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Concern for justice towards the poor and the vulnerable, such as widows and orphans, foreigners and refugees, is at the heart of God’s covenant with His people. Jesus reaches out to the marginalized of His time, including foreigners, with whom He found hospitality.
Europe is facing a refugee crisis of historic proportions. Since 2015, more than one million people crossed the Mediterranean, fleeing war and persecution. Among the immigrants is the Darwish family. An example of resilience, courage and hope.
While Portugal has more than doubled its quota to accommodate refugees, other E.U. countries are building fences and sealing off Europe’s internal borders. A deal with Turkey to secure this closure has been criticized as a moral failure.
Basha Miao Village lies on the southern border of Southwest China’s Guizhou Province. The Miao villagers have maintained the characteristic lifestyle of the Miao ethnic group, still retaining ancient living customs and dressing codes.
For over two decades, the indigenous people (IP) of Mindanao, Philippines, have been fighting for the salvation of their ancestral lands. For the past five-and-a-half years, 70 IPs have died. Rich in natural resources, there’s no question why many local and international mining and logging companies want to operate in these areas.
The persisting humanitarian crisis of the Rohingya minority in Myanmar has been a global concern after two bouts of organized mass violence against them in 2012. But the Rohingyas’ persecution has been going on for nearly four decades.
With globalization, the image of the world has changed. Information technology has brought people closer and started dynamics which have made the world of economy run wild. Globalization is an economic tsunami that is sweeping the planet. It can’t be stopped but, certainly, there must be many steps people can take to slow it down and make it more equitable to wealth distribution, living salaries, social security. Unfortunately, those steps are not yet clear. There seems to be no authority capable of harnessing globalization and putting it at the service of people, and not only capital profit.
The Social Doctrine of the Church doesn’t mean giving technical solutions that rightly belong to the legitimate autonomy of the economic, social and political sciences. It is an application of the principles of the Gospel to social problems. It has something essential to say about the concept of the human being, family, work, solidarity, destination of goods, development and peace.
The 19th-century Industrial Revolution caused the social question which is the exploitation of the urban masses. Karl Marx and the Communist movement were the first to acknowledge the impact of the social question. The Church was awakened to that harsh reality and responded with an original interpretation of the Gospel message, applied to the marketplace. The Church’s Social Doctrine grew slowly and developed from the experience of the people in the field and the teaching of the popes. When the Christian Democrat political parties took the power in Western Europe after World War II, they implemented the Christian vision, giving origin to the welfare state. Never in history have the state and the private bodies cooperated with such a success to produce an affluent and egalitarian society. Fifty years later, globalization has completely changed the scenario and has jeopardized the conquests of the Social Doctrine of the Church. The future is again confused, threatening and challenging.
South Africa is on the brink of a water crisis. Climate change, the stealing of water, contamination resulting from poor sanitary practices and mining, and the emphasis of water-for-profit, among other reasons, are to blame for this impending catastrophe. Contingency measures are now being put in place by both the national and local governments to avert the situation. However, such plans will be inadequate if leaders do not have the will to implement these measures and the remaining water resources are not managed well.
