Vatican City, 10 July 2015 (VIS) –
The Pope's day in Santa Cruz de la Sierra concluded with his
participation in the Second World Meeting of Popular Movements,
organised in collaboration with the Pontifical Council “Justice and
Peace” and the Pontifical Academy for Social Sciences, attended by
delegates from popular movements from all over the world representing
workers in precarious employment and the informal economy, landless
farmers, “villeros” (inhabitants of poor areas), indigenous
peoples, immigrants, and social movements.
Also present were Cardinal Peter Kodwo
Appiah Turkson, president of “Justice and Peace”, and Bishop
Marcelo Sanchez Sorondo, chancellor of the Pontifical Academy. The
first meeting took place in the Vatican in October 2014, and was
attended by the president of Bolivia, Evo Morales, who yesterday also
presented a discourse in the Expo Feria centre, hosting the event in
which three thousand people have participated.
The following is the full text of the
discourse given by Pope Francis:
“Good afternoon! Several months ago,
we met in Rome, and I remember that first meeting. In the meantime I
have kept you in my thoughts and prayers. I am happy to see you
again, here, as you discuss the best ways to overcome the grave
situations of injustice experienced by the excluded throughout our
world. Thank you, President Evo Morales, for your efforts to make
this meeting possible. During our first meeting in Rome, I sensed
something very beautiful: fraternity, determination, commitment, a
thirst for justice. Today, in Santa Cruz de la Sierra, I sense it
once again. I thank you for that. I also know, from the Pontifical
Council for Justice and Peace headed by Cardinal Turkson, that many
people in the Church feel very close to the popular movements. That
makes me very happy! I am pleased to see the Church opening her doors
to all of you, embracing you, accompanying you and establishing in
each diocese, in every justice and peace commission, a genuine,
ongoing and serious cooperation with popular movements. I ask
everyone, bishops, priests and laity, as well as the social
organisations of the urban and rural peripheries, to deepen this
encounter.
“Today God has granted that we meet
again. The Bible tells us that God hears the cry of his people, and I
wish to join my voice to yours in calling for land, lodging and
labour for all our brothers and sisters. I said it and I repeat it:
these are sacred rights. It is important, it is well worth fighting
for them. May the cry of the excluded be heard in Latin America and
throughout the world.
“Let us begin by acknowledging that
change is needed. Here I would clarify, lest there be any
misunderstanding, that I am speaking about problems common to all
Latin Americans and, more generally, to humanity as a whole. They are
global problems which today no one state can resolve on its own. With
this clarification, I now propose that we ask the following
questions.
“Do we realise that something is
wrong in a world where there are so many farmworkers without land, so
many families without a home, so many labourers without rights, so
many persons whose dignity is not respected? Do we realise that
something is wrong where so many senseless wars are being fought and
acts of fratricidal violence are taking place on our very doorstep?
Do we realise something is wrong when the soil, water, air and living
creatures of our world are under constant threat? So let’s not be
afraid to say it: we need change; we want change.
“In your letters and in our meetings,
you have mentioned the many forms of exclusion and injustice which
you experience in the workplace, in neighbourhoods and throughout the
land. They are many and diverse, just as many and diverse are the
ways in which you confront them. Yet there is an invisible thread
joining every one of those forms of exclusion: can we recognise it?
These are not isolated issues. I wonder whether we can see that these
destructive realities are part of a system which has become global.
Do we realise that that system has imposed the mentality of profit at
any price, with no concern for social exclusion or the destruction of
nature?
“If such is the case, I would insist,
let us not be afraid to say it: we want change, real change,
structural change. This system is by now intolerable: farmworkers
find it intolerable, labourers find it intolerable, communities find
it intolerable, peoples find it intolerable … The earth itself –
our sister, Mother Earth, as St. Francis would say – also finds it
intolerable. We want change in our lives, in our neighbourhoods, in
our everyday reality. We want a change which can affect the entire
world, since global interdependence calls for global answers to local
problems. The globalisation of hope, a hope which springs up from
peoples and takes root among the poor, must replace the globalisation
of exclusion and indifference.
“Today I wish to reflect with you on
the change we want and need. You know that recently I wrote about the
problems of climate change. But now I would like to speak of change
in another sense. Positive change, a change which is good for us, a
change – we can say – which is redemptive. Because we need it. I
know that you are looking for change, and not just you alone: in my
different meetings, in my different travels, I have sensed an
expectation, a longing, a yearning for change, in people throughout
the world. Even within that ever smaller minority which believes that
the present system is beneficial, there is a widespread sense of
dissatisfaction and even despondency. Many people are hoping for a
change capable of releasing them from the bondage of individualism
and the despondency it spawns.
“Time, my brothers and sisters, seems
to be running out; we are not yet tearing one another apart, but we
are tearing apart our common home. Today, the scientific community
realises what the poor have long told us: harm, perhaps irreversible
harm, is being done to the ecosystem. The earth, entire peoples and
individual persons are being brutally punished. And behind all this
pain, death and destruction there is the stench of what Basil of
Caesarea called 'the dung of the devil'. An unfettered pursuit of
money rules. The service of the common good is left behind. Once
capital becomes an idol and guides people’s decisions, once greed
for money presides over the entire socio-economic system, it ruins
society, it condemns and enslaves men and women, it destroys human
fraternity, it sets people against one another and, as we clearly
see, it even puts at risk our common home.
“I do not need to go on describing
the evil effects of this subtle dictatorship: you are well aware of
them. Nor is it enough to point to the structural causes of today’s
social and environmental crisis. We are suffering from an excess of
diagnosis, which at times leads us to multiply words and to revel in
pessimism and negativity. Looking at the daily news we think that
there is nothing to be done, except to take care of ourselves and the
little circle of our family and friends.
“What can I do, as collector of
paper, old clothes or used metal, a recycler, about all these
problems if I barely make enough money to put food on the table? What
can I do as a craftsman, a street vendor, a trucker, a downtrodden
worker, if I do not even enjoy workers’ rights? What can I do, a
farmwife, a native woman, a fisher who can hardly fight the
domination of the big corporations? What can I do from my little
home, my shanty, my hamlet, my settlement, when I daily meet with
discrimination and marginalisation? What can be done by those
students, those young people, those activists, those missionaries who
come to my neighbourhood with their hearts full of hopes and dreams,
but without any real solution for my problems? A lot! They can do a
lot. You, the lowly, the exploited, the poor and underprivileged, can
do, and are doing, a lot. I would even say that the future of
humanity is in great measure in your own hands, through your ability
to organise and carry out creative alternatives, through your daily
efforts to ensure the three 'L’s' (labour, lodging, land) and
through your proactive participation in the great processes of change
on the national, regional and global levels. Don’t lose heart!
“You are sowers of change. Here in
Bolivia I have heard a phrase which I like: 'process of change'.
Change seen not as something which will one day result from any one
political decision or change in social structure. We know from
painful experience that changes of structure which are not
accompanied by a sincere conversion of mind and heart sooner or later
end up in bureaucratisation, corruption and failure. That is why I
like the image of a 'process', where the drive to sow, to water seeds
which others will see sprout, replaces the ambition to occupy every
available position of power and to see immediate results. Each of us
is just one part of a complex and differentiated whole, interacting
in time: peoples who struggle to find meaning, a destiny, and to live
with dignity, to 'live well'.
“As members of popular movements, you
carry out your work inspired by fraternal love, which you show in
opposing social injustice. When we look into the eyes of the
suffering, when we see the faces of the endangered campesino, the
poor labourer, the downtrodden native, the homeless family, the
persecuted migrant, the unemployed young person, the exploited child,
the mother who lost her child in a shoot-out because the barrio was
occupied by drug dealers, the father who lost his daughter to
enslavement. When we think of all those names and faces, our hearts
break because of so much sorrow and pain. And we are deeply moved. We
are moved because 'we have seen and heard' not a cold statistic but
the pain of a suffering humanity, our own pain, our own flesh. This
is something quite different than abstract theorising or eloquent
indignation. It moves us; it makes us attentive to others in an
effort to move forward together. That emotion which turns into
community action is not something which can be understood by reason
alone: it has a surplus of meaning which only peoples understand, and
it gives a special feel to genuine popular movements.
“Each day you are caught up in the
storms of people’s lives. You have told me about their causes, you
have shared your own struggles with me, and I thank you for that.
You, dear brothers and sisters, often work on little things, in local
situations, amid forms of injustice which you do not simply accept
but actively resist, standing up to an idolatrous system which
excludes, debases and kills. I have seen you work tirelessly for the
soil and crops of campesinos, for their lands and communities, for a
more dignified local economy, for the urbanisation of their homes and
settlements; you have helped them build their own homes and develop
neighbourhood infrastructures. You have also promoted any number of
community activities aimed at reaffirming so elementary and
undeniably necessary a right as that of the three 'L’s': land,
lodging and labour.
“This rootedness in the barrio, the
land, the office, the labour union, this ability to see yourselves in
the faces of others, this daily proximity to their share of troubles
and their little acts of heroism: this is what enables you to
practice the commandment of love, not on the basis of ideas or
concepts, but rather on the basis of genuine interpersonal encounter.
We do not love concepts or ideas; we love people. Commitment, true
commitment, is born of the love of men and women, of children and the
elderly, of peoples and communities, of names and faces which fill
our hearts. From those seeds of hope patiently sown in the forgotten
fringes of our planet, from those seedlings of a tenderness which
struggles to grow amid the shadows of exclusion, great trees will
spring up, great groves of hope to give oxygen to our world.
“So I am pleased to see that you are
working at close hand to care for those seedlings, but at the same
time, with a broader perspective, to protect the entire forest. Your
work is carried out against a horizon which, while concentrating on
your own specific area, also aims to resolve at their root the more
general problems of poverty, inequality and exclusion. I congratulate
you on this. It is essential that, along with the defence of their
legitimate rights, peoples and their social organisations be able to
construct a humane alternative to a globalisation which excludes. You
are sowers of change. May God grant you the courage, joy,
perseverance and passion to continue sowing. Be assured that sooner
or later we will see its fruits. Of the leadership I ask this: be
creative and never stop being rooted in local realities, since the
father of lies is able to usurp noble words, to promote intellectual
fads and to adopt ideological stances. But if you build on solid
foundations, on real needs and on the lived experience of your
brothers and sisters, of campesinos and natives, of excluded workers
and marginalised families, you will surely be on the right path.
“The Church cannot and must not
remain aloof from this process in her proclamation of the Gospel.
Many priests and pastoral workers carry out an enormous work of
accompanying and promoting the excluded throughout the world,
alongside cooperatives, favouring businesses, providing housing,
working generously in the fields of health, sports and education. I
am convinced that respectful cooperation with the popular movements
can revitalise these efforts and strengthen processes of change.
“Let us always have at heart the
Virgin Mary, a humble girl from small people lost on the fringes of a
great empire, a homeless mother who could turn a stable for beasts
into a home for Jesus with just a few swaddling clothes and much
tenderness. Mary is a sign of hope for peoples suffering the birth
pangs of justice. I pray that Our Lady of Mount Carmel, patroness of
Bolivia, will allow this meeting of ours to be a leaven of change.
“Lastly, I would like us all to
consider some important tasks for the present historical moment,
since we desire a positive change for the benefit of all our brothers
and sisters. We know this. We desire change enriched by the
collaboration of governments, popular movements and other social
forces. This too we know. But it is not so easy to define the content
of change – in other words, a social program which can embody this
project of fraternity and justice which we are seeking. So do not
expect a recipe from this Pope. Neither the Pope nor the Church have
a monopoly on the interpretation of social reality or the proposal of
solutions to contemporary issues. I dare say that no recipe exists.
History is made by each generation as it follows in the footsteps of
those preceding it, as it seeks its own path and respects the values
which God has placed in the human heart. I would like, all the same,
to propose three great tasks which demand a decisive and shared
contribution from popular movements.
“The first task is to put the economy
at the service of peoples. Human beings and nature must not be at the
service of money. Let us say 'no' to an economy of exclusion and
inequality, where money rules, rather than service. That economy
kills. That economy excludes. That economy destroys Mother Earth. The
economy should not be a mechanism for accumulating goods, but rather
the proper administration of our common home. This entails a
commitment to care for that home and to the fitting distribution of
its goods among all. It is not only about ensuring a supply of food
or 'decent sustenance'. Nor, although this is already a great step
forward, is it to guarantee the three 'L’s' of land, lodging and
labour for which you are working. A truly communitarian economy, one
might say an economy of Christian inspiration, must ensure peoples’
dignity and their 'general, temporal welfare and prosperity'. This
includes the three 'L’s', but also access to education, health
care, new technologies, artistic and cultural manifestations,
communications, sports and recreation. A just economy must create the
conditions for everyone to be able to enjoy a childhood without want,
to develop their talents when young, to work with full rights during
their active years and to enjoy a dignified retirement as they grow
older. It is an economy where human beings, in harmony with nature,
structure the entire system of production and distribution in such a
way that the abilities and needs of each individual find suitable
expression in social life. You, and other peoples as well, sum up
this desire in a simple and beautiful expression: 'to live well'.
“Such an economy is not only
desirable and necessary, but also possible. It is no utopia or
chimera. It is an extremely realistic prospect. We can achieve it.
The available resources in our world, the fruit of the
intergenerational labours of peoples and the gifts of creation, more
than suffice for the integral development of 'each man and the whole
man'. The problem is of another kind. There exists a system with
different aims. A system which, while irresponsibly accelerating the
pace of production, while using industrial and agricultural methods
which damage Mother Earth in the name of 'productivity', continues to
deny many millions of our brothers and sisters their most elementary
economic, social and cultural rights. This system runs counter to the
plan of Jesus.
“Working for a just distribution of
the fruits of the earth and human labour is not mere philanthropy. It
is a moral obligation. For Christians, the responsibility is even
greater: it is a commandment. It is about giving to the poor and to
peoples what is theirs by right. The universal destination of goods
is not a figure of speech found in the Church’s social teaching. It
is a reality prior to private property. Property, especially when it
affects natural resources, must always serve the needs of peoples.
And those needs are not restricted to consumption. It is not enough
to let a few drops fall whenever the poor shake a cup which never
runs over by itself. Welfare programs geared to certain emergencies
can only be considered temporary responses. They will never be able
to replace true inclusion, an inclusion which provides worthy, free,
creative, participatory and fraternal work.
“Along this path, popular movements
play an essential role, not only by making demands and lodging
protests, but even more basically by being creative. You are social
poets: creators of work, builders of housing, producers of food,
above all for people left behind by the world market. I have seen at
first hand a variety of experiences where workers united in
cooperatives and other forms of community organisation were able to
create work where there were only crumbs of an idolatrous economy.
Recuperated businesses, local fairs and cooperatives of paper
collectors are examples of that popular economy which is born of
exclusion and which, slowly, patiently and resolutely adopts
fraternal forms which dignify it. How different this is than the
situation which results when those left behind by the formal market
are exploited like slaves!
“Governments which make it their
responsibility to put the economy at the service of peoples must
promote the strengthening, improvement, coordination and expansion of
these forms of popular economy and communitarian production. This
entails improving the processes of work, providing adequate
infrastructures and guaranteeing workers their full rights in this
alternative sector. When the state and social organisations join in
working for the three 'L’s', the principles of solidarity and
subsidiarity come into play; and these allow the common good to be
achieved in a full and participatory democracy.
“The second task is to unite our
peoples on the path of peace and justice. The world’s peoples want
to be artisans of their own destiny. They want to advance peacefully
towards justice. They do not want forms of tutelage or interference
by which those with greater power subordinate those with less. They
want their culture, their language, their social processes and their
religious traditions to be respected. No actual or established power
has the right to deprive peoples of the full exercise of their
sovereignty. Whenever they do so, we see the rise of new forms of
colonialism which seriously prejudice the possibility of peace and
justice. For 'peace is founded not only on respect for human rights
but also on respect for the rights of peoples, in particular the
right to independence'. The peoples of Latin America fought to gain
their political independence and for almost two centuries their
history has been dramatic and filled with contradictions, as they
have striven to achieve full independence.
“In recent years, after any number of
misunderstandings, many Latin American countries have seen the growth
of fraternity between their peoples. The governments of the region
have pooled forces in order to ensure respect for the sovereignty of
their own countries and the entire region, which our forebears so
beautifully called the 'greater country'. I ask you, my brothers and
sisters of the popular movements, to foster and increase this unity.
It is necessary to maintain unity in the face of every effort to
divide, if the region is to grow in peace and justice.
“Despite the progress made, there are
factors which still threaten this equitable human development and
restrict the sovereignty of the countries of the 'greater country'
and other areas of our planet. The new colonialism takes on different
faces. At times it appears as the anonymous influence of mammon:
corporations, loan agencies, certain 'free trade' treaties, and the
imposition of measures of 'austerity' which always tighten the belt
of workers and the poor. The bishops of Latin America denounce this
with utter clarity in the Aparecida Document, stating that 'financial
institutions and transnational companies are becoming stronger to the
point that local economies are subordinated, especially weakening the
local states, which seem ever more powerless to carry out development
projects in the service of their populations'. At other times, under
the noble guise of battling corruption, the narcotics trade and
terrorism – grave evils of our time which call for coordinated
international action – we see states being saddled with measures
which have little to do with the resolution of these problems and
which not infrequently worsen matters.
“Similarly, the monopolising of the
communications media, which would impose alienating examples of
consumerism and a certain cultural uniformity, is another one of the
forms taken by the new colonialism. It is ideological colonialism. As
the African bishops have observed, poor countries are often treated
like 'parts of a machine, cogs on a gigantic wheel'.
“It must be acknowledged that none of
the grave problems of humanity can be resolved without interaction
between states and peoples at the international level. Every
significant action carried out in one part of the planet has
universal, ecological, social and cultural repercussions. Even crime
and violence have become globalised. Consequently, no government can
act independently of a common responsibility. If we truly desire
positive change, we have to humbly accept our interdependence.
Interaction, however, is not the same as imposition; it is not the
subordination of some to serve the interests of others. Colonialism,
both old and new, which reduces poor countries to mere providers of
raw material and cheap labour, engenders violence, poverty, forced
migrations and all the evils which go hand in hand with these,
precisely because, by placing the periphery at the service of the
centre, it denies those countries the right to an integral
development. That is inequality, and inequality generates a violence
which no police, military, or intelligence resources can control.
“Let us say 'no' to forms of
colonialism old and new. Let us say 'yes' to the encounter between
peoples and cultures.0 Blessed are the peacemakers.
“Here I wish to bring up an important
issue. Some may rightly say, 'When the Pope speaks of colonialism, he
overlooks certain actions of the Church'. I say this to you with
regret: many grave sins were committed against the native peoples of
America in the name of God. My predecessors acknowledged this, CELAM
has said it, and I too wish to say it. Like St. John Paul II, I ask
that the Church 'kneel before God and implore forgiveness for the
past and present sins of her sons and daughters'. I would also say,
and here I wish to be quite clear, as was St. John Paul II: I humbly
ask forgiveness, not only for the offences of the Church herself, but
also for crimes committed against the native peoples during the
so-called conquest of America.
“I also ask everyone, believers and
non-believers alike, to think of those many bishops, priests and
laity who preached and continue to preach the Good News of Jesus with
courage and meekness, respectfully and pacifically; who left behind
them impressive works of human promotion and of love, often standing
alongside the native peoples or accompanying their popular movements
even to the point of martyrdom. The Church, her sons and daughters,
are part of the identity of the peoples of Latin America. An identity
which here, as in other countries, some powers are committed to
erasing, at times because our faith is revolutionary, because our
faith challenges the tyranny of mammon. Today we are dismayed to see
how in the Middle East and elsewhere in the world many of our
brothers and sisters are persecuted, tortured and killed for their
faith in Jesus. This too needs to be denounced: in this third world
war, waged piecemeal, which we are now experiencing, a form of
genocide is taking place, and it must end.
“To our brothers and sisters in the
Latin American indigenous movement, allow me to express my deep
affection and appreciation of their efforts to bring peoples and
cultures together in a form of coexistence which I would call
polyhedric, where each group preserves its own identity by building
together a plurality which does not threaten but rather reinforces
unity. Your quest for an interculturalism, which combines the defence
of the rights of the native peoples with respect for the territorial
integrity of states, is for all of us a source of enrichment and
encouragement.
“The third task, perhaps the most
important facing us today, is to defend Mother Earth. Our common home
is being pillaged, laid waste and harmed with impunity. Cowardice in
defending it is a grave sin. We see with growing disappointment how
one international summit after another takes place without any
significant result. There exists a clear, definite and pressing
ethical imperative to implement what has not yet been done. We cannot
allow certain interests – interests which are global but not
universal – to take over, to dominate states and international
organisations, and to continue destroying creation. People and their
movements are called to cry out, to mobilise and to demand –
peacefully, but firmly – that appropriate and urgently-needed
measures be taken. I ask you, in the name of God, to defend Mother
Earth. I have duly addressed this issue in my Encyclical Letter
'Laudato Si’'.
“In conclusion, I would like to
repeat: the future of humanity does not lie solely in the hands of
great leaders, the great powers and the elites. It is fundamentally
in the hands of peoples and in their ability to organise. It is in
their hands, which can guide with humility and conviction this
process of change. I am with you. Let us together say from the heart:
no family without lodging, no rural worker without land, no labourer
without rights, no people without sovereignty, no individual without
dignity, no child without childhood, no young person without a
future, no elderly person without a venerable old age. Keep up your
struggle and, please, take great care of Mother Earth. I pray for you
and with you, and I ask God our Father to accompany you and to bless
you, to fill you with His love and defend you on your way by granting
you in abundance that strength which keeps us on our feet: that
strength is hope, the hope which does not disappoint. Thank you and I
ask you, please, to pray for me”.
Today, Friday 10 July, the Holy Father
will visit the detainees in Palmasola prison and will meet privately
with the bishops of Bolivia. At 12.45 p.m. local time (6.45 p.m.
Italian time) he will arrive at Viru Viru airport in Santa Cruz de la
Sierra, where he will depart by air for Paraguay, the final stage of
his apostolic trip.
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