Browse past isues
Help the mission
Support the mission
Get in touch
In the fifth century, before envy was listed by the Church as one of the seven deadly sins, the virtue, able to fight its deleterious effects, was coined. This virtue is kindness. And, if one looks attentively at the world’s social and spiritual history, one will find
that it is still able to help us in our struggle to live better in a kinder world.
Kindness is a virtue that needs to be cherished and cultivated. Regular practices become habits which, in turn, become deeply ingrained and shape our identity. Our actions determine us as much as we determine our actions. Indeed, kindness begets kindness. We are made kind by being kind.
Silsilah farmers are practicing an organic and biodynamic agriculture that helps them to regain dignity and make a living, keeps the integrity of creation and preserves the earth for future generations. Mary Josephine “Jojo” E. Cagurangan is their leading technician.
Naked, alone, just with the aid of an arch and a bunch of arrows, Karapiru walked for ten years. All started with the murder of his wife by hired gunmen; all ended after wandering over 1,300 kilometers, with the find of his lost son and the start of a new family. This almost incredible survival story was only possible because Karapiru is a Brazilian Indian, used to living in communion with Nature. And tells us a lot about many other Indians, culturally and spiritually deeply attached to Mother Earth.
Whereas plantations, logging and dams were the main culprits that displaced Filipino indigenous communities from their ancestral domains and wrought havoc in their way of life in the 70s and 80s, the specter since the 1990s until today is large-scale mining and energy-generation projects. That, ironically, are strongly supported by the government of the Philippines.
Indigenous peoples, who usually see their ancestral lands as sacred and not as a profitable commodity, are being threatened by the oil, gas and mineral wealth that hides beneath their soil. That is coveted by powerful nations and big corporations.
To secure their food supplies and the production of biofuels, several countries are buying or leasing huge amounts of farmland in poor nations, in Asia, Latin America and mainly in Africa. Some say that the investment could aid to develop the local economies, but the phenomenon – that has already a name: the land grab – can be also a menace to small farmers and local communities. Some denounce it as just a form of new colonialism and say that will worsen poverty and malnutrition.
The Church was born in the Holy Land. And, during some centuries, the Bishop of Jerusalem was the recognized authority over all Christians.
Where Bethany was, now stands an ugly concrete wall, nine meters tall, that blocks the way to East Jerusalem. The place where Jesus frequented his friends Lazarus, Martha and Mary remembers a ghetto but, even amid the poverty and the squalor, there is a spark of hope: the Christian projects that help Muslim children and girls.
Throughout history, war has never been too far from the Holy Land. Yet, this is the land that God promised to His chosen people, a land that will have to find lasting peace through dialogue among the many people who inhabit it, most of whom trace back their origins to the same God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
