Mia Veronica M. Garcia , Parañaque City (Received by e-mail) DISTINCT MISSION Thank you for reminding us of our distinct mission of transforming the temporal order by the spirit of the Gospel as laity in the Church. We are a lay couple committed to be faithful to this mission. First, by pioneering Christian community building in the Archdiocese of Davao in the 60's and 70's using Marriage Encounter and Evangelization seminars. Second, by promoting good citizenship and responsible governance habits in a number of large business, government and non-government organizations. As we write this to you now, we are still engaged as lead trainers and facilitators of the Values Formation Program in support of Secretary Rogelio Singson's Transformation Program to change the values, culture and image of the Department of Public Works and Highways and to pre-

vent corruption. Today, as senior citizens with a happy and fulfilling life, we pray to the Lord to send us more lay laborers to the harvest – preferably faith-driven professionals willing to dedicate their lives to the apostolate of public service in the promotion of integrity and prevention of corruption. « Dr.Tony & Cecille Roldan (Received by e-mail)

ENRICHING First of all, I extend my heartfelt thanks to you for the wonderful service that you render to us, through World Mission. I have been a reader of WM for almost 15 years now. The editorial, articles and the presentations are enriching and beautiful. Please continue sending me the magazine to my new address. « Fr. Francis Kurisummoottil, Kerala, India (Received by e-mail)

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subscribing to world mission Subscribers and friends: For your convenience, you may now remit renewal fees by: • Bank transfer (BDO, Villa Mendoza – Sucat Branch, Acct. No. 005280011577, Acct. Name: Comboni World Mission). If you will use this method, please send us, by fax or ordinary mail, the copy of the deposit slip with your name and address. • Money order in favor of World Mission Magazine. • Crossed cheque payable to World Mission Magazine. • Dial 829-0740/829-7481 for pick up. (In Metro Manila, we will send our messenger to you on a scheduled date.) Note 1: If, by any chance, you are having problems in receiving World Mission Magazine, please let us know soonest so that we can take appropriate action. Note 2: We would like to encourage our valued subscribers who have not updated their record with us to do so as soon as possible. Please help us to provide you the best service you deserve. Thank you!

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www.worldmission.ph events to remember in december 01 - World AIDS Day 03 - Int'l Day of Disabled Persons 09 - Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception 12 - Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe 16 - Aguinaldo Masses begin 25 - Christmas Day 27 - Feast of St. John, Apostle 29 - Feast of the Holy Family mIssion prayer intention

That Christians, enlightened by the light of the Incarnate Word, may prepare humanity for the coming of the Savior.

inside IMPERATIVE

We cannot fail to realize the relevance of the important historical moment we are living as a Church under the leadership of Pope Francis. His inspiring stand on concrete issues of our human journey has helped refocus the faith on issues of compassion, love and service – an incarnated faith that stirs us into motion. His call is for interest, care and action in favor of the sick, the exploited and the marginalized of our society. It is not a call for protagonism but, rather, to rediscover the inner vocation of our being Church, involving not only the leaders but every one of the faithful in bearing joyful witness through compassionate deeds. The lethargy, apathy and even the scandal of indifference towards various forms of suffering afflicting millions have no place in the Church: Francis wants a Church with a heart, involved in and committed not just to palliative charity but one working for justice, seeking specific structural changes in search of true equity within the society. More than ever, the Beatitude to hunger and thirst for justice is imperative.

world touch

frontiers

WM special | FRANCIS: THE PEOPLE'S POPE by Fr. Lorenzo Carraro, mccj

Typhoon Haiyan: The rich world is still ignoring climate change By John Vidal

special report | holy land in jesus´ time

Carpenters and fishermen were quite well-off By Fr. Joseph Caramazza, mccj

special report | holy land in jesus´ time

The complex world of Jewish sects

By Fr. Joseph Caramazza, mccj

The reasons of our joy

The culture of encounter

in focus | the poor

Will the poor be always with us?

Fr. Emmett Coyne | Contributor

spiritual reflection | RICH/POOR AFRICA

A problem of governance

By Fr. Aniedi Okure, OP, contributor

Missionary vocation | Jacques and Raissa Maritain

The great friendship

By Fr. Lorenzo Carraro, mccj

THE LAST WORD

An announcement for all By Fr. SILVANO FAUSTI, sJ

Pope Francis’ pearls

WORLD MISSION has the exclusive services of the following magazines for Asia: ALÉM-MAR (Portugal); MUNDO NEGRO (Spain); NIGRIZIA (Italy); NEW PEOPLE (Kenya); WORLDWIDE (South Africa), AFRIQUESPOIR (DR of Congo); ESQUILA MISIONAL (Mexico); MISION SIN FRONTERAS (Peru); and IGLESIA SINFRONTERAS (Colombia).

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w o r l dto u c h wealth

Philippines has the greatest inequality gap in Asia Under the reformist leadership of President Benigno Aquino III who has placed “good governance” initiatives at the heart of his administration’s agenda, the Philippines has enjoyed an unprecedented period of economic revival and political stability. The Aquino administration’s decisive crackdown on high-level corruption, which earlier saw the impeachment of top magistrates implicated in the abuse of power, restored some measure of confidence in state institutions and the economy. No longer a regional lacklustre, the Philippines has emerged as one of the few bright spots in Asia, growing by 7.8% in the first quarter of 2013. Nevertheless, the majority of the population continues to suf fer from poverty, with growing income inequality sustaining well-entrenched networks of political patronage that fuel corruption across the country. Many continue to see widespread poverty and inequality as the key underlying factors for systemic corruption. Latest data suggests that the 40 richest families control up to 76% of the economy, the highest rate of “wealth concentration” in Asia. Such staggering levels of income inequality have had a direct impact on the political landscape, where about 178 political dynasties have continuously dominated 73 out of a total of 80 provinces in the Philippines. Recent months, especially, have raised concerns as to the Aquino administration’s ability to rein the age-old challenge of systemic corruption. Beginning in July, a number of whistleblowers have come forward, shedding light on a 220-milliondollar corruption scandal, dubbed by the media as the “mother of all scams.” According to the ongoing investigations, dozens of legislators have allegedly partnered with bogus non-governmental organizations (NGOs) to build ghost projects – those that only exist on paper – in order to re-channel their discretionary Priority Development Assistance Fund (PDAF) to their own pockets. In principle, the leg-

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Lusa

islators are supposed to use their PDAF for local development projects, but systemic corruption has compromised programs for rural development and empowerment of indigent communities, with some politicians, in the process, amassing staggering amounts of wealth to sustain their elaborate systems of political patronage and ensure a strong hold on power. Outraged by the breadth and veracity of the corruption charges, reportedly up to 75,000 Filipinos took to the streets of Manila on Aug. 26, National Heroes Day, to demand immediate prosecution of alleged plunderers as well as the elimination of legislator’s discretionary funds, the PDAF. “The dominant emotion is anger and outrage,” said Ito Rapadas, the major figure behind the nationwide anticorruption rally. Across the Philippines and beyond, concurrent rallies were held in solidarity, reflecting the growing societal anger against the perceived impunity of corrupt officials. It marked the biggest protests under the current Aquino administration. The protesters were largely unified in their conviction that the PDAF has served not only as an avenue for selfenrichment by corrupt officials, but also a means for sustaining a vicious cycle of political patronage, especially during election periods.

Despite Aquino’s historic-high approval ratings, he has understood the significance of recent rallies, and that his popularity does not equate to civic passivity. The government has vowed to prosecute corrupt officials. Aquino has assembled the Inter-Agency Anti-Graft Coordinating Council to gather evidence and f ile charges against the alleged plunderers, while the Philippine Senate is overseeing a Blue Ribbon Commission to gather testimony from officials and whistleblowers in aid of prosecution. In the absence of secure and wellpaying jobs for the majority of the people, many are forced to sell their votes during elections or beg for patronage from elected of f icials. This has created a culture of dependency, which has encouraged many officials to amass ill-gotten wealth to secure votes and political support among the poor, who constitute the majority of the voters. While the recent revelations have provided a wealth of evidence and testimonies to warrant a highprofile crackdown on powerful officials, including three potential presidential candidates in the 2016 elections, many continue to see widespread poverty and inequality as the key underlying factors for systemic corruption. www.ipsnews.net/ Richard Heydarian

church

Dates set for St. Francis Xavier’s exposition The Archbishop of Goa, India, has announced the dates of the once-a-decade exposition of the relics of Jesuit missionary super saint, Francis Xavier, from Nov. 22, 2014, to Jan. 4, 2015. Some 2.5 million pilgrims of a variety of religious traditions venerated the relics 10 years ago. The hope is that Pope Francis will be among the visitors next year. Francis has suggested he may visit Sri Lanka next year, but there has been no word about his visiting Goa. Francis Xavier, a Basque, was born in Spain, April 7, 1506, and arrived in Goa on May 6, 1542. His missionary work took him across Asia over the next 10 years. He died on Dec. 3, 1552, on Sancian island, just short of his ultimate goal: China. His body was first laid to rest in Portuguese Malacca (presently northern Malaysia). Two years later, the body was moved to the Portuguese colony at Goa, today a popular tourist enclave, and installed in the Basilica of Bom Jesus.

The basilica and the mausoleum there that hold the relics of Francis Xavier are a popular pilgrimage site year round. Every 10 years, the relics are moved in solemn procession to the nearby Se Cathedral where they are available for public veneration for 44 days. The saint's body is

intact, except for his right arm, which was removed so that it could be displayed as a relic at the Church of the Gesù in Rome. He is said to have baptized more than 300,000 people across Asia, using his right hand to pour the baptismal water. www.ncronline.org/Dennis Coday

The number of girls giving birth before the age of 15 in sub-Saharan Africa will increase by more than 1 million by 2030 unless urgent action is taken to end child marriage, get more girls into school and ensure their rights are protected, according to the UN's flagship population report. − www.theguardian.com EDUCATION

Girls are going back to school On weekday mornings in Mingora, the largest city in Swat Valley, Pakistan, the streets are filled with boys heading to school. Among them are smaller groups of schoolgirls laughing and tucking books under their arms, as they, too, head to school. The scene highlights

how far the region has come in the past few years: The Swat Valley, famed for its picturesque mountains, saw more than 400 schools destroyed – more than half of them girls' schools – when the Taliban took control of the region in 2008. The valley was cleared

of the Taliban by a military operation in 2009, but it's taken awhile for girls to fill the schools again. Girls struggle to simply get to school in the remote mountainous region and the persistent issue of poverty remains key. The Taliban is considered a greater threat in areas that border the valley, but activists here say there's a need to make sure girls, as well as boys, are educated in order to avoid a repeat of the past. “There is a feeling [in Swat] that, if we are not educated, these things will happen again," says Hazer Gul, a local activist. "The Mullahs misinformed us. They [the community] have

understood that education is the key to avoiding militants.” Enter the Malala Fund: The fund named for Malala Yousafzai, the young girl who was shot point blank by a Taliban gunman for her vocal support of school for girls in the region, aims to improve access to primary school education for children around the world. Her survival of the Taliban attack on her school bus one year ago in October, shined a spotlight on Pakistani girls’ education – and made her a global spokesperson for the millions of Pakistani girls who are denied education by the movement. www.ucanews.com

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CLIMATE CHANGE

Canadian Arctic temperatures at their highest in 44,000 years According to researchers, the 315,999-square-kilometer Baffin Island's ice caps on the highlands rest on relatively flat terrain, usually frozen to their beds. According to a new study, average summer temperatures here are perhaps higher than at any time in the past 120,000 years. The warmth there exceeds that of the Early Holocene Era, researchers at the University of Colorado, Boulder, say. During that period, the amount of the sun's energy reaching the Northern Hemisphere in summer was roughly 9% greater than today. "The key piece here is just how unprecedented the warming of Arctic Canada is," Professor Gifford Miller said. A fellow at CU-Boulder's Institute of Arctic and Alpine Research who led the study, Miller says that "this study really says the warming we are seeing is outside any kind of known natural variability, and it has to be due to

increased greenhouse gases in the atmosphere." With his colleagues, Miller used dead moss clumps emerging from melting ice caps from the island as tiny calendars. Boasting of four different ice caps, radiocarbon dates show the Along mosses had not been exposed to the elements since at least 44,000 to 51,000 years ago. Radiocarbon dating is only accurate to about 50,000 years. Since Earth's geologi-

cal record shows it was in a glaciation stage prior to that time, the indications are that Canadian Arctic temperatures today have not been matched or exceeded for roughly 120,000 years. Compiling the age distribution of 145 radiocarbon-dated plants in the highlands of Baffin Island that were exposed by ice recession during the year they were collected proved daunting to researchers. All samples collected were within one meter of the ice caps, which are generally receding by two to three meters a year. Reconstructing the past climate of Baffin Island beyond the limit of radiocarbon dating, the team used data from ice cores previously retrieved by international teams from the nearby Greenland Ice Sheet. Summer temperatures cooled in the Canadian Arctic by about five degrees Fahrenheit from roughly 5,000 years ago to about 100 years ago. www.catholic.org

“Biotechnology can be supported only when it’s married with ethics, compassion, morality and prudence.” – Cardinal Turkson, President of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, during the awarding of the World Food Prize, last October, in Des Moines.

“Reform is something that can be done – and must be done, not only by the hierarchy, but also by every Catholic: lay, clergy or religious, to effect a radical cure of a Church otherwise threatened by terminal morbidity. Pope Francis is leading the way.” – Fr. Hans Küng, theologian and author, in “Can We Save the Catholic Church?,” published by William Collins

"We have in our prayer, 'Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world.' Can we become the lambs of God who takes away the anger of the world? Or, at least, reduce the anger of the world?" – Archbishop Thomas

Menamparampil at the Catholic University of America on different cultural understanding of justice and responsibility, last October 11. www.ncronline.org

“While aid has helped Africa fight diseases, the world should move away from treating Africa as an object of charity addicted to aid towards engaging the continent as a partner.” – Fr. Agbonkhianmeghe E. Orobator, Nairobi-based Jesuit Provincial, in the 2013 CAFOD lecture in London, in October, 2013. www.thetablet.co.uk

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“I am in awe at everything Francis is doing. I believe his pontificate gives not just the Catholic Church but the entire humanity a chance.” – Zygmunt Bauman, Polish-born sociologist who coined the phrase “liquid modernity,” in an interview by Vatican newspaper L’Osservatore Romano. www.vaticaninsider.lastampa.it “Francis speaks to the spirituality of our times: followers of the “personal God” are not particularly interested in the moral prescriptions given by representatives of religious institutions but want to find a meaning to their fragmented individual existence.” – Idem, Ibidem

slavery

30 Million ‘modern slaves’ exploited worldwide The Global Slavery Index, a new comprehensive measure of compelled labor, estimates that there are 29.8 million people enslaved around the world. The countries with the highest numbers of enslaved people are India, China, Pakistan, Nigeria, Ethiopia, Russia, Thailand, Democratic Republic of Congo, Myanmar and Bangladesh. Taken together, these countries account for 76% of the millions trapped in modern slavery, according to the report. The inaugural index ranked 162 countries, reflecting a combined measure of three factors: estimated prevalence of modern slavery by population, a measure of child marriage and a measure of human trafficking in and out of a country. The index was published by the Australia-based Walk Free Foundation. Mauritania, a West African nation with deeply entrenched hereditary slavery, is ranked number one. It is estimated that there are between 140,000 and 160,000 people enslaved in Mauritania, a country with a population of just 3.8 million. Haiti, a Caribbean nation with deeply entrenched practices of child slavery (known locally as the restavek system) is ranked second on the index. An estimated 200,000 to 220,000 people are in modern slavery in Haiti, a country with a population of just 10.2 million. Pakistan, with its porous borders to Afghanistan, large populations of displaced persons and a weak rule of law, is third on the index with as many as 2,200,000 people in various forms of modern slavery. The country with the largest number of people in modern slavery is India, with between 13,300,000 and 14,700,000 people enslaved. Slavery in India includes some foreign nationals but, by far, the largest proportion of this problem occurs through the exploitation of Indian citizens, particularly through debt bondage and bonded labor. China had the second highest number, with an estimated 2.8 million to 3.1 million. In China, the forced labor of men, women and children can be located in many sectors of the economy, including domestic servitude and forced begging, sexual exploitation of women and children and forced marriage. The country with the third highest absolute number in modern slavery is Pakistan, with an estimated 2 million to 2.2 million people. The United States ranked 134 with an estimated 59,644 enslaved. “Whether it is called human trafficking, forced labor, slavery or slavery-like practices (debt bondage, forced or servile marriage, sale or exploitation of children including in armed conflict), victims of modern slavery have their freedom denied and are used and controlled and exploited by another person for profit, sex or the thrill of domination,” the index authors conclude. A “staggering and harsh reality,” is that some people are still being “born into hereditary slavery,” according to the report, particularly in parts of West Africa and South Asia. “Other victims are captured or kidnapped before being sold or kept for exploitation, whether through ‘marriage’, unpaid labor on fishing boats or as domestic workers. Others are tricked and lured into situations they cannot escape, with false promises of a good job or an education.” Modern slavery can involve using children in the military, whether as combatants, porters, cooks or for other jobs. The chains of modern slavery are not always physical. Sometimes, escalating debts, intimidation, deception, isolation, fear or even a “marriage” that is forced on a young woman or girl can be used to hold a person against her will without the need for locks or chains. www.americamagazine.org

HUMAN RIGHTS

'Rights do not exist in N. Korea The U.N. inquiry investigating abuses in North Korea heard that “human rights do not exist” in the isolated Communist state during the latest hearings in London. Kim Song-ju, an escapee from North Korea, told the recent inquiry that “protest translates as death itself.” The U.N., earlier this year, said that two-thirds of North Korea’s population of 24 million people are chronically food insecure. Kim told the inquiry he was sent back to North Korea three times by Chinese authorities. He was then taken to a detention center where he witnessed severe beatings and was forced to search prisoners’ excrement for money. “The North Korean prison guards were telling us that, once you get to this prison, you’re not human, you’re just like animals,” he told the inquiry. In February 2007, he finally got away and he now has permanent residence in the United Kingdom. Another escapee, Park Jih-yun, described how she had to leave her dying father at home with only a bowl of rice as she fled across the Chinese border in 1998. In China, she was forced into marriage by “people who buy and sell other people,” she said. The U.N. commission of inquiry also heard from three former North Korean soldiers who spoke of rights abuses, and from the Christian Solidarity Worldwide (CSW) which has documented violations inside the country. “We hope that the commission of inquiry will expose the extent of the North Korean government’s human rights violations and provide the first steps towards justice for the North Korean people who have suffered terribly under one of the world’s most brutal, and closed, regimes,” said CSW’s Special Ambassador Stuart Windsor. www.ucanews.com

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calamity

Haiyan: Desperate survivors in flattened city The distance from the airport to the center of town is just seven miles by road, but the journey can easily take six hours. To get to Tacloban, the small city in Leyte Province in the Philippines that was flattened on November 8 by typhoon Haiyan, you have to maneuver through piled up bodies, uprooted trees, jagged pieces of debris and survivors staggering around searching for food, water and supplies. The coastal city of 222,000 inhabitants bore the brunt of the 195mph winds of the strongest storm ever recorded, tearing off roofs and destroying evacuation centers. The storm that surged six meters (20ft) in height turned roads into rivers of sewage and seawater, landing whole ships on top of houses, and obliterating bridges and roads. At least 10,000 people are thought to have died so far in Leyte province alone, with the toll expected to rise. Without clean water, food or medicine, Tacloban survivors have begun raiding houses, shops and malls to find supplies. One shop owner was photographed defending his premises with a pistol, while reports emerged of aid convoys being hijacked and cash point machines being looted. Local officials warned Philippine President, Benigno Aquino III – who visited Tacloban on Sunday – that residents from nearby towns were entering the city to steal supplies and pleaded with him to declare martial law. Even Tacloban's airport was reduced to a mere shell. But, now, survivors, authorities and media all crowd into the building through ragged gaps in its walls. The airport is both a makeshift command center – from which the army finally began, on Sunday, to deliver much-needed supplies – and the only way out for many survivors who are queuing hundreds-deep in an effort to leave the chaos behind. More grimly, the airport has been turned into a makeshift morgue for the growing number of bodies found stacked in churches, snagged on tree branches or underneath rubbles. Mass graves have been dug to accommodate the corpses; with Police Chief Elmer Soria reckoning that most victims either drowned or were crushed to death by crumbling buildings. "It was like a tsunami," said Philippine Interior Secretary Mar Roxas, who visited Tacloban on Sunday by helicopter. "I don't know how to

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describe what I saw. It's horrific." With communications still inoperative across vast swaths of the hardest-hit areas, it is impossible to judge the scale of the destruction. Aid agencies warn that they cannot reach all those affected, with airports and harbors across the Philippines either entirely closed or badly disrupted. Emergency teams have been forced to try to reach survivors by foot; in many cases walking for hours over debris to access remote and ravaged areas. Luiza Carvalho, the U.N.'s resident and humanitarian coordinator for the Philippines, said it was vital that aid agencies reach those who are stranded in isolated areas. "They are at risk of further threats such as malnutrition, exposure to bad weather and unsafe drinking water," she said. More than 350,000 people are awaiting supplies in 1,220 evacuation centers, with 4.3M people across the country affected by Haiyan, said Orla Fagan of the U.N. Office for the Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA). Rescue teams, deployed in Bogo City and San Remigio, on the island of Cebu, said some buildings have been flattened to the ground, with significant damage to both homes and sugar plantations, which have served as many residents' primary source of income in this agricultural area. President Aquino has come under fire for an initially slow relief effort, but ar-

gued that logistics prevented emergency supplies from reaching devastated areas any sooner. International aid, however, is on the move, with the U.S. flying in Marines with the aim of providing muchneeded logistics, and the UK announcing £6M in initial emergency aid and the EU 3M for immediate relief. The U.S. Embassy said it would provide $100,000 for health, water and sanitation support. Australia said it would provide an initial 15.5M pesos ($358,900) in relief supplies. The World Food Program will also be sending food, communications equipment and logistics to Cebu, just west of Leyte, with a number of military planes departing from Villamor Airforce Base in Manila with food, fuel, generators, body bags, runway lights, search and rescue teams and police."Our priority right now is sending out security – Philippine National Police – to deal with the violence," spokesman Colonel Miguel Okol told the Guardian. While a number of Tacloban residents aimed to board the military planes headed back to Manila, hundreds of friends and family crowded together at the air base trying to make the opposite journey in order to find relatives they feared may have been killed by the typhoon."Until now, I have had no contact with my family in Tacloban, so I have been here since 5a.m.," said Almar Rosal, 21, one of some 20 university students at the base. www.theguardian.com

f r o n t i e r s

Typhoon Haiyan:

The rich world is still ignoring climate change

met Naderev Saño last year in Doha, when the world's governments were meeting for the annual U.N. climate talks. The chief negotiator of the Filipino delegation was distraught. Typhoon Bopha, a category five "super-typhoon" with 175mph winds (282km/h) had just ripped through the island of Mindanao. It was the 16th major storm of the year, hundreds of thousands of people had lost their homes and more than 1,000 had died. Saño and his team knew well the places where it had hardest hit. "Each destructive typhoon season costs us 2% of our GDP, and the reconstruction costs, a further 2%, which means we lose nearly 5% of our economy every year to storms. We have not seen any money from the rich countries to help us to adapt ... We cannot go on like this. It cannot be a way of life that we end up running always from storms," he said. He later told the assembly: "Climate change negotiations cannot be based on the way we currently measure progress. It is a clear sign of planetary and economic and environmental dysfunction ... The whole world, especially developing countries struggling to address poverty and achieve social and human development, confronts these same realities." Saño could not be reached because phone lines to Manila were down, but he was thought to be on his way to Warsaw for the U.N. talks, which resume on Monday. This time, his country has been battered by the even stronger super-typhoon Haiyan, one of the most powerful ever recorded anywhere – 25 miles (40km) wide and reaching astonishing speeds of possibly 200mph (322km/h). We don't yet know the exact death toll or damage done, but we do know

that the strength of tropical storms, such as Haiyan or Bopha, is linked to sea temperature. As the oceans warm with climate change, there is extra energy in the system. Storms may not be increasing in frequency but Pacific Ocean waters are warming faster than expected, and there is a broad scientific consensus that typhoons are now increasing in strength. Typhoon Haiyan, like Bopha, will be seen widely in developing countries as a taste of what is to come, along with rising sea levels and water shortages. But, what alarms the governments of vulnerable countries the most is that they believe rich countries have lost the political will to address climate change at the speed needed to avoid catastrophic change in years to come. From being on top of the global political agenda just four years ago, climate change is now barely mentioned by the political elites in London or Washington, Tokyo or Paris. Australia is not even sending a junior minister to Warsaw. The host,

Poland, will be using the meeting to celebrate its coal industry. The pitifully small pledges of money made by rich countries to help developing countries, such as the Philippines or Bangladesh, to adapt to climate change have barely materialized. Meanwhile, fossil fuel subsidies are running at more than $500bn (£311bn) a year and vested commercial interests are increasingly inf luencing the talks. As the magnitude of the adverse impacts of humaninduced climate change becomes apparent, the most vulnerable countries say they have no option but to go on alone. The good news is that places such as Bangladesh, Nepal, the small island states of the Pacific and Caribbean, and many African nations, are all starting to adapt their farming, fishing and cities, to the situation. But, coping with major storms, as well as sea level rise and water shortages, is expected to cost poor countries trillions of dollars, which they do not have. www.theguardian.com/ John Vidal

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wm special • francis: the people´s pope

The reasons of our joy

Christmas Season in the Philippines is in full swing with the joy of Mama Mary holding the Baby Jesus in her arms at Bethlehem. It is the joy of Francis of Assisi, the saint of the “Belen.” Pope Francis has made this joy the motif of his proclamation, a joy that he discovered as passion for Jesus in his family and in his youth, even through suffering and trials; as commitment to the poor and appreciation of community in his maturity and as fruit of contemplation in his ministry of unity as a pope. by

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his is the first word I would like to tell you: joy! Don’t be ever men and women of sadness! A Christian cannot be a sad person! Long faces cannot proclaim good news! Ours is a joy which comes from having met with a Person: Jesus, who is in our midst,” these are Pope Francis’ words on Palm Sunday, March 24, only a few days after his election and are like the motto of his pontificate.

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Fr. Lorenzo Carr aro | comboni missionary

Speaking to the thousands of seminarians and novices, on July 8, he said: “Every Christian, especially you and I, is called to be a bearer of this message of hope that gives serenity and joy: God’s consolation, his tenderness towards all.” Then, leaving out the paper and continuing in a spontaneous way, the Pope told the future priests and nuns to keep “freshness and joy” in their lives, and took to task seminarians and

novices who are “too serious, too sad.” “Something is not right here. There is no sadness in holiness,” he said. “A true Christian is a person of joy. There are people who masquerade as Christians, and sin by being excessively superficial or overly rigid, forgetting that a true Christian is a person of joy who rests their faith on the rock of Christ. Some think they can be Christian without Christ; others think being

Christian means being in a perpetual state of mourning. The former have a superficial happiness. The others do not know what Christian joy is. They do not know how to enjoy the life that Jesus gives us.” These words that the Pope delivered in one of his spontaneous homilies in the chapel of Santa Martha makes one think of the movie “Babette’s Feast,” a movie very dear to Pope Francis, where the French refugee, Babette, an accomplished cook, fills with joy and tolerance her stern Calvinist hosts by preparing a sumptuous dinner and making them enjoy God’s creatures in a kind of contemplative experience. From the experience of suffering

Jorge Mario Bergoglio was born in Flores, a barrio of Buenos Aires, on December 17, 1936. He was the eldest of five children of Mario José Bergoglio, an Italian immigrant from Portacomaro, in the Province of Asti, in Italy. His father had followed his three brothers to Argentina, when the Advent of Fascism and the notorious dictator Benito Mussolini had forced many to leave Italy. Pope Francis remembers that his grandmother, Rose, arrived in Buenos Aires sweltering in the heat, clinging to her coat with a fur collar and didn’t want to let it go because, sawn inside that collar, were all the monies they had put together by selling their property in Italy in order to face the unknown. Very soon, the Bergoglios were affected by the Great Depression and life became a struggle. The four brothers had to part company. Life became bearable when Papa Mario José found a job as an accountant. After the fifth child, Jorge’s mother was struck by partial paralysis; because of this, Jorge grew up at his Grandmother Rose’s place. When he visited his mother, he had to cook: for that purpose, his mother used to prepare all the ingredients and was at hand to give instructions of how to go about it. Jorge will treasure this culinary knowledge and, even as archbishop of Buenos Aires, he will often cook his own meals.

 COMMUNITY. Pope Francis has chosen to live with the people, making a common journey.

I did not see myself as a priest on my own. I need a community... I chose to live here, in Room 201, because when I saw the papal apartment, so big and so isolated, inside myself I distinctly heard a ‘no.’ I need to live my life with others. I cannot live without people. He attended the technical secondary school and graduated with a chemical technician's diploma. He worked for a few years in that capacity in a food section’s laboratory. At the age of 21, he suffered from a life-threatening pneumonia and had part of a lung excised. In the interviews he gave later on, he stated: “I see the holiness in the patience of the people of God: a woman who is raising children, a man who works to bring home the bread, the sick, the elderly priests who have so many wounds but have a smile on their faces because they serve the Lord, the sisters who work hard and live a hidden sanctity. This is for me the common sanctity. I often associate sanctity with patience as a constancy in going forward, day by day. This is the sanctity of the militant Church also mentioned by St. Ignatius. This was the sanctity of my parents: my dad, my mom, my Grandmother Rosa who loved me so much. In my breviary, I have the last will of my Grandmother Rosa, and I read it often. For me it is like a prayer. She is a saint who has suffered so much, also spiritually, and yet always went forward with courage.” One day, when Jorge was five or six and was walking around with his grandmother, two Salvation Army

women passed by. He asked her if they were nuns. “No,” she replied, “they are Protestants, but they are good.” Though he was often told that all Protestants were going to hell, being raised in a country strictly linked with Catholicism, Bergoglio ref lected back on the incident as archbishop of the capital city and praised his grandmother’s “wisdom of true religion.” “I cannot live without people”

After three years in the diocesan seminary of Buenos Aires, Jorge Mario entered the Society of Jesus as a novice in 1958. About his choice of vocation, he revealed: “Three things, in particular, struck me about the Society of Jesus: the missionary spirit, community, and discipline. I was always looking for a community. I did not see myself as a priest on my own. I need a community. And you can tell this by the fact that, as a pope, I am here in Santa Marta. I chose to live here, in Room 201, because when I saw the papal apartment, so big and so isolated, inside myself I distinctly heard a ‘no.’ I need to live my life with others. I cannot live without people.” Bergoglio took his vows in 1960 and was ordained to the priesthood in 1969. He was master of novices and professor

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of theology. He served the Society in different capacities, even as provincial superior and, in 1992, was chosen as auxiliary bishop of Buenos Aires and, eventually, became its archbishop. One of Bergoglio's major initiatives as archbishop was to increase the Church's presence in the slums of Buenos Aires. Under his leadership, the number of priests assigned to work in the slums doubled. There were so many beautiful things people did not know about him. Not everyone knew he used to go to the slums of Buenos Aires, the villas miserias, to meet the poor. Many of his fellow countrymen are only discovering this now that he is pope. This was partly because he usually didn’t have any journalist following him. In the year 2000, Archbishop Bergoglio said that the Argentine Catholic Church needed "to put on garments of public penance for the sins committed during the years of the dictatorship" in the 1970’s, the years known as the Dirty War. Archbishop Bergoglio revealed that he had often sheltered people from the dictatorship in church’s property, and once gave his own identity papers to a man who looked like him, so he could flee Argentina. He was made a cardinal by John Paul II in 2001. Cardinal Bergoglio’s simple lifestyle contributed to his reputation for humility. He lived in a small apartment, rather than in the elegant bishop's residence which he had changed into a hospital. He took public transportation and cooked his own meals. Contemplation and joy

Pope Francis showed his humble selfacceptance when he spoke of himself in the extensive interviews he gave: “I can say that the best description of myself, the one that comes more from the inside and I feel most true is this: I am a sinner whom the Lord has looked upon.” And he repeated: “I am one who is looked upon by the Lord. I always felt that my motto, Miserando atque eligendo (God has mercy and chooses), was very true for me.”

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Lusa

 HABEMUS PAPAM. The good news was announced from the balcony – Francis is his name.

With your witness of joy and service, you must make the civilization of love blossom. You will show, with your life, that it pays to spend ourselves for great ideals, to value the dignity of every human being and gamble on Christ and His Gospel. Pope Francis told the Poor Clares at Assisi: “When one goes along the path of the contemplation of Jesus Christ, of prayer and of penance with Jesus Christ, one becomes immensely human. Cloistered nuns are called to have a great deal of humanity, a humanity like that of Mother Church. And what is the sign of a sister who is that human? Joy… joy... when there is joy! It saddens me when I see nuns who aren’t joyful. They might smile, but it’s a flight attendant’s smile. But not with the smile of joy, the joy that comes from within.” On another occasion, he confided his own contemplative, mystical experience: “When the conclave elected me pope, before I accepted, I asked if I could spend a few minutes in the room next to the one with the balcony overlooking the square. My head was completely empty and I was seized by a great anxiety. To make it go away and relax, I closed my eyes and made every thought disappear, even the thought of refusing to accept the position, as the liturgical procedure allows. I closed my eyes and I no longer had any anxiety or emotion. At a certain point, I was filled with a great light. It lasted a moment, but to me

it seemed very long. Then the light faded, I got up suddenly and walked into the room where the cardinals were waiting and the table on which was the act of acceptance. I signed it, the Cardinal Camerlengo countersigned it and then on the balcony there was the Habemus Papam." “My joy is much greater than my tiredness” Pope Francis tweeted from the plane that was taking him home, after the grueling week spent with the youth in Rio de Janeiro. “It is with gratitude and already nostalgia for that unique time spent with you that I address you,” the Pope continued in his interview in the plane, “Many of you have come to this pilgrimage as disciples: I have no doubt that all of you are going back as missionaries. "With your witness of joy and service, you must make the civilization of love blossom. You will show, with your life, that it pays to spend ourselves for great ideals, to value the dignity of every human being, and gamble on Christ and His Gospel. I will continue to nurture an immense hope about the youth of Brazil and of the whole world: by means of them, Christ is preparing a new springtime for the world.”

wm special • francis: the people´s pope

CHRIST AT LAMPEDUSA The island of Lampedusa, where Pope Francis decided to go to honor the immigrants who died at sea, is a symbol. The Holy Father’s powerful reminder of God’s words to Cain: “Where is your brother?” struck a chord in the heart of many, together with the question: “Who wept for these people who were aboard the boats that sunk? We are a society that has forgotten how to cry.” Truly, with Pope Francis, Christ landed at Lampedusa.

n July 8, less than two weeks before his scheduled trip to Brazil, Pope Francis, in a surprising move, chose the tiny island of Lampedusa, which lies between Africa and Italy, as the target of his first trip as a pope, in order to meet the plight of the immigrants; he himself being the son of Italian immigrants to Argentina. An estimated 8,000 people entered Europe through Italy in the first six months of this year. From 1994 to 2012, more than 6,000 of them died at sea in the attempt. Even now, as I write, after the Pope’s visit, hundreds of bodies are recovered from the cruel waters of the Mediterranean sea. On arrival, Pope Francis was taken out to sea in a Coast Guard boat, and he threw a wreath on the water in memory of those who had died in the passage. He embraced the refugees, some of whom had arrived that very day, then he delivered a homily directed not to the immediate hearers, but to the world. The Pope said: “Immigrants dying at sea, on boats which were vehicles of hope and became vehicles of death. This tragedy has constantly come back to me like a painful thorn in my heart. So I felt that I had to come here today, to pray and to offer a sign of my closeness, but also to challenge our consciences lest this tragedy be repeated. "Adam, where are you?" This is the first question which God asks man after his sin. Adam lost his bearings, his place in creation. Harmony was lost. "The other" is no longer a brother or sister to be loved, but simply someone who disturbs my life and my comfort. God asks a second question: "Cain, where is your brother?" His blood cries out to Me, says the Lord. This is not a question directed to others; it is

a question directed to me, to you, to each of us. Today, no one in our world feels responsible; we have lost the sense of responsibility for our brothers and sisters. The culture of comfort leads to the globalization of indifference. But I would like us to ask a third question: "Has any one of us wept for the death of these brothers and sisters? Has any one of us shed tears for these people who were on the boat? For the young mothers carrying their babies? For these men who were looking for a means of supporting their families? We are a society which has forgotten how to weep, how to experience compassion: the globalization of indifference has taken from us the ability to weep!” The Pontiff’s visit made headlines around the world for bringing up the issue of immigration in a completely different light: from viewing immigration as a problem to understanding the plight of the immigrants. Moreover, the Pope meant for the Church to fulfill the call of the outskirts of the world to announce the Gospel. Lampedusa is really the outskirt of the world, a geographic marginal area but, even more, the margin where a fleeing humanity lands escaping from misery, among the total indifference of the affluent Western world. The Pope, touched by the human tragedy of the migrants, went to Lampedusa to pray for the many who lost their lives at sea, and reconcile the inhabitants of the islands with the thousands of destitute who land there on their way to the fortress Europe. In the heart of the Mediterranean Sea, Pope Francis, at the same time, launched a lifejacket to the Church, the lifejacket of the preferential option of the service to the poor and the last ones.

 REFUGEES. At Lampedusa, Francis challenged us to overcome the globalization of indifference and bring the suffering of others to heart.

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wm special • francis: the people´s pope

The culture of encounter

Pope Francis’ style of communication promotes what he calls “the culture of encounter.” This original and striking approach to people by means of stunning words and gestures constitutes a pastoral turning point for the whole Church. Somebody has written: “Pope Benedict was classic music, Pope Francis is folk. Both are beautiful, but they are very different types of music.” If “style is substance,” then Pope Francis is disclosing to us how he wants the shape of the Church to become. by

Fr. Lorenzo Carr aro | comboni missionary

AFP

nly nine months have passed from the election of Jorge Mario Bergoglio to the pontifical see, which happened on March 13, but great changes have taken place. Not so much in the doctrinal area but on the style of communication. These are the unusual gestures that Pope Francis started with and have immediately changed the atmosphere around the pope. First of all,

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the courageous choice of the name Francis, a name totally new in the history of the popes, a name of which he himself gave a very clear interpretation: love for the poor, peace, integrity of creation. The request of a blessing from the people themselves crowding St. Peter’s Square and linked by media throughout the whole world: an unusual request the new pope made spontaneously, bending his knees and

inclining his head to receive it. The third sign was the way he washed the feet of the young convicts, kneeling on the ground six times, not a formal rite! And, lastly, his decision to reside in House Sancta Martha together with many of his collaborators, a most innovative decision for those who consider the Vatican setup. Of all the images from his first week in office, perhaps the most strik-

ing came when Pope Francis visited the Vatican’s small Church of St. Anne to say Mass on Sunday, March 17, ahead of his first Angelus address. Run by the Augustinian Order, St. Anne is where the roughly four hundred people, who live on Vatican grounds, have what can be considered a normal parish life. After Mass, Pope Francis stood outside the church and greeted people as they left, patting kids on the head and kissing them, shaking hands and exchanging hugs, with a quick word and a smile for everybody. It’s a scene that one can see every Sunday at Catholic parishes across the world, but one rarely sees a pope doing it. “A simple gesture is not always a simple gesture when it is the pope’s gesture” (Theologian Robert Dodaro). The choice of the new pope has stirred an extraordinary interest in the whole world. Around six thousand mass media operators had come to Rome to cover the conclave, but then the interest has continued. Also because of his open style, the requests of shooting documentaries on Pope Francis or to have interviews are numerous and, generally, they manifest a genuine and sincere interest in the person of the new pope. The interviews by the editor of Civiltà Cattolica, Fr. Antonio Spadaro S.J. and with Eugenio Scalfari, founder of Repubblica have made history. The global “parish priest”

Everybody has noted the number of people coming to Pope Francis’ weekly audiences. The crowds seem to grow by the week. They are becoming enormous, forcing police to close the area around St. Peter’s Square to traffic as if Mother Teresa or Padre Pio were being canonized. Vendors across Rome report a boom in sales of papal objects, always a reliable sign of popular enthusiasm. He is filling an obvious need within the human – and Catholic – family. Around the world, there are reports that Mass attendance and demand for confession are increasing, which many attribute to a “Francis effect.” Fran-

cis seems determined to function as a pastor, it’s how Catholics tend to think a parish priest should be. Perhaps the root lesson of Pope Francis’ first eight months in office is that, when it comes to spiritual leadership, style really is substance. It’s a mistake to wait for the real pope to emerge from beneath the largely symbolic gestures of his early days. Instead, those gestures are the real pope, insists Bishop Lozano, a close friend of the former Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio who worked under him as an auxiliary in Buenos Aires for six years. “They’re an expression of his magisterium,” Lozano said. “He’s sending a message to other cardinals, bishops and priests that this is what we need to do: to reach out to people, not being content to wait for them to come to us,” Lozano said. “More broadly, he’s sending the same message to all Catholics everywhere.” That message can be understood in three defining features of Pope Francis’ leadership style: simplicity, humility and being remarkably accessible to ordinary folks. His popularity is highly positive since it is a sign that people understand that Pope Francis has many important things to say and a positive and com-

forting message for all. A very active and “more free” pope has increased enormously the work of the media. The atmosphere has changed because of a dynamic and least foreseeable pope, always open to surprises. His phone call to people who had sent him a particular request are now beyond counting. It is an unusual way for a pope, but that spells once more that “we must get accustomed to be normal according to the normality of life.” This is what Pope Francis answered the journalists who had questioned him while coming back from Brazil after World Youth Day, seeing him carrying his black bag as any traveler with his hand luggage. Which direction for the Church?

What are the changes that are happening and what is the direction that the Church is taking under the leadership of Pope Francis? Naturally, the guidelines for the journey of the Church are, first of all, those outlined by the Gospel, and, in our historical time, by Vatican II. In all the essential points, there is a strong continuity between the last pontificates. Among the novelties brought about by Pope Francis, we certainly have to single out his style of pastoral

 CROWD. Popular enthusiasm moves the crowd – "the Francis effect" – and revives faith.

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closeness to people, his concrete language and direct relationship with people, his simplicity of life. The perspective of a Church of the poor and for the poor is strongly and credibly manifested not only in words but especially in deeds like the trip to Lampedusa, his encounter with prisoners and immigrants, sick people and handicapped. The strength with which Pope Francis assumes attitudes and sends messages of moral and religious inspiration but of strong impact on the economic and political situation of the world makes a deep impression. The recent commitment to peace in Syria demonstrates that the Holy See can, if necessary, make its voice heard in the international arena with its moral authority. The extraordinary worldwide resonance of Pope Francis’ peace initiative tells us that the majority of the people in the different countries, including the Unites States, are tired of wars, but also the unusual pull of this pope’s reputation and moral prestige. Already in the book El Jesuita, published in 2010, containing the conversations of Card. Jorge Mario Bergoglio with the journalists Francesca Ambrogetti and Sergio Rubin, we find this revealing sentence: “It is fundamental

that we Catholics – whether priests or laity – go to meet people. Once a very wise priest told me that we are facing a situation which is opposite to that envisaged by the parable of the Good Shepherd who had ninety nine sheep in his fold but went to look for the only one who was lost: today, we have one in the fold and ninety nine that we fail to go to look for. I am sincerely convinced that, in the present moment, the fundamental choice the Church has to make is not of taking away precepts, making easier this or that, but to go down to the streets to look for people, to know people by name. And not only because to go and announce the Gospel is its mission, but because if it doesn’t do it, it will damage itself with its own hands.” At the World Youth Day, in Rio de Janeiro, through words and gestures, the Pope has written a page about the theology of encounter and dialogue. He did it physically and spiritually, without sparing himself, from the first to the last moment, in the land of Brazil, dealing with the indigenous people and the heads of state in the same pattern: a word and an embrace. From the last World Youth Day we, therefore, assume a strong

The fundamental choice the Church has to make is ... to go down to the streets to look for people, to know people by name. And not only because to go and announce the Gospel is its mission, but because if it doesn’t do it, it will damage itself with its own hands.

 CLOSENESS. Francis' choice was to go down to the streets, be close and reach out to people.

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call, a commitment and a hope for a pastoral turning point of our Catholic Church, in every corner of the world: a young Church that knows how to go to encounter all the men and women of our time with a mission on the part of Jesus: dialogue, dialogue, dialogue. The attractive face of Christ

The journalist Conrado de Quiros very aptly wrote: “In a few months, Pope Francis has given extraordinary relevance to Christianity; he has given back to it its spirit. The Christ of the Bible was One who walked with fishermen, spoke with beggars and lepers and preached to rabble and rabbi. That’s what Pope Francis has been doing these past months. In the Pope, you have someone who is perfectly at home in the dingy alleyways, finding in their inhabitants not a threat but a possibility, not a faceless mob to harangue bur real people to listen to. Pope Francis’ concern for the poor is not just programmatic, it is instinctive. It is not just mental, it is emotional. It is not just posited, it is lived. You cannot have that if you cannot ride the bus on a regular basis, as the Pope does, never insisting that his job of proselytizing is too important to be delayed that way, believing instead that how you get to where you are going is just as important as getting there at all. You cannot get that sense of caring if you do not see and hear and smell and feel the rough and tumble, the destruction and creation, the struggle and despair of the slums of Buenos Aires and, recently, of Rio.” And the Jesuit biblist Silvano Fausti wrote: “The lifestyle of the new Bishop of Rome, Pope Francis, portrays a face of Christ that attracts everybody. In fact, the way of life and of dressing is more eloquent than any word. The “five wounds of the Church” are those that every “temporal power” inf licts on Christ and on all the poor who resemble Christ. This scandal ends when we convert to the poor. Only the “Gospel witness” is like “a fire that lights other fires.”

wm special • francis: the people´s pope

THE COMMANDMENT OF LOVE Beyond any polarization of conservatives and progressives, Pope Francis is calling the Church to Gospel radicalism, the radicalism of Francis of Assisi. Far from selling out the traditional teaching of the Church, the Pope is simply asking the faithful to find bigger nets.

nlike his predecessors John Paul II, who labored to be the global shepherd and Benedict XVI, the theologian and the guardian of the Magisterium, Pope Francis, the mystic, wants to inject anew a Christ-like dynamism into the ministry. It is apparent to the Pope that the crisis of the Church today stems from its failure to use its imagination to be culturally visible, proactive and participative in the performance of the most fundamental, most powerful and the greatest commandment, that of Love. The Pope said: “The Church has appeared prisoner of her rigid languages. Perhaps the world seems to have made the Church like a shipwreck of the past, insufficient to face the questions of the present: maybe the Church had answers for humanity in its infancy but not for its adult age.” To this disillusioned humanity, the Pope wants us to respond bridging the many gaps that separate us, going to meet the poor who are everywhere on the increase lest they lose patience and do not wait for the announcement of the Gospel. Some thought Pope Francis had taken the world by storm in the interview by his Jesuit confrere Antonio Spadaro, editor of Civiltà Cattolica, when he said: “We cannot insist only on issues related to abortion, gay marriage, and the use of contraceptive methods.” Yet, it was not a new statement. In the plane, on his way back from Rio de Janeiro, the journalist Patricia Zordan had asked the Pope: “In Brazil, a law has been approved which extends the right of abortion and has allowed matrimony between people of the same gender. Why didn’t you speak about this?” The Pope answered: “It was necessary to speak about positive things that open the way to youngsters… The Church has already expressed herself perfectly about what you said. Moreover, young people know very well what the position of the Church is.” The journalist insisted: “What is the position of Your Holiness, can you tell us?” “That of the Church. I’m a child of the Church” said Pope Francis. The surprise of the media is sign of a certain amnesia of what Benedict XVI himself had said, speaking to the bishops

of Switzerland on November 9, 2006: “I remember when I used to go to Germany in the 80’s and in the 90’s, that I was asked to give interviews and I always knew the questions in advance. They concerned the ordination of women, contraception, abortion and other such constantly recurring problems. If we let ourselves be stuck in those questions, we give the impression that we are moralists with a few somehow antiquated convictions, and not even a hint of the true greatness appears. I, therefore, consider it essential always to highlight the greatness of our faith which is a commitment from which we must not allow such situations to divert us.” Pope Francis explained that his re-evangelization praxis is not a game-changing scheme, but more of an attitude shift. To discard doctrines will be self-defeating. Pope Francis isn’t abandoning Catholic doctrine. He is calling for new ways of spreading it. He is making a different pragmatic point: in a world already blasted by sin, the Church is, first and foremost, a field hospital for broken souls. A lover of paintings, literature, music, cinema and opera, Pope Francis has a visceral empathy for the ravages of sin on human beings. He sees sins as ailments. Heal the wounds, heal the wounds, he insists. His insights on human frailties are in depth. The sexual revolution is sending a steady stream of patients to the wards. The ubiquity of their sad stories, the sheer volume of human beings whose lives are deformed by a consumerist sexual ethos, is precisely what Pope Francis is responding to. He is suggesting that believers work with the facts on the ground and find creative ways of planting the same eternal seed in damaged soil. “Tradition and memory of the past must help us to have the courage to open up new areas for God” he said. The Pope today may as well be standing on top of a hill, healing wounds and spreading beautiful truths just as Jesus did when He delivered the Beatitudes before a huge crowd. During the Middle Ages, another holy man, named Francis, expressed with moving words the same appeal of Pope Francis today: Lord, make me a channel of Your peace.”

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wm special • francis: the people´s pope

Pope Francis’ pearls

In a time of predominance of the culture of the image, Pope Francis has given back power to the spoken word. Never has a pope spoken like Francis: human and candid. How refreshing to hear a pope speak like us: informal, direct, simple and provocative. The Pope’s words nail us down and do not allow us to be indifferent. by

Fr. Lorenzo Carr aro | comboni missionary

hey are so many, the hints and stimuli to reflection and conversion that come to us from Pope Francis, that it is almost impossible to keep up with the pace. Sometimes they are just gestures, more eloquent than an entire document. Sometimes they are half sentences thrown there as if en passant in the middle of a speech: but, as soon as you hear them, you understand that you cannot overlook them. Pope Francis often relies on homespun language to make his points. Once, for instance, he compared overly grim Christians to “pickled peppers.” On another occasion, he said that gossip in the Church is like eating honey: it tastes sweet at first, but too much gives you a “stomachache.” Indeed, he even told a worldwide assembly of women Religious: “A theoretical poverty is no use to us.” Pope Francis became visibly moved, speaking to a packed audience in St. Peter's Square, saying that wasting food is like "stealing from the poor." And to convince his priests to go to the people, he has repeatedly said that a “shepherd must carry on himself the smell of the sheep.” The following are some of the pearls of this extraordinary teacher. Inhabiting the frontiers

4 “We are created children in the likeness of God and the Blood of Christ has redeemed us all! And we all have a duty to do good. And this commandment for everyone to do good, I think, is a beautiful path towards peace. If we, each doing our own part, do good to others, if we meet there, doing good, and we do it slowly, gently, little by little, we will make

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that culture of encounter: we need that so much. We must meet one another doing good. ‘But I don’t believe, Father. I am an atheist!’ But do good: we will meet one another there” (homily of May 22). 4 “Poverty in the world is a scandal. In a world where there is so much wealth, so many resources to feed everyone, it is unfathomable that there are so many hungry children, that there are so many children without an education, so many poor persons. Poverty today is a cry. You can't speak of poverty in the abstract: that doesn't exist. Poverty is the f lesh of the poor Jesus, in that child who is hungry, in the one who is sick, in those unjust social structures. Go forward; look there upon the f lesh of Jesus. But don't let wellbeing rob you of hope, that spirit of wellbeing that, in the end, leads you to becoming a nothing in life. Young people should bet on their high ideals, that's my advice. But where do I find hope? In the flesh of Jesus who suffers and in true poverty. There is a connection between the two (To the pupils of Jesuit Schools, June 7). 4 “Your proper place is the frontiers. This is the place of the Jesuits. Wherever in the Church, even in the most difficult and acute fields, in the crossroads of ideologies, in the social trenches, there was and is the confrontation between the burning demands of man and the perennial message of the Gospel, the Jesuits have been and are there.” Please, be men of the frontiers, with that capacity that comes from God. But do not fall into the temptation of taming the fron-

tiers: you must go to the frontiers and not bring the frontiers home to varnish them a bit and tame them (to the Jesuits of Civiltà Cattolica, June 14). To the youth: “I want a mess!”

4 “The Gospel is for all! It means that we must go towards the flesh of the suffering Jesus but Jesus' flesh also suffers in those who don't know it, with their studies, their intelligence, their culture. We must go there! That's why I like to use the expression 'go to the outskirts', the existential peripheries. Everyone, all of them, who suffer from physical and real poverty to intellectual poverty, which is also real. All the outskirts, all the intersections of paths; go there. And there you will plant the seed of the Gospel by word and by witnessing. Let's not think that faith doesn't have a future in our city (to the participants of Rome Pastoral Convention, June 18). 4 “Personally, I think that being a minority is actually a strength. We have to be

a leaven of life and love and the leaven is infinitely smaller than the mass of fruits, flowers and trees that are born out of it. I believe I have already said that our goal is not to proselytize but to listen to needs, desires and disappointments, despair, hope. We must restore hope to young people, help the old, be open to the future, spread love. Be poor among the poor. We need to include the excluded and preach peace. Vatican II, inspired by Popes Paul VI and John, decided to look to the future with a modern spirit and to be open to modern culture. The Council Fathers knew that being open to modern culture meant religious ecumenism and dialogue with non-believers. But, afterwards, very little was done in that direction. I have the humility and ambition to want to do something" (Interview by Scalfari). 4 “I want to tell you something. What is it that I expect as a consequence of World Youth Day? I want a mess! We knew that, in Rio, there would be great disorder, but I want trouble in the

dioceses! I want to see the Church get closer to the people. I want to get rid of clericalism, the mundane, this closing ourselves off within ourselves, in our parishes, schools and structures. We need to get out” (at Rio de Janeiro). 4 “Fraternity, foundation for and way to peace,” this is the message Pope Francis has prepared for the World Day of Prayers for Peace, January 1, 2014. “In a world where interdependence keeps growing by the day, we cannot lack brotherhood or fraternity. Fraternity counteracts the globalization of indifference. The globalization of indifference must give way to the globalization of fraternity. Fraternity must affect all aspects of existence including economy, finance, civil society, politics, development, research and all the public, cultural institutions.” Where St. Francis embraced poverty

4 “My brother bishop has said that it is the first time in 800 years that a pope

comes here. In these days in the newspapers, in the media, they fancied that “the Pope will go there to despoil the Church!” “Of what will he despoil the Church?” “He will despoil the habits of the bishops, of the cardinals; he will despoil himself.” This is a good occasion to invite the Church to despoil herself. But all of us are the Church! From the first one baptized, we are all the Church, and we must all go on the path of Jesus who, Himself, followed the way of despoliation. He became a slave, a servant; He willed to be humiliated unto the Cross. And all of us must despoil ourselves of worldliness...Spiritual worldliness kills! It kills the soul! It kills persons! It kills the Church! When Francis made the gesture here of despoiling himself, he was a young man, he didn’t have the strength for it. It was the strength of God that pushed him to do it, the force of God that wishes to remind us, what Jesus said to us about the spirit of the world, what Jesus prayed to the Father about, so that the Father would save us from the spirit of the world. Today, we ask here the grace for all Christians. That the Lord will give all of us the courage to despoil ourselves of the spirit of the world, which is leprosy… The spirit of the world is Jesus’ enemy! I ask the Lord to give all of us this grace of despoiling ourselves” (Pope's address at the site where St. Francis embraced Lady Poverty, Assisi, October 4). The faithful are thrilled that Pope Francis envisions the Church as the home for all. They are comforted that he is sending a message of tolerance and maturity. They consider his remarks more important than an encyclical. Pope Francis refreshes. He f lings doors and windows open to let the musty air out. Not for him an exclusionist Church ...He doesn’t consider the Church a small chapel that can hold only a small group of selected people. He declares: “We must not reduce the bosom of the universal Church to a nest protecting our mediocrity. The Church must be a house for all.”

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special report • holy land in jesus´ time

Carpenters and fishermen were quite well-off

We tend to imagine the past based on our modern experience but the Israel where Jesus was born was quite different from the one that most of us can imagine. For instance, most of the small population were peasants who worked for landlords who lived in Jerusalem. Jesus, a carpenter, and the disciples, fishermen, belonged to a quite well-off class. Another usually ignored fact: Jews were perhaps the most literate people of their time, which tells a lot about the religious, literary and poetic genius expressed in the Bible. by

Fr. Joseph Car amazza | comboni missionary

e are bound to understand messages within our realm of experience. T his may seem a difficult claim, but it is quite straightforward. When I hear news of an event which happened in a distant place, a place I do not know firsthand, I will imagine it starting from my experience of life. I do not have any other parameter. When we visit a place with historical significance, our comprehension of the events which happened there also changes. This is also true of the Bible. We read it at a personal level; we listen to it during our liturgies. How much do we understand or miss simply because we never had the chance to go and see the places where those events took place? But also, how much of our understanding of Jesus and His message do we misinterpret because we have only a scant knowledge of the social and political environment of Palestine at that time? The European Church has had the greater impact on the new communities of the South because of the missionary effort. Because of that, the understanding of the Gospel that matured in Europe was passed along to the Churches of the South. Certain features of our catechism are never doubted, but are they right? A simple example: in most European countries, the fox is an animal that symbolizes intelligence, or

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cunningness. This was applied to the Bible. When Jesus speaks of Herod as “that fox,” people commented: “Jesus recognized how intelligent Herod was.” In reality, in Jewish culture, two millennia ago, the fox was the image of a silly person. Jesus never compared Herod to a smart person, but to a silly one! Let us have a look at the social reality at the time of Jesus; most probably, this will help us to understand His word better. A small country

Jesus was born in Palestine at a time when the Jews had lost political control of their country. The kingdom of Israel was started by Saul, enlarged by David and reached the peak of its glory under Solomon. At Solomon’s death, the kingdom split into the kingdom of Israel, comprising Samaria and Galilee, and the kingdom of Judah, comprising Judea and adjacent areas. The kingdom of Israel soon fell under the control of the Assyrian kings. Judah lasted a little longer, but it also succumbed to the Assyrians first, and the Persians afterwards. The land we now call Israel was divided by different powers until the arrival of Alexander the Great in 332 B.C. He conquered a large empire of which Palestine was an insignificant region. After his death, the empire was divided up by four of his generals, and Greek became the language of the whole west-

ern world. The Holy Land fell under the control of either Syria or Egypt, the balance of power shifted often. Many Jews went to live in Alexandria in Egypt, where the Bible was translated into Greek; it is known as the Bible of the LXX, or Septuagint. When the Syrians finally took control of Israel in the eleventh century B.C., they started to persecute the Jews and impose laws unacceptable to them. This led to the Maccabee revolt. This family provided the leaders of the revolt and guided the people to reconquer Jerusalem in 164 B.C. – it was the 25th of December, the feast of Hanukkah. This is the feast that celebrates the return of light in the Temple. Later, this date would be chosen to celebrate Christmas, the day when the Light came into the world. In 64 B.C., the Holy Land came under Roman influence. However, the Jews convinced the Roman Emperor Augustus to allow self-rule under the Jewish Sanhedrin, while paying taxes to Rome and being policed by Roman soldiers. Augustus appointed Herod the Great – an Edomite, not a Jew – as king of the Jews. This king reigned during the birth of Jesus. Jesus was born a Jew, in Palestine, when this land was under Roman control, yet the king was an Edomite. The people spoke Aramaic, a language closely related to Hebrew, whereas Hebrew

was still spoken by a few and used in liturgy. Greek was the language of commerce, and Greek culture inf luenced much of the urban life also in Israel. On the other hand, rural Palestine was quite traditional. There were about 600, 000 inhabitants in the whole of Palestine. Most of the population lived in the countryside, in small villages of a few hundred inhabitants. Jerusalem was the largest town, with perhaps 40,000 inhabitants, but swelled to almost 200, 000 during festivals. Carpenters were middle-class

Life in a village was quiet. Archaeologists found many games, such as hopscotch, jacks, and board games. Children’s games unearthed in Israel comprise whistles, spinning toys, toy animals on wheels, among others. Many children died prematurely, about 30% of the population died before adulthood, and the average age was around 45. This was not unusual in the Mediterranean area. Since men outlived women, it was common for widowers to marry younger girls. The common age for marriage was 12–13 for girls and 18 for boys. Marriage was celebrated by the two families; the new couple could not live together for one year. After

this period, there was a solemn wedding ceremony, and they started to live together. Better off people, who could access better food and medical help, lived a long life like today. Society was stratified with a large peasant basis and a small elite controlling the economy of the nation. Most people were farmers; usually they did not own the land but worked in large estates owned by a few families. It was calculated that most of the agricultural land belonged to the Sadducees, a group of not more than 500 men – and their immediate families. Alongside the farmers, by far the poorest, a fairly large group of specialized workers led a much more comfortable life. Builders, fishermen, carpenters, jewelers and various tradesmen were part of the middle-class. Carpenters and fishermen were among the richest in this group. Carpenters, and Jesus was one of them, were extremely important people. They prepared and repaired the tools of other craftsmen (often carpenters worked also as smiths), built specialty items, such as furniture, doors, and windows. They also built boats for fishermen. People lived in small houses. Often, these consisted of only two rooms. The

Carpenters and fishermen were among the richest in this group. Carpenters, and Jesus was one of them, were extremely important people. They prepared and repaired the tools of other craftsmen, built specialty items, such as furniture, doors, and windows.

Wikipedia

front room was a kitchen, living room and, at night, sleeping quarters. The second room, in the back of the house, was a storage and animal pen at the same time. Whenever the weather allowed it, people spent the evening on the roof of their house, which was a terrace with an external ladder. When Jesus said we must proclaim the Gospel from the roofs, He simply meant to go and meet people in their spare time and share with them the Good News while staying with them. The food was simple: bread, olives, humus (a rich sauce made of chickpeas), fish and cheese, fruit. Meat was eaten only on special occasions. Wine was drunk on the Sabbath or at feasts, such as weddings or banquets. High Priest’s monopoly

The nobles were few in number yet controlled the largest estates and trade. For instance, the High Priest controlled the meat market in and around Jerusalem. Since all those who went to the Temple bought animals for the sacrifices, they had to buy their offering from dealers controlled by the High Priest, who also controlled the butcheries in the Holy City. Large estate owners lived in Jerusalem and trusted the running of their affairs to administrators; some of Jesus’ parables draw examples from this way of life. In general, only about 5% of the population was really wealthy, yet there was also a small group that was really destitute. The majority were neither rich nor poor; however, uncertainty was common, and it was enough for a bad year to destroy the reserves of a poor family. Politically, the Israelites were subject to many contrasting powers. The Romans were the masters. They controlled northern Israel directly, while the south – Judah – was under the control of Herod the Great, and later, of his son also called Herod (the one who would behead John the Baptist). The Jews resented the rule of foreigners, and Herod was not a Jew. The people were also under the yoke of the religious

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 HOSPITALITY. Mary and Joseph were welcomed at the back room, where Jesus was born.

Jews at the time of Jesus were perhaps the most literate people in the Mediterranean. Not everyone was able to read and write, but every male child had to learn how to read. Readings in the synagogue were read in turn by all. leaders. The High Priest was a powerful figure: Annas (also known as Hannah) controlled the office for many years. After being the High Priest from 6–17 A.D., he was succeeded by his sons and his son-in-law, Caiaphas, until 43 A.D. It was not by chance that Jesus was brought before Annas, even though the High Priest that year was Caiaphas (John 18: 12–14). Annas imposed strict control on the people and used his religious power to enrich his family. Religious literacy

Since ancient times, the Jews worshipped God in different sanctuaries and holy places. Reading the stories of the Patriarchs or the Judges, we hear names such as Bethel, Sechem, and Beersheba. These were places dedicated to God, either because an important event happened there, or because the Israelites simply used a site considered sacred by the people who occupied the land previously. Little by little, worship was restricted to the Temple in Jerusalem. Sacrifices were possible only there, many of the liturgies were performed only in Jerusalem. People went to the Temple at various times each year, especially if they had to offer sacrifices for

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the atonement of sins. Israel is a small country, and in a few days’ walk, anyone could reach Jerusalem even from the farthest corner of the nation. People, however, felt the need to gather and pray as a community. This is how synagogues were born. A synagogue is little more than a room where people can gather. Today, synagogues may have many rooms and depositories but, at the time of Jesus, they rarely were large buildings. There would be a small room where the scrolls of the Scriptures were kept, but little else. People met there to pray, to socialize, and the children learnt how to read. Jews at the time of Jesus were perhaps the most literate people in the Mediterranean. Not everyone was able to read and write, but every male child had to learn how to read. Readings in the synagogue were read in turn by all. The person in charge of the synagogue, who later became known as Rav (from which rabbi is derived, which means my teacher), would give lessons to the children of the village. Girls were not required to read so they were not taught. Few people could pay a private tutor who would teach Hebrew, Greek, philosophy and other subjects. Those

who were capable and ready to pay a private tutor could become Scribes, a mixture of theologian and lawyer. They were in charge of giving an authoritative explanation of the Scriptures and legal advice. We say Scriptures because, at the time of Jesus, there was no Bible. The Jews had not yet agreed on which books were to be considered inspired by God. Certainly, Jesus speaks about the Law and the Prophets – these comprise the first five books of the Bible and the Prophets, with the exception of Daniel – but there were many other books that were read as religious literature. Only by the end of the third century A.D., did Judaism agree on the Canon of Scriptures, i.e. the list of books making up the Tanak, the Jewish Bible. Born in the back room

The Jews were never great seafarers. A few fishermen’s boats on the lakes and along the seashore were all they had to travel by water. They had no navy to speak of. For long distance travel by sea, the Jews bought a passage on Phoenician, Greek, Egyptian and Roman boats. Most of the traveling was done on foot or riding a donkey. Horses were only for rich people and soldiers. In any case, Jerusalem is only about 40 km from the seaport of Jaffa, and Jaffa is 64 km away from Mount Carmel, in the north. These are not long distances, and people thought nothing of walking for two or three days. Travelers would stop by a relative for the night, or ask hospitality from a family. In this case, they would be accommodated in the inner room, from where they could not leave suddenly at night with the few possessions of the hosts. This is what happened to Joseph and Mary when they asked for hospitality in Bethlehem. They were given space in the back room of some family, the place where animals were kept at night. That is how Jesus came to be laid in a manger, but he was not born in a stable. The grotto of the infancy Gospel was simply the back room of the people who welcomed Jesus’ parents.

special report • holy land in jesus´ time

The complex world of Jewish sects

The Gospels often speak of Pharisees, Sadducees and other groups. Who were they? Let’s find out because they have a lot to teach us about another sect, the Christians. by

Fr. Joseph Car amazza | comboni missionary

hen the Jews returned from the Exile in Babylon, the religious situation in Israel was very fragmented. Some people had forgotten about God; others paid only lip service to religion. As usual, when there is lack of faith, there is also the emergence of fundamentalist or radical groups; this happened even in the case of Israel. The most important of these groups were called Hasidim, which means the pious ones. They participated in the war of the Maccabees against Syrian/Greek occupiers, but later detached themselves from the upheaval and became known as the Pharisees (separatists). If we base our knowledge of the Pharisees on the Gospel, we would build up a wrong image of these people. Pharisees were pious people who sincerely wanted to love God by obeying His Law. It goes without saying that in a large movement there were radical people, or people with narrow views. In reality, most of them

were people who dedicated their lives to God. In the Pharisees’ literature, we can read stronger self-criticism than what we find in the Gospel. Certainly, many Pharisees accepted Jesus as the Messiah and followed Him. Others did not join Jesus, but remained friendly with Him. The Sadducees were a small group of families linked by belonging to the non-Levitical priesthood. At the time of Jesus, they were very few. This closelyknit group was rich – most of them had extensive land holdings in the whole of Israel, and they controlled all businesses in and around Jerusalem – and claimed to be descendants of Zadok, the High Priest appointed by Solomon (1 Kings 2: 25). They were of liberal views, did not accept the Scriptures – with the exception of the Law of Moses – and shunned later belief in the angels, the resurrection, and even the afterlife. The Sadducees cooperated with the various foreign occupiers of Israel and many

 QUMRAM. In the desert of Judah, scrolls were found which are still being translated today.

adopted a Hellenistic way of life. At the time of Jesus, their indisputable chief was Annas who had been High Priest and later controlled business through his sons, all of whom became High Priests after him. One day, Jesus told His disciples to enter Jerusalem and follow one man carrying water. That must have been a very strange order. Men did not carry water, it was women’s work! There was an exception, though. The Essenes were a group of monks who lived in Qumran, in the desert of Judah, a few km east of Jerusalem, but also in smaller communities throughout Palestine. They did not admit women in their midst, even as servants, and they used to carry water themselves. The Essenes developed a theology very similar to that which we find in the Gospel of John. They spoke of light and darkness, of water of life, and they expected the Messiah right at the time when Jesus started His ministry. The community dispersed during the Jewish revolt that would lead to the destruction of Jerusalem (70 A.D.). Before the end of their life together, they hid many sacred scrolls in caves, sealed inside terracotta jars. They were discovered after the Second World War and they are still being translated and studied. Among these scrolls, are the oldest manuscripts of the Old Testament, and various books describing the life and belief of the Essenes. After Jesus’ death, a new sect started within Judaism: the Christians. In fact, for a long time, Christians were not distinguishable from other Jews. There is a reference to this reality in the Gospel of Matthew. The Evangelist speaks often of ‘their synagogue,’ meaning those different from ‘our’ synagogues. It was only in 84 A.D. that the High Priest Gamaliel II approved a new daily prayer composed of 18 berakoth (blessings), among them, a prayer in which there is also a curse against minim, heretics. This prayer was not written against the Christians, but it certainly regarded them as heretics. It took some more decades before the separation between Jews and Christians was completed.

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in focus â&#x20AC;˘ the poor

Will the poor be always with us?

It is estimated that, by 2050, the population will expand between 8.3 billion and 10.9 billion, with the largest growth among the poorest countries on the planet. If 2.7 billion struggle today on less than $2 a day, that number will expand dramatically. More than ever, the Beatitude to hunger and thirst for justice is imperative. If we add some other factors, it is the destiny of humanity and Godâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s creation that is at stake. by

Fr. Emmett Coyne | Contributor

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“

he poor you will always have with you” is perhaps the most enigmatic line in the four Gospels. Too often, it is used as an excuse not to intervene in behalf of those who do not share equitably in the gifts of God’s creation. It is a fatalistic response if taken boldly. The main issue for all of humanity is found in the Kingdom prayer – "Give us this day our daily bread." This enigmatic comment appears shortly before Jesus’ execution when He is a guest at the house of Simon, the leper, where Jesus’ feet are anointed by Mary (the fact that He is with a leper, a marginalized person in society, means that Jesus Himself is tainted by association). This account is told in three of the four Gospels, which underscores certain significance. Strangely, it is not mentioned in Luke’s, often referred as the Gospel of the Poor because of the centrality Luke gives to them. The thinking of Jesus’ time was that the rich were blessed or favored by God while the poor were viewed as responsible for their own dire straits. This is a view that has been threaded through history and embraced by many today. Yet Jesus upends this worldview when he said: “How hard for the rich to enter the Kingdom of God.” The disciples were astonished at this. “Who then can be saved?” Popular thought held the rich were saved, the favorite of God. Luke demonstrates the change brought by Jesus when he is quoted as saying: “Blessed are you, poor,” and “Woe to you, rich!” If “the poor you will always have with you,” is perhaps the most enigmatic line in the Gospel, the most cynical is Luke’s judgment of the rich as having such hardness of heart that even if someone were to rise from the dead, the rich would not be convinced to change their ways. Of the three Gospels, only John mentions the motivation behind why the price of the ointment was not given to the poor. “This he (Judas) said, not that he cared for the poor but because he was a thief and, as he had the money box, he used to take what was put into it.”

The episode mirrors the fact that, often, the poor are used by those who are the bank for the needy but mainly serve themselves first. A critic of government aid programs, Graham Hancock, lambasted the bureaucrats managing them as the primary beneficiary of public monies, and called them ‘lords of poverty.’ He argued that governmental aid programs should be largely eliminated as they failed to put the poor first. To understand “the poor you will always have with you,” one needs to look at a larger context. An observant Jew would have understood this quote as a reference to Deuteronomy 15: 7-10. It admonishes the faithful to act in behalf of those in need, with an openhanded, not a hardhearted or tightfisted, attitude. The teaching emphasizes lending freely whatever is needed, giving generously and not grudgingly. Implicit is the notion that everything comes from God and belongs to God. We are only stewards of what is God’s and, therefore, urged to be good stewards. This is the Judeo-Christian understanding of creation. Life is change

Life has cycles of bust and boom. Em-

ployment will shift due to social, political and technical changes. Harvests will be uneven. When Joseph went down from Canaan to Egypt, it was due to a famine in the former and a bountiful harvest in Egypt. People, historically, immigrated when times were bad in one place, seeking a more prosperous geographic location. My father and mother were immigrants because it was difficult to survive in the land of their birth. Fortunately, they were able to find a promised land. Immigrants largely leave home because they cannot survive in their place of origin. If they were, people wouldn’t take the risk of going to a strange land to survive. Many Arab countries were terribly impoverished until the discovery of oil. They may well be impoverished in the future when the planet will no longer be dependent on fossil fuel. Zimbabwe was the breadbasket of Africa until the dictatorship of Robert Mugabe reduced the country to an economic and social chaos where people are unable to feed themselves. Norway and Sweden lost many of its people to immigration but today enjoy the highest standard of living in the world, and have eliminated poverty within their countries.

The poor you will always have with you” is perhaps the most enigmatic line in the four Gospels. Too often, it is used as an excuse not to intervene in behalf of those who do not share equitably in the gifts of God’s creation.

 POVERTY. Many human beings are still excluded from an equitable share of God's blessings.

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Individuals can lose their financial wellbeing through poor choices, bad judgment or the loss of rewarding work and be plunged into poverty. Others have gone from rags to riches. Life is dynamic, not static, and change is the only permanent thing as Heraclitus noted centuries ago. Hence, “the poor we will always have with us” is due to the vicissitudes of climate, political malfeasance, and personal calamities that can come from within the person or from outside (or both). As Deuteronomy instructed, we are to be generous and not begrudging to those in need. Again, for a person of faith, we respond, out of a desire, to be good stewards of what is God’s, knowing, while we may at one moment be blessed with abundance, that the tables can be reversed suddenly and we may need the generous stewardship of others. That is why we should view the petition in the Kingdom prayer as provisional with its emphasis on our daily bread. In the Kingdom of God teaching, Jesus is biased toward the poor, bringing them especially good news. In Luke’s Gospel, Mary expresses this bias sharply, “He has put down the mighty from their thrones, and has exalted the lowly. He has filled the hungry with good things, and the rich He has sent away empty.” This seems like class warfare with the rich and poor pitted against each other, antagonistic to one another. It is remarkable the attack on the rich, for in Jesus’ time they were, in comparison, infinitesimally less rich than today, when a small fraction of persons disproportionately enjoy the wealth of the planet. “A study by the World Institute for Development Economics Research at United Nations University reports that the richest 1% of adults alone owned 40% of global assets in the year 2000, and that the richest 10% of adults accounted for 85% of the world’s total. The bottom half of the world adult population owned 1% of global wealth. Moreover, another study found that the richest 2% own more than half of global household assets.”

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More recently, the London School of Economics drew more succinctly the stark picture of economic inequality. It states that, today, only 300 persons have the wealth equivalent to 3 billion human beings! Review their devastating report at http://blogs.Ise.ac.uk/ indiaatlse/2013/04/11/global-wealthinequality-what-you-never-knew-younever-knew. If only 1% of the people of Jesus’ world owned the bulk of the resources, it would become more easily understandable the Gospel’s severe criticism. Simply put, they were not good stewards of what is God’s. Then, as now, the rich are bad stewards as they primarily use their wealth to accumulate more rather than share more freely and generously. The Beatitudes: “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for justice, for they shall be satisfied,” and “Blessed are those who are persecuted for justice sake, for theirs is the Kingdom of God.” Justice is mentioned twice in the eight beatitudes. There is a consuming passion implied here: that there should be no rest until justice is realized. This is the longing of the Kingdom of God’s

righteousness: that justice becomes incarnate on earth as it is in heaven. Charity is not the answer

Unfortunately, charity has been a substitute for justice. It is often viewed as the largess of the giver rather than the needs of the recipient. Dom Helder Camara, the late archbishop of Recife, Brazil, is remembered for his observation: “When I fed the poor, they called me a saint. When I asked: “Why are they poor?” they called me a communist.” Charity often is concerned with symptoms, not causes. He also commented: “When shall we have the courage to outgrow the charity mentality and see that, at the bottom of all relations between rich and poor, there is a problem of justice?” Recently, Pope Francis visited Brazil, and as he toured one of the Rio de Janeiro’s slums, he called upon the rich to do more for the poor. It is refreshing that he is highlighting the plight of the poor but his statement is vague. It seems to be an appeal for the rich to be more charitable. But, in truth, the poor would prefer justice rather than charity. Structural changes are the only means

The poor would prefer justice rather than charity...The challenge of how to translate justice into concrete and specific structural changes, which will enable all people – not simply the poor – to have an equitable share in the goods of creation, remains.

in focus • the poor

 DISPARITY. The bulk of wealth amassed by some, in contrast with the great poverty in the world, is a continuous call for true justice.

of enabling the poor to have an equitable share of the gifts of God’s creation. John Allen, a journalist, traveling with the Pope in Brazil and reporting on his visit to this slum, noted that John Paul II visited a similar one in 1980 – yet, in the intervening 33 years, the underlying problems hardly disappeared. The challenge of how to translate justice into concrete and specific structural changes, which will enable all people – not simply the poor – to have an equitable share in the goods of creation, remains. Socialism and communism attempted to address structural change. Democracy, on the other hand, has been more about equality of persons, particularly in terms of political participation. It doesn’t directly address structural changes for the sake of true equity within a society. As a result, capitalism has f lourished practically unchecked in democratic societies. Capitalism has, specially in this dominant modern global version, no moral compass when it comes to the distribution of wealth (Ed. Note: Societies like Norway, Sweden or Denmark, envied for their high levels of social wellbeing and equality of opportunities, opted for a government regulating capitalism that created what is called a welfare state; this was patterned from what is usually called a social-democrat model.

But, even in a country like GreatBritain, where the model was coined after the war, inequality is now one of the highest; the same is happening in other European countries.) The hunger and thirst for true justice continues as the world continues to grow in greater disparity in sharing the gifts of creation. An alternative economic model that is slowly attaining attention throughout the world is establishing cooperatives. The most successful model is one founded in Mondragon, Spain. Since its inception in the 1950’s, it has been one of the sustained economic growth while the capitalistic model operative in Spain has gone through repeated f luctuations. “And, as Spain struggles through double-dip recession, fierce austerity and 26% unemployment, this is one company that is not about to collapse. Nor has it shed many jobs, with the workforce remaining steady at around 84,000 people worldwide – about a sixth of them outside Spain.” Mondragon is a sterling example of an alternative economic structural model which is based on a more just participation and distribution of the fruits of labor. While there are many Catholic and Christian champions of capitalism, fewer persons promote the more just model of economic equity similar to Mondragon.

Inequity is rampant

That the richer are richer and the poorer are poorer than ever is truer than ever. Perhaps the greatest inequity in human history is happening right now. The poorest 50% of the world’s population owns barely 1% of the world’s wealth, while the top 1% possesses nearly half of the world’s wealth. The world population is currently over 7 billion people. Three and a half billion persons have only 1% of the world’s resources for their daily bread while 700 million persons obscenely enjoy approximately half the world’s wealth. Eighty percent of humanity survive on less than $10 U.S. dollars a day. These are more fortunate than 2.7% billion struggling on less than $2 a day and over a billion persons who have but a $1 a day for their daily bread. The world’s richest 20% consume 76.6% of the world’s resources, the world’s middle class, 21.9%, and the world’s poorest 20% consume just 1.5%. The most vulnerable of this inequity are the children of the poor. Statistics generally don’t move us to action. Statistics turns people into an abstraction. A study claimed that the rich are not moved because they are distant from the plight of the poor, have little or no interaction with them as persons. Isolation dampens any sense of solidarity. People were often cautioned

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in focus • the poor not to forget their roots when they rose to success. It is cautionary advice that many failed to heed. In the JudeoChristian perspective, everything we have is a gift of God, not of our doing. Hence, acknowledging that we ourselves are nothing but for the grace of God, and in sharing freely and joyfully becomes an act of thanksgiving to the Giver of all gifts. In the parable of the rich man, Jesus advised him to go and give what he had to the poor, and then come and follow Him. Interesting here is that Jesus does not say give it to Me and I will be the middleman and share your possessions. The insistence for the rich man to go to the poor themselves is the opportunity for the rich man to encounter the poor as persons and hence become one with them in solidarity. When one encounters the face of poverty, the poor cease to be a statistic but has a face. People are moved to intervene not by statistics but when poverty is seen as a person. Peter Singer in his challenging book, “The Life You Can Save,” reports a study which indicate levels of response. When a story was published that food shortages were affecting more than three million children in Mali, and a single child was identified with a

name, more persons responded to the latter which gave a face to three million children at risk. Mother Teresa is remembered for her comment: “If I look at the mass, I will never act. If I look at one, I will.” The inequity of the world is so overwhelming that paltry acts of charity will not make a dent in the lives of the majority on the planet who live lives of quiet desperation. Only structural acts of justice will begin to create the new creation envisioned in the concept of the Kingdom of God. The instruction of Deuteronomy to lend freely and generously was, historically, limited to members of the same Semitic tribe. It didn’t apply to the larger world. The instruction ref lects more acts of charity than creating structures of justice. This is undoubtedly the biggest challenge which the world has yet to resolve. Capitalism is overwhelmingly the financial engine that moves the world and capitalism is totally indifferent to how wealth is distributed. Profit is the bottom line of capitalism. This clashes with the belief that the person takes precedence. Unless there is a structural correction, economic disparity will continue, causing a worsening chasm. As long as

inequity has no structural restraints, the poor we have will always be with us – but we must add some billions more, as the planet’s population keeps growing. Such a doomsday scenario can be worsened by other factors. Some commentators have cautioned that a perfect storm of global warming and economic inequity is looming on the horizon, and can represent, at a global level, what happened in pre-Colombian America to rich but careless civilizations which just vanished, in spite of their sophistication. Charitable giving can do more harm than good when justice is not passionately pursued; when we don’t hunger and thirst for it, and are not ready to suffer persecution for it’s sake. Archbishop Camara once more said: “When I asked why are they poor, they called me a communist.” He was vilified for his passion for justice, being pejoratively nicknamed ‘the red archbishop.’ His efforts to intervene in behalf of the poor were thwarted by the military dictatorship in Brazil. But it didn’t stop his passion for justice. Persons working with and in behalf of the poor were termed “leftists” and were targeted by death squads, particularly in dominantly Catholic South America. To discredit them, political labels

 POVERTY'S FACE. The poor are not mere numbers, their needs are real and profit cannot be the ultimate word; the person takes precedence.

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More than ever, the Beatitude to hunger and thirst for justice, is imperative. It is easy to decry secularism but what structural models of justice are Christians offering as hope for humanity? were tagged on persons acting in the spirit of Jesus who had compassion for the multitudes. Searching for alternatives

True justice is the right relationship between persons and things. The vision of the Kingdom of God is based on God’s justice, that all persons are equal, “for God respects persons,” and all are to have an equitable share in the gifts of creation for creation is God’s and we can, at best, be good stewards of what is not ours. The Letter of James states emphatically that to give special attention to the rich is an occasion of sin. Yet the unabashed bias of the Gospel is to favor the least one first. The bottom line of discipleship remains in Matthew 25, “Whatever you do to the least ones, you do to Me.” This is radical, yet good news for the masses who still suffer from inequality and inequity. Jesus’ prescription to the rich man, to go sell what he has and give it to the poor, is revelatory that trusting the poor, like all people, will bring them to act in their own best interest. What the poor lack is the means, often money, to achieve sustainable life goals. Helping

the poor may be as simple as handing them money, with no strings attached. Michael Yglesias reports on a program by the Ugandan government: In 2008, in a very poor section of the country, the government provided a year’s worth of average income to young people aged 18-34. “Give money to a person whose only job prospects are low-paying and unpleasant and perhaps he’ll simply respond by working less. That kind of income support would increase human welfare, but not really create any economic growth. But that’s not what happened.” Recipients, instead, invested most of the grant in skills and business assets. There was a 49% earnings boost after two years and a 41% after four years. In addition, recipients worked 17% more hours. Poverty is caused by a lack of capital. The rich have capital and, consequently, can multiply their wealth. But nothing times nothing equals nothing – which is the plight of the poor. Small change (charity) may allow a person to obtain bread for a day but a substantial amount (justice) enables poor persons to lift themselves up the economic ladder. Unless there is sub-

stantive structural intervention in behalf of the poor as in the Ugandan government experiment, the number of the poor will simply continue to grow. This does not bid well for the common good of humanity as there will become a tipping point where the poor will explode ‘like a raisin in the sun.” (Ed. Note: In a way, that has started to happen, with the hopeful and peaceful protests of the Arab Spring, which later degenerated in strife and social chaos and contaminated several countries. Even in European countries, submitted to harsh austerity measures and where unemployment keeps growing, instability and violent clashes are now constant. Democracy itself is at stake. Greece, the birthplace of democracy, is the most affected by the turmoil. The result: the quick growth of a Neo-Nazi political force; meanwhile, far right populist movements are blooming in the European continent.) The population of the world today is over 7 billion people. It is estimated that, by 2050, the population will expand between 8.3 billion and 10.9 billion with the largest growth among the poorest countries on the planet. If 2.7 billion struggle on less than $2 a day, that number will expand dramatically. More than ever, the Beatitude to hunger and thirst for justice, is imperative. It is easy to decry secularism but what structural models of justice are Christians offering as hope for humanity? Secularists are more apt to imagine new possibilities here because this is the only life for them. An overdeveloped sense of an afterlife leads one to dismiss the importance of the present. Yet, the Incarnation is the wedding of God to this world of God’s creation, to the here and now. This is the perspective that has been, alas, too often lost. Charity is not the answer but may be an impediment to establishing structures of justice for all of God’s children. Unless justice becomes imperative, “the poor will always be with us,” only more than we can even imagine!

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spiritual reflection • RICH/POOR AFRICA

A problem of governance Africa, a vast and scarcely populated continent, has all the natural resources and fertile land to be rich. However, several factors contribute to keep it poor, and apparently always in need of aid. Among them, the main one, is bad governance, which is often related to powerful foreign interests. by

Fr. Aniedi Okure, OP* | contributor

ver the past thirty years, the Africa Faith and Justice Network (AFJN) has worked with many partner organizations (e.g., the Institute for Policy Studies, Action Aid, Jubilee U.S.A., and Catholic affiliated NGOs) in the Washington metropolitan area to influence the policies of the U.S. government that affect Africa. After analyzing a policy, AFJN and its partners bring elements of the policy that are seen to have negative consequences for Africa to the attention of the United States Congress and/or the State Department. But the problems faced by Africa are not all dependent on Washington. After a review and a careful analysis of the issues that AFJN has addressed over the years, the AFJN staff concluded that, although many issues are economic and developmental, the major perennial problem confronting Africa is the problem of faulty governance. The issues addressed were the negative consequences of the extractive industries, unfair trade practices, land grabs, capital f light, corporate tax evasions, and the endemic conf licts that plague African communities. In one way or another, all of these relate to and interact with the consequences of a lack of good governance. Africa so rich, so poor. The continent of Africa is perhaps the richest piece of land on earth, given its natural resources – rich fertile land, minerals and bio-diversity. One then wonders why do the people living in the world’s richest continent continue to be the poorest? A close examination reveals that problems relating to failure to serve

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the common good, to achieve equitable resource distribution, to foster citizens’ participation in the political process, to act with transparency and accountability and to create a basic level of economic justice – all have to do mainly with governance. To address the economic and social problems in Africa, first you must tackle the systemic problems inherent in governance. In effect, the economic challenges or the problems related to poverty and underdevelopment in Africa are symptomatic of something outside the strictly economic sphere. Getting poorer. A narrow focus on the economy misses the causes of poverty and underdevelopment. Over the years,

many programs, such as the structural adjustment programs (SAP), privatization, and trade liberalization that have the economy as their primary focus, have not only failed to alleviate the problems but have worsened the fortunes of many African countries, making most Africans poorer today than they were twenty or thirty years ago. Good governance. An essential element of good governance is upholding the common good. In formulating and implementing laws and policies, political leaders must seek the good of all their citizens. Laws, policies and procedures for implementation must all be transparent, and leaders must be account-

The continent of Africa is perhaps the richest piece of land on earth, given its natural resources – rich fertile land, minerals and bio-diversity. One then wonders why do the people living in the world’s richest continent continue to be the poorest?

able to their people by enabling robust civil society participation in the governing process, as well as having free and fair elections in “democracies.” Citizens must participate. Leaders must also uphold the principles of subsidiarity, that is, they must not arrogate to themselves the functions of a lower body. It is said that "all politics are local" but this is not the case in Africa. Politics in modern Africa are very often centralized in the hands of a few, i.e., a single political party, sometimes ethnically based, and/or a “president-for-life.” Five African leaders who are still in power have ruled their countries “forever” and have utilized the advantage of the presidency to suppress their opponents: Uganda (27 years), Cameroon (29 years), Zimbabwe (31 years), Angola and Equatorial Guinea (32 years). The vast majority of citizens are alienated from their governments and have no political voice. It is rare in countries where citizens have a voice and participate in governance see their leaders act with impunity. When government is not accountable to the people, the people are subject to the whims, caprices and invested interests of the leaders and their cronies. The credibility and ultimate effectiveness of governing institutions requires the active and unhindered participation of all citizens. Aid that does not help people. When leaders are not committed to the common good, government to government foreign aid lacks transparency and often serves the interests of the donor country more than the receiving community. Adequate feasibility studies are not carried out and the local communities affected by projects are not consulted with regard to their real needs. Foreign aid of this type encourages corruption, entrenches African “strong men” and creates dependency. Foreign corporations that carry out the aid contracts often make huge profits, dodge taxes and expatriate the profits. In short, the country receiving the aid,

The Persian Gulf countries control 1.5 million hectares in Sudan; China controls 2.8 million hectares in the DR Congo to produce palm oil. Herakles Farms, a New York-based agricultural company leased 73,000 hectares of land in Cameroon to establish a palm oil project. with the exception of a handful of the “elite,” often derives little real benefit. Collusion in land grabbing. Corrupt political elites are often in cahoots with foreign collaborators in ways that defeat the best interests of the local population. With the collusion of corrupt local officials, foreign countries, multinational corporations and even university pension funds gain control of vast tracts of fertile and watered land to grow crops for export in massive agrobusiness projects. The local people who were living on the land are most often driven off the land and lose their source of income, although a few may be hired as laborers at extremely low wages. The leases are obtained at ridiculously low rates per hectare. The Persian Gulf countries control 1.5 million hectares in Sudan; China controls 2.8 million hectares in the DR Congo to produce palm oil. Herakles Farms, a New York-based agricultural company leased 73,000 hectares of land in Cameroon to establish a palm oil project. Herakles began to clear high conservation value forests without the requisite permits and its operational by-laws permit it to pay workers less than the legal minimum wage in Cameroon. Currency f light. Large-scale foreign “investment” and aid projects often result in a struggle to control the funds, setting off social instability and conf lict. Those who gain control of the funds often “invest” in foreign countries the amount that they have siphoned off, both to hide the corruption and to secure a comfortable future should they fall out of power. An egregious example was President Mobutu of Zaire (now the Democratic Republic of Congo) who had enough funds and real estate secured overseas to pay Zaire’s international debts.

Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) that are affiliated with multinational corporations or even (clandestinely) with governments often have their own agendas and fail to adequately consult the local people. The programs that they initiate may not be sustainable nor relevant to the true needs of the local people. Foreign NGO employees often receive a very high salary in comparison with the income of local people. Their spending power often contributes to inflation and rising costs of living for the local people. In Juba, South Sudan, as well as in Goma and Bukavu in the DR Congo, the cost of living, of housing and office space has risen precipitously due to the presence of a very large number of foreignbased NGOs. In Somalia, doctors who served in community clinics were lured away to NGO-sponsored clinics that offered double the salary they had previously received. In Mukera, DR Congo multinational NGOs began to pay community leaders summoned to meetings to make up for “lost wages.” This erodes the local cultural practices related to voluntary community service; now people expect to be paid for taking part in community meetings. The influx of large amounts of cash from abroad may feed corruption, despite the best intentions of the donors. Hope. These problems are not totally intractable. A second article will present a few more problems related to faulty governance and then look at what the churches and faith-based NGOs are doing to resolve them. * With the author’s permission, this article, the first of two, is derived almost entirely from a presentation given by Fr. Aniedi Okure, OP, from Nigeria, who is the Executive Director of the Africa Faith and Justice Network (AFJN) in Washington, D.C..

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Missionary vocation â&#x20AC;˘ Jacques and Raissa Maritain

ď&#x20AC;ľ SOULMATES. Raissa and Jacques nurtured a great friendship which made them true soulmates and placed them on the road to holiness.

The great friendship

The essence of the marital companionship of the French philosopher Jacques Maritain and Raissa, the Russian mystic, was a great friendship that would be their way to holiness. Jacques (1882-1973) met Raissa (1883-1961) when both were students at the Sorbonne University in Paris, France. They soon became inseparable. Together, they overcame despair, found Christ in the bosom of the Catholic Church and mapped out their individual destiny: Jacques, as a scholar and university professor; Raissa, as a pilgrim of the Absolute through her journal and poetry. Their house became also the hub of a network of knowledge and grace that brought many back to God and to the Church. When his companion preceded him in death, Jacques joined the community of The Little Brothers of Jesus and died there at 90. by

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Fr. Lorenzo Carr aro | comboni missionary

hen t he Russian young woman, Raissa Oumansov, began her studies at the University of Paris, she was seventeen years old and the year was 1900. It was a time of great scientific achievements and the Sorbonne was one of its centers. Marie and Pierre Curie, for example, had discovered radium there only two years before. It was natural, therefore, for Raissa to turn to the sciences for the answers she sought. To her dismay, however, she soon discovered that her professors were either strict materialists or simply did not pose for themselves questions concerning truth and meaning. Hope began to wane in her heart. Yet, she also continued to await “some great event, some perfect fulfillment.” The first step toward that fulfillment came when she met the man who would become her greatest companion during her earthly pilgrimage: Jacques Maritain. Almost from the moment that Jacques Maritain introduced himself to Raissa, they became inseparable. They were both students at the Sorbonne, he a year older than she, and they both were searching for the meaning of their lives. Jacques Maritain came from a family that embodied the values of the French Revolution. He discovered, however, what many others of his generation would one day recognize: the agnosticism that was their heritage was too thin a soil for the sense of justice that burned in their hearts. To withstand the winds of tyranny, justice needs deep roots and a rich soil in which to sink them. It was during his search for that rich ideal soil that Jacques encountered Raïssa. In the friendship that grew between them, they undertook the search together. In the midst of their distress, Jacques and Raissa reached a fateful decision that would shape the rest of their lives. While strolling through Paris, they both agreed that if it were impossible to know the truth, to distinguish good from evil, just from unjust, then life was not worth living. In such a case, it would be better to die young through

suicide than to live an absurdity. They were spared from following through on this because, at the urging of their friend, Charles Péguy, they attended the lectures of Henri Bergson at the Collège de France. Bergson's critique of scientism dissolved their intellectual despair and instilled in them "the sense of the Absolute." Then, through the influence of Léon Bloy, they converted to the Roman Catholic faith in 1906. God, in His great mercy, led them to Christ, to baptism in the Catholic Church and to the consolation of the Eucharist. In reading Bloy’s great novel, The Woman Who Was Poor, the Maritains encountered the greatness of the Christian saints. “What struck us so forcibly on first reading Bloy’s novel was the stature of this believer’s soul, his burning zeal for justice, the beauty of a doctrine which, for the first time, rose up before our eyes,” they later confessed. Upon meeting Bloy and his family, they were even more impressed. His poverty, his faith, his heroic independence, all spoke to the young Maritains of the life-giving mystery of Christ. Entering Bloy’s home seemed to them a homecoming. In particular, by leading Raissa to Christ, Bloy gave back to her

the Jewish faith of her childhood, now brought to completion in the New Covenant in Christ’s Blood.

 INSPIRATION. Bloy's great novel exposed the greatness of the Christian saints.

 CHRIST. At the center of Jacques and Raissa's friendship, was a life-giving mystery.

A domestic community of prayer

Jacques Maritain was born in Paris on November 18, 1882, the son of Paul Maritain, who was a lawyer, and his wife Geneviève Favre and was reared in a liberal Protestant milieu. He was sent to the Lycée Henri-IV. Later, he attended the Sorbonne, studying the natural sciences: chemistry, biology and physics. By that time, he had become an unbeliever. Raissa Oumansov was born into a pious Jewish family of modest means in Russia in 1883. During the ten years that Raissa lived in the Russian Empire, she was deeply shaped by the piety and traditions of her observant family, especially by the example of her maternal grandfather. Impressed, even at an early age, by his joy and gentle goodness, she learned, as the years passed, the deep source from which they sprang: “They came from his great piety, the piety of the Hasidim, the Jewish mystics. My grandfather’s religion was one altogether of love and confidence, of joy and charity,” she wrote. Raissa’s under-

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standing of her Hasidic heritage is best seen in her later description of the work and personality of another Russian Jew, her friend, Marc Chagall, the painter loved by Pope Francis. When Raissa was barely ten, her parents decided that they should emigrate as a family to France. They settled in Paris. Paris would become for Raissa her second homeland, more beloved to her than any other place on earth. Exile from their homeland not only uprooted them from their friends and family; it also occasioned a loss of faith. But then, Jacques appeared on the horizon of Raissa’s life and their destiny took a turn for the better. Jacques and Raissa were receptive to Bloy’s message. In 1906, together with Vera, Raissa’s sister, they were baptized into the Catholic Church, with Léon and Jeanne Bloy as their godparents. On that occasion, Jacques and Raissa had their marriage blessed which they had contracted civilly in 1904. From that point on, Raissa began to discern the features of her vocation. She was being called to live in union with Christ. She was also being invited, through a life of prayer and study, to put into words – in prose and poetry – the truths she was now discovering in Christ. The years between their baptism and the outbreak of the First World War were a time of spiritual gestation for the Maritains, and for many others in Europe. Those years saw the conversion of Jacques’ sister and Raissa’s father. A number of their friends also converted at this time, including two who had become dear to many in France through their writings and exploits: Jacques’ boyhood friend, Ernest Psichari, and his early mentor, Charles Péguy. During those years, Jacques and Raissa, with her sister Vera, became Benedictine Oblates, establishing together a domestic community of prayer and study. Jacques and Raissa had decided to live as brother and sister, forsaking marital intimacy and the joys of raising

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a family in order to dedicate themselves more deeply to their vocation to serve the truth. It was also during those years that the Maritains discovered Thomas Aquinas and began, under the guidance of their Dominican mentors, to study his works in depth. Although Jacques was already beginning to become known in France through his articles, it was only after

 PATRONAGE. St. Tomas Aquinas became an inspiration and source of guidance.

the First World War that his life, as a philosopher, began in earnest. Having received a bequest in support of his work from a soldier killed at the front, the Maritains were able to buy a home in Meudon, a village not far from Paris, and bring their plans to fruition. They could live a life of prayer and study, and make their home a center for Catholic thought and culture, under the patronage of St. Thomas Aquinas. Their home became a place where artists and intellectuals could find friendship and lively discussion. The guest lists to their home during those years reads like a Who’s Who of the Catholic intellectual revival in France. It was during the Meudon years that Raissa’s public life as a writer and a poet began.

America and World War II

By the early 1930’s, Jacques Maritain was an established figure in Catholic thought. He was already a frequent visitor to North America and, since 1932, had come annually to the Institute of Mediaeval Studies in Toronto, Canada, to give courses of lectures. Following his lectures in Toronto at the beginning of 1940, he moved to the United States, teaching at Princeton University (1941-42) and Columbia (1941-44). When the Second World War overtook France in 1940, the Maritains were in America. Unable to return to their homeland and their friends, they dedicated their energies to helping the young generation, that was undergoing the crucible of the war, find the deeper meaning of the events they were suffering. Moving to New York, Jacques became deeply involved in rescue activities, seeking to bring persecuted and threatened academics, many of them Jews, to America. He was instrumental in founding the Free School of High Studies, a kind of university in exile that was, at the same time, the center of Gaullist resistance in the United States. To give courage to the young generations, Raissa told the story of the Catholic revival in France as she and Jacques had experienced it. The first volume, Les Grandes Amitiés (We Have Been Friends Together) appeared in 1941 and was followed by its sequel, Les Aventures de la Gräce (Adventures in Grace) in 1944. As a chronicle of the Catholic revival in France, these books are without equal. More than this, however, they offer us a theology of conversion and Christian vocation expressed in a narrative that traces the effects of God’s mercy upon the lives of a generation searching for meaning. Following the liberation of France in the summer of 1944, Jacques was named French ambassador to the Vatican, serving until 1948, but was also actively involved in drafting the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948).

Missionary vocation • Jacques and Raissa Maritain Integral humanism

Maritain was a strong defender of natural law ethics. He viewed ethical norms as being rooted in human nature. We know the natural law through our direct acquaintance with it in our human experience. Of central importance is Maritain's argument that natural rights are rooted in the natural law. This was key to his involvement in the drafting of the U.N.'s Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Maritain advocated what he called "integral humanism." He argued that secular forms of humanism were inevitably anti-human in that they refused to recognize the whole person. Once the spiritual dimension of human nature is rejected, we no longer have an integral, but a merely partial, humanism, one which rejects a fundamental aspect of the human person. Possibly, his most famous book is "Integral Humanism" (1936) where he also develops a theory of cooperation, to show how people of different intellectual positions can, nevertheless, cooperate to achieve common practical aims. Maritain's political theory was extremely influential, and was a primary source behind the Christian Democratic Movement. Maritain's emphasis on the value of the human person has been described as a form of personalism, which he saw as a via media between individualism and socialism. Maritain's Christian humanism and personalism have also had a significant inf luence in the social encyclicals of Pope Paul VI and in the thought of

Pope John Paul II. One consequence of his natural law and natural rights theory is that Maritain favored a democratic and liberal view of the state, and argued for a political society that is both personalist, pluralist, and inspired by Christian values. Raissa’s legacy

In 1960, Maritain and his wife returned to France. Following Raissa's death later that year, Maritain moved to Toulouse, where he decided to live with a religious order, the Little Brothers of Jesus. He also published Raissa’s writings under the title "Raissa's Journal." It was a real revelation. From the earliest days of her conversion, Raissa felt an intense call to contemplative prayer. It was during this period that Raissa began to write her Journal, which was published only after her death. With arresting clarity, she describes the Lord’s action in her life and her struggles to understand and respond. Brief insights – “to love and understand one’s neighbor, one must forget oneself” – are interspersed with descriptions of her struggles and pearls of calm wisdom, such as the following: “Error is like the foam on the waves, it eludes our grasp and keeps reappearing. The soul must not exhaust itself fighting against the foam. Its zeal must be purified and calmed and, by union with the Divine Will, it must gather strength from the depths. And Christ, with all His merits and the merits of all the saints, will do His work deep down below the surface of the waters. And everything that can be saved will be saved.”

The Journal also provides the record of her awareness that the Lord was inviting her to accept a share in His suffering. She wrote: “During silent prayer, I feel inwardly solicited to abandon myself to God, and not only solicited but effectively inclined to do it, and do it, feeling that it is for a trial, for a suffering, for which my consent is thus demanded. I make this act of abandonment in spite of my natural cowardice.” In his solitude, Jacques had a moment of glory when he was invited to the Second Vatican Council as observer and it is to him that Pope Paul VI, his pupil and admirer, presented his "Message to Men of Thought and of Science" at the close of Vatican II. During this time, he wrote a number of books, the best-known of which was "The Farmer of the Garonne" (a work sharply critical of post-Vatican Council excesses), published in 1967. In 1970, he petitioned to join the Order, and died in Toulouse on April 28, 1973. At the time of his death, Maritain was undoubtedly the best known Catholic philosopher in the world. The breadth of his philosophical work, his inf luence in the social philosophy of the Catholic Church, and his ardent defense of human rights made him one of the central figures of his times. Maritain is the author of some sixty books and hundreds of scholarly articles. His philosophical work has been translated into some twenty languages. He is buried alongside Raissa in Kolbsheim (Alsace) France. The cause for his beatification and his wife Raissa’s is already on the way.

SHARE IN GOD’S MISSION — BE A COMBONI MISSIONARY PRIEST OR BROTHER! For further information, contact: Daniel Comboni Seminary 282 Roosevelt Ave., S.F.D.M. 1105 Quezon City, M. M., Philippines Fr. Théophile Bessan Fr. Romulo V. Panis Tel: (02) 372–5858; (02) 414–3164 Cellphone Number: 09179001999 Cellphone Numbers: 09062905502 E-mail: combonivoc@yahoo.com E-mail: bessantheo@hotmail.com 09184050640

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WORLD MISSION

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AN ANNOUNCEMENT FOR ALL by

Fr . SILVANO FAUSTI, s.J. | BIBLIST & WRITER

“Send somebody to Joppa and bring a certain Simon who is called Peter.” – Read Acts 10:1-8 God always acts in history, also here and now. Many times His initiative doesn’t start from the Church, but from those whom the Church excludes. As a matter of fact, God sends His angel not to Peter but to a pagan with the order to fish the fisher of man in his fishing. In the announcement to Mary, the Word became flesh in Jesus. In the announcement to the pagan Cornelius, the Word wants to become f lesh in every man “so that God may be all in all” (1 Corinthians 15:28). This is the Father’s desire who created the world looking at the Son. Jesus has abolished the separation between heaven and earth: on the Cross, He even became sin and a curse so that every atom of creation may become fullness of glory. The Gospel continues its run from Jerusalem to Judea, to Samaria and beyond, up to Damascus. With Cornelius, it reaches its end which is to open horizons without end. Every division among human beings is obliterated: Abraham’s blessing extends also to the “pagans.” Humanity becomes one family. In the Son, we are all free, children of God and brothers and sisters among ourselves, although in diversity. It is the eternal mystery of God and humanity now disclosed. To everybody’s salvation, even God’s. We are not dealing with a kind of homologation under only one power, but “globalization” under the sign of love. Our cultural and religious differences remain, but not as place of fight, instead as communion. Diversities are no longer barriers but mutual openings. Our finitudes become encounter with other finitudes, contact with the others, sacrament of the One who is infinitely Other. Love is, first of all, freedom from our egoism and respect for the journey of the others, even if mistaken or incomplete (1 Corinthians 7,1ff ). In fact, there is “only one God,” who is Father of all and “one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom are all things and through whom we exist” (1 Corinthians 8:6). All cultural and religious taboos come to an end. Things are all good. Evil is not in them: it is in the intention and action of people who use them in order to demolish instead of building up mutual communion. Love makes Paul free to make himself Jew with the

WORLD MISSION

december

2013

Jews and lawless with the pagans. Since he is now within Christ’s law, he can make himself “everything to all” (1 Corinthians 9:1923). Because Christ’s law is to bear one another’s burden (Galatians 6:2). This is the true freedom of God’s children: through love, to be servants of one another (Galatians 5:13). Simple principles that demand clever solutions. For example: how to live and eat together, paying respect to cultural differences? The first “Council” of Jerusalem (Acts 15:1ff ) will give practical guidelines that will help Jews and pagans to live as brethren among themselves. The following Councils instead will go astray uttering excommunications against those who don’t think as we do. But to identify God with our ideas about Him is idolatry that destroys the Church: it makes us unable to accept the others in their otherness. Let us think of the question of the Chinese rites and of certain present idiosyncrasies towards the contemporary condition. And what shall we say of the times when we are looking for power in order to impose our own ideas or to obtain privileges? God, eventually, will make Peter understand that those he thinks of as “dogs,” are God’s privileged children. They have to sit at the common table, without too many cautions of circumcisions, prohibitions and rules. These are topics of burning present-day relevance. God doesn’t want to send the world to Church, but the Church to the world so that, in brotherhood towards everybody, she may reveal the face of God, the Father, to everyone. Even in the Gospels, God hides from those who are close and reveals Himself to those who are far away (Cf. the Samaritan woman in John 4:1ff, the Syro-Phoenician of Mark 7:27ff; the centurion of Luke 7:1ff and the centurion of Mark 15:39). The Church is beseeched to be herself from outside. Our identity comes always from outside: it is always “the other” who continuously converts us to the brotherhood which makes us children of the Father. The last to sit at the table will be the Son of Man who goes back to His glory. © Popoli – www.popoli.info

REFLECT AND PRAY – Are you aware of the universal salvation will of God, that is the content of the Gospel? – Jesus has commissioned His Church to preach the Gospel to all peoples; is this proselytism or correct understanding of mission? – Do you experience the urgency of preaching the Gospel? Or are you afraid to witness your faith in Jesus?

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