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January 2009
“Each one of us has to get rid of his or her indifference and fear and fight evil in all
Its forms – greed, prepotency, corruption,
Injustice, exploitation, hatred, poverty.”
The example of St. Paul is one Benedict XVI hopes the Church will follow to build solidarity and promote peaceful coexistence among all races, cultures and creeds. The Pope said this in the message released for the 95th World Day of Migrants and Refugees, to be held January 18.
With 104 votes in favor, 48 contrary and 31 abstentions, the Social, Humanitarian and Cultural Committee (or Third Committee) of the UN General Assembly approved the renewal of the “universal moratorium on the death penalty,” first adopted in 2007.Then, the Committee had approved the moratorium with a mere 99 “yes” and 52 “no” and 33 abstentions; the Assembly backed the moratorium in a 104-54 vote (29 abstentions).
An appeal for world peace was passed from religious leaders to children to government officials in Nicosia, Cyprus. With the presentation of the appeal, the International Meeting of Prayer for Peace, traditionally sponsored by the Catholic lay Sant’Egidio Community, and this time co-sponsored by the Orthodox Church of Cyprus, came to an end. The 22nd meeting was on “The Civilization of Peace: Faiths and Cultures in Dialogue.”
The Holy See is decrying a world situation in which it is easier to get a weapon than to obtain food, shelter and an education. Archbishop Celestino Migliore, permanent observer of the Holy See to the United Nations, affirmed this at the U.N. Security Council meeting on “Maintenance of International Peace and Security: Strengthening Collective Security Through General Regulation and Reduction of Armaments.”
European bishops say Christians should lead the way in using the climate change issue as an opportunity to analyze societal practices and return to the true values in life. The stance of Christians faced with global warming and other climate changes was one of the themes addressed by the Commission of the Bishops’ Conferences of the European Community during their plenary assembly.
For a problem that is not exclusively financial, there needs to be a solution that is not exclusively financial, a Vatican representative recalled. Bishop Giampaolo Crepaldi, secretary of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, underlined this on Vatican Radio when he discussed the ongoing worldwide economic crisis. “The crisis that the world is currently living is not just financial and, therefore, the solution cannot be purely financial,” he said. Instead, the economic crisis “verifies what the Church’s social doctrine has said for a long time: When an economic-financial system goes into crisis, it is never due to economic or financial motives, but because, in its origin, there has been a wound in the global moral system.”
The Church has to pave new paths of hope for the modern types of slaveries being created by the phenomenon of migration. This was one of 11 specific recommendations that came from a conference organized by the Pontifical Council for Migrants and Travelers and the Thai Episcopal Conference in Bangkok. The Conference’s theme was “Towards a Better Pastoral Care for Migrants and Refugees in Asia at the Dawn of the Third Millennium.” Participants were informed that the continent hosts nearly 25% of the 200 million international migrants worldwide.
Do donor countries live up to the rhetoric and give emergency aid only where needed, without strings attached, and regardless of security and foreign policy priorities? A new report released reviews the performance of 23 donors against their own guidelines and finds most wanting, coming under fire from winners and losers. The Humanitarian Response Index 2008 (HRI), compiled by the international non-profit organization DARA (Development Assistance Research Associates), found that millions of people do not receive the relief they vitally need, in part because donor countries do not adhere to their own “Good Humanitarian Donorship” (GHD) principles. Among those principles, established in 2003, are that: emergency aid should be impartial, not driven by political, economic or security agendas; should strengthen capacity to respond to future crises, including prevention; assess needs and target effectively; and link relief efforts with long-term development strategies.
In recent months, market-run media have been distracting the public with an array of tumbling market digits. Investors wonder how their money was squandered, and we ordinary people wonder how funds unavailable to feed starving billions suddenly surfaced to bail out big business. The billions of dollars pumped in to re-capitalize cash-strapped banks and whining industrialists did not come from fat cats or government leaders. Bail-out funds came from resources stacked away, while the poor were denied basic needs. Such surpluses could have been better used to fight poverty, disease, ignorance and injustice worldwide. A global sharing of resources also may have helped evolve an alternative economic system based on equity and justice, not on “greed,” the euphemism now used to blame bankers and entrepreneurs.
The World Social Forum offers us a unique occasion to reflect upon the relation between mission and world social transformation. The eighth edition of the Forum will be held at the end of this month in the city of Belém (Brazil), at the heart of the Amazon region.
Sometimes, especially in hard times, we need life examples. From people like us, who, because of some trials or by choice, found a new path. The three figures World Mission chose could not be more different: a Colombian presidential candidate who was kidnapped and rediscovered faith in the hell of the jungle; a Palestinian beauty technician who was prepared to be a suicide bomber but became a peace fighter; and an American Jesuit who is a well-known preacher and practitioner of nonviolence. Each one, in her/his own way, has something to teach us about the conversion of the heart, the way to face adversity and find God. All of them have something in common: their lives deserved a peace award.
Encountering the true God is our only hope. It’s how we discover our own true nature and reclaim our fundamental humanity as peaceful, loving, nonviolent people. Encountering the true God will empower us to become peacemakers and fill us with the sense of being “sons and daughters of the God of peace.” On that day, we will fully know God, and peace and justice will flow naturally.
The new outbreak of combats between the Congolese Army and the troops of the rebellious General Laurent Nkunda has caused an undetermined number of deaths and more than 250,000 displaced people, making ever more difficult the restoration of peace in the east of the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
Born in a godless family, active as a radical journalist, Dorothy Day discovered God because of the joy of expecting a baby. The father of the baby left her when she decided to have the baby baptized. She faced life as a long loneliness with her only daughter, Tamar, but God used her to gather the poor in the Catholic Worker Movement and to give a voice to Catholic pacifism in the USA. She saw the Catholic Church as “the church of the immigrants, the church of the poor.” Survivor of innumerable social battles, she became an icon of resistance and attracted the admiration of champions like Thomas Merton and Mother Teresa.
“Blessed are you poor, for the kingdom of God belongs to you.”
(Read Luke 6:20-49)
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