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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.
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.
Let’s make no bones about it. This financial crisis is a major spiritual crisis. It is the crisis of a society that worships at the temples of consumption, and that has isolated and often abandoned millions of consumers now trapped in a treadmill of debt.
The “American Dream” of upward social mobility appears to have emigrated from its birthplace in the United States to northern Europe, according to a new major report of OECD on the growth of economic equality over the past 20 years. In terms of inequality, the Americans just lag behind Mexicans and Turks.
As the U.S., Europe and rich countries throw billions in lifeboats to end financial crises, let’s spare a thought for poorer developing nations which, without such means, are facing absolute disaster.
The global crisis, which is harming even the world’s strongest economies, is costing millions their houses, jobs and lifetime savings. To those who are already poor, the present is getting harder and harder and the future will be even bleaker. All this is the result of pure greed and of the “free-market religion.”
When 10% of a population is living abroad, its impact must be big not only on the over 8.7 million migrants but, above all, on the whole Filipino society – albeit they adapt well to foreign lands and take with them the essentials of their culture. Only last August, the president of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines warned that the magnitude of the process is putting a big stress on families. And there are also those who don’t feel at ease anymore when they come back, even for vacations.
For the last 60 years, the Philippines has had problems with modernity.
One of the reasons is the absence of modern political parties with well-defined constituencies, thereby allowing networks like kinship groups to continue to serve as vehicles of political power. Banning dynasties from politics by legislation is not going to work unless there is, at the same time, a concerted effort to nurture stable vehicles of interest aggregation. Our people are fed up with our political elite – that’s the reason they are leaving the country.
But almost all of them are willing to return. A good reason to have hope.
Excessive “devotions,” ritualism, external practices that do not transform behaviors, traditions that are very close to idolatry. Catholic Filipino religiosity is, above all, a popular Catholicism. And one that, in real and daily life, generally ignores the teachings of the Gospel. That’s why, according to a survey, the country is number one in religiosity, but also number one in corruption.
Over the years, the Filipino has continued to evolve as a global citizen but he/she also continues to carry the traits and characteristics that have made every Filipino distinct and, sometimes, inscrutable. But there is no denying that the so-called “globalized Filipinos” are among the most valued workers in foreign lands.
