Category: WM Special

It was the popular Oprah Winfrey program and “there I learned about Congo, widely called the worst place on earth to be a woman. Awakened to the atrocities – millions dead, women being raped and tortured, children starving and dying in shocking numbers – I had to do something,” says this woman who, at 29, ran a photo business together with her boyfriend, in Portland (Oregon).  That same year, in September, Lisa Shannon ran her first marathon – more than a marathon, actually, 48 kilometers – to draw attention to this serious problem and raise some money. It took her almost eight hours and lots of pain. But she refused to give up. “Every half-kilometer represents a real woman’s life and the lives of her children. They will know that someone cares, that their lives are significant,” she said later. With that first run, she raised 28,000 dollars. In 2006, she completed her second 48-kilometer run, but this time joined by hundreds of other runners in ten states in the USA and four other countries, namely Germany and Ireland. The movement, Run for Congo Women, was thus born.  The money they raise goes to support Congolese women through a group called Women for Women International. This group sponsors more than a thousand war-affected Congolese women, who are raising more than 5,000 children, war orphans mainly. “They’ve lost everything, but they take children in when they can’t even feed their own properly,” says Lisa.  In January-February 2007, she made her first travel to Congo. For five weeks, she visited alone the South Kivu province. She went back in 2008. She could meet some of the women sponsored by her movement and even find, to her surprise, that one of them had named her newborn baby Lisa, probably the only one with such a name in the whole country.  Lisa, who is now 34, has just published her first book, A Thousand Sisters, where she details her experience in Congo. “In a place where no man with a gun is the good guy, I confront militias, massacres, murder cover-ups and unspeakable horror. Along the way, I am forced to learn lessons of survival, fear, gratitude and love from the women of Congo. A Thousand Sisters is a portrait of the world’s deadliest war through the intimate lens of friendship. It is a story of passion, hope, and my journey to carve out human bonds that cannot be touched by terror,” she wrote.  

“We will never, as a nation, move forward if we do not apologize to the women of this country for letting them down during the war; we will never, as a nation, know better days if we do not ask for the forgiveness of our mothers, sisters, partners and female compatriots for what we let them go through during the war. (…) As head of state, I apologize for the wrongs wrought on women; as Commander-in-Chief, I ask for forgiveness for the armed forces,” said President Koroma at the International Women’s Day.  “With this apology, Sierra Leone took an important symbolic step. A formal apology by the head of state is one of the simplest yet most fundamental measures that a government can take in fulfilling the right to reparations,” said International Center for Transitional Justice (ICTJ) president, David Tolbert. Sierra Leone started, in 2008, the implementation of a reparation program and the ICJT has been urging President Koroma’s government to ensure that this program reaches more women victims, particularly those in rural areas, women who suffered sexual violence and war widows. Although the government initially estimated that around 5,000 victims of sexual violence would register, only about 3,000 have done so. It is possible that some women victims of sexual violence had come forward as part of the more than 11,000 who registered as war widows to avoid the stigma associated with sexual violation.  

Generose Namburho used to work as a nurse at a hospital in eastern Congo. One night, a number of Hutu militiamen invaded her home, killed her husband and tried to rape her. She screamed for help and the attackers hacked off her leg with a machete, cooked the amputated part and ordered her children to eat it. One son, 12 years old, refused and was killed. She saw everything, before fainting from the serious wound. Women are a particularly vulnerable group in armed conflicts. And rape has increasingly become a weapon of war as much as a machine-gun or a shell, used either by a regular army or by guerrilla groups, because spreading terror among civilian populations is a very common means to try and achieve their goals.  “War rape intimidates the enemy. It demoralizes the enemy. It makes women pregnant and thereby furthers the cause of genocide. It tampers with the identity of the next generation. It breaks up families. It disperses entire populations. It drives a wedge between family members. It extends the oppressor’s dominance into future generations,” says Sally J. Scholtz, a philosophy professor at the Villanova University (Pennsylvania, USA).  In Africa, for instance, women and young girls, “as symbols of the honor of their communities, are raped to humiliate the women, the men in their families and their entire community,” says Véronique Aubert, deputy director of Amnesty International’s Africa Program.  According to Aubert, “rape and other forms of sexual violence have been used so extensively and with such impunity that we can only conclude that government security forces and armed opposition groups have been using these crimes as part of a deliberate strategy to instill terror in the civilian population.”   Especially vulnerable Violence usually associated with rape and sexual assault leaves women traumatized – physically as well as psychologically – in their most intimate being – sometimes injured beyond any possible reparation in their bodies – incontinent, pregnant against their will and sometimes contaminated with diseases such as syphilis and AIDS. And, if they manage to survive and go back home, they are rejected by their own families for having given birth to a child “of the enemy.”  In Africa, for instance, apart from raising the children, women have a very important role in the household economy, mainly in rural areas. According to the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), recent estimates say that women provide approximately 70% of agricultural labor and produce 90% of all food. Killed in armed conflicts, displaced, sexually assaulted and with subsequent diseases, they can no longer give their contribution to support the family.  The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), in a survey published last February to assess the real vulnerability of women in conflict areas, recalls that “women and children are the object of special respect and must be protected, in particular, against all forms of indecent assault (Articles 76 and 77 of Protocol I additional to the 1977 Geneva Conventions),” but, under humanitarian law, women

A few days back, a friend of mine sent to me a very interesting book: The Schism: Catholics without Pope. The author, Riccardo Chiaberge, introduces 14 very interesting and dynamic persons, people oriented and dedicated to link new aspects of life with the Gospel. I would say that they all are charismatic persons, in whose performance the Holy Spirit is present and active. They find themselves in frontier conditions, for example: a sister in Africa facing AIDS; a doctor in a hospital for infertile couples dealing with issues of fertilization in vitro; a medical researcher dealing with stem cells; a theologian striving to reformulate the theology of creation within the context of modern cosmology, and so forth. The common bottom line is that all of them are operating in frontier situations. All of them are motivated by a real passion and compassion for people vexed by problems without solutions. What they are doing might not be hundred per cent in line with the general statement of the hierarchical Church but, all in all, I would say they are real artisans of the Kingdom of God. They enjoy sound intentions and the will to be in communion with the Church, though their initiatives are not as yet fully in line with the general statements of the magisterium. In the above mentioned artisans of the Kingdom, a new child is conceived. The hierarchy cannot prepare the ‘trouser’ or the ‘skirt’ before the new creature is born. At the origin of conception, there is the Holy Spirit, not the hierarchy. The hierarchy, later on, will welcome to the community the newly-born child. A certain amount of tension between the charismatic and the institutional elements in the Church is inevitable.  The Holy Spirit is the first agent of evangelization (Redemptoris Missio, 21) and precedes the full establishment of the Church; He sets the process of personal conversion and of the coming of the Kingdom into motion. The full belonging to the Church will come later. The Church cannot control the dynamism of the Holy Spirit, but only recognizes His presence and action with the passage of time through a challenging journey of discernment. Therefore, Chiaberge’s labelling the 14 protagonists as schismatic faithful is by all means inappropriate. They are not separated from the Church; they are not rebels. They are simply ahead of the formal approval of the Church which cannot but come after years of testing and experiences.   Present in all cultures  The Spirit has been present in the world from the beginning of creation. He is present in cultures, peoples, religions even before the Gospel is proclaimed in that given environment. The Spirit is manifested in the traces of truth, wisdom, charity, solidarity, patience, piety, faith and hope which are present in every culture and religion. The philosopher Saint Justin was well conversant with the Greek, Roman and Hebrew wisdom. He coined the expression: Semina Verbi (seeds of the Word) to convey his conviction that the Word and the Spirit of

We believe in one God who reveals Himself in three persons: the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. We proclaim this reality of God in our prayers, and we find the foundations of this in the Word of God. Yet, if we read the Bible carefully, we realize that God revealed Himself in time, in a build-up of self disclosing. The very same can be said of the Holy Spirit. Of course, He has always been there. He chose to show Himself little by little. This is why the authors of the Bible, inspired by the same Holy Spirit, recognized His presence in a crescendo of knowledge and intuition. The Spirit of God is present at creation, at the very start of our adventure. In the first verses of Genesis, we are told that God created the universe and the “Spirit of God hovered over the waters.” Then the “earth had no form and was void, darkness was over the deep.” It is a very depressing situation. The land has no shape and it is deserted. Darkness is a negative reality throughout the Bible. It represents the contrary of God’s will: light, salvation, life. At the beginning, creation is still in chaos, which means death and it is in antithesis to what will come later: harmony, life, beauty. Creation is the moment when God refuses the negative and opens the way to a new reality. Over the shapeless and void, hovers the Spirit of God. The Hebrew word used here (merahefet) is used only two other times in the Bible. It has the meaning of shacking, flying. Yet, later commentators – both Jews and Christians – read this word to mean “to brood.” However it is interpreted, we see the presence of God through His Spirit. A presence that means birth of a new reality and care for creation. The Spirit is present at Creation. Even the psalms remind us of that. “When you send forth your Spirit, they are created, and the face of the earth is renewed” (104:30). The Spirit will be present at the end, at the moment of judgment. The Spirit is present throughout salvation history and escorts the human being in his journeys towards God. The word used in this text to refer to the Spirit is ruah, literally wind. While the meaning of ruah changed in time, often, the presence of God’s Spirit is linked to wind. It is with a puff of breath that God gives life to the human being in Genesis 2:7. It is in the gentle murmur of the breeze that Elijah encounters God on Mount Horeb (1 Kings 19:12ff). In later books, ruah becomes more and more a word related to restoring life. In Ezekiel 37, the dry bones are revived with the ruah hayyim, the breath of life. After Israel returned from exile in Babylon, the prophets understood a deeper reality: they were able to bring forth the Word of God because of the action of the Spirit of

If you want to cultivate peace, protect Creation,” this is the theme for 2010 World Day of Peace, celebrated on January 1. This time around, Pope Benedict XVI decided to focus on an important issue: caring for Creation is vital for life on the planet. This is a human right. We all have the right to see Creation well preserved for us and our future generations. This is also the will of God, who entrusted the human being with “tilling the earth and taking care of it” (Gen. 2:15). The Maasai of Kenya have an apt saying: “We do not own the Earth; we are simply guarding it for our children.” It is not by chance that the motto ‘Justice and Peace’ in many international gatherings has been modified, adding ‘and responsibility for Creation.’ The Pope’s message wishes to raise awareness about the strong bond that exists in our globalized and interconnected world between protecting the Creation and cultivating peace. It is not a novelty that insecurity, war and many abuses of human rights have been done to gain access to natural resources. The fight against indigenous people in the Amazon Basin is an example in point. Today, we see similar issues raised in the civil war in Darfur and Malakal area in the Sudan. The war in the Great Lake Region is as much power and political control, as a fight for the right to exploit resources. Undoubtedly, when a group of people wishes to take control of natural resources against the plans of the local population, abuse of human rights and conflict will ensue. The answer to these tensions lies on the sustainable use of Creation. God has given us precious resources, it is up to us to use them well and in a way that favors development. For instance, deforestation is a major problem in many countries. The world market wants more and more wood for furniture, building and other applications. Precious woods are highly sought after. When there is a high demand, there is also the incentive to respond by providing goods. However, deforestation leads to depletion of water resources and erosion. Deforested ground is not always good for agriculture, so that local communities do not really benefit from logging. Instead of cutting down forests, local communities can be trained to use renewable natural resources to make a profit. For instance, many powerful medicines are prepared with flowers and herbs from tropical forests. A community that looks after the environment and save its riches, will benefit from preserving the original status of their region. Another way to guard Creation is to avoid pollution. In reality, we will never be able to live in a pollution-free environment. Every living being creates pollution. However, we can minimize our impact on Creation by recycling, lowering poisonous emissions, and find alternatives to plastic packaging, excessive water use, polluting mining, etc. Leading a more sustainable life means having less impact on the environment, giving nature the time to recover from pollution,

In 1997, the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, issued an important document, Towards a Better Distribution of Land – The Challenge of Agrarian Reform. The question of land ownership and distribution had by then become an important issue. Private companies were buying large swath of land from governments, without caring for the rights of indigenous people or of farmers who had traditional access to that land. The document stated that “the development model of industrialized societies is capable of producing huge quantities of wealth, but also has serious shortcomings when it comes to the equitable redistribution of its fruits and the promotion of growth in less developed areas. While developed economies are not immune to this contradiction, it reaches particularly alarming proportions in developing economies. This can be seen in the persistence of the phenomenon of the misappropriation and concentration of land – that is, that good which, given the predominantly agricultural nature of the economy of developing countries, constitutes the fundamental production factor, together with labor, and the chief source of national wealth. This state of affairs is often one of the main causes of situations of hunger and want, and represents a concrete negation of the principle derived from our common origin and brotherhood in God (cf. Eph. 4:6) that all human beings are born equal in dignity and rights.” Many agrarian reforms have failed in reducing the concentration of landholdings, and in creating farm units capable of autonomous growth. We have instead witnessed the expulsion of large masses of peasant farmers or indigenous inhabitants from the land and their migration to urban centers, where they enter into a vicious cycle of poverty. In many countries of the South, governments did not provide the necessary infrastructures and social services in rural areas, nor did they provide technical assistance to small farm owners. In this way, local farmers cannot be competitive with large landholders. Small farmers are often forced into debt. They then have to sell their rights and give up farming. A new factor is destabilizing the agrarian reform in many countries, especially in Africa. More and more governments are leasing agricultural land in Africa and exporting the produce back to their country, or selling it in international markets. Saudi investors are spending to the tune of £60 million in Ethiopia. In exchange for investments in infrastructure and cash, the investors enjoy tax exemption for the first five years and will be able to export the entire crop. This, in a country routinely hit by famine and where the World Food Program provides food aid to close to 5M Ethiopians threatened by hunger and malnutrition. Leasing or buying farmland in distant countries is not new. Many international corporations have invested in farmland in the past. New is the size of farmland acquired, and the fact that more and more tracts of land are leased by governments. Leasing such large swath of land is bound to be controversial. Supporters of the deals point out that investors do introduce

The Church has always maintained that faith must be nurtured. No one is born a believer. We all are introduced to faith. Some come to know and accept Jesus as adults, others are born in Christian families. All have to be introduced to faith, to the teaching of Jesus, to the way the Church lives this teaching through the celebration of sacraments, and through its action in the world. This is why Christian communities organize catechumenate and catechism classes. Yet, this first approach to faith is not enough. We ought to continue our journey of faith by learning ever more about God and the way He wants His Kingdom to grow. The social teaching of the Church is part of this journey, and we are called to know and make it part of our lives. There are many areas to cover. Yet, some basic principles can guide us in our journey.   – Life is sacred. God is, first of all, Father. God has given us life, and He wants life to prevail. Human life and one’s sanctity and dignity are the foundation of the social teaching of the Church. While globalized culture proposes an individualistic approach to life, we realize that a person is sacred and social. That is, each human being is special, but he/she is not an island. How we organize our life together is then extremely important. The policies we accept to underscore our political and financial decision are valuable beacons of our understanding of the human person. They also give a good prospect of how we expect each person to live and grow. The Church teaches that the role of the government, and other international institutions, is to protect human life and human dignity and promote the common good. When a society is able to protect life, then there are good chances that human rights are kept in consideration and other basic responsibilities are met. However, an ideal society does not exist. This is why the Church calls all people of goodwill to make some choices. The first is an option for the poor and vulnerable in society. Modern society is characterized by a deep chasm between rich and poor, between able bodies and disabled persons. All vulnerable people need to be cared for. They are persons, and cannot hope to overcome the hurdles of life by themselves. The parable of the Last Judgment (Mt. 25) is a powerful teaching regarding the need to put the poor and vulnerable first.    – Social participation. Being responsible for the poorest and the most vulnerable means also to take a stand in society. Everyone has a right to participate fully in the economic, political, and cultural aspects of life. It is a fundamental demand of justice and a requirement for human dignity that all people be assured of a minimum level of participation in the community. Those who have a say in deciding policies, have a duty to make sure that all enjoy this basic right. This

The first human right recognized almost universally is freedom. Because of freedom, people understood the importance of abolishing slavery, of supporting the fight for independence of colonized nations, of asking for a change in South Africa’s apartheid rule. Freedom is the underlying value beneath all self-determination struggles. Yet, we do not live in a free world. As many as two billion people, one third of the world’s population, live in poverty or extreme poverty. These people are not able to make free decisions about their future. They are enslaved by their lack of choice. Poverty means lack of means to live. It also means lack of proper medical care, education opportunities for one’s children, social issues like alcoholism, drug abuse, child prostitution, child labor, among others. The fact that extreme poverty exists in all parts of the world is a sharp reminder that globalization – with all its benefits and opportunities – has not produced a broad-based system of inclusion. The concentration of extreme poverty in certain regions of the world is a sad reminder of the inequalities which exist in our world. Poverty is often the result of exploitation, and it remains a difficult reality to fight. In the present moment, globalization has reached all the corners of the Earth. Our societies are interconnected at various levels. Yet, instead of paving the way to a better distribution of resources, globalization is favoring a replication of a perverse pattern: the rich are growing richer, and the chasm dividing them from the poor is widening. In a way, one could say that the rich enjoy a life of plenty, thanks to the lack of basic comforts experienced by the poor. One of the main reasons for this situation is the imbalance of trade. The countries with the most natural resources are unable to control the value of these resources. The wealth produced by exploiting resources goes to the richest countries of the world. At the same time, within developing countries, the wealth generated by the local economy is enjoyed by a small elite, leaving most people out in the cold. It is not by chance that many countries in the South trail behind the West even though they provide most of the resources for the latter’s industrial development. Imbalance of trade also means that certain markets are heavily regulated to protect local production. Africa, Asia and Latin America could provide agricultural products at a fraction of the cost in the West. Yet, they are shut out by protection schemes. Schemes that are not approved by the West in their dealings with the South, in the name of a free market economy. In this way, farmers from the South see themselves locked out from lucrative markets. Poverty can be eradicated, and this process requires important changes in the world‘s economy, but also in the way we perceive people and their rights. Every person has the right to life, and to being the creative subject of that life. Every person ought to have