Richard Renshaw

Non-violence, campements et jardins

2012-01-31T16:56:00.000-05:00

Occupons Montréal - Novembre 2011

Suite à ma réflexion (plus tôt en anglais) sur la direction prise par le mouvement, je vous offre maintenant un deuxième volet.

Dans la dynamique de la « praxis » (action-réflexion-action) du mouvement Occupons Montréal (OM), j’essaie de participer surtout en encourageant la réflexion tout en m’impliquant aussi dans au moins quelques unes des actions.

Par cette essai, je prétends ouvrir une réflexion sur trois thèmes que j’ai l’intention, avec temps, de développer plus en détail. Ici, ce ne serait que pour indiquer une hypothèse sur le sens de l’interrelation de ces trois éléments pour le mouvement. Les thèmes, annoncés déjà dans le titre, sont d’une grande actualité à ce moment de l’évolution du mouvement OM. J’espère que mes ruminations aideront à les situer mieux mais aussi à provoquer une prise de conscience généralisée chez les occupants.

Pour Gandhi, grand pratiquant de la non-violence et celui qui a aussi le plus marqué la théorie, le cœur de ce chemin se trouve dans deux mots hindis : satyagraha et ahimsa. Le premier fait référence à la force de la vérité cachée par l’oppression et qui est mis en clarté par une action directe. Ahimsa souvent se traduit par « amour », c’est-à-dire l’effort de chercher le bien de l’autre, surtout de l’autre qui est exclu et opprimé. Il faut dire tout de suite que la vérité et l’amour cherché dans la non-violence ne sont ni des éléments abstraits ni de l’affection sentimentale. Ce sont toujours des réalités vécues dans l’action et dont on découvre le sens et la profondeur au moyen d’une réflexion postérieure sur l’action. L’exemple le plus connu dans la vie de Gandhi a été la marche du sel. Les Anglais avaient mis une taxe sur l’achat du sel. Gandhi a convoqué une marche vers la mer pour récolter du sel le long de la plage. Ainsi il a révélé à la population indienne le pouvoir qu’elle avait de prendre la vie entre ses propres mains et gérer ses affaires sans besoin de l’empire britannique. En même temps, il a révélé l’impuissance de l’empire, ce qui a encouragé la population à aller encore plus loin. Dans son action, il était très important d’aller directement, publiquement et massivement contre les directives formelles du gouvernement colonial. C’était ça qui faisait l’impact de son action. La vérité derrière l’action de Gandhi était que la population indienne, sujet de l’empire britannique, était en réalité un peuple fort de dignité, de savoir et de pouvoir pour gérer ses affaires sans besoin de l’empire.

Si le mouvement OM a décidé de prendre la route de la non-violence, il fallait donc chercher la vérité cachée par le système dominant de telle façon qu’on pourrait, par une action directe, convoquer la population à trouver sa propre force.

Le mouvement a commencé avec un campement à la Place du peuple (anciennement connu comme Square Victoria). En situant leur campement en plein milieu du secteur financier de Montréal, il envoyait un message aux super-riches de la société que leur pouvoir était vide. Il ouvrait une piste d’action autonome et libre. Il annonçait à la société qu’il est possible de trouver une autre manière de vivre sans dépendance à l’empire de la monnaie.

Les trois réalités qui préoccupent le plus les pauvres et les exclu(e)s de la ville de Montréal sont une combinaison de soucis de logement, de nourriture et d'appartenance. Grand nombre de citoyens de la ville souffrent de l’insécurité de trouver un logement abordable et d’avoir une sécurité alimentaire, surtout d'aliments sains. Il y a aussi énormément des personnes à Montréal qui souffrent de l’isolement et de la solitude.

Par la seule action de camper sur la Place du peuple, le mouvement répondait à ces trois soucis. Même sans jamais le dire clairement, le campement mettait ces besoins en évidence pour tout le monde et pointait vers une piste pour y répondre : vivre ensemble, en communauté heureuse et solidaire, en se nourrissant de façon communautaire. Pendant quelques semaines, le mouvement, par sa présence seule, questionnait tout le système de logement, d'alimentation et de vivre ensemble qui régit la ville. Et, en même temps, le campement ouvrait une espace où déjà il y avait moyen d’avancer vers des solutions pratiques.

En choisissant un campement en plein centre-ville, le mouvement prenait parti pour les exclus mais aussi forgeait son identité en tant que mouvement. À partir de là, c’est la question du logement, de l'alimentation et de vivre ensemble qui marquera l’identité du mouvement. C’était une action directe qui allait contre les normes officielles de la ville et qui mettait en question la capacité de la ville de gérer ces trois éléments. Aller à la Place du peuple simplement pour passer la journée ensemble en partageant un repas n’aurait pas eu d’impact. Ce genre de rassemblement se fait partout dans la ville—au Parc Lafontaine, Parc Maisonneuve et Parc Jarry, par exemple—tout au long de l’été sans problème et sans présence médiatique. Ce qui faisait la différence, c’est qu’on est allé beaucoup plus loin : Contre toutes les normes pour vivre ensemble dans la ville de Montréal, le mouvement a prétendu établir une communauté permanente et vivre ensemble en plein milieu d’un espace public. En faisant leur rassemblement de cette façon-là, le mouvement a remis en question le pouvoir de la ville de régir la façon dont les citoyens trouvent solution à leurs besoins d’avoir un toit, de se nourrir et de vivre la solidarité. C’est ça, la force du mouvement. Si le mouvement veut continuer il faut bâtir à partir de ce qu’il a initié le 15 Octobre 2011.

The Original Praxis of Non-Violence

2012-01-25T14:10:00.001-05:00

Even if the coining of the word “non-violence” is attributed to Gandhi, the sources he turned to in order to give meaning to the word go back in history through people like Tolstoy, Thoreau and especially Jesus, who appears to be the original source of the “praxis” (action-reflection-action) of non-violence (in the sense of ahimsa and of satyagraha).

It is important to note that the most salient characteristic of Jesus’ practice is his attention to the sick and excluded. It was a question of the heart. We are told a leper approached him and said, “If you want to, you can cure me.” (Mark 1, 40-45) The Gospel writer goes on to say that Jesus replied, “Of course I want to” and, contrary to a very important norm of his time that forbade all contact with lepers, he touched him, thus making himself as “unclean” as the leper. In another place, we read that Jesus felt compassion for the crowd because they wandered without direction. He is also said to have wept at the tomb of his friend Lazarus before calling him out of the cave. Jesus was filled with compassion for those who were rejected by society and condemned to poverty and solitude. Everything he did flowed from that unceasing love for the people who had no place in the society of his time.

Jesus was a Galilean, progeny of a people who, at that moment, lived under a Roman military occupation that had established a local puppet government and were supported by a sector his own society (the Pharisees, Sadducees and, above all, the Scribes, who were the lawyers of his time). This sector conspired with the Roman authorities to assure their privileges. He was wise enough not to attack the empire directly or his public life might have been even shorter than it was. Galilee was a zone of revolt against the occupation but also against the temple religion. There is nothing strange in the fact that Jesus rejected the temple and its rules as maintained by the Scribes. While he cast doubt on the legitimacy of the imperial authority, he reserved his anger and his direct actions for the temple and its defenders.

His manner was to approach the excluded and to treat them as full persons, worthy of his attention and perfectly capable to participating fully in society. To demonstrate this conviction, he went against all the social norms that posed an obstacle to that participation: he “cured” the blind, the paralyzed, the deaf and the lepers; he “pardoned” those who had no means to comply with all the rules imposed by the authorities; he refused to recognize the legitimacy of norms that prevented doing good on the Sabbath. In so doing, he publicly opposed the authorities who interpreted these gestures as a personal insult. He went so far as to chase the vendors from the temple. His was a life of classic “direct action.”

Jesus placed enormous importance on the truth: “The truth will make you free,” that is to say, will liberate you. It is the same word in Hebrew as what religion terms “salvation.” For Jesus, the truth that counts here is that the excluded are persons who deserve recognition for their dignity and who can fully and freely participate in society. It was a fundamental commitment and he accepted the consequences. When the Gospel of Mark says that the people were awed by the fact that he spoke “with authority,” It points to the inner power that radiated from his conviction of the value of the poor and excluded.

Those who followed Jesus tried to do the same and paid a great price for being an open and inclusive community. For decades, that first community tried to dialogue with their own Jewish people until finally they were expelled from the synagogue. For two centuries after that, they remained distance from the dominant power of the empire refusing to recognise its demands. Thousands were executed.

Even after the Christian authorities made a pact with the empire—for motives we can only imagine—there were always those who sought to be faithful to the initial inspiration. The best known of these is Francis Bernardoni, better known as “of Assisi.” It is well to remember that Francis took in hand the great conflict of his time between the state power of the Christians and that of the Muslims. He went, all alone, to ask for a dialogue with the Sheik on the Muslim side and after quite an adventure managed to meet him on Muslim territory. There is no document recounting the details of their conversation but we know that they had a meeting of hearts. Following that the Sheik ordered that Francis be given safe passage back to his own land.

So then, when Gandhi developed his practice of non-violence, he had before him the example of Jesus and that whole history of the communities who followed him.
What might that mean for today? The empire and the complicit religion are all too clear and yet it would seem most people have no "eyes to see or ears to hear." The political empire is led by the "highly industrialized nations" led by the United States. The religion complicit with it is that of money led by the banking system and the major multinational corporations. The great handicape for change today is that the vast majority of the population (certainly of the countries of the "North" are in a situation of life-idebtedness to the system. Most depend totally on that economic religion for their survival, involved in "selling" their freedom in order to have a job and a livelihood. In this respect, the population of the countries of the "North" are in a situation of serfdom, of ecnomic slavery. They cannot imagine, at all, stepping outside the lines that provide their only imaginable option.
It would seem to me evident then that a non-violent approach would probably follow much of that employed by Jesus in his time. And for that I leave it to your imagination since the power of non-violenct action has always relied on its capacity for inventivent, creativity and surprise.

Where is the Occupy Montreal Movement Headed?

2012-01-19T14:11:00.000-05:00

Occupy Montreal hit the streets running on October 15, 2011 as part of a global moment to begin creating a better world through the occupation of public spaces. The movement in Montreal has its similarities and differences from that in the Rest of Canada, the United States, Europe and the Middle East. It would be important to be able to elaborate these similarities and especially the differences--separately in another essay. Certainly the political, social and cultural context of Quebec provides the movement with its unique identity and challenges.
In Montreal the movement came to notice thorugh a tent village in the financial district that lasted more than a month. Since then it has expanded and deepened both its organizational capacity and its vision. These winter months are crucial for the future of the movement. It is being taken up as a time to focus the energy and develop the structures that will allow for intense coordinated action for the rest of the year.
At this point, no official document (that is to say, approved by a General Assembly) outlines the specific goals for the movement during 2012. However, the movement has begun a series of concerted assemblies moving in that direction. From my own personal point of view, there are four major areas of concern that appear to focus the energy of most participants. I list them in no particular order. The movement rejects the oligarchy that currently veils itself as democracy in Quebec (and Canada) and it proposes the creation of direct, participatory democracy at the local level. The movement rejects the financial tyranny that currently dominates world capitalism and proposes an economy of sharing in which no one is excluded and everyone’s needs are met. The movement rejects the damage being done to the environment and proposes a way of living in society that is in harmony with all living creatures who inhabit our Mother Earth. (Currently this includes an effort to provide locally cultivated food to those who need it.) Finally, the disinformation provided by the mass media is rejected and an extraordinary effort is being made to provide alternative sources of both information and analysis. In this respect also a large amount of creative artistic energy is being developed. This list is not exhaustive. There are many other issues being taken up by various groups in the movement but I think most of them would fall under one or another of these major categories.
The question that naturally flows from this effort to understand what it is that the movement is proposing is how to address these issues. Here too the practice is instructive. First of all, the movement proposes that we begin now, actively to address the issues by “occupying” their spaces with our creative energy. The primary concern, so far, has been to occupy those spaces in a way that encourages other citizens to set aside their fear that nothing can change, to become aware of their own power to make a difference and to begin also to act. The actions tend to create spaces in society for real democracy, inclusion, sharing and sensitivity to Mother Earth. However, there are also those in the movement who are aware that we cannot simply ignore the fact that major systems of government, finance, industry and social organization exist, are diametrically opposed to the goals of the occupy movement and not at all indifferent to its presence. Resistance to the forces of domination are central to the movement.
([i]I have placed this also on Atrium and Facebook. It will also appear on my blog--richardrenshaw.blogspot.com[/i])

The Occupy movement is nonviolent and thus inserts itself within the long history of nonviolent movements and nonviolent direct action around the world over many centuries. Every action undertaken by participants in the movement in inscribed within that call to take the issues into our own hands and make a difference, especially at the local level through using that inner power that connects us with one another.
Challenges are not lacking in this first year of Occupy Montreal. Much of the energy during the winter is focused on improving internal and external communication, that is to say, within the movement in Montreal( and elsewhere) as well as with the larger society of our city. A considerable effort has been made to counter the image of the movement created by the mainstream media by a public presence to provide citizens with specific examples of who is part of the movement, what it stands for and how it operates. Finally, local groups have been established in several Montreal neighbourhoods and evidence considerable vitality and commitment. Those who make up the mouvement, at this point, tend to be largely young (20-40) with a significant representation of those who are somewhat older. They tend to be well educated and engaged already in community groups, NGOs or working professionally.
When Spring arrives a few weeks from now, Montreal will witness a flourishing of public activity supported by the movement. How this develops and is received will be an important factor in laying the foundations for a long-term presence in Montreal that makes a difference and that impacts on the global scene. ----- Richard Renshaw

Threats to society

2012-01-12T09:46:00.000-05:00

A report on threats to the global society has just been released for the Davos group. It is certainly worth a read in the light of my earlier reflection on Societal Breakdown and its sequel. I found the link on the front page of Le Devoir today.

A brief note about death

2012-01-12T09:33:00.000-05:00

From www.layoutsparks.com

These January days, riding out into the country, I observe the bare trees along the sides of the roads. Black trunks send out blacker branches into the grey sky. They appear to be quite dead, ready for the fireplace. And yet, in few weeks they will be drawing sap up into the tips of their buds as they prepare to burst back into life. Their death is but a moment in a longer cycle of life, of resurrection.

As I grow into the later chapters of life, I find that the “death dimension” takes on a larger role. This is far from a question of nostalgia or moroseness. I am simply paying more attention to how the factor of death reshapes, colours and provides significant perspectives on what I experience here and now and what I feel when I try to make sense of my life at this point.

I begin to loosen my grip on the projects and achievements of my personal life and attend more to another dimension that provides a deeper flavour and richness.

As my life becomes more ephemeral and as I take stock of the fact that the colony of cells that constitute my body begins to show signs of becoming more fragile and frayed, life also turns to a dimension that I can only call more “eternal” in the sense of being freed from the need to show a pay-off. Death helps me see that the illusions of the ego are just that, that the “great leveler” is a gift to put everything in perspective and that the call is increasingly to give thanks and to let go so that life in all its splendour can flourish in its own way, a way that goes infinitely beyond my ego.

More on Magic and Myth

2012-01-05T09:28:00.002-05:00

I fear I was a little too hard on magic in my last entry. In fact, I love magic and have always been fascinated both by the productions of magicians and by the magic of a good story well told. (Quebec has an excellent storyteller in the person of Fred Pelerin. You can find him on Youtube.)

Magic (and fantasy as well) opens up the world to new possibilities not imagined before and invites us to question the limits of our perception of reality. Fantasy and magic serve important functions in our search for the truth, the divine, and the good. They are indispensable. Story-telling is absolutely fundamental to society and magic is the very fabric of any really good story. It moves story from being just a recounting of events to the immeasurably more significant role of opening up those events to their meaning and mystery.

If, in my last entry, I said I was getting tired of magic and fantasy, it is because all too often we stay at the level of curiosity about the magical or fantastic dimensions and do not to the work of transformation I tried to outline there. And this is indeed tragic.

In the work of Michel Tremblay, the Chronicle of the Plateau-Mont-Royal, the author introduces us to the magic of three sisters (and their mother) who sit quietly on their second-floor porch knitting mittens. He then introduces the magical element of their knitting—over more than a century it appears--as a weaving of the thread of life that will tell the story of the various characters in the novel. Initially, this leads us to dismiss the characters as illusions; yet we are never allowed to trivialize them. They represent something very important and that is the very stuff of Tremblay’s story. We have to work with the magic to get at the meaning of the story.

The same is true for much of what we find in religious stories. There is almost always an element of magic in the stories. Initially we are drawn to the story because of its magic; then we have to dig deep behind it for the treasure it contains. Life itself is not very different.

Magic and Myth

2012-01-01T13:22:00.001-05:00

One of the challenges faced by anyone who has passed through studies in philosophy is that one is led eventually to set aside magical explanations of the world and to try to figure things out rationally. The task is not solitary but each one has to do the work him- or herself. The set of explanations that have been handed on to us are called before the tribunal of reason to be weighed in the balance. This does not allow a whole lot of room for romance!

As I grow older I find less and less place for the magical fables that abound today and that lead us to escape from the real world into fantasy.

Paradoxically, I also find myself increasingly drawn to the territory of stories and myths as bearers of the deeper meaning of the human quest. The paradox is only apparent. Stories and myths are filled with images and imagination but are far from fantasy and magic. The stories of Noah and of the Wise Men are anything but magical explanations of the world; they are full of meaning without falling into magic or fantasy – unless of course as far too many people are prone to do, they are interpreted literally. At that point they become quite fantastic and magical. They also lose all meaning – at least for me.

Religion is, of course, a goldmine of myth and story. For those so inclined it is also an abundant source of magical explanations of the world that render life utterly superficial, however reassuring.

All of us who were introduced to religion as children clearly embraced the world of religion and its stories in a profoundly magical mode. This is both inevitable and understandable. The world of the child does not distinguish, yet, between myth and fantasy and it normally takes years of patient inquiry to arrive at the point of making the distinctions. Most don’t bother: they continue with childish fantasies or throw the whole bucket out the window. Neither leaves much room for profundity in the grasp of the challenges of life.

So, the move from child to adult is a move that distinguishes, discerns, between the explanations that are magical and those that offer some grasp of reality that push us to engage with the deeper dynamics of life. The prosaic explanations of academics are seldom sufficient nourishment and history would seem to indicate that those who go the deepest and the furthest are those whose discernments are rooted in stories and myths that move us to a profound engagement with reality without abandoning the search for—though perhaps not the achievement of—rational explanation.

This means that those adults who want to make some sense of religion inevitably much make an arduous journey through the religious stories they have heard as children in order to arrive at an understanding of their deeper significance. This cannot be done without the harrowing rejection of their magical interpretation.

Catholicism is particularly filled with all sorts of stories open to magical interpretation that can hide their deeper meaning. The list is long: the Garden of Eden, the original sin, the story of the flood, of the exodus of Moses, of the birth of Jesus, of the shepherds, the wise men and their star, the multiplication of the loaves and finally the resurrection of Jesus, his ascension and then the Pentecost. The sacraments are in general a rich source of magical interpretations that hide their real meaning: the mark of Baptism, the descent of the Spirit in Confirmation, the consecration in the Eucharist, the forgiveness in Reconciliation.

Ultimately the very notion of Church that and of God, of heaven, hell and finally of salvation are called forward for re-examination. God and Church itself are “put on trial” without any predetermined outcome. The same is true for the celebrated notions of heaven and of hell.

To affirm that many of the explanations of these stories and rituals have magical tones is to open a veritable can of worms especially in the current context of Church politics and theological thinking. Yet the only way into adulthood and the only possible future for religion today is to engage it as adults with all the risk and effort that this implies.

I remember having the thought, when I was studying theology, so many years ago; that there was something they weren’t telling me. Now, some fifty years later, I think what I didn’t catch was that everything they were saying was a code for telling me, “There is something important here, but you will have to figure it out for yourself.” We are not alone in doing so; many theologians are working feverishly at it. Still, in the end, only we can do it for ourselves.

Le sens de la marche méditative

2011-12-10T20:34:00.001-05:00

J'ai écrit ce petit texte en collaboration avec Gérard Laverdure et après notre marche méditative aujourd'hui.

Depuis le 19 novembre, chaque samedi, vers midi, plusieurs personnes se réunissent autour de La Place du Peuple (Square Victoria) à Montréal pour amorcer une marche méditative en silence pour la paix. Cette marche se réalise quelques minutes avant l’assemblée générale du mouvement des Indigné(e)s et se voit comme un effort de créer une ambiance de non-violence, d’écoute et de respect pour l’assemblée et pour tout le mouvement. Notre présence silencieuse et déterminée démontre à nos concitoyens l’enracinement spirituel de l’indignation, de la soif de justice, d’intégrité, de dignité et de paix. Protester contre les injustices et s’engager à changer le désordre social est une démarche profondément spirituelle. La pratique de marcher en silence a une longue histoire qui se retrouve dans plusieurs contextes. Chacune de ces références peut nous aider à comprendre mieux le sens de notre marche méditative.

Commençons en rappelant que les moines et les moniales ont une longue pratique de marcher lentement en file pendant qu’ils prient ou méditent. Ceux et celles qui ont vécu la vie monastique avant 1960 se souviendront de ces marches «à la file indienne» à la fin de l’après-midi pour prier le rosaire. Il y a quelque chose dans la marche même qui aide à la concentration, à une meilleure présence consciente au moment de prière.

Ce sont les bouddhistes qui ont d’avantage analysé cette expérience. Thich Nhat Hanh a écrit un beau petit livre, entre autres, qui s’appelle La Sérénité de l'instant. Paix et joie à chaque pas. Il fait appel à la marche de pleine conscience. On marche lentement, prêtant attention à chaque étape du mouvement. Ce n’est pas un moment pour oublier rien de la réalité intérieure ou extérieure sinon plutôt pour s’ouvrir à sa plénitude – la plénitude du moment présent. Le passé n’existe pas, le futur n’existe pas. Nous vivons le moment présent dans la plénitude de tout son contexte intérieur et extérieur. En arrivant à cette pleine conscience, la compassion surgit dans notre cœur et nous invite à découvrir comment répondre à ce moment précieux qui nous est donné. La pratique de la marche en pleine conscience devient un apprentissage pour vivre présent au moment actuel pendant toute notre vie, toujours en pleine ouverture à la réalité et aussi pleinement à l’écoute, ouvert à la compassion et prêt à agir avec compassion, c’est-à-dire de façon non-violent.

Quand on se tourne vers les Écritures chrétiennes, on trouve que le mot le plus fréquemment utilisé pour caractériser les disciples de Jésus, c’est le mot : vigilant. Très souvent Jésus invite ses disciples à être vigilants, attentifs au moment présent. C’est dans ce moment présent qu’il nous invite à y trouver le Royaume de son Père, thème principal de sa prédication. Le Royaume de Dieu n’est pas dans le passé, ni dans le future. Il ne faut pas aller loin pour la trouver parce que c’est en nous et entre nous qu’il se déploie, se construit. Il est toujours présent parmi nous. Qui n’est pas attentif, manquera le moment du Royaume de Dieu, manquera l’arrivée de la plénitude.

Les Anishnabe, peuple autochtone de notre région, voient leur histoire comme une longue marche ver l’ouest. Pour pouvoir continuer la marche et pour ne pas mourir, il y a des gens chez eux qui sont désigné des porteurs du feu. Le feu est absolument nécessaire pour la survie du peuple. Donc les porteurs du feu ont une responsabilité énorme pour s’assurer que le peuple arrivera au bout de sa marche. Nous retrouvons aussi ce concept chez les Juifs et les Chrétiens : la Terre promise. Terre atteinte au bout de la traversée solidaire d’un long désert.

Peut-être ces petits références vous aideront à trouver le sens de notre petite activité chaque samedi midi à la Place du Peuple en préparation pour l’assemblée générale – surtout pour un mouvement qui se déclare formellement non-violent et qui annonce, en citant Gandhi, qu’il faut être le changement qu’on veut engendrer.

Returning the Gaze

2011-12-05T11:36:00.001-05:00

In my last entry I spoke of returning the gaze of those who find themselves in situations of exclusion or oppression. That profound gazing into the eyes (and heart) of the excluded is a wake-up call to discover the profound dimensions of our human existence, what I would call the divine dimension since in fact it is a bottomless well from which one can draw enormous strength and meaning.

There is however also another and very classic version of the theme of “returning the gaze” that is perhaps even more important. Years ago, when I visited Chiapas, that largely indigenous State in southern Mexico with its long, long history of colonization, the indigenous people always looked down when addressing or being addressed by non-native people. Looking up would have been interpreted as insolence. Part of the pastoral work in the diocese at that time included that of insisting that the indigenous people look directly into the eyes of the non-natives who addressed them. That included the foreign priests and nuns. In some way one could say that this simple change was part of the origin of the Zapatista movement. That the oppressed and excluded return the gaze of the oppressor is an important gesture, one that speaks loudly and clearly of their dignity, the respect they deserve, the equality they claim. Returning the gaze is in fact a challenge, the insolence of asking for transformation in the heart and in the relationship between oppressed and oppressor. Returning the gaze is a way of demanding that the oppressor “look” deeper.

A Buddhist riddle asks when one would be able to determine the difference between night and the coming of daylight. After several attempts by the disciples, the master finally suggests that it is when one can recognise that the other is one’s sister or brother. It is then that the day has some.

Do We Really Listen?

2011-11-28T19:29:00.002-05:00

     For the past five years I have volunteered at a “listening centre” where people can call (or come) to talk about whatever is on their mind. We receive calls from people suffering from domestic problems, mental health difficulties, problems of addiction, loneliness, joblessness, in a state of panic or depression. The list is long and the calls are many. We spend hundreds of hours every year just listening. Our training is along the lines developed by Carl Rogers’ “active listening.” Active listening means paying attention to the person who is speaking, welcoming their presence and their story, without judgement or advice, counsel or orientation, respecting that they will, as they speak, eventually find the path they need to follow. We thank them at the end for speaking without offering them advice or orientation. We say very little except to encourage them to speak. Often, at the end of a session, the person who called or visited will conclude by saying that they feel much better and will express gratitude for the attentive welcome they have received.
     One of the important features of active listening is that one has to draw close to someone in order to hear them. We have to “displace” ourselves and move into the place of the other. Unless there is some sort of proximity (not physical necessarily), there is no possibility of listening.
     For me, all this connects with my interest in liberation theology, which begins by listening to what people are living, to what is happening in society. Without a listening ear, somewhere, we become non-persons, alone and disconnected. Our joys and our sufferings are unheard. We serve only to move the machinery of the economy; apart from that, we might as well be non-existent. Far too often, this is the experience of the 99% who spend their days either working themselves to death for a pittance that barely provides for their basic needs, or perhaps not even that, or who are literally set aside entirely and live off hand-outs, unknown and unheard by those who have more than enough.
     One of the interesting dynamics of the “occupy” movement is to attempt to listen to everyone’s opinion and to learn from it. First of all, it is pretty much impossible to participate in the movement without being physically present at their activities. To participate, we have to “displace” and on many levels.
     In an assembly, even one person can block a decision if it does against his or her profound values. The person presenting a proposition will have to go back and re-work it. Dialogue is essential. When a proposition is complex, the assembly divides into smaller groups for discussion. There is usually a “talking stick” that is passed around to give every person a chance to have their say without having to fight to get into the conversation. People are listened to carefully; their intervention is appreciated and pondered. Nothing serious will go far if there is no consensus.
     Try sometime, during a day, to watch how often you are more energized about sharing your point of view or your feeling than about listening to that of others. Watch how often people’s point of view or feelings go unacknowledged in conversations or how people are cut off because someone has something they consider more important to say. We are not a society that goes out of its way to listen, especially to those who are not “significant” or who do not have ready access to contexts where they can share easily.
     It is not hard to make a leap to the larger scale. More than half of the world’s population lives in conditions that do not allow their voice and their needs to be heard by those who have cornered the means to live in excessive comfort. While the press, radio and television blare out their messages twenty-four hours of every day, the message they send is geared basically to encourage us to become nameless, mindless consumers of things we really do not need or even want. In between, there are some rather half-hearted attempts at informing. Mark Twain is quoted as saying that if you do not read the newspaper, you are uninformed; But, if you do read the newspaper, you are misinformed. The media are not there to listen or even to inform. They are there to orient – to consumption of commercial products. Today, it is their principal reason for existence.
     The internet and the social media were invented to provide a medium so that everyone could have a voice – that is, if you could afford a computer or an iPod. The commercial interests have done everything possible to turn them into a space for encouraging more spending on commercial goods. To some extent they have succeeded, though it remains an extremely significant means of communication between people. As a result, billions of dollars are now being invested in surveillance of this dangerous phenomenon of people communicating with one another.
     All this, it seems to me, reveals the disjunction between the way our economic structures work and what ordinary people really want and hope for. We are faced with fundamental options about how to live our lives.

Experience of God?

2011-11-15T16:22:00.001-05:00

Yesterday evening, a small group of people, mostly young and some significantly older, gathered in a small café in my neighbourhood to discuss the events of the Occupy Montreal movement. We talked about what has been going on there—downtown—and about the reality of poverty and exclusion in our own neighbourhood. We asked ourselves what this meant for us, whether the movement had something also to say to us. We asked whether we also, in our own neighbourhood, should not find some way to “occupy.” We don’t know what that means or how it could happen but, we asked the question and we decided to come back to it—soon.

Saturday, some of us will go down to the Occupy site, along with people from around the city. We will form a human chain around the site and spend a half-hour in silence meditating on peace, peace for the people at the site, peace for the movement, peace in all they struggle for. Afterwards, we hope to be able to return regularly. We do it as an act of solidarity; we do it also to transform our own “positioning” in the world. We do it in order to say something to society but without words, in pointing to others and the “word” of their lives, of their engagement.

For me all this is connected to a question that has haunted me for decades: the question of God.

Europeans have said: How can we continue to believe in God after the Holocaust? Latin Americans have asked how they can believe in God during the repression suffered during the 70s and 80s. Today we might well ask how we can believe in God while living under the totalitarian global capitalism of today? The fact is, many don’t.

Living in Peru during the 1980s, I sometimes asked myself if God were not absent from the violence-torn country? It was very difficult for me to find the presence of God in the midst of crushing poverty, death-dealing illness, severe repression, tens of thousands of assassinated and disappeared. Yet there is something central about the notion of God’s presence in the suffering and in the death.

At one point, I have been told, Ivan Illych was giving a talk in a large auditorium, not long before his death. During the question period, someone asked him how he managed to avoid despair in situations of the major repression and violence, which, at that time, engulfed all of Latin America. There was a very long silence, then he called to a colleague, who was seated nearby, to come up beside him. He put his arm around him and replied “a friend.”

That’s not a very theological answer but in practice it opens an important path to deal with the question of God. Today, it has become extremely difficult to talk about God. God is hidden and silent. Theology has become bankrupt largely. However, and I would underline this, the urgency, even the imperative of speaking to God is paramount. We have a desperate need to speak to a God we do not understand, and probably never will. We cry out our horror, our anguish, our longing, our desperation in the face of the world as we find it. It is the very depth of our being that cries out and, it seems, that is where, finally, God “appears,” silently, without words, without solution, right in the cry itself. We need to stay with the cry itself, our cry. Not a scream, out of control, but a cry that mobilizes all the energy within us.

In liberation theology, the first step indicated was the call to make a choice, to take up a different position – physically. We had to move out of our everyday, normal environment in order to go to the place where the poor, the excluded, the repressed, the non-persons were and to plunk ourselves down in their reality. (Even the poor had to make the choice since they were often trying desperately to get out of that reality!)

It seems to me that something similar is still very necessary, at least for those of us who are privileged not to live in misery. We have to choose to immerse ourselves in the reality where God is absent and does not speak, where God is silent, where the easy discourse of theology and homiletics is muted. If we choose to move, it seems to me that what happens is that God also chooses to move, to accompany our move. God still remains the silent Other, but that Other becomes located in the non-persons who, because we are there, cast their gaze upon us, a very disturbing gaze, a profoundly questioning gaze. And it is in the profound depths of the silence that underlies their gaze that we are challenged. It is then, I believe, that we experience God, not seated on a lofty throne governing the universe, not ruling over the cosmos, not defeating the embattled armies of evil, but rather dwelling deep in the gaze of those others, those non-persons. The silence of God is an experience that calls to us nevertheless. For out of God’s silence, we are empowered to cry out and to mobilizes our forces. It is a cry that transforms since it is rooted in God’s silence. It seems to me the issue is not so much the experience of God finally as it is the question of God, or perhaps better said, our questioning of God! And that questioning is itself the experience.

Official Occupy Wall Street Declaration

2011-11-13T15:30:00.002-05:00

(Image by Cerezo Barredo)

     Yesterday I visited Occupy Montreal once again. During the general assembly they addressed three questions (while I was there at least): How to deal with people who repeatedly violate the accords taken. One option was to eject them. The assembly decided they would study more how to accompany them non-violently and asked professionals to offer their time to help. They also looked at the question of people too shy to speak in public at an assembly and decided to use a system of the "talking stick" in small groups to assure them a safe place to speak out. Finally they dealt with the question of solidarity with other occupations suffering repression. In each case they dealt with the issue sensitively, caringly, openly. Good government!
   Next Saturday there are plans for a half-hour inter-faith peace meditation chain surrounding the site. People from all traditions are being contacted.

   Gérard Laverdure sends me the folloiwng link for the official declaration the Occupy Wall Street. It speaks volumes about what this movement is all about. First, here is the link: Occupy Wall Street.

Secondly, here is the text found there:

Declaration of the Occupation of New York City

As we gather together in solidarity to express a feeling of mass injustice, we must not lose sight of what brought us together. We write so that all people who feel wronged by the corporate forces of the world can know that we are your allies.
As one people, united, we acknowledge the reality: that the future of the human race requires the cooperation of its members; that our system must protect our rights, and upon corruption of that system, it is up to the individuals to protect their own rights, and those of their neighbors; that a democratic government derives its just power from the people, but corporations do not seek consent to extract wealth from the people and the Earth; and that no true democracy is attainable when the process is determined by economic power. We come to you at a time when corporations, which place profit over people, self-interest over justice, and oppression over equality, run our governments. We have peaceably assembled here, as is our right, to let these facts be known.
They have taken our houses through an illegal foreclosure process, despite not having the original mortgage.
They have taken bailouts from taxpayers with impunity, and continue to give Executives exorbitant bonuses.
They have perpetuated inequality and discrimination in the workplace based on age, the color of one's skin, sex, gender identity and sexual orientation.
They have poisoned the food supply through negligence, and undermined the farming system through monopolization.
They have profited off of the torture, confinement, and cruel treatment of countless nonhuman animals, and actively hide these practices.
They have continuously sought to strip employees of the right to negotiate for better pay and safer working conditions.
They have held students hostage with tens of thousands of dollars of debt on education, which is itself a human right.
They have consistently outsourced labor and used that outsourcing as leverage to cut workers’ healthcare and pay.
They have influenced the courts to achieve the same rights as people, with none of the culpability or responsibility.
They have spent millions of dollars on legal teams that look for ways to get them out of contracts in regards to health insurance.
They have sold our privacy as a commodity.
They have used the military and police force to prevent freedom of the press.
They have deliberately declined to recall faulty products endangering lives in pursuit of profit.
They determine economic policy, despite the catastrophic failures their policies have produced and continue to produce.
They have donated large sums of money to politicians supposed to be regulating them.
They continue to block alternate forms of energy to keep us dependent on oil.
They continue to block generic forms of medicine that could save people’s lives in order to protect investments that have already turned a substantive profit.
They have purposely covered up oil spills, accidents, faulty bookkeeping, and inactive ingredients in pursuit of profit.
They purposefully keep people misinformed and fearful through their control of the media.
They have accepted private contracts to murder prisoners even when presented with serious doubts about their guilt.
They have perpetuated colonialism at home and abroad.
They have participated in the torture and murder of innocent civilians overseas.
They continue to create weapons of mass destruction in order to receive government contracts. *
To the people of the world,
We, the New York City General Assembly occupying Wall Street in Liberty Square, urge you to assert your power.
Exercise your right to peaceably assemble; occupy public space; create a process to address the problems we face, and generate solutions accessible to everyone.
To all communities that take action and form groups in the spirit of direct democracy, we offer support, documentation, and all of the resources at our disposal.
Join us and make your voices heard!
*These grievances are not all-inclusive.

Moving into Winter mode

2011-11-01T15:52:00.005-04:00

Forgive me if I am a bit fixated on the Occupy Montreal movement at this point. The fact is that this is a phenomenon that is forging a new history.

Just for your information: The village--400 people certainly makes a village--is facing nights that drop to the freezing point. The first indication of a move to prepare for winter--in Montreal that can mean temperatures dropping to twenty below zero (Celcius)--was the appearance of a yurt. Now the call is for trucks to bring in the long wooden poles that will be used to put up teepees.. The arrival on the site of Mohawks from a local reserve in order to set up their traditional living structures marks a new chapter in the history of the movement here. To me it is extremely significant and symbolic. Secondly, since the refusal of the city to allow an electrical connection, There is a good chance that those who want to stay for the winter will have all that is needed: warm, safe, housing and a steady supply of good food.
Now there is a daily workshop on economics for those interested. Those at the village are deepening their understanding of the issues of inequity in democracy and in economy. This is a movement that drives at the achilles heel of the Empire.
There are also groups springing up here and there around the city. They meet to discuss the issues raised by the 99% movement. As one commentator said: If this movement can leap the boundaries of class, race and generation, it will change things radically. The people at the village today are well along the way.

99% - Everywhere

2011-10-27T21:03:00.002-04:00

Since Google does not give the same information everywhere, and for those who want to go a little further in understanding the "We are the 99%" movement--we call ourselves the "Indigné(e)s" in Montreal-- here are a couple of sites about the wider movement:

http://occupywallst.org/ (The New York occupation)

http://www.occupytogether.org/ (info about the movement in general)

http://www.occupytogether.org/directory/ (A listing of 200 occupations throughout the USA and elsewhere)

The 1% is getting nervous and beging to make preparations to eliminate these occupations. That will problably only broaden the struggle.

This is a movement that is certainly going to change as it grows. No one really knows what turns it will take -- But, one thing is sure: it has already inspired huge numbers of people throughout the world and has already made a significant difference in several countries.

A world march is being planned for Saturday October 29. Millions can be expected to turn out.

More on the 99%

2011-10-24T16:15:00.088-04:00

Celebration

General Assembly

It is now more than a week since the 99% invaded Square Victoria in the heart of Montreal and established the People's Square. They began with a few tents and a great desire to build another world that is possible, one very different from that of the 1%. The "village has now grown large in every sense. There are more than 200 tents -- it was necessary to occupy additional space to accomodate all the tents and more space may still be required. There is a kitchen that serves two meals a day, a small library and daily general assemblies where direct democracy is both very real and inclusive. There is even a large tent marked "hospital" with at least one bed and qualified personnel. The relationship with the city and with the police continues to be good. They are learning from those who have expericence, to prepare for "winter camping" with a view to staying throughout the bitterly cold months ahead. There are signs everywhere reminding people to be clean, non-violent and inclusive. Next Saturday there will be a march in solidarity with all the other groups around the world who are expressing the voice of the 99%. Thousands are expected. What I have seen of the media in Montreal is fairly positive. The community has excellent media capacity: a really good web site (http://occupymontreal.tk/), a facebook site, a forum site, and so on.

Shared Kitchen

I speak of all this because it leads me into a reflection on liberation theology. If liberation theology was initially "invented" to attempt to discern the presence and path of God's liberating Spirit in the struggle of the excluded "non-persons" of society, then the experience of the camps, like the one in Montreal and others around the world, is certainly an irruption of the poor (the 99%) into the social, economic and political scene of 2011. This irruption deserves profound reflection. When I am on the site, when I witness the general assemblies, when I see their initiatives to build community, when I hear them struggling to express the values and directions they want to move in, there is no doubt in my mind that the Spirit is at work here building something radically new, something that draws deeply on our faith traditions. It is a phenomenon that will mark history and that builds on the struggles of many other peoples in many other places -- today and in the past.

Theology is a very pretentious word: it claims to engage in discerning and interpreting the path of liberation in the here and now. In the past liberation theology tried to give "voice to the voiceless." Theology no longer needs to do that. The voiceless have found their own voice and are giving powerful expression to their own path. There is no need for philosphers, theologians or social scientists to help them analyze the current situation; those on site in the camps are extremely articulate and connected to those analyses. There is perhaps not even a need to provide a word of support and hope since the artists among them (musicians, poets, graphic artists) are providing a powerful cultural expression of the vision that animates and directs their presence. While I am not advocating "slogan" theology, there is nevertheless much for a theologian to reflect on in the signs displayed in downtown Montreal . There is also much to be reflected on in the way the camp functions, in the way decisions are made, in the way food is shared, in the way people are welcomed, in the way the "word" in honoured.

At this point it seems to me that what theologians need to do is to be PRESENT. This is one of those times when the theologians (and other professional religious folk) need to physically displace themselves in order to grasp the situation. We need to go there, spend time there. Theologians need to become the defenders of this movement for those sectors of the wider society who practice what the religious institutions dictate. There are broad sectors of the Churches that are sympathetic to what is happening in these camps but who have very little access to know how to understand it. While the people in the camp are doing a wonderful job, it is up to those of us who are close to the movement to make sure that the message gets through to our circles. Those circles can be crucial to the future of the movement. If we truly believe that this is an expression of God's Spirit

in our world today, in 2011, then we surely need to reflect deeply on the ways in which this phenomenon embodies our tradtion and make absolutely sure that the religious sector (at the base and in the hierarchy) understand and support it. It is what liberation theology has attempted to do for more than forty years. We cannot do less today. If the religions of the world get behind this, it is clearly unstoppable.

(All the pictures are taken from the Occupy Montreal web site. The credits are given there.)

David Suzuki interviewed at Occupy Montreal:

http://youtu.be/rUTDxUicSmo

Michael Stone at Occupy Montreal : Taking Care of Yourself

http://vimeo.com/31007476

Michael runs the Centre of Gravity in Montreal.

Les Indignés

2011-10-16T20:40:00.004-04:00

     So the movement to occupy the public squares and demand change has finally come to North America and Europe. The turn-out yesterday was remarkable: More than a thousand cities around the world. The institutions are listening carefully, not so much to make major changes but rather to adjust the structure to accomodate the level of protest and to give the impression that something positive is happening. Meanwhile, at the stock exchanges and in government, it is still business as usual. The level of response would have to be much greater for anything significant to happen. Perhasp the movement will grow. That certainly was the case in Tunisia, in Egypt, in Yemen and in Syria, to mention only a few examples. Gradually there is an awakening. However the dynamics are not the same here as in the South.      In any case, there are hundreds of people camped out in public parks in hundreds of cities around the world. As the slogan goes here in MontreaL the 99% is telling the 1% that thjey have awakened.
It will be an exceptional time to talk about things like participatory democracy and an ecological economy on a human scale.
      This could be an important awakening. And, like all history, it could also be just a bubble. That depends on all of us.
A powerfull comment on the movement in the USA :  http://front.moveon.org/the-most-powerful-occupywallstreet-clip-you-will-see-this-month/#.TpttX9PHbS5.facebook

The Montreal occupaton is going well. Visit their site on facebook: Occupons Montréal

Liberation Theology - Peru in the 1980s

2011-10-10T17:21:00.001-04:00

This video provides an excellent view of the context within which liberation theology developed. It is also the context in which I lived daily during the 1980s. Many of the people, events, places in the video were and are well known to me. Viewing it was like turning the pages of a personal photo album. (21 minutes)
(I still haven't figured out to embed videos. However, the link works.)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TPQGFSBGYQo&feature=player_embedded

Latin American Agenda 2012

2011-10-01T10:27:00.004-04:00

The 2012 English edition of the Global Latin American Agenda is now ready.

Please address requests to
Dunamis Publishers, 6295, rue Alma, Montréal, QC, H2W 2W2, Canada.

$20 in Canada*
$23 elsewhere*

* includes mailing

Please make checks payable to Dunamis Publishers

...

Introductory note by Bishop Pedro Casaldáliga:

The liberating phrase, the Good Life [el Buen Vivir] in the Andean translation called Sumak Kawsay, comes forward to greet us as a Gospel of

Life that is possible and dignified for all persons and all peoples. It is the Good News of the Good Life in face of the bad life of the immense majority and which confronts that insulting and blasphemous “

good life” [la buena vida] led by a minority that is trying to be the only
group allowed into the common house of humanity.

The Agenda proclaims the “Good Life-Good Life Together because we cannot imagine a good quality of human life without a good co-existence among humans. We are relationship, sociability, communion, love. It is abundantly clear that a good personal life also has to be communitarian; but it is better to bring it out explicitly so as not to fall into assumptions that don’t pay attention to what we need to understand and embrace vitally, radically. I am myself and also the whole of humanity. There are two problems and two solutions: other people and myself. This cannot just be “taken for granted;” we need to shout it aloud.

CIMI, the Indigenous Missionary Council of Brazil, in its Week of Indigenous Peoples 2011, launched a three-part document of conscientization and commitment to the Indigenous Cause with its theme: “Life for All and for Always.” They then added: “Mother Earth cries out for
the Good Life .”

CIMI in Brazil defines it this way: “The concept of the Good Life goes in the opposite direction of a model for development that considers the Earth and Nature to be consumer products... It is a system of life set against capitalism, because this latter has become a model of death and exploitation...We need to think about the Good Life as a system for a viable life, taking into account the historical dimension and the possibilities that it offers for the future. To bring this about, we need to consider the Good Life as an alternative to the capitalist model, creating a historical memory by taking life and hope into account, precisely not from the perspective of the conquerors,” but rather always and radically
from the perspective of the life, hopes, lamentation and blood of those who have been conquered. “In order to practice the Good Life we need to listen to what those who struggle each day for a more fraternal and just world have to say.”

Professor Dávalos says that “social movements, and especially the Indigenous movement, have proposed a new paradigm of living and living together that is not based on development or the idea of growth but rather on different concepts such as of conviviality, respect for nature, solidarity,

reciprocity, complementarity.”

CIMI’s document calls for “life for all and for always.”
It is the “always” that walks with the anxiety and hope of mortal humanity throughout history. We cannot think about living well without simultaneously considering dying well. Death is the last great particularity of life, the ultimate verse of the sonnet. If there is no response to death, there is no response to life. By being grateful for and by drawing on everything that philosophy and science can offer by way of “quality of life,” we make a definitive call to hope. Good Death-Good Life.

Jesus of Nazareth, prophet of the great Utopia (”Be good as God is good, Love as God loved us, Give your life for those you love”) proclaimed with his life and death and with his victory over death, the Sumak Kawsay of God’s Reign. Jesus is, in his own person, a lasting and universal paradigm of the Good Life, the Good Life Together and the Good Death.

La théologie de la libération aujourd'hui

2011-09-17T14:00:00.005-04:00

Pierre Collet a eu l'amabilité de traduire—et même perfectionner !—ma réflexion sur la théologie de libération et le faire publier dans le no. 28 du Bulletin de P.A.V.É.S. Je suis très reconnaissant parce à Pierre et au P.A.V.É.S.

Cette réflexion est inspirée par l’expérience du Forum Mondial Théologie

et Libération où plus de 100 personnes ont passé six jours à tenter d’étudier les défis pour l’avenir d’une authentique théologie de la libération. Ce n’est pas un résumé ou un rapport. D’autres le feront, j’espère. Ce que je veux faire, c’est présenter une approche très simple de ce qu’est la théologie de la libération en 2011 et un ou deux défis qui lui sont proposés. Pour pouvoir avancer, nous devons garder un oeil sur le futur et l’autre sur le chemin déjà accompli. Ma présentation n’est pas scolaire : comme d’habitude, j’écris en tant que personne engagée.

Si vous avez fait de la théologie il y a longtemps, vous vous rappellerez que l’approche classique de la théologie partait d’un rapport à la doctrine (ou même au dogme) qui se basait sur des documents de l’église et se référait ensuite aux sources bibliques. Selon ce schéma, on pouvait spéculer sur la façon de comprendre et d’appliquer la doctrine à notre époque. La philosophie fournissait l’outil pour cette deuxième opération “spéculative”. La théologie de libération apportait une différence fondamentale dans la manière de faire de la théologie. Tout d’abord, le focus se déplaçait sur la réalité socio-économico-politico-culturelle de notre temps avec l’objectif de ceux qui étaient économiquement pauvres, socialement rejetés et finalement des non-personnes dans la société. C’était la célèbre option pour les pauvres. C’était une option parce qu’elle n’était pas neutre et ne

prétendait pas analyser la société ou la religion dans une perspective neutre et objective. Elle se ralliait à la lutte des pauvres pour une vie décente, la dignité et le respect. Elle n’excluait personne justement parce qu’elle concernait tous les exclus. Elle voulait une société dans laquelle chacun – et non seulement ceux qui ont la richesse, la puissance et l’influence – ait sa place dans la dignité et le respect. En raison de cette option pour les pauvres, la priorité de l’analyse a été donnée, non pas tellement à la philosophie, mais à ce que pouvaient offrir les sciences sociales : la sociologie, les sciences politiques, les sciences économiques,

l’anthropologie, etc. D’ailleurs cette référence n’intervenait pas à la fin du processus, après avoir établi la doctrine, elle venait au début.

Voir

Le modèle méthodologique de la théologie de libération est enraciné dans les principes de l’action catholique : Voir, juger agir. C’était une nouveauté significative dans la méthodologie théologique. Nous ne commencions pas par des documents d’église ou par l’écriture sainte. Tout d’abord, nous voulions regarder (voir) la société pour voir ce qui s’y passait, pour identifier ceux qui étaient l’objet de notre attention, les pauvres, et plus tard le peuple autochtone, les femmes, les homosexuels etc. Bien plus que

comme des objets, nous voyions comment ils étaient des sujets, des agents de leur propre libération. Nous avons essayé de comprendre la dynamique qui était et est toujours à l’oeuvre pour les soumettre à l’oppression ou les libérer, pour leur donner une place nouvelle dans une nouvelle société. (Rappelez-vous que Gustavo Gutierrez a défini la lutte de l’Amérique latine non pas comme une lutte pour le développement mais plutôt pour la libération de l’oppression. C’était un rapport sociologique, pas

philosophique ni doctrinal.) Il faut redire ici que la première étape dans la libération ou la théologie de

libération ne consiste pas dans une réaffirmation de ce que disent la bible ou les documents officiels de l’église, mais de ce que nous apprenons en regardant soigneusement le monde autour de nous avec les outils que nous offrent les sciences sociales.

Juger

C’est seulement alors que nous passons à la seconde étape qui consiste à “juger”. C’est une étape cruciale et qui n’est pas toujours bien comprise. Dans beaucoup d’exemples de la théologie de libération, ce serait le moment de se tourner vers les sources scripturaires et vers l’enseignement de l’église. Dans certains cas c’est approprié. Mais dans la pratique, et même si ce n’est pas explicitement indiqué, le critère final pour juger la situation des pauvres et des exclus était le principe même de la vie et de l’amour (la

solidarité). Dans la partie appelée “juger”, nous tentio ns de trouver où la vie était menacée ou détruite, où l’amour était trahi ou nourri, et nous effectuions notre jugement sur cette base. Ceci signifiait que nous

cherchions dans l’écriture sainte et dans l’enseignement de l’église les éléments et les perspectives qui pourraient nous aider à comprendre comment nourrir la vie et aimer (solidarité), pour trouver le chemin à suivre. Nous ne choisissions pas nos documents d’écriture sainte ou d’église au petit bonheur. Il y avait un critère fondamental à la base de notre recherche : si cette référence pouvait nourrir la vie des pauvres et des exclus et leur amour, alors nous l’adoptions. Et nous ne prêtions aucune attention aux doctrines, aux perspectives ou aux textes qui s’opposaient à la vie ou à l'amour (solidarité). Mais nous étions souvent tellement sûrs que la bible était une parole de vie et que la mission de l'église était de nourrir la vie, que nous les prenions pour argent comptant. Je souligne ce point parce qu’aujourd'hui nous devons prêter beaucoup d’attention à cette distinction : non, toute religion n’est pas libératrice, tout dans la bible n’est pas

libérateur, toutes les interprétations de nos traditions religieuses ne sont pas libératrices. La théologie de la libération jette un regard très critique sur la religion et ses traditions.

Agir

Enfin, il y a le troisième moment méthodologique : “agir”. La théologie de la libération est un outil pour l’engagement, pour une foi engagée dans le monde et au service de la transformation du monde vers cet “autre monde possible” que la bible appelle le “Royaume de Dieu”. Une théologie de la libération est une théologie en acte. Ce n’est pas suffisant et peut-être aujourd’hui pas très aisé de citer des textes de l’écriture sainte ou de Jésus. Une théologie de la libération, c’est une théologie qui ne prêche pas Jésus mais plutôt la mission et les valeurs et la “cause” de Jésus. Jésus a très peu parlé de lui-même ; il a passé beaucoup de temps à parler du Royaume de Dieu et à faire ce qui pourrait apporter ce Royaume dans la vie des pauvres et des exclus autour de lui. La théologie de la libération, dans sa phase d’ “action” concerne toutes les stratégies à mettre en place pour rendre la vie, la justice, l’amour, la solidarité plus présents dans notre monde. Qu’elle fasse référence ou non aux expressions comme le “Royaume de Dieu”. Ce qui est important n’est pas d’annoncer l’évangile mais de le faire “vivre” dans la vie des gens. Pour cette raison, dans sa phase d’action, la théologie de libération peut fonctionner à l’intérieur ou en dehors du cadre religieux. L’action est basée sur le “juger” et ce jugement, cohérent avec l’évangile, est valable aussi au delà de l’évangile.

Tout ceci me conduit à parler maintenant de quelques nouvelles tendances dans la théologie de la libération. J’ai essayé de décrire la théologie de libération de telle façon que nous puissions appréhender plus facilement ces tendances ou défis.

Le défi du pluralisme

Tout d’abord, et pas simplement en Amérique latine mais sur tous les continents, il y a un appel puissant à utiliser la théologie de libération pour soutenir la réalité du pluralisme et la diversité dans nos sociétés. Une partie de cette diversité est culturelle ou fondée sur le genre et une partie est également religieuse. Les sciences sociales nous apprennent que c’est un phénomène important et assez nouveau dans beaucoup de sociétés et que cela concerne le cadre même de notre coexistence sur la planète. Cela a conduit les théologiens de la libération en Amérique latine à revoir leur regard sur la manière avec laquelle le peuple autochtone et afro-américain a été traité après la conquête espagnole. On a d’abord commencé par

reconnaître que leurs cultures avaient été marginalisées, parfois ridiculisées et souvent éliminées. Un décalage important était nécessaire pour accepter et accompagner les gens dans la réappropriation et l’expression de leurs cultures traditionnelles. Une percée s’est produite quand les indigènes et les

afro-américains se sont emparés de cette lutte pour eux-mêmes. À ce moment, les théologiens de libération ont dû faire leur examen de conscience et s’enquérir également de ce qui était arrivé à la religion quand

les conquérants espagnols sont arrivés. Ils se sont rendus compte que, si l’Amérique latine avait été colonisée, les religions traditionnelles l’avaient été également. Parallèlement à la décolonisation de l’Amérique latine, de l’Afrique et de l’Asie, il faut une décolonisation de la religion. Aujourd’hui

les théologiens s’intéressent sérieusement à cette question.
Pourtant, c’est une question qui va beaucoup plus loin puisqu’elle a mené des théologiens à regarder ce que les anthropologues et les sociologues, sans compter les spécialistes en sciences politiques, avaient dit des

indigènes, des africains, des asiatiques sur les autres continents. Bien plus, nos grandes métropoles nord-américaines et européennes vivent aujourd’hui avec la présence de peuples dont la tradition religieuse n’est

pas du tout celle de notre christianisme occidental. Ils sont musulmans, hindous, bouddhistes, ou athées. Comment allons-nous parler d’eux ?

Certains d’entre eux se trouvent assez isolés, marginalisés et même opprimés dans les sociétés qui les ont reçus en tant qu’immigrés. Plus encore, quand nous regardons les relations entre les pays, nous voyons qu’il y a ceux qui sont “dedans” (les membres de l’OCDE par exemple) et d’autres qui sont tout à fait marginaux (le groupe des 77 par exemple). Nous devons revenir à notre “voir, juger, agir” afin de le retravailler. Nous avons besoin d’une théologie de la libération du pluralisme politique, économique, culturel, et même laïc. Certaines de nos sociétés sont bien embarrassées à tenter de faire des choix : c’est un grand défi pour les théologiens de la libération aujourd’hui.

Le défi planétaire de l’écologie

Il y a un deuxième grand défi pour la théologie de la libération aujourd’hui, celui de développer “une théologie planétaire ”. Ceux qui étaient au Forum Mondial Théologie et Libération savent que ce sujet a été quelque peu négligé et n’a pas obtenu une grande audience chez beaucoup des théologiens présents. C’est comme ça. Je suis l’un de ses défenseurs et je prévois que ce sera un deuxième grand bond en avant de la théologie de la libération. Il y a déjà un certain nombre de théologiens qui travaillent dur

là-dessus. Cette idée d’une “théologie planétaire” doit aussi être comprise avec l’approche du “voir, juger, agir”. L’option pour les pauvres et les exclus demeure. Dans ce cas-ci, le cadre s’est élargi. C’est la vie de la planète elle -même qui est menacée, marginalisée, mise à mal. D’une part, c’est une théologie qui commence à intégrer la perspective écologique, une éco-théologie qui inclut toutes les créatures vivantes, toute la planète et ses composants : mer, air, terre. Cela fait partie du “voir”. Mais les analyses qui précèdent ne sont pas exclues non plus. La vie humaine est toujours une partie de la vie sur notre planète, mais a besoin d’une analyse qui la replace dans son vrai contexte : celui de la planète. Nous sommes des créatures de la terre et nous dépendons d’elle. Nous ne nous comprenons pas complètement si nous sortons de ce contexte. Notre origine est dans l’évolution de la planète et notre destin est inextricablement lié à celui de la planète. Ceci nous mènera à faire notre analyse sociale -culturelle - économique-politique dans un contexte beaucoup plus large et avec beaucoup plus de précision, en gardant toujours à l’esprit l’option pour les pauvres. Nous avons besoin d’une relecture du “voir”. Nous avons besoin également d’une relecture du « juger » parce que ce n’est pas simplement la vie humaine et son bien-être qui est le critère du jugement, mais celui de la planète entière et de tous ses composants. À la base de ceci, il y a la conviction que la “vie” dont nous parlons est celle du tout aussi bien que de ses parties. Ceci rend le travail d’analyse et de discernement beaucoup plus difficile, complexe et sensible. Mais qui a dit que c’était censé être facile ?

L’ “action” également est transformée par notre discernement (jugement) puisque nous devons développer les stratégies qui produisent vraiment “la vie pour tous”. Nous avons besoin de relire nos traditions religieuses, leurs écritures saintes et doctrines dans la lumière globale d’une conscience planétaire qui exige “la vie pour tous” sans exclusions et dans l’attention à ceux qui sont actuellement mis à l’écart. C’est un énorme défi qui se trouve devant nous : rien moins que la transformation du monde, la transformation de notre propre conscience, la transformation de nos sociétés et finalement, la transformation de notre

planète en péril.

Au départ de nos réflexions au Forum Mondial Théologie et Libération, il y avait ce défi, vu selon des perspectives très différentes. Ce que nous réalisons, c’est qu’il touche le désir le plus profond de notre coeur et de notre esprit pour un monde meilleur, pas simplement pour nous-mêmes, mais particulièrement pour ceux qui ont souffert trop longtemps de notre manque d’attention et de sensibilité.

Je reviens au Québec, plus que jamais convaincu qu’il y a une tâche importante devant nous, que nous pouvons commencer maintenant et qui nous mènera loin dans le futur où l’Esprit nous attend.

Richard RENSHAW

traduction : P. Collet

9/11 and the Congo

2011-09-11T20:15:00.001-04:00

Something I heard today and worth repeating: How is it that the media have been unfurling all the banners they have available to commemorate the tragedy of 9/11--which was a tragic loss of more than 3,000 lives though not for the reasons the media have largely been giving--and yet, and yet, 6 million people have been assassinated in the Democratic Republic of the Congo in the last 10 years, a number approaching that of the holocaust, and hardly a line has been devoted to that. And let it be said clearly: the United States government, knowingly, was responsible for setting up the conditions under which that genocide took place.
Three years ago I sat in an assembly of the representatives of almost every nation on earth at the United Nations and heard a young woman tell the assembly that more than 600 women were being systematically raped in that war every month. What has been done? The Secretary General of the United Nations named Prime Minister Steven Harper to a special UN committee to look into violence against women and children! This is the same government that is subsidizing Canadian companies that are making a fortune pillaging the Congo for its coltan and gold.

What Next for NATO ?

2011-09-03T11:07:00.006-04:00

I am a pacifist: militantly so. Nevertheless, there are moments when my patience runs thin. So….

For several months NATO has been bombing Libya in an attempt to eradicate the regime of Muammar Khadafy and install a new government, just as it has tried to do also in Afghanistan. If I understand rightly, the revolt began in Libya among 30% of the population that was cruelly treated by Khadafy. The other 70% had found a way to accommodate itself with the regime. That Khadafy was a dictator, I have no doubt; that he treated the rebellion cruelly is clear. However, since when does NATO—I speak here of those nations engaged in that military alliance—have the right to go in to “protect the population” against 70% who supported the regime? Whatever…. The effort was successful and now the victors can enjoy the spoils of a country rather rich in oil.

NATO may then be wondering where to go next. I have a suggestion: Canada. Here we have more than 60% of the population strongly opposed to the current regime. If NATO should decide to send in its forces to bomb Parliament Hill and oust the current regime, it would be doing the majority of the population a great favour. It would also be nice if the Canadian forces could contribute to this humanitarian effort by deploying they excellent bombing capability they showed in Libya (and Afghanistan).
If you need a pretext of abuse of human rights, then there are always those immigrants we keep in prison for years on end without any accusation other than they are a danger to national security, or, even better, those we send to the Afghan or Syrian government or to Guantanamo for torture.
You are, no doubt aware that Canada has excellent oil, gas and water reserves that could well serve members of NATO—just a little cherry on the sundae for their effort. Well, for the most part, I guess, we just give them all that already.
In any case, I invite the commander of NATO to consider this option, which fits in well with the general pattern of NATO adventures—oops, I mean missions. Also, while you are up there flying around, perhaps you could make a little detour and drop a couple of bombs on the Assemblée nationale in Quebec. That way we could all start over fresh: Just a suggestion.

But, to be serious, if we were to take seriously--which I don't--the arguments given for NATO's incursion in Libya and all scales taken into account, I think Canada could be presented as a case requiring an intervention. Of course, that would never fly, for reasons we all know well. Even if we were to consider the real reasons for NATO's incursion--oil, strategic military importance, etc.--Canada could still be a plausible target. It won't happen because we are all to ready to give the Empire all it wants without a murmur. The day we don't, we could well become a red zone and we all know that too. We are a major world democracy totally dependent on a huge military empire. Go figure!

If you read French, I strongly recomment Arabesque américaine: Le rôle des États-Unis dans les révoltes de la rue arabe written by Ahmed Bensaada and published by Michel Brulé Press, Montréal, 2011. Without minimizing the courage and importance of the Middle-East Springtime, it is a very different view that helps put a number of things in perspective. I will, no doubt ,have more to say about this later. In English, a similar thesis is put forward by K.R. Bolton at http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=23282 With all deference to the courage and success of popular movements in the Middle East, what seems to be significant is that an important amount of money and investment in formation was set aside by US interests to prepare leaders for these movements. While the movements may have retained their autonomy, and certainly could not have gone forward without the massive support of the population, the serious question to be raised is to what extent there has been an infiltration of the non-violence movement by official (and "officious") sectors in the United States in a geopolitical move to harness these movements to further US geo-political interests that, ultimately, are not the interest of the populations in the Middle East -- somewhat has happened earlier in Eastern Europe.

Buy Gold ... ??

2011-08-21T09:20:00.002-04:00

In these difficult financial times, many people are turning to a very traditional option to secure their savings: Buy gold. It’s an attractive option. Gold seldom, if ever, loses its monetary value. Six years ago gold sold for about $400 an ounce. In recent months the price has surpassed $1,800/ounce and is accelerating. Moreover gold is extremely mobile. You can even wear it as you travel around from one jurisdiction to another! In turbulent times such as are occurring throughout the Middle East and Africa, gold can be the surest way of having your wealth at hand when you need it. The value of gold is not limited to individual fortunes but also to entire nations. Many countries in Africa and Asia particularly are loading up on gold reserves as a more stable back-up for future needs.

So then, why not buy gold, if you can? The answers are many. First of all, you have to buy gold that is produced somewhere. Since the price of gold began to rise, a global gold rush has mushroomed into one of the most profitable businesses in the world. Gold companies, especially Canadian-based gold companies have fanned out across the world to dig for tiny quantities of that precious metal spread out over large areas. Entire mountains are displaced in order to sift out the microscopic grains buried there. Whole valleys are torn up, vast tailing ponds created, entire communities displaced. All this so that you can buy that precious gold ring that marks your love and declares your wealth. There is a certain parallel between the profiles of gold mining companies and that of the drug industry in terms of profitability and social impact. The difference, of course, is that one of them is considered quite legal. Another comparison might be with the tobacco industry and its history of causing large scale death and destruction. However you look at it, to buy gold ties one into a major, global, predatory industry.

And then there is the argument proposed by Chief Seattle: Gold may be very beautiful and serve as a handy tool for conserving one’s wealth, however, it satisfies no basic human need. It is not a source of energy; it is useless as construction material and you certainly cannot eat or drink it. Yet vast territories that produce just those elements are ripped up, torn out, destroyed forever by gold mines. Now there are even several projects to mine gold under the ocean!

It is strange how our capitalist economy works. It destroys whatever is really valuable to meet basic human needs in order to provide a tiny minority with luxury items that ultimately serve no useful purpose. As Joseph Stiglitz says, it is government “of the 1%, by the 1%, for the 1%.” Why is it that we give those few people the power to run things the way they do?

The Journey to Interiority

2011-08-13T17:15:00.006-04:00

     Maurice Zundel, a Swiss priest who died in 1975[i], complained that the great issue of our time had been entirely overlooked by the Church in its attempt to come to terms with the issues of the modern world. He considered it useless to update the Church’s teaching without coming to terms with what God we are talking about. He was all the more passionate about this because he saw most Christians turning to a “false God” who was “out there” and that was powerful, demanding, and the source of religious laws that imposed themselves on us. He said that, if this were the true God, the criticism of religion and the rejection of a God who lords it over us would be entirely justified.
     Over and over again, he insisted that God is never “up above," wielding power over us. He used the doctrine of the Trinity to explain how God is a relationship of love pouring itself out. God is not self-sufficient, caught up in a narcisistic self-regard, needing no one and unconcerned with anything except his or herself. For Zundel, this would be a God who is preposterous. Yet, he said, this is the God most people worship.

     But God is not alone with him or herself and God is “within” and never “outside.” The Creator is constantly emptying his/her self into the Word in Love and he turns to the Christian view of God as Trinity to explain this. For Zundel, the only way to approach God is by embracing that outpouring, the “dispossession” that renders God empty, vulnerable, dispossessed. God gives all in love retaining nothing. At one point he says that if the world refuses that total gift of love, the only consequence could be that God dies. So then, the only approach to God is modeled on that lived by God, that is to say, in a dispossession of our self-enclosed, self-sufficient self so that, quoting Rimbaud, “Je est autre.” This latter is a phrase almost impossible to translate but that basically carries the idea that the “I” is transformed into the divine, self-emptying, loving of the Other. Zundel believed human beings would be transformed into the divine if they were to follow that dynamic of self-dispossession into divine love. It is in this sense that Zundel then says that God is within and never outside. It is an outstanding interpretation of God, the human, and their interrelationship.
     The only problem with this profoundly insightful approach is that it can easily lead to the kind of spirituality by which an individual detaches from the surrounding world in order to make the journey within, the journey toward the fullness of that self-emptying love that transforms. There is little doubt that this is precisely the journey that marked the life of Jesus as we know it and to which Jesus called his disciples. It is the journey into the God Jesus revealed to his disciples. However, it is also clear that this journey cannot separate us from the world around us and that the world around us is an intrinsic part of that journey “inward.”
     For this reason it seems important today to add a corrective to the line of thinking proposed by Zundel. This corrective, it seems to me, can be found in the work of Thomas Berry, the Passionist priest and anthropologist, who wrote The Dream of the Earth[ii]. The corrective is that the material universe, and in particular our planet Earth also has an “interiority” of which we human being are an intrinsic, interdependent part. In fact, the entire universe has interiority as a fundamental, constituent element. This has always been recognized by indigenous cultures around the world and, more recently, a growing number of scientists are recognizing this as well.
     The journey to which we are invited by Jesus, and indeed by an deeper understanding of who we are as human beings in the context of our planet, is to recognise that the interiority to which we are called, and which is a transformative self-dispossession that moves into the divine reality of love, is a journey that we undertake in communion with our universe, not at all separate from or in contrast to it. The larger “I” toward which we are invited to move includes the universe. The “divinity” that is the goal is an “I” that is all-embracing.
     By deepening “interiority” we are acting as agents of and in communion with the journey toward “interiority” of our planet and of our universe itself. Rather than separating us from our environment and turning us away from it, our journey toward the inwardness of love that empties us of our self-centred, separate self  in order to introduce us into the transcending communion of divine love as our “I,” the divine identity. This journey is a journey into the deepest “self” of the universe in its interiority and that opens on to the divine Spirit that is present within.
     This is a journey that will be marked, always, with the same characteristics of the Pascal Mystery that marked the life, death and resurrection of Christ. We lose our narrow and closed self in order to welcome a transformed life to which we are moving along with all our fellow creatures and the entire universe. Many have given their lives for that new world that struggles to be born. Those who are marked by this openness of self-dispossession are shining witnesses to new life.

[i] Maurice Zundel : ses pierres de fondation, Montréal, Éditions Anne Sigier, 2005.

[ii] Thomas Berry, The Dream of the Earth, Sierra Club, 1988.

New World Order and Church (2nd part)

2011-08-01T13:09:00.006-04:00

This reflection is a follow-up to the previous blog entry. (See below.)

Evidence that governments around the world are attempting to reduce their commitment to social services is certainly not hard to find. As a major example, witness what is happening in Washington these days under the pretext of managing the public debt of the United States. Similar operations are underway in the European Union. (Witness the example of Greece.) In other times these were Structural Adjustment Programs (SAPs) imposed by the International Monetary Fund. The difference today is moot. And I insist that they are largely pretexts. The fact is that governments do not want to have to deal with this side of governing. They would much prefer that private interests or “civil society” organizations be responsible. Thus we find moves toward privately run prisons, “charter schools,” and all sorts of aid programs funded by groups like United Appeal.
Now, where do we find the Church in all this, especially the Roman Catholic Church? At the Vatican there is a small organism with considerable influence called Cor unum. It is established to deal with assisting those in need. It would like very much to bring all Catholic aid and cooperation organizations under its umbrella. One of these is Caritas Internationalis.

This is the second largest international aid organization in the world, much larger than the Red Cross or any NGO like Oxfam or Care. Only the United Nations can mobilize more resources in an emergency than Caritas. Most countries in the world have a national Caritas organization under the direction of the bishops. There is a central coordinating body with an international secretariat and a Cardinal as president. Recently the Vatican intervened in Caritas to prevent the secretary general, a highly competant woman from Australia, from being re-elected at the international assembly. In recent years Caritas had begun to encourage the incorporation of elements of “international cooperation” into their aid programs. This meant not just handing out aid but helping people organize to meet their needs. This is not well viewed by Cor unum since it has a “political” flavour. So out with her!

Meanwhile there is another set of Catholic organizations that are all about international cooperation. There is also an international body (CIDSE) but it is mostly to coordinate research and intervention on a consensus basis. Neither CIDSE nor the member organizations are part of Cordaid. More recently the pressure has been stepped up to get the whole body under Cor unum. This would give the Vatican much more control over them.

Canada is an interesting case because its international cooperation organization (Development and Peace). It was founded as a lay movement with independence to carry out its mandate. It joined the Caritas network several years ago. Since then the Canadian bishops have been pressing Development and Peace to give more attention to international aid (intervention in emergencies rather than on-going assistance to local organizations who help people learn to deal with their problems themselves). Recently the bishops have established a permanent committee of bishops to “dialogue” with Development and Peace about the way to carry out its mandate.

My impression, and it is no more than that, is that there is a generalized effort to get both international aid and international cooperation much more directly under the control of the Vatican and then begin to set norms. (It should be remembered that in many countries, Caritas deals with local issues on a permanent basis and often carries a major role in “social services” in the countries where it operations. (Development and Peace is an anomaly in this case because it provides no social services to its own people.) The direction would seem to be, if I read the situation correctly, that these organizations would limit their interventions to providing “assistance” to those in need. That means, for the most part, fundamental but limited services like handing out food supplies, teaching women basic skills like sewing and cooking, etc. Once Cor unum has all these organizations in hand (and it is important again to mention that we would be talking very, large sums of money), they would then be in a position to be a major broker for social services in many countries of the world (including the USA).

All of this does not leave me in the least pessimistic. These structures do not represent the vastly larger reality of Church and society. Moreover, in that larger scene there is so much good happening that, at times, it is simply overwhelming. For more on this, please consult the texts prepared by the Quebec Group on Contextual Theology:

Who Will Help us Cross the Desert? New World Coming Hope and Mobilization

(To see the original versions (in French), please consult the site of the Groupe de théologiecontextuelle québécoise.)

A New World Order: with the Church as Privileged Partner?

2011-07-21T11:00:00.003-04:00

(Please note that the argument presented here regarding the role of the Church is based largely on rumour and conjecture. While there is no explicit public documentation to back it up at this point, it can nevertheless be said to be plausible given the general context that is described. In any case, I offer it as a call to be alert.)

In recent weeks we have seen signs of a world empire that has overextended itself and is no longer able to maintain the military force required to “police the world.” Moreover, it is also toying with disaster by reducing the funds available to meet the basic needs of its own citizens.

A variety of options have been offered to deal with this. In all of them the invisible empire of the transnational corporations lurks in the wings. Whether the American empire survives or not is of relatively little interest to them. Whether America thrives or collapses, the corporate empire ends up concentrating even more power and wealth in its hands. It is entrenched.

Of course it is important to the corporate empire to remain somewhat veiled and to allow “democratic” governments handle the public side of politics. In that sense, the transnationals would be prepared to line themselves up with any political empire that chooses to act as a front for them. (It must be noted however that, at this point, no government that could assert itself against them and survive.)

At the same time, governments, as well as business itself, are becoming increasingly concerned about managing the social unrest that is driving more and more people into “deep poverty.” One of the options that have been proposed is a return to a very traditional relationship between government and religion. In this option, government would restrict itself to assuring a good business climate while leaving the question of “services to society” in the hands of religion. This would include education, health and social services. It is to be understood that these areas would be carried out in a way that assures that there is adequate, trained personnel for the business, but would hardly promote a universal education designed to produce an independent-thinking population. (Quebec saw this role for the Church carried to an extreme during the Duplessis years between 1936 1959.) We are already a long way down that road.

The idea of returning education, health care and social services to the Churches is not far-fetched. During the 1980’s Michel Camdessus, the director of the FMI at that time, suggested precisely this approach. It should also be noted that in Germany, even today, the government’s role in these areas is limited to passing part of the taxes on to the churches for this purpose.

According to at least one analyst I have read, the Vatican realizes that the Americas and Europe are moving in this direction and is positioning itself to partner with governments in this new role. It wants to be an active player at the table in this new world order shaped by business and government.

An arrangement between government and church would be a perfect set-up for the transnational corporate empire: governments create the financial and economic climate necessary for profitable business; religion takes on the social role. If anything goes wrong, it is not the fault of either government or business. At a time when the entire world financial structure is on the verge of collapse and when global warming in the coming decades is threatening the survival for many millions of people, this approach could not look better for business or for the Church!

If all this were to begin to take shape, one cannot underestimate the importance of a very solidly aware and organized civil society that would not permit health, education and social services to turned over to authorities who are, in the case of the Roman Catholic Church, unelected.

Already in the background, I can hear readers from Quebec roaring with laughter and saying, “If there is one place on earth where the scenario of a church-government alliance could never take place, it has to be here in Quebec. In Quebec there would certainly be an overwhelming wave of rejection should the idea even be proposed. People here lived that experience once and are determined that it will never happen again. And it may well that it is never even proposed here. However…, however…, we should never underestimate the power of the corporate/government/media conglomerate to shift public opinion particularly if the move takes root in other places. It also needs to be said that, in politics, nothing is impossible.

(For the second part, see the post immediately above.)

World Social Forum (India)

2011-07-18T11:55:00.001-04:00

A few months ago I attended the World Social Forum (WSF) in Senegal (February, 2011). However this was not my first experience. In 2004, I coordinated a delegation of people from Quebec and Canada at the Forum held in Mumbai, India. It was the first World Social Forum held outside Brazil and, in several ways, marked a turning point in the history of the Forums.

There are several memorable dimensions to the experience: my first visit to India (and in fact to Asia), my participation in two International Committee meetings (one in preparation and one for evaluation of the Forum), the focus at that time of our delegation on water as a common good and a human right, the all-day forum on the global anti-war (anti-Iraq war) movement, the participation of grassroots sectors in the Forum (especially the Dalit and the “Forest People” of India). I want to say a brief word about each.

Frequently people talk about the seeming chaos of participating in a WSF. What they perhaps don’t appreciate is the extraordinary level of coordination and planning that goes into each Forum. This work is carried out by an International Secretariat located in Brazil along with an International Committee. The Secretariat worked with an Indian Secretariat in order to plan the gathering in Mumbai. This was a new experience and, I am told, such coordinations for other WSFs have led to a plan to increase the permanent international participation in the staff of the secretariat which, until how, has been made up of Brazilians.

The International Secretariat is the “governing body” of the WSF. It sets the policies and assures the financing of the Forum. It also has a role in policies governing more regional or local Forums that take place. The Forum is made up, basically, of any organization that has an interest in participating in the Forum and has a credible “track record” (has existed for several years). The size of the group does not matter nor does its orientation as long as it accepts the basic framework of the WSF which you can find on its web page. The first meeting I attended was held in Miami. (At that point the organizers were interested in attracting more participation from the North American anti-neo-liberal (anti-capitalist) movement. In some ways they succeeded. They hosted the meeting and were more in evidence than had been the case before. However, it was clear that the gathering (of perhaps 70-80 people) had a large Latin American and European presence with some Africans and Asians (of course since it would be in India!). I had been parachuted into the meeting to represent CIDSE, a significant player in the development of the WSF. It was quite moving experience to sit at the table with the likes of Chico Wittaker, François Houtard, the World March of Women, some major labour union leaders and many others. The debates were, as apparently they often are, were much about the underlying policy of an open-space in tension with the desire to “move the issues forward.” And we had long discussions about the rhythm of the WSF, which till then had occurred every year, as well as with the development of continental and regional Forums. (I should add that, here in Quebec, we subsequently held two Quebec Social Forums, with an outstanding participation). And of course there were negotiations about how to raise the huge amount of money required to carry out the event. It needs to be said that the Indian organizing committee did a great job on all fronts.

The second International Committee meeting was held on site, just after the WSF of Mumbai closed. It included all those from the committee who were actually present at the Forum. The members were both pleased, puzzled and at times flabbergasted with what had just taken place. There had been a hugh participation—some said 100,000 people. In general the events had gone well including the monstrous opening as well as the closing march with its summary of major themes. Everyone noted the extraordinary and sometimes turbulent participation from India (and Asia in general). There had been a lot of activity originating outside the events, in the “streets” on site. At times this had interrupted major conferences by international figures. However, the WSF is precisely designed to give a “voice to those who have no voice” and the voice particularly of the Dalit and the Forest People in India was heard strongly. It was a momentous historic moment for them to organize among themselves, take their voice into an international arena and be heard. It had quite an impact.

Our delegation had spent a week before the WSF in New Delhi at a World Water Conference that brought together leaders from all continents who were struggling to preserve water as a common good of humanity. Maud Barlow, Vandana Shiva, Ricardo Petrella, Tony Clarke and others were there. My own organization in Canada, Development and Peace, was in the midst of a major national campaign to this end. We extended the campaign over three years and managed to get the question on the national agenda. Canada was a die-hard resister at the UN in recognizing water as a human right. Our delegation was able to meet briefly during the WSF with the UN Special Rapporteur on Water. One of the highlights of the event was the presence of Indian union leaders of the municipal water system who were fighting a plan concocted by the Indian government to re-reroute the Ganges! When we arrived at the WSF, we were well prepared to engage this issue there.

Another highlight of the WSF in India was the organization of a day-long dialogue among participants in the anti-war movement from around the world. In Montreal I participated in the anti-war coalition, Échec à la guerre, and so it wasn’t hard to convince me to sit in for part of the day. What I found remarkable for its impact, is that during that day, October 12 was set aside as a world anti-war day. You will remember that in October, 2003, literally millions of people in many major world cities, as well as in smaller centres, turned out to protest the war being waged against the Iraqis people by NATO. I was quite an experience to sit in on the global coordination that led to these events. In Montreal we were close to 200,000 who turned out on that day.

In closing, just a word to say that, while the WSF is conceived as an “open space” for discussion without a prior agenda, this does not mean that the issues do not move forward. Any group, from any part of the world, that wants to discuss an issue will find a “space” there to do so and to engage with others around that issue. Moreover, those who do so are encouraged, positively, to coordinate their efforts for greater impact and to move forward the “other world that is possible.”

The Earth

2011-07-07T17:39:00.003-04:00

This is an excerpt from my book on Managing Diversity published by Dunamis Publishers, 2009.

The liberation of the Earth

An absolutely crucial word needs to be said about the importance of our modern understanding of ecology and cosmology in opening up new possibilities for appreciating the role of religious diversity and its implications for our living together.

     For the first time in the history of humanity we have the capacity to provide a universal and coherent story of our origins. Science has unraveled so much of the story of the origins of the universe, of our planet and of life on this planet that we are now able to piece together a story that can help us understand who we are in the context of our planet and indeed our universe. In that respect, the “story of the universe” becomes a major inter-cultural achievement that can provide a whole new bridge to inter-religious dialogue and to our identity and place in the universe.

     There is a further urgency to addressing the question of ecology in the fact that human activity has come to constitute one of the gravest dangers to future life on this planet. We are all aware of global warming and of the vast extinction of species that is already underway. The urgency of concerted action to arrest the consequences of our irresponsibility is of the highest priority. Even so, the political will often does not seem to be present and our leaders wade through oceans of verbiage with very little concrete results. Part of the incapacity for action can be placed on the shoulders of Catholicism that has, for the last five hundred years (or much more) placed human beings at the apex of God’s creation and considered the earth to be an environment to be exploited for their benefit.
     The origin of the current crisis of the environment can be found above all in the doctrine of Catholics that sees the “other” as alien and excludes it.   This other can be another religion, another culture or even the Earth itself considered as “other” than human. These three “others” are in fact inter-related.
     We have much to revise. Moreover this very revision may be an important bridge for bringing together several religious traditions that together could provide the weight and momentum to turn around the environmental struggle for responsible action. The Aboriginal and Afro-American traditions place considerable importance on integration with nature. There is much also in the Hindu tradition that is deeply respectful of all expressions of life. If Catholics were able to reinterpret their own tradition with a view to a more sensitive treatment of the earth, we might be able to go a long way toward building that bridge with other traditions and provide the motivation for serious advances in improving the quality of life on the planet.
     One way to begin to look at this question is through the perspective of an option for the poor. In our days a priority task of religion in the world is the elimination of poverty, oppression and violence. Without this major effort religion loses its credibility in face of the crushing reality of the majority of humanity. However, if there is a “poor” and “vulnerable” sector that urgently needs attention as the matrix for the hope of all those billions who live in misery, it is the Earth itself. The liberation of the Earth is urgently needed. Such an effort requires the collaboration of all peoples and all religious traditions. This is particularly so because it was religion that had such an important role in creating the mentality that led to the massive destruction of humanity and of the Earth that we have witnessed in the last 100 years. Only through radical change in this mentality can we come through the crisis.
     We need a new theology that can provide a bridge for religion to move out of its own ghetto and begin to practice the collaboration required for real change. A theology that opts for the Earth, a theology of religious diversity that includes the Earth in its agenda touches on values that are important to every religion. It is high time that we mobilized the wisdoms of all the religions and cultures before Mother Earth decides to sweep us from the scene.
      There are obstacles of course and they need to be recognized.

The first obstacle is that nature is considered as just an “environment,” that is to say a bunch of things that serve to sustain life and human comfort. Secondly, we need to deal with a scientific shift that took place in the 17^th century through people like Newton and Descartes. For them the environment was considered a set of inanimate “natural resources” that are at the disposition of the economy. Plants and animals were even regarded as “machines” that we could reshape and destroy at will and with impunity.

     Patriarchy played a major role in all this. For many centuries the Catholic Church taught that women were not equal to men but rather formed part of that nature that they had already decided was an enemy of sinful man whom God had excluded from paradise. In marriage it was understood that the male “acquired” a women as a piece of property. Women were valued mainly for their reproductive capacity, much as any animal. Thus, women suffered an exclusion that paralleled that of nature. While all this may have become codified in the Middle Ages through matrimonial legislation, patriarchy as such was already present much earlier in the Mosaic Law.
     This patriarchal and macho view of being human and of nature disfigured our relationship with God. God was not seen as really present in nature. We thought God just used it to give us lessons and to offer natural resources to satisfy our desires. The Catholic religion seems to have suffered from schizophrenia. On the one hand it said that all that God created is good and serves to know God and on the other hand it said that nature is the enemy of humans who must struggle against it in order to survive. Moreover it insisted that man is above nature and separate from it. Nature exists merely to serve man’s needs and comfort.
     Beginning with the 14th century, Europe went through a slow process of secularization that managed to separate the sacred dimension from natural phenomena. This opened up even more doors to the manipulation and exploitation of nature. After this separation had been established, a series of scientists in the 16h century established the scientific method and modern science was born. Unfortunately this turned out to be rooted in a profoundly mechanistic mentality. Newton studied nature to discover its laws and ended up reducing everything to a series of mechanical (mathematical) principles. Descartes completed the job with a total separation between the material world and human consciousness. The industrial and technological revolutions followed. At first the Catholic Church resisted this new approach. Several persons were condemned for having contradicted what the Church believed to be found in the Bible. The case of Galileo is perhaps the best known. Those that studied the human body using dissection ran the risk of falling into the hands of the Inquisition. Nevertheless the scientific method prevailed and the Church largely adapted itself to the results. The Church resisted secularization more because it entailed a separation of church and State, with the consequent loss of power, than for any preoccupation about the exploitation of the Earth.

Paths to another view
     In the twentieth century there were other important shifts: the rejection of patriarchy and a new scientific posture. A new vision has emerged that opens up the possibility of a profound collaboration between Christians and members of other religions for the liberation of the Earth. I will only touch on some of the avenues available for doing so. We begin with feminism.
     The feminists state that patriarchy was already well established at the time of Abraham and Moses. For that reason they were interested in reviewing the texts of the First Testament (sometimes called the “Old”) that deal with women. In the struggle for the recognition of their human dignity on an equal plane as that of the male, feminists have reinterpreted at the same time the patriarchal perspective that unites women to Nature. They argue that the patriarchal system has dangerous ecological implications. [1] If we think that human beings are called to dominate the Earth – conceived as a sum of resources without any intrinsic value – it should not surprise us that the Earth ends up devastated. Feminists accept that women are intimately linked to the Earth – and men as well! They then proceed to reappraise Nature in a positive way. They propose that, as human beings, we recognize our integration in and even our dependence on nature instead of thinking of ourselves as a superior being. They suggest that human beings are part of the Earth and not simply living on the Earth. They insist that women are incarnated, just as men are, in one and the same flesh of the Earth. Finally, they affirm that the Earth is composed of living beings, all of whom bear a divine presence. This is a view of what it is to be human that is much more holistic. Body, intelligence and feelings are seen to be interrelated and complementary. They even insist that feelings have a primary place at the moment of regarding the world.
     This perspective of an integration between being human and Earth has barely made its entrance into Catholic theology and is still hotly resisted. Yet it allows for a much greater openness to the religious perspectives of Aboriginal peoples not to mention Hinduism, Buddhism and other religions that are less patriarchal than Catholicism. Recognition of the sacred dimension of all natural and historical reality can even provide for a much larger opening to the Islamic world and corresponds to a very ancient Jewish tradition.
     Another important path for a theology of religious diversity comes from modern science. In recent years, a few scientists have taken an important new direction in their way of understanding nature. When the first astronauts traveled into space, they saw something that no human being had ever seen in all of human history: a small, extremely beautiful blue planet full of life and yet limited and fragile. The image has served to remind us that, as human beings, we are a small part of an immense planetary history. We are reminded also that we have a decisive impact on the future of life and that, for the first time in human history, physics, biology, chemistry and archeology, to mention only a few of the sciences, can explain to us in detail the whole history of life on this planet and even the history of the universe itself. [2] We are the first generation in history that knows exactly how our universe emerged out of nothingness 13 billion years ago. We are the first to know how our planet, Earth, was born 5 billion years ago in a stupendous and yet ever so delicate process that made possible – miracle of miracles – the phenomenon called life. We are already beginning to understand that in order to produce this mysterious creature called a human being who is conscious of itself, the Earth gave it a “genetic code”[3] that summarizes in itself all that evolution, in all its various stages, had been able to learn about life. We are, for example, the first generation of human beings to know the intimate relationship between the capacity of our eyes to see and the capacity of plants to absorb light from the sun. Finally we are much more conscious today of how the ecological systems function. This is an extremely valuable piece of knowledge. The fact is, now we know! That knowledge entails responsibility.
     Scientists are beginning to recognize that animals and plants, as living things, are endowed with consciousness, experience, feelings and not simply instincts. They are much more like human beings than we thought in recent centuries. Human beings have a whole substrate that unites them to plants and animals. This is precisely their genetic code. Scientists like Lynn Margulis and James Lovelock[4] as well as some theologians like Thomas Berry[5] go further and suggest that it is easier to understand the activity of the planet itself, with its ecological systems, if we consider it a living being.[6] Barry is of the opinion that human beings are, in this context, the self-consciousness of the Earth. The “self” here refers not just to that characteristic of consciousness that an individual might have of him- or herself as an individual but also that consciousness in so far as it is able to articulate the broad experience of the Earth of which he or she is an integral part. In that human self-consciousness the Earth itself achieves its articulation and celebrates its experience of God. For this reason, it is important to pay attention to how human experience is rooted in what nature “tells” us. Berry suggests that our experience of God would be totally different if we were living on a planet similar to the moon because we would not have the same language to speak of God.
    For some Christians it is blasphemy or even idolatry to speak of Mother Earth (with capitals). Nevertheless, on second thought, why not? When we speak of persons we name them with capital letters (Mary, Peter). Why not also the Earth? Some will say because to treat the Earth as a person, as something living and intelligent would be to transform it into a god. It would be pantheism. Nevertheless, to recognize the Earth as living is not the same as making it equal to God. It is rather to make it a magnificent creation of God. Karl Rahner, speaking of angels, proposed that they are precisely forces of the universe, messengers and guardians of God.[7] So, above all the natural forces I propose an “archangel” called Earth. Why do we think that this implies denying God his/her place? Or are we denying the dignity of those beings created by God in order to place ourselves subsequently at the same level as God? Is this not precisely what the second chapter of Genesis condemned?
     Accepting that the Earth is a living being would lead us to develop a new theology of creation, a theology very different from the one that was taught in the seminary for the last several centuries. Plants and animals, rivers and mountains would be sacred, as sacred as human beings. This would put economic exploitation out of bounds. We would have to develop another moral theology to speak of our relationship with the “natural environment.”[8] The theology of religious diversity would need to develop the foundations for recognition of this bridge with other religions.
     Many images of the psalms tell us that the animals, the plants, the rivers and the mountains rejoice to know and praise God. How can we pray all those psalms and not take them seriously? They are constantly telling us how the Earth, the animals, the hills and the rivers praise God.

Let the heavens rejoice and the earth exult,

Let the sea roar and all the creatures in it,

Let the fields exult and all that is in them;

Then let all the trees of the forest

Shout for joy

Before the Lord…. (Psalm 96)

So, they have a religious experience! God speaks to them and they praise their Creator. We are called then to respect them. According to the tradition of Saint Francis of Assisi we should listen to them and unite our voices with those who recognize God. They are beings that know God, that are open to God, that know how to respond in their own way to God. This perspective can be found also in the writings of various mystics such as Hildegard of Bingen (12^th century):

I am the fiery life of the essence of God: I flame above the beauty of the fields; I burn in the sun, the moon and the stars. And, with the airy wind, I quicken all things, vitally by an unseen, all-sustaining life. For the air is alive in the verdure and the flowers; the waters flow as if they lived; the sun too lives in its light; and when the moon wanes it is rekindled by the light of the sun as if it lived anew. [9]

In summary, the recognition of the living dimension of all nature and of the Earth itself offers another important approach to a theology of religious diversity. If we knew how to relate to the Earth in this way, if we had a theology of creation that incorporated this element, our relationship with other religions like Hinduism, Islam,[10] Buddhism and the Aboriginal and African religions would be very different. In this sense Catholicism seems to be the religion that least appreciates what the Earth tells us.

The diversity of religious cultures

     Eva and Priscilla are two Sisters of Saint Joseph. They are the daughters of an Ojibway leader, Art Solomon, who helped me recognize the sacred mystery of the communion and community with my native Earth. They have achieved a very beautiful integration between their Christian faith and the spiritual traditions of their Aboriginal culture. In this they carry the legacy of a painful struggle carried on by their father to distance himself from what the Catholic Church had taught him about his culture and to recover the traditions of his people. While many Aboriginal Christians continue to reject those traditions, considering them contradictory to their faith, there is a growing number of Catholics, Anglicans, Protestants and Evangelicals among the Aboriginal peoples who experience a new and positive integration. Nevertheless, for the theologians, these experiences represent a great challenge because the beliefs of this growing number contradict what all the catechisms since the Middle Ages have taught right up until the 1960s. So, we need to look at the question of cultures.
     The texts that ground our doctrine of creation did not arise out of nothing. They incorporate many other texts that come from other cultures. So it is that the first two chapters of Genesis incorporate elements from stories about the origin of the universe that existed in various cultures of the Middle East. We also know that some texts, like that of Colossians 1, 15-20, for example, speak of how Christ was present in the process of creation. In this way they reproduce old concepts in the wisdom tradition that are also found in other Middle Eastern cultures. So, in the construction of the sacred texts about creation, the biblical authors knew how to appreciate what was good in other cultures of their times and they managed to incorporate many elements from those cultures into what they were writing.
     Catholics however have not always appreciated what other cultures have contributed to human diversity. They thought that only their way of explaining things was valid. They even preferred to deny the contribution of those cultures to their own doctrines. So it is that they considered all the myths of other cultures about the origin of the world and the activity of Nature as pure superstition and idolatry. Recognition of the context in which our own origin myths were written would at least allow for an openness to appreciate the contribution of other cultures to our perspectives on Nature.
     The fact is that we are not the only people who have myths, parables or stories about creation. The Aymara people of Bolivia and Peru speak of how they originated out of an encounter of the Sun with the Earth (el Inti with Pachamama) in Lake Titicaca. The Maya speak of themselves as the People of Corn. The Ojibway also have stories about how Turtle Island (North America) came to be and they themselves along with it:

And Kitche Manitou (the Great Spirit) had a vision. He saw the universe and understood that his vision had to come about. So he created stone, water, fire and the wind. Into each he breathed life. From them he created everything else, including the human being. But a disaster came over the world and everything was buried in water. Then the woman-sky lived alone and Kitche Manitou had compassion and sent her a spouse with whom she had sons. They fought among themselves and destroyed one another. With that, the water creatures persuaded her to come down and they persuaded the turtle to rise to the surface. And the little muskrat, ridiculed by everyone, went down to the bottom and brought up a little earth that was placed on the back of the turtle. And the woman-sky breathed life into it. The Earth grew and formed an island full of plants and creatures known as Michilimackinac. Later the woman-earth gave birth to twins, a boy and a girl. They were called Anishnabeg (people) and the creatures of the Earth fed and cared for the children. When the woman-sky was sure of their survival, she went back to her place in the heavens and is known as the first among mothers, the Grandmother (the moon).[11]

      Myths like this have served in all cultures to assist people in discovering and preserving their identity over many centuries and in face of multiple adversities. Every culture has its origin myth; every religion proposes a myth about the origin of the world and of its people. So it is that such myths have a fundamental importance in the consolidation of a cultural and human identity both for Aboriginal peoples and for the great world religions. For that reason it is important to take seriously any attempt to know the origin of human beings, of our planet, of the universe. Besides, an attitude of respect for the way in which these things are explained is fundamental if we want to arrive at an inter-religious and intercultural collaboration to defend the Earth and its peoples. In this sense the book of Rosemary Radford Ruether, Gaia and God, deserves special attention for its study of the creation myths in various classical cultures (Babylonian, Greek and Hebrew) as well as the new myth based on recent scientific explanations. All this opens possibilities for a commitment of our religious tradition to the liberation of the Earth.
     The idea that only the Catholic stories are correct and that those of the Aymara, Maya, Ojibway and Hindus are not as valid as those we find in our sacred texts is ultimately self-defeating. Truth itself invites a more humble attitude. All human knowledge, including that of the Word of God, is historical, that is to say that it passes through the mediation of the limited categories offered by human consciousness. It is never complete; it is always subject to revision. For that reason we need to welcome with great reverence every attempt to articulate what God says through these myths as also through Nature.
     The perspective of a human being as an integral part of a living Earth and not in any way superior offers elements to reinterpret our Catholic doctrine about the Earth that would allow for a serious opening to Aboriginal religions, Hinduism and Buddhism among others. These points of view may even be useful in dialogue with non-believers and ecologists. It is a dialogue in view of the liberation of the Earth and of all that is contained in it. Human beings (male and female) are then part of the Earth as its self-consciousness. Animals, fish and plants are “our elder brothers and sisters,” as the Ojibway say. There is much to be learned from these elders because they existed long before us and therefore have a much longer memory. (Human beings have a history of at best only one or two million years, or even less if we are to consider only our own species.) If we know how to listen, we discover how the animals, plants, fish, mountains, rivers share with us their profound wisdom and can present us with a word of God. They can also teach us how to live and respond to God with an authentic ethic and religion. By reading the prophets attentively we recognize that this was the way they encountered the word of God. In that perspective we respect other living beings and even venerate them as manifestations of the love of the great mystery that is God. This way of relating to the Earth introduces into our ethic the dimension of reciprocity, which is so much appreciated in Andean cultures.[12] From the Earth we receive life and with this life we help the Life that is the Earth to grow. And in all this we encounter God who is love, source of Life and extravagant in his/her benevolence.
     It seems ironic that modern science, the foundation of so many ideological notions that have destroyed the ecological systems, offers elements for Catholics to move forward in defense of the Earth and to be capable of dialoging respectfully, even profoundly, with other ancient cultures and religions. Nevertheless, this seems to be the case and it deserves attention.

[1] Rosemary Radford Ruether, Gaia and God, HarperSanFrancisco, 1992. Also Heather Eaton, Beatitudes for the Earth: A Feminist Approach to Ecological Ethics, Ottawa, Novalis, 2005.

[2] Brian Swimme and Thomas Berry, The Universe Story: From the Primordial Flaring Forth to the Ecozoic Era, HarperSanFrancisco, 1992.

[3] I am placing this phrase in quotation marks to indicate that the reference it not just to the sub-molecular dimension. A human being is an enormously complex organism.

[4] Lynn Margulis, Microcosmos: Four Billion Years of Evolution from Our Microbial Ancestors, Berkeley, University of California, 1997; James Lovelock, Gaia: A New Look at Life on Earth, New York, Oxford University Press, 1979.

[5] Berry Thomas, The Dream of the Earth, San Francisco, Sierra Club Books, 1988; The Great Work, New York (U.S.A), Bell Tower, 2000.

[6] There is no scientific consensus on the use of the word life in reference to the Earth itself. Nevertheless, the use of this word in an restricted analogical sense seems to me at the very least extremely appropriate. We are far from understanding what life is.

[7] Karl Rahner, "Angels," in Karl Rahner, ed., Encyclopedia of Theology: The Concise Sacramentum Mundi, New York, The Seabury Press, 1975.

[8] See Heather Eaton’s effort in this sense, op. cit.

[9] Reproduced in Gloria Durka, Praying with Hildegard of Bingen, Winona, MN, Saint Mary’s Press, 1991.

[10] I am thinking especially of the mystic traditions like Sufism in Islam.

[11] This is my own summary of a much longer story to be found in Basil Johnston, Ojibway Heritage, Toronto, McClelland & Stewart, 1976, p. 12-20. There are similar Aymara stories in the appendices of Fernando Montes Ruiz, La Mascara de Piedra, Bolivia, Editorial Quipus, 1984.

[12] “The Andean ethic does not separate the human from the natural. This holistic and cosmic Andean vision is a wonderful contribution to survival on the Earth. Furthermore, the masculine and feminine elements interact in favour of life on mother earth.” Diego Irarrazaval, “Eco-human rights,” Sacred Earth, Sacred Community, Toronto, Canadian Ecumenical Jubilee Initiative, 2000, p. 273.

Popular Education

2011-06-07T15:10:00.000-04:00

Yesterday I attended a presentation on the situation in Colombia. It was part of a monthly series of popular education events to inform and mobilize people in Montreal – especially youth. The presentation led me to reflect on what people today understand by “popular education.” I attend of a lot of events, most of them with a speaker or a film and then questions. It is not clear to me how this fits into popular education.

First of all, the term includes “popular,” that is to say, “of the people.” Here we are talking about what has classically been termed the “option for the poor.” By the poor I mean to refer to those who have difficulty meeting their basic human needs. It does not mean those with limited revenue, though in many circumstances they may be poor. The distinction is important in many contexts around the world. Moreover, I have not often seen popular education work well with professionals or with people from the middle class. They have their own interests and their reality is not one that requires the process popular education offers. What can happen however, is that people from this milieu can be brought to recognize that their grasp of reality is very limited and that there is a larger reality that they need to understand and deal with. A good process can lead to stronger solidarity with the poor. In that sense it is positive to work with those groups using some of the approach of popular education. It needs also to be said that in the current global setting, there are very few people who, at one level or another, are not struggling to meet basic needs, especially if one includes among those needs some participation in social, economic, cultural and political decisions that affect them. More and more people are also finding that meeting their need for adequate food and housing is becoming a challenge especially if they look for healthy food and healthy communities.

Secondly, by popular education we mean education and not information. Much of what goes as education is really the pouring of information into the heads of people with the assumption that, miraculously, that is going to change something in them or the world. Education is a very different process. Education means comprehending, in the original sense, of “grasping,” getting a hold on one`s reality, one’s own reality, being able to name it in a way that gives one a hold on it.

In the tradition of popular education it is assumed, first of all, that the poor can be educated, that they can become the protagonists of their own lives. This is the meaning of “empowerment:” being able to take hold of one’s reality and transform it. The process of education is one then of getting hold of the basic process that enables people to meet their own needs and also to get hold of the processes that are preventing that from happening. It is a question of learning “critical analysis,” that is to say learning to understand the structures and processes of power at work in one’s own community – for life or for death and then learning the ways to deal with those structures and processes.

Classically, in popular education, it is assumed that ordinary people, poor people, people who have difficulty meeting their needs have within them the elements necessary to do all that but that a piece of work is needed to bring it out, to articulate it, to put words to it, to name it. Thus an educator is not primarily someone who provides information but one who enables people to reflect on their own reality in a way that they themselves discover ways to name the powers at work there. It is a reality they know already and that they know best. For that reason an educator is primarily a facilitator.
For background on popular education we need to go back to the classical sources: John Dewey who insisted that education was for everyone and that it was a matter of puting some order into our ideas; the Frankfurt School, a philosophical movement that develooped the concept of critical analysis; and then finally Paulo Freire, who put it all together in a way that defined what popular education means today.

Canadian Mining Institute holds Congress in Montreal

2011-06-04T09:07:00.002-04:00

and we were there !

http://vimeo.com/24611150

Fixing The Future?

2011-05-14T20:03:00.002-04:00

There is a growing movement throughout the world today to create local communities with economies serving local needs. Sometimes they are called “transition villages.” It is the burgeoning of a renewed vision of the “other world that is possible,” but this time in very concrete terms and in ways that take into account the scale of economy that fits the ecological context.

The movement coincides well with the vision of “right relationship” proposed in a book of that name by Peter G. Brown, professor at McGill University in Montreal (Canada). In the book (published by BK Publishers) he establishes the framework for a “whole earth economy” that can realistically replace the savage capitalist system that is currently ravaging the earth and its creatures, including ourselves. It is an economic theory that measures the impact on the “spaceship earth” of all its creatures by a formula that sees the global impact as a combined function of population, affluence (consumption), technology and ethics (values). He also outlines a process for gradually bringing about transformation. It involves four stages: grounding and clarification (beginning with awe and reverence for the planetary eco-system), design (including modeling), institutional change (He proposes a global reserve that would do the necessary research and develop policy proposals, a planetary trust to enact measures designed to protect life systems, a global federation for security and taxation and finally a global court.) and as the final stage, non-violent reform, that is to say actually going about the process of pressing the changes into being much as the “transition villages” are doing. Much of the transition could be built in part on what already exists locally and internationally.

After viewing Inside Job (2010, directed by Charles Ferguson) or Gasland (with Josh Fox), it is not hard to recognize that our current economic system based on the fantasy of financial speculation is doomed. The sooner it can be replaced the better – for everyone. In contrast I much enjoyed Fixing the Future (a PBS production) focusing on what communities are doing to localize their economies.

Federal Election - May 2, 2011

2011-04-23T16:35:00.002-04:00

Well, Canadians went to the polls and elected a majority Conservative government. That's the way our democracy works. Quebec went massively and surprisingly NDP; Ontario went massively and surprisingly Conservative, thus giving Harper his majority. Meanwhile it will be interesting to see that path the Prime Minister charts. Quebec will draw its conclusions.

Marlin Mine -- again

2011-04-01T15:41:00.001-04:00

This is just a little note to say that CSC Perspectives has published a report I prepared on the Marlin open-pit gold mine owned by a subsidiary of Goldcorps and situated in Guatemala.

You can access the article at http://www.holycrossjustice.org/Perspectives/Marlin%20Mine.htm

There is an important addition to be made: Not only has the Interamerican Court of Human Rights ordered the mine operations suspended (almost a year ago and without effect !!), the Special rapporteur on Indigenous affairs of the United Nations recently published a powerful report on mining in Guatemala with a long appendix about the Marlin mine. It can be found at:
http://unsr.jamesanaya.org/special-reports/observaciones-sobre-la-situacion-de-los-derechos-de-los-pueblos-indigenas-de-guatemala-en-relacion-con-los-proyectos-extractivos
Unfortunately the Anaya report exists only in Spanish at this point but I will have more to say about it later.

As we enter into the national election campaigns in Canada, the way Canadian mining companies are acting in other countries, and even in our own, is clearly an important issue.

Christian Unity

2011-03-07T14:39:00.002-05:00

This is a reflection at the end of the 1997 version of the "Week of Prayer for Christian Unity" celebrated world-wide every January.

Many of our ideas about what constitutes unity have been sorely strained in recent decades. There are few among us who still think unity necessarily involves that we all think the same way, belong to the same organization or engage in exactly the same practices. Unity can surely support and even require a wide diversity. Maybe we are more conscious of that as Canadians than most precisely because of our diversity.

What we have in common as Christians is faith in Christ. And today's reading provides a good opportunity to ask where Jesus fits into our religious experience. Jesus calls his first disciples and they are drawn to him like a magnet. There must have been something very attractive about Jesus to cause grown men to leave their work, possessions, family and go off this way. This is no less true today. One of the major magazines in Quebec recently placed Jesus on its front cover as "Man of the Year." What is it about Jesus that drew and continues to draw so many to him? One thing is sure, he is not the sacarine figure so much of popular piety in North America has painted. This is a robust figure, solidly grounded in his own times, yet with a message and a presence that totally transcends his times. Truly a universal figure. Moreover, by his resurrection, Jesus attains the fullness of his Messianic vocation as the Christ. In the resurrection Jesus becomes permanently present and available to the entire human experience. We can encounter Christ everywhere and at all times.

Reflecting on this week of prayer for Christian Unity, it occurred to me that there are ways in which Christ is revealed in the lives of people who, while they share the values, the mentality and the practice of Jesus, also entirely escape our categories of religion, denomination or even lifestyle. (And, there are also many who call themselves Catholic but who share little of what the New Testament reveals to be the mind, values and practice of Jesus.)

The important thing is that we do have some record of Jesus. There is a reference point. He cannot just be anyone we want to invent. Jesus had a specific way of looking at things, a specific set of values and a specific practice. Throughout the centuries, different thinkers, different saints, have found quite varied dimensions of Jesus' mentality, values and practice. For me, this includes his place among the poor and excluded, his intimate relationship as Son with God experienced as his Father and our Father -- yet Father with all the nurturing, compassionate characteristics we often attribute to Mother. Characteristic of Jesus is the way he shared himself with anyone open to accept it. Whatever each of us may find when we turn back to the Gospels, the important thing is that these be insights that shape our religious experience, sought out in light of very adult struggles and adult needs.

I find it significant and often disturbing that many adults retain the image they learned of Jesus when they were children and then hope that this will be enough to guide them through their adult years. Obviously a child's notion, at this important religious level, will provide only children's' answers. It's not enough for an adult. Our search to understand Jesus is something that has to continue throughout our lives. There has to be continual scrutiny, re-examination, re-evaluation.

The focus of religious experience among Christians must always be to encounter the living, risen Christ in our lives and our world today. However, in order to do that we need the reference point of the Jesus of Nazareth who became the Risen Christ. We need to examine those specific areas of his mentality, his values, his practice that will help us recognize his presence in and around us today.

Today we begin the countdown to the great jubilee. No better moment for a time-out to reconsider the figure of Jesus, his place in our lives, personally but also collectively as a human family at the end of a millennium and the turning of a huge epoch in human history.

Globalization

2011-03-06T20:27:00.003-05:00

This is a talk I gave to a large gathering about five years ago. Even though it is dated, it might serve some purpose still. I have edited it very slightly

The theme assigned to us has two vectors: the economic agenda called “globalization” and also the struggle for a globalization of solidarity and for societies of inclusion. Both are important.

Note, first of all, that between English and in French there exists a difference in the vocabulary used to talk about this topic. In French, the term used is “mondialisation.” The difference is significant. “Globalization” implies a reference to geography; “mondalisation” refers much more to social structures. What is global embraces the entire planet. What is “mondial” embraces the universe of culture and its relationships. Obviously the reach of the economic forces at work today extend throughout the planet. But it is the universe of meaning, relationships and communities that should especially concern us.

Secondly, the predecessor to globalization is mercantilism and liberalism. Marco Polo and the explorers of the 16^th century opened up an enormous process of trade between continents. However, for our purposes, what is significant is the way in which trade became connected with a political agenda that included colonization, the carving up of continents, the forced labour of millions to enrich Europe and the slave trade.

“Globalization” or “Mondalisation” is, however, a relatively new term. It is a process that builds on the 18^th century thinking of men like Hume and Adam Smith with three components:

1) The market is the centre not just of the economy but also of politics and of ethics.

2) The trans-national corporation is the agent of a new form of economic colonization more damaging than that of the 16-19^th centuries.

3) Modern technology is used to structure the global market.

In the laissez-faire philosophies of 18^th century thinkers like like Hobbes, Hume, Locke and Adam Smith, society, nation and State are redefined in terms of trade and, specifically, the market.

The Constitution of the United States incorporates much of this 18^th century thinking around freedom to engage in trade while it is the French Revolution that espoused the ideas of freedom, equality and fraternity. The differences continue to resonate even today. For the United States Constitution, the “people” who make up their democracy, consisted only and exclusively of landowning men. In other words, the propertied class, the establishment, the wealthy of the time, were the only real “people” in this democracy. And the freedom of which the U.S. Constitution speaks is really the freedom of propertied wealth to engage in trade without government interference, that is to say, without the interference of the “common good.” While we have the illusion that this very restricted understanding of who participates in a democracy has been greatly enlarged with the provision of the vote to all citizens, quite the reverse is the case. In almost all contemporary democracies, measures have been found to assure that the participation of the ordinary citizen in the affairs of State is enormously restricted. The citizen normally votes once very four or five years for a candidate selected in a process over which he or she has relatively little control and based on information that is difficult for the ordinary citizen to manage.

The contribution of the 20^th century has been to transform the notion of person to include the corporation. The truly important “person” in contemporary democratic societies is the corporation, especially the trans-national corporations who are registered as “persons” and operate with all the rights and privileges of a “person.” Corporations are the aristocracy of today. And they promote a “global” agenda. The globalization we are examining in this session of our congress is the agenda of the trans-national corporations. It is an agenda that is driven by an ideology no less fundamentalist than that of Soviet Communism or the Taliban.

Trans-national corporations have become, quite literally, the rulers of the world and dissociated the market entirely from anything other than their profit. The top five hundred of these trans-nationals control more than half the wealth of the entire world. Their economies rival that of many States, and their representatives have critical influence in all the most powerful States. Of the one hundred largest economies in the world, 51 are corporations and only 49 are States. Most of these corporations are based in the United States or, secondarily, in Europe.

The ethics regulating public affairs is thus reduced to the market in itself and for itself. One sees this in the measurement of national economies by Gross National Product, without taking into account the environment or the standard of living of the population. The market is everything and is at the service of the trans-national corporations who are the only real people in today’s market-oriented world. The principal tool for the exercise of this global agenda of a free market are international institutions like the World Trade Organization, the World Bank, The International Monetary Fund and international treaties like the North American Free Trade Agreement and the Free Trade Agreement of the Americas. The trans-national corporations also play an increasing role in the work of the United Nations.

Ordinary citizens or even national States are quite secondary “people” in this process. Their proper function is that of consumers. Thus the homeless, the jobless and aboriginal people are excluded. Children and women play a secondary role. Many national States are excluded in the triage that results. Anyone who is not in a position to be a consumer simply does not fit into the world of globalization. Even whole continents, Africa notably, are thus excluded! And, critical to the future, the degradation to our planet through the supreme function of the market is providing a legacy of destruction and death to future generations that they will surely judge severely. Never in history has the process of economic colonization been carried to such extremes.

None of this would, of course, be possible, without the instantaneous global reach of modern technologies of communication. The emergence of the internet has precipitated an explosion of global market activity. With the liberation of financial institutions from the gold standard, financial transactions today exceed by several multiples, the combined assets of those engaged in the market. It is a house of cards.

This whole structure is supported by a few hundred major business aristocrats and the minions who serve them and who meet each year in Davos, Switzerland to map out the future of our planet. It is a structure that, with the support of allied national States, has a formidable military force prepared to defend its interests. This network of trans-national corporations is the empire behind the empire. However, like the famous statue in the biblical dream of Daniel, it has a head of gold and feet of clay.

Far broader, deeper and filled with future, is the movement that defines itself by the slogan, “Another World is Possible.” I wish then to turn my attention to this second phenomenon that is far more interesting and far more pertinent for our purposes today. It is the globalization, of solidarity and the effort to build foundations for societies of inclusion. In English it is often called the anti-globalization movement. However, in French, the term is “alter-mondalisation,” a concept that looks much more toward building something different.

The struggle against the ideology of the market is rich in history. One has only to think of the peasant revolts of the 1830’s or the rich history of the labour movement throughout the world. In recent years there has been a globalization of grassroots movements that points to a significantly new configuration of forces. While labour and even some municipalities play an important role in this movement, the real strength comes from what we call Civil Society (and Non-Governmental Organizations – NGO’s). By Civil Society, I refer to the associations of ordinary citizens, large and small, local and international, that have driven the struggle to stop the juggernaut of the neo-liberal, ideologically driven, market economy. The mushrooming mobilization of peoples’ movements throughout the world has significantly changed the balance of power in recent years, beginning with the anti-free trade movement of the 1980’s, the Jubilee movement to eliminate the foreign debt of poor countries, the anti-Free Trade and anti-war struggles. As part of this broad set of movements and with the precedent of other similar struggles in the past, the anti-war movement, for example, has been able to build a formidable opposition to the military aspirations of the United States and its allies in Afghanistan, Iraq and Palestine. Similarly the women’s movement has, through the World March of Women especiallly, built an extraordinary network throughout the world.

These movements are not just in opposition. More and more it is clear there is an enormous effort to lay foundations for a different kind of society. One would then have to include in this picture all the various efforts that have been made to create a world of solidarity and cooperation including Producers Cooperatives, Consumer Cooperatives, Credit Unions and Fair Trade (in Coffee, Sugar, Bananas, Tea, Chocolate, etc.). In Canada alone these so-called “solidarity economies” provide support to millions of people around the world and have assets of over a hundred and fifty billion dollars. Again, in Canada 2,200 housing cooperatives provide homes for more than a quarter of a million Canadians. Their financial dealings are handled by the credit union movement and they are insured by the Co-operators Insurance Company. In addition one finds all sorts of local, national and international associations of ordinary citizens caring for the needs of specific groups: women, the handicapped, children, immigrants, the unemployed, workers of every sort and so on.

All of these various efforts have come into focus through the World Social Forum and its counterparts on the continental, national and regional levels . The World Social Forum initially met in the year 2001 in Porto Alegre, Brazil as a counterpoint to the annual meeting of world business leaders in Davos, Switzerland. Each year it has grown in numbers, strength, creativity and depth. It is a sounding board for peoples’ movements throughout the world to assess their strength and define their approaches to the struggle for alternatives, for dignity and justice.

We should not underestimate the role that the Church has played in all this. Building on the foundations of the movement of liberation theology in Latin America (and ultimately, throughout the world), local communities in many countries mobilized to promote the elimination of the debt of poor countries. It has been a learning experience for many to discover how an issue, simple in its ethical demand, could be so complicated in its resolution (as we are seeing with the manoeuvres of the G-8 over these last weeks). Church related organizations were instrumental in conceiving the first World Social Forum and they have accompanied its growth ever since. The Church can also take no little credit for encouraging grassroots organizations throughout the world who have pressed for greater recognition and respect for human rights, who have opposed military solutions to social conflicts and who have lobbied for stronger international controls on corporate business interests, who have supported cooperatives or local associations and who have encouraged research into major national and international issues.

Contemporary theologians have attempted to provide an outline of the theology of the neo-liberal capitalist market and to indicate the relevance of the biblical opposition to idolatry. It is here that the Church’s voice is particularly telling. The underlying foundation of that voice has been the moral values of solidarity, respect and justice that lie at the heart of the Gospel. John-Paul II was denouncing also an idolatry of the market proposed by neo-liberal business interests when he argued for a “Civilization of love” (or solidarity, as he himself said).

Much remains to be done to provide a practical and workable model for economic and political activity that corresponds to the principles of Catholic Social Teaching. This is perhaps the greatest challenge facing the Church in the coming generation.

A review of the current situation reveals both creativity and stagnation. Peoples’ movements continue to mobilize millions throughout the world to demand a voice and a place in an inclusive society. Yet, I sense that many hesitate in face of the risks of really throwing themselves into the struggle for justice in support of the economically poor, the socially excluded and the politically oppressed.

A version of this text can also be found at: http://www.holycrossjustice.org/RenshawGlobalizationEng.htm

Liberation Theology

2011-02-18T08:07:00.005-05:00

This third reflection in the series on my visit to Senegal is inspired by the experience of the World Forum on Theology and Liberation where over 100 people spent six days trying to understand the challenges for the future of an authentic liberation theology. I am not going to try to provide a summary or report. Others, I hope will do so. What I want to do is to present a very simple entry into what liberation theology is about in 2011 and one or two of the challenges facing it. In order to move forward we need to keep one eye on the future and another on the path already traced. My presentation is not academic; as usual, I write as an engaged person. (Photo of Indigenous paticipants.)

If you have followed theology for a very long time, you will remember that the classical approach to theology moved from a statement of doctrine (or dogma even) based on Church documents and then referenced to the biblical sources. Following that there could be speculation about how to understand and apply the doctrine to our times. Philosophy provided the tool for this second, speculative operation.

When liberation theology came along there was a fundamental shift in the way theology was proposed. First of all the focus was on the socio-economic-political-cultural reality of our time through the lens of those who were economically poor, socially discarded and ultimately non-persons in society. This was the famous option for the poor. It was an option because it was not neutral and did not claim to analyse society or religion from a neutrally objective perspective. It took sides with the struggle of the poor for a decent life, dignity and respect. It did not exclude anyone precisely because it included all those who were excluded. It sought a society in which everyone—not just those with wealth, power and influence—had a place of dignity and respect.

As a result of this option for the poor, primacy of analysis was given, not so much to philosophy, as to what the social sciences could offer. These included sociology, political science, economics, anthropology, etc. Moreover this reference did not come at the end of the process, after establishing the doctrine. It came right at the beginning.

The model for the methodology of liberation theology is rooted in the principles of Catholic Action: See, Judge Act, a methodology of praxis (movement from engaged action to reflection and back again in a transformed mode). This was a significant shift in methodology for theology. We did not begin with Church documents or with Scripture. First of all, we looked (see) at society to see what was happening there, to identify those who were the object of our attention, the poor, women, gays and others. More than as objects, we saw how they were subjects (agents) of their own liberation. We tried to understand the dynamics that were and are at work in subjecting them to oppression or liberating them to a new place in a new society. (You may remember that Gustavo Gutierrez defined the struggle of Latin America as not one for development but rather of liberation from oppression. This was a sociological statement, neither philosophical nor doctrinal.)

It must be remembered then that the first step in a liberation or liberating theology is not with a restatement of what the Bible says or of what official Church documents say but rather of what we learn by looking carefully at the world around us with the tools that the social sciences provide.

Only then to we move to the second stage that is “judge.” This is a crucial step and sometimes one that is not well understood. In many examples of liberation theology this would be the moment to turn to the scriptural sources and to the teaching of the Church. In some cases that is appropriate. However, it was always the practice, even if not explicitly stated, that the ultimate criterion for judging the situation of the poor and excluded was the principle of life and love (solidarity) itself. In the part called “judge” we tried to find where life was being threatened or destroyed, where love was being betrayed or nourished and we made our judgement on that basis. This meant that we looked in Scripture and in Church teaching for those elements and insights that would help us understand how to nourish life and love (solidarity) as well as for how to discern a path toward them. We did not choose our Scripture or Church documents haphazardly. There was a fundamental criterion underlying our effort: if the perspective and value and revelation nourishes life for the poor and excluded and love then we embrace it. But we did not pay attention to doctrines or perspectives or texts that we discovered were opposed to life or to love (solidarity). Again, we were so sure, quite often, that the Bible was a word of life and that the mission of the Church was to nourish life, that we took it for granted. I underline the point because today we need to pay a lot of attention to that distinction – not all religion is liberating, not everything in the Bible is liberating, not every interpretation of our religious traditions is liberating. Liberation theology takes a very critical look at religion and its traditions.

Finally, there was the third methodological moment: “act.” Liberation theology is a tool for commitment, for a faith that is engaged in the world and at the service of the transformation of the world into that “other world that is possible” and that Biblically is called the “Reign of God.” A liberation theology is a theology in action. It is not content and perhaps today not even comfortable citing texts from Scripture or Jesus. It is a theology that does not preach Jesus but rather the mission and the values and the “cause” of Jesus. Jesus talked very little about himself; he spent a lot of time talking about the Reign of God and a lot of time doing what would bring that Reign into the lives of the poor and excluded around him. Liberation theology, in its “action” phase is all about strategies to bring forward what will make Life, Justice, Love, Solidarity more present in our world. It may or may not make reference to phrases like “Reign of God.” What is important is not to announce the Gospel but to make it “live” in the lives of people. For that reason, in its action phase, liberation theology can work either inside or outside the religious framework. The action is based on “judge” and that judgement, while coherent with the Gospel, is valid quite beyond it.

Now, all of this leads me to talk about some new trends in liberation theology. I have tried to set up the approach to liberation theology, as described above, in a way that allows us to more easily grasp the new trends or challenges.

First of all, and not just in Latin America, but on all continents, there is a strong call to bring the thinking of liberation theology to bear on the reality of pluralism and diversity in our societies. Some of this diversity is cultural or gender-based and some is also religious. All of the social sciences are telling us that this is an important and relatively new phenomenon in many societies that is challenging the very framework of our coexistence on the planet. It has led the liberation theologians in Latin America to take a second look at the way in which the indigenous and Afro-American people have been treated following the Spanish conquest. First of all, they began to recognize that their cultures had been marginalized, sometimes ridiculed and frequently suppressed. A major shift was needed to embrace and accompany the people in the reappropriation and expression of their traditional cultures. A breakthrough happened when the indigenous and Afro-American people espoused that struggle for themselves. At that point the liberation theologians had to examine their consciences and ask also about what had happened to religion when the Spanish arrived for the conquest. They realized that, if Latin America had been colonized, the traditional religions had been also. Parallel to the decolonization of Latin America, Africa and Asia, there needs to be a decolonization of religion. At this point the theologians are looking carefully at this question.

However, this is a question that goes much further since it has led theologians to look at what the anthropologists and sociologists, not to mention the political scientists, have been saying about indigenous and Afro or Asian peoples on other continents. Even more, today our great North American and European metropolises teem with the presence of peoples whose religious tradition is not at all that of our Western Christianity. They are Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist, or Atheist. How are we to speak of them? Some of them find themselves quite isolated, marginalized and even oppressed in the societies that have received them as immigrants. More again, when we look at the relations between countries, we see that there are some who are “in” (members of the OECD for example) and others are quite marginal (the group of 77, for example). We need to go back to our “see, judge and act” in order to work it out. We need a liberating theology of political, economic, cultural, and even secular pluralism. Some of our societies are full into the dilemma of trying to sort it out and this poses a great challenge to liberation theologians today.

There is a second great challenge for liberation theology today: developing a “Planetary Theology.” Those who attended the World Forum on Theology and Liberation know that this was thrown around a bit and did not get a great hearing from many of the theologians present. So be it. I am one of its defenders and I predict it will be a second great leap forward in liberation theology. Already there are a number of theologians hard at work on it. This idea of a “Planetary Theology” needs to also be understood from the “see, judge, act” approach. The option remains for the poor and excluded. In this case, the framework is broadened. It is the planet itself whose life is being threatened, marginalized, distained. In part this is a theology that begins to incorporate and ecological perspective, an eco-theology that includes all living creatures, all of the planet and its components: sea, air, soil. This is part of the “see.” But, the earlier analyses are not excluded either. Human life is still part of life on our planet, but needs analysis that sets it within its real context: that of the planet. We are creatures of the Earth and dependent on it. We do not understand ourselves thoroughly except in that context. Our origin is in the evolution of the planet and our destiny is inextricably bound to that of the planet. This will lead us to do our social-cultural-economic-political analysis in a much larger context and with much more precision, always with the option for the poor in mind. We need a rereading of the “see.” We also need a rereading of the “judge” because it is not just human life and well-being that is the criterion of judgement but that of the whole planet and all its components. Underlying this is the conviction that the “life” we refer to is that of the whole as well as its parts. This makes the work of analysis and discernment much more difficult, complex and delicate. But who ever said it was supposed to be easy?

The “action” also is transformed by our discernment (judgement) since we need to develop strategies that really produce “life for all.” We need to reread our religious traditions, their scriptures and doctrines in the overall light of a planetary consciousness that calls out for “life for all” without exclusions and from the perspective of those and whatever is currently being left out.

A huge “cause” lies before us: Nothing less than the transformation of the world, the transformation of our own consciousness, the transformation of our societies and ultimately, the transformation of our beleaguered planet.

Underlying our reflections at the World Forum on Theology and Liberation was this challenge, viewed from quite different perspectives. What we realize is that it touches the deepest dimensions of our heart and soul yearning for something better, not just for ourselves, but for especially those who have borne the brunt of our heartlessness for so long.

I return to Quebec, more than ever convinced that there is an important task before us, one that we can begin now and that will take us far into the future where the Spirit awaits us.

(Note: There is a (free) French translation of this reflection in the Bulletin (#28) of PAVÉS and also on the site of Culture et foi. I have also posted it just recently here (September 2011).

World Social Forum – Dakar 2011

2011-02-17T08:15:00.003-05:00

This is the second in a series of reflections on events in Dakar, Senegal, Feb 6-11, 2011. For the first reflection see below. A third will follow.

On the web site of the World Social Forum there is a short commentary by Chico Whitaker, one of the founders of the Forum, indicating that the 2011 session in Dakar would probably not be the largest—there were 150,000 in Brazil at the last one—but that it would be no less significant.

His prediction is borne out. The mix of Africans from many different countries though for obvious reasons especially from Senegal and the other countries of West Africa, was very good. There were also lots of people from Europe and a good representation from Latin America, especially

Brazil

. Still the march was much smaller than earlier editions of the Forum and the participation in the workshops appears to have been smaller. This latter is hard to judge because the Forum was held at the university while it was in full session. It was often difficult to know who was there for their university classes and who was at the forum.

This leads to a second prior observation: the whole event was very badly organized, chaotic in fact. Many of the workshops had to be held in tents hastily set up to provide space. In itself that was no great problem since the weather in Dakar is nothing less than spectacular: sun, sun and sun. Nevertheless, no one knew where anything was taking place the first day and the confusion, unfortunately, continued throughout the week. It was even difficult to find out where to register, and once there, to actually follow the procedure. Many people just attended all the events without registered since there was no control.

Our little delegation from Montreal was primarily geared to the World Forum on Theology and Liberation which was taking place at the same time and within the context of the WSF. However, because of the difficulty of knowing what happening and where, we found ourselves confined in large measure to our own events.

Nevertheless, I would like to comment on a few special moments for me.

First of all, I attended a workshop that dealt with the problem of refugees to Europe. As you know, Europe has all but closed its doors to Africans seeking either refuge in Europe or even just as immigrants. (Canada is not lagging far beyond on this score!) We were able to hear from several of those who had lived in Europe with the accompaniment of NGOs there before being deported back to Africa. What was new to me was the way in which the European NGOs had kept in touch with these deported people and supported them in their efforts to readjust back into their homelands after the traumatic experience of deportation. As far as I know this is not something that we have done here and it bears investigation. With time, some of these people can and do become major figures in the struggle for “another world that is possible” in their own lands.

One of the experiences that was described was the “Caravan,” a travelling group that passed throughout Senegal stopping in populated areas to raise peoples’ awareness of the problem of refugees who have been deported back to

Senegal

. They also went to the border with Mali and spoke with refugees who were still there. It was a project that revealed the intensity of the effort to establish coordination in the struggle for survival in Senegal.

A second workshop occurred on the last day. It was organized by several groups, among them Secour chrétien in France. The focus was on the relationship between Europe (especially France) and Africa. The topic was how to stop the political, economic and military power of African dictators. In the context of the struggles going on in North Africa, the Middle East and potentially in several other areas, the theme went to the heart of this moment. The situation of neo-colonialism in the relationship between Europe and Africa was clearly laid out, the issues identified and, most interestingly a number of projects and movements to effect change were brought forward. To my mind, one of the most telling interventions came from someone during the open mike period. He was a Tunisian leader who spoke eloquently of the struggle that had led to the fall of the government in

Tunisia

. However, he added, the real dictators that humiliate and hold us back are not in Africa. We have done our work and now you have to do yours. He invited us to consider getting rid of those real dictators, the heads of state of European governments who manipulate the economy and politics of Africa. He referred very specifically to the president of France. It made me think of the challenge to face a change of political direction here in our own land.

As you may or may not know,

Senegal

is 95% Muslim with only 3 or 4 % Christians – including all labels. As a result I was particularly interested in hearing from Muslim thinkers and discovering the relationship between these two communities there. Participation in several workshops of the theology forum provided that context. The first thing to say is that the Muslim presence was very slim and often the best interventions came quite spontaneously from people who happened to drop in on a workshop. Also, since the Christians are a tiny minority and the Muslim presence is very strong, they do feel that their future is threatened. This is not because of any religious fanaticism but because of factors that many of us Catholics will easily recognise from our own practices in the past. When a young girl wants to marry a Muslim there is pressure for her to become Muslim. The children will then also be raised as Muslim. If a Catholic boy wants to marry a Muslim girl, there will be pressure for her to remain Muslim and to some extent also for him to become Muslim. This gradual eating away at the Christian population disturbs the leaders.

Secondly, liberation theology and theology of religious pluralism has very little roots in Christian thinking at least as far as was evidenced in our experience in Dakar. The Christians have a tendency to formulate their world—quite beautifully it must be said—in terms of the Gospel and biblical values. But those I spoke with seemed unaware of the dynamic that took place when they attempted to deal with more mundane issues of life in society with Muslims. In fact, from the little I heard, they seemed to handle it very well, but without any self-awareness of how that worked. We were told that generally the relationship between Christians and Muslims in Senegal is extremely good. People accept to co-exist in society together and work together for the good. Many families are made up of members from both religious traditions. Sometimes brothers and sisters share different traditions. All the above is generally accepted as part of the life in which no major tensions exist about those religious borders. Moreover it seems that the Senegalese people, on the whole extremely poor, are deeply committed to democratic life and the electoral process. (The President was quite unhappy with our presence in his capital and said so in no uncertain terms. It is very likely he and his party will be defeated in upcoming elections if one is to judge by the comments of many I heard from.) It is something to watch for in 2012.

For a final statement, please see: http://www.dakar2011.org/spip.php?article51

SENEGAL: A First View of Africa

2011-02-15T08:56:00.006-05:00

With this reflection I begin a short series of reflections on my participation in the World social Forum and the World Forum on Theology and Liberation held in Dakar, Senegal February 4-11, 2011. (See the previous post.) The series will reflect briefly on Africa and the World Social Forum before turning to a longer reflection on Liberation Theology.

Anyone who visits a country, let alone a continent, for the first time, needs to be very careful about saying too much. One week is hardly time to have even first impressions. Nevertheless it would be unfair not to say at least something.

Africa has long been on my horizon. To step on its soil was a deeply moving experience that brought back the centuries of struggle that have marked the life of its people through colonization, slavery, supposed decolonization through independent States and then the whole sad history of “development.”

There are many paths of reflections that could be developed. It was particularly moving to visit Goré Island and the Slave House from which men, women and children were shipped out to the “New World.” We were told that many threw themselves overboard and that the water in the bay turned red from the thrashing of the sharks. It is a history that puts into sharp reflief the courage of those who continue today to struggle that every person might live with dignity and respect.

It was a particularly significant time to be in Africa: the Tunisian government had just fallen,

Egypt

was in the process of ousting its president and several other countries were entering into a period of major popular mobilization. It was important to discover what the engaged people of Africa were saying and the week at the two Forums, with presence of delegates from every continent, provided an opportunity for them to tell the world about their efforts. After my few days there, I came away with a tremendous respect for their wisdom, commitment and capacity for organization. Slowly they are working their way out of the rule of dictators maintained in place by the complicity of our North American and European governments. As one Tunisian told us, “We have done our work; now it is up to you to get rid of the real dictators, the heads of your governments” who try to dictate to the world what is possible.

Many people asked where I was from and I always said, “Quebec.” I was surprised to find that the Africans, Senegalese in particular, recognized the name right away. “Oh yes,” one young street vendor said, “You are part of the francophonie,” that is to say part of our French-speaking family. Being in Africa led me to see Quebec in a clearer light. As a minority people in North America who struggle to assert their place, there is a resonance with the struggles of Africa and Quebec was seen by those I met as a partner in this struggle. I was able to look at the world through different eyes and find other horizons.

World Forum on Theology and Liberation -- World Social Forum

2011-02-01T09:57:00.003-05:00

In a couple of days (February 3, 2011) I will leave for Dakar, Senegal and the two forums indicated in the title. We are six from Montreal who will attend the forum on liberation theology. For that event we have established a blog update so that we can communicate (in French), day by day, the unfolding of events. There is, of course, the main site for each of the two forums. About 200 people from Quebec are expected to attend the World Social Forum. I include all those links. Blog Update WFTL WSF

The State of the Land

2011-01-30T17:18:00.001-05:00

For several years now I have been walking with a young couple through their struggle against a Canadian mining company in Mexico and their flight to Canada as a result. The documentary attached here was prepared by a young Montreal filmaker. Enrique has an unusual story as a refugee in Canada fleeing a Canadian mining company. You will find it on the internet here.

(The photo is of Enrique, with a band of activists from several countries officially "opening" a gold mine on Mount Royal in the heart of Montreal. It drew quit a bit of attention to the struggle)

Speech by Peter Monk, President of Barrick Gold

2011-01-26T11:21:00.003-05:00

For several years now I have been following the growing movement against the activity of Canadian mining companies. Mostly I have focused on their presence in Latin America, but not exclusively. I invite you to listen to a speech given by Peter Monk, founder of Barrick Gold at the last stockholders meeting. The speech is accompanied by photos that illustrate another side of his statements -- in this sense it is not neutral. It will be for you to decide.

However, I can also say that I have visited mines in several areas, especially of Latin America, and read a lot of documentation as well as listening to representatives of local communities in a wide range of areas. What the pictures show, as far as I can tell, is authentic.

(I should add that Barrick Gold is suing the authors and the publishing house of Noir Canada, a study of the operation of Canadian mining particularly in Africa. They want 5 million dollars in damages. The case will go before the Supreme Court of Canada, with the authors arguing that this is a case of an unjustified attempt to muzzle opposition, a case of a SLAPP suite designed only to intimidate people from speaking out.)

Here is the reference for the VIDEO: PETER MONK

Tatic Samuel Ruiz

2011-01-25T09:19:00.006-05:00

Samuel Ruiz falleció en la Ciudad de México el 22 de enero. Es una perdida para Chiapas, para la Iglesia de los pobres, para el mundo indígena, para la teología de liberación.
Tuve tres ocasiones para encontraro: en mi primera visita a Chiapas (1979) en la cual conocí el labor extraordinario que se hizo en Chiapas; otra vez hacia 1998 cuando acompañé una delegación canadiense para mostrar nuestra solidaridad; y otra vez en algún momento de los 2000 cuando lo encontré en la Ciudad de México donde vivió después de pasar la responsabilidad para la diócesis a otros. (Sin embargo mantuvo su presidencia del Centro Bartolomé de Las Casas para los derechos humanos.) Estuvo todavía bien aún con problemas de salud.

Estoy de duelo. Sin embargo siento que su presencia seguirá siendo muy fuerte y no sólo en Chiapas. ¡Que él nos acompañe en el camino hacia ese otro mundo posible"!

Para saber un poco más sobre su vida y muerte,vea por ahora el artículo en El Pais.

The Failure of Peace: War

2011-01-23T21:24:00.001-05:00

This is a little piece I wrote for a publication of the Montreal Archdiocese a while back. It was meant to introduce people to the Compendium mentioned below.

On Holy Thursday, 1963, Pope John XXIII published a letter to the world entitled Peace on Earth. It marked the first official declaration of the Roman Catholic Church supporting the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the peace building efforts of the United Nations. In it he declared that “it no longer makes sense to maintain that war is a fit instrument with which to repair the violation of justice” (PT, 127). The Secretary General of the United Nations organized a major international conference to study the document. Two years later, in October of 1965, his successor, Paul VI visited the United Nations. This was one of the first international voyages of a Pope in over a century. His address to the General Assembly of the United Nations concluded with a cry that echoed around the world: “never again some peoples against others, never again! ... no more war, no more war!”

A few weeks later the bishops assembled at the Second Vatican Council approved a document called The Church in the Modern World whose fifth chapter (in Part II) is devoted to peace. While the chapter retains the right of States to defend their populations from aggression, it argues that we must to everything possible to avoid the scourge of war especially by supporting effective international instruments for resolving conflicts and promoting economic equity.

In March of 1967 Pope Paul VI issued an encyclical letter to the world entitled On the Development of Peoples in which he argues that working for economic development is another way of building peace. Pope John-Paul II echoed this approach in Centesimus Annus when he stated that “another name for peace is development. Just as there is a collective responsibility for avoid war, so too there is a collective responsibility for promoting development” (CA, 858). The text from Paul VI inspired the Canadian Bishops’ Conference to found the Catholic Organization for Development and Peace forty years ago.

One of the members of the commission that prepared the reflection on peace in The Church in the Modern World was Cardinal Carol Wotyla, later John-Paul II. Apart from his personal experience of war in Poland, his participation in the work of this commission may be said to account for his outspoken and repeated condemnations of the wars in the Middle East and his untiring efforts to promote peace around the world.

The Social Doctrine of the Church is well summarized in chapter 11 of the Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church. The third part of this chapter argues that war is the failure of peace. Many States, it says, do not have “effective means to provide effectively for their own defence.” From this flows the importance of international and regional organizations at the service of the common good that can promote peace (Compendium, 499).

Wars of aggression are intrinsically immoral (Compendium, 500). Military intervention is always a last resort when all other efforts to resolve a conflict have been exhausted and when the damage caused by the conflict is greater than what will be caused by military action. In these cases there must be serious prospects of resolving the issues. Preventive wars, without clear proof that an attack is imminent, raise serious moral and juridical problems. (Compendium, 500).

The requirements of legitimate defence justify the existence of state-controlled armed forces at the service of peace. However, every soldier is morally obliged to “resist orders that call for perpetrating crimes against the law of nations and the universal principles of this law” (Ibid, 502). Moreover military action must always envision the protection of the innocent. Civilian populations cannot become the target of military action (Ibid, 504). Above all, “attempts to eliminate entire national, ethnic, religious or linguistic groups are crimes against God and humanity itself and those responsible… must answer for them…” (Ibid, 506). Catholic Social Teaching has repeatedly supported the International Criminal Court (Compendium, 507).

The publication of Pacem in terris and The Church in the Modern World occurred at a time when a major transformation was taking place in the production of the arms that fuel wars. Up until then States turned to their national industries to produce the arms required in times of conflict. However, after the Second World War, international arms industries began a permanent production of arms which they then attempted to sell wherever they could. Rather than having States indicate the arms they needed, this new international arms industry did its own research and began lobbying governments to purchase their latest innovations. All the documents mentioned above make a point of denouncing the international production and sale of arms as a major force fuelling wars around the world. The Catechism of the Catholic Church (2315) takes a very strong position in this regard:

“The arms race does not ensure peace. Far from eliminating the causes of war, it risks aggravating them. Spending enormous sums to produce ever new types of weapons impedes efforts to aid needy populations; it thwarts the development of peoples. Over-armament multiplies reasons for conflict and increases the danger of escalation.

Catholic social teaching proposes “general, balanced and controlled disarmament” (Compendium, 508). “The arms race does not ensure peace. Far from eliminating the causes of war, it risks aggravating them,” (Catechism, 2316). Most specifically condemned are arms of massive destruction, anti-personnel landmines and the proliferation of small arms and light weapons (Compendium, 509-511). These latter are a serious issue at this point since they are used extensively in internal and regional conflicts and are so readily available that they encourage new conflicts (Ibid, 511). Similarly “the use of children and adolescents as soldiers in armed conflicts… must be condemned.” (Ibid, 512). Finally, terrorism is condemned in the most absolute terms (Compendium, 514).

The Roman Catholic Church has a rich tradition of resistance to war and a well constructed theology to deal with the subtleties of contemporary issues. The Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church provides an excellent introduction with many references.

Religious Diversity and the Danger of Catholic Integralism

2011-01-16T10:24:00.004-05:00

This is a conference I gave some time ago at the Canadian Ecumenical Centre in Montreal.

We are faced today with the most profound crisis since the rise of civilization
7,000 years ago. The planet, our shared home, is being ravaged by human presence to the extent that the result may be the near extinction of humanity. In addition, the race to get control of natural resources is driving humanity more and more toward extensive economic, cultural and social exclusions often through the use of violence.
The underlying source of the destruction lies in attitudes that have shaped public policy and economic activity. Thus the question of values and of motivation is crucial to any solution.

   The great world religions propose to humanity a way to live on this planet that will give meaning to life and assure a path through suffering toward fullness of life. The traditional Christian formulation of this finds its home in the theology of salvation, which is understood to include also our responsibility as faithful disciples to collaborate with God in ensuring earthly conditions that correspond to God’s will for us and for creation.

   Thus, religions have a positive role to play in providing the ethics, the values, and the orientation for dealing with this crisis of humanity. Our religions traditions can in fact be powerful forces for change. The way in which that will operate in society will change in each context.
   We have every reason to look positively at the contribution religion can make to society. It is generally accepted, as Jacques Racine has admirably pointed out, that religion can help society and the people in society discover meaning in their life together. It can contribute to sustaining in particular those who are marginalized, who suffer setbacks, who are seriously ill or who are in prison. Religion can help us find common ground in living together and in resolving conflicts. Our religious traditions believe it is important to contribute a sense of transcendence, of reconciliation and of solidarity to society. Religions can help orient and sustain the search for peace.
   We owe much to Hans Küng for his effort to articulate a global ethic based on the various world traditions. Such a project requires a realignment of the fundamental relationship between humanity and the planet. (Thomas Berry) Such an ethic needs to move beyond the anthropocentric context of historical ethics to one that is eco-centric. Little of our Christian ethics has prepared us for this.
   Nevertheless, while all religions clearly have something to contribute, no one religious tradition or any one philosophical or political tradition offers a complete answer to the current crisis nor is any one of them in a position to lead humanity along a path out of the crisis, in part because we don’t all agree either on how to understand the problems or how to go about solving them.
   What needs to happen is for all traditions, all peoples of good will, to join their efforts in order to save ourselves from the destruction we are creating.
   Bringing people together from different religious and cultural traditions entails an enormous amount of dialogue.
   And that means that each tradition needs also to examine the way in which it deals with, not only the issues, but with the existing diversity itself.
   There is also diversity within each religious tradition whether Christian, Jewish, Islamic, Buddhist or any other. The Catholic Church embraces a staggering diversity of rites and traditions as well as being present to almost every culture on the planet. If we are closed off to that diversity we will not be prepared to listen carefully to the proposals coming from those diverse sources nor will we be ready to collaborate collectively toward finding a path.
   So it is that the diversity I speak of includes the rull range of diversity across religions and religious traditions in the world today, including, though not exclusively, the major world religions. In the search for a path out of the crisis, every voice counts. That means that every tradition, every culture, every viewpoint, whether major or marginal, has to have its place at the table. Every contribution may contain a crucial piece of the puzzle. I particularly want to underline a growing consensus that the wisdom of indigenous peoples across the world has an invaluable contribution to make in the current context.
   However, diversity cannot be restricted to this level. It must be recognized that there is also a diversity that transcends religion. The planet includes enormous cultural, linguistic, artistic and lifestyle differences. Every country, every society is a rainbow of diversity. We are more and more aware of the importance of these dimensions of diversity in our everyday life. Rather than focus on one aspect of diversity as the critical element, I am trying to open it up as widely as possible.
   Much of the debate in Quebec has centred on the integration of diversity into a “living together” in society. This is a diversity of harmony and respect. While harmony and respect are fundamental, I believe that the situation requires more than that. We are also called to deal with life and death issues like violence, wars, violation of human rights, climate change, the destruction of the environment at every level, the ravages of consumerism fed by a voracious capitalism.
   It should be obvious that we cannot deal with these issues by working only in our own little camps. My own “camp” is that of the Roman Catholics and it is to this camp that I have resolved recently to address myself most especially. It seems obvious to me that Catholics are not in a position to resolve these social problems, nor to even provide a decisive intervention that would tip the scales. We forget sometimes that Catholics are a minority in this country and on the planet. We have to work ecumenically and inter-religiously in the context of a secular society and with people who do not confess any religion.
   In saying this, I do not wish to underestimate a Catholic contribution. I realize that many Catholics have entered the fray and are doing a lot of good work. In the Catholic tradition there is a wealth of possibilities for making a significant contribution to society. For example the little-known social doctrine of the Church can support the dignity of the human person, the responsiblity for participation in society, the search for the common good. It insists on the universal destination of goods, in other words, sharing, solidarity. Finally, the social doctrine of the Church insists on the principle of subsidiarity: that decisions be made at the level of those who are most affected. The Catholic tradition, with its option for the poor, demands that society include those who are marginalized.
   Collaboration in society requires a sharing of deep values. We have a certain tendency, when working on social issues across borders of diversity to hide our religious affiliations. I do not think this is wise. While I agree with the conclusion of the Bouchard-Taylor commission that Quebec needs to continue working toward an open, secular society, I differ from those who suggest that such a society means that religious convictions should not be present in the public sphere. Our religious convictions are the source of our deepest values. We need to be transparent with one another about them when we are engaged in social struggles. When there is good communication, honest dialogue about these values is a real plus. We need to work seriously to share these values if we want to keep our collaboration strong and fruitful.
   My reflections on the Catholic tradition led me to wonder whether we don’t also encounter obstacles that come from our tradition itself and that need to be taken into account in our strategies for bringing about a transformation of our unjust and irresponsible world.
   I found that, in fact, there are important elements in our Catholic tradition of which we need to be very conscious if we don’t want to fall into traps that will undermine effective responses to the current crises. I want to mention three in particular: history, doctrine and truth.
   The first obstacle is our history as a church, beginning with the creation of imperial Christendom after Constantine. This had led to the extremes of inquisition, religious wars and crusades. Nor are these dead issues. In many parts of the world the memory of these events remains fresh in memory. The holocaust that the Jews suffered during the Second World War is the exemplary horror of a Christianity totally out of touch with its origin and spirit. And it was not the first effort of extermination in the world. Far from it. To give only one example, in Latin America the religions that existed before the arrival of Europeans were repressed and even entire peoples were exterminated (up to 70 million). Moreover, there are several examples of major violence in the recent decades that have been related to attitudes rooted in Christian consciousness. The war in Bosnia is an outstanding example. Closer to home, we can point to the cultural genocide practiced against First Nations during the twentieth century.
   We need to examine carefully Catholic attitudes that contributed to these atrocities. More specifically, our naive disregard of this history and its impact on attitudes in other traditions creates a huge obstacle to collaboration. When working together we must always be aware of the presence of these memories in others. We might well say that all that is past history and that we have moved beyond those times. For many the suspicion is very alive that we will reinstate those attitudes if we have a chance.
   Our ignorance also of the history and values of other religious traditions—I think especially of Islam—only exacerbates mutual distrust. I am amazed at times at the ignorance of many with regard to Islam. At times it is really abismal.
   There is also a second set of obstacles consisting in those doctrines that gave rise to a context that created those historical events. Some of our Catholic doctrines tend to cast suspicion on those who are different. An example might be belief in Jesus as unique Son of God and Saviour of all humanity and even of all creation. There is no difficulty with the belief that Jesus is Son of God and Saviour. The problem comes with the word “unique” that tends to exclude the authenticity of other religious traditions. There are also certain doctrines touching on the sacraments that have led to closure to diversity. Probably the most outstanding is the exclusion of women—and more recently of homosexuals—from ordained ministry.
   So it is that I propose we be more fully aware, that we acknowledge the errors of the past (the first obstacle) as we have begun to do, and also that we explicitly renounce the underlying attitudes by making sure that we have fully examined and reviewed all those elements of our doctrinal tradition that pose an obstacle to effective collaboration. Church leaders have a special responsibility in the effort to find theological explanations that will help us to be more open to what others have to contribute.
   And that brings me to the third obstacle to effective collaboration: our notion of truth. Catholics—and I wager many others also—have a serious problem with the concept of truth that we all too often present as static eternal affirmations not susceptible to alteration. We need to recognize that and to begin to put in place another way of situating our beliefs in today’s world. That isn’t easy. However, in our hugely diversified and postmodern world, there is no other option if we don’t want to end up being just another sect. I don’t think there is any place today for “eternal truths.” When I say that I realize that it leaves me wide open to being accused of being relativist, which is probably the most damning accusation that can be leveled against a Catholic thinker today. But I will risk continuing with my conviction and claim that this does not mean I am a relativist. And so I repeat again: there is no place in today’s dialogue across the lines of diversity for introducing “eternal truths.”
   In the context of dialogue and collaboration, truth is the formulation of an underlying insight and as formulation is limited by the cultural framework that language provides. In this respect, all truth is culturally limited. Once we recognize this, dialogue takes on new and fascinating dimensions as we try to understand how others formulate their experience in words. This sheds new light on the strengths and weaknesses of our own formulations and allows us to move forward in understanding. All this does not mean that there is no such thing as truth. There are truths, valid truths. However, their formulation is always a matter of cultural and historic frameworks. This includes the sacred scriptures and also the dogmas defined by Christianity. All of them deserve respect and also review and, at times, revision of their formulation in order to respect new insights and cultural frameworks.
   In the case of the dialogue that is at the heart of my presentation, the search is less for eternal truths than for points of consensus that will allow us to move forward. (It is interesting in this respect, that the Pope set aside time not so long ago for an long meeting with Jürgen Habermas to discuss precisely this issue.)
   For me, a bridge and starting point for dialogue, which is the deep source of collaboration across religious divides, lies in the concept of religious experience. By religious experience I mean that level of consciousness that underpins our beliefs and practices, or in other words that provides their fundamental source. The concept of “religious experience” is better known in Protestant circles than Catholic. It was William James who first really explored this term. (By the way, Charles Taylor has written an excellent commentary on James in this respect.) Catholics tend to refer more to “faith” though Bernard Lonergan has developed an excellent reflection on the structure of consciousness that I lean on heavily here. Faith and religious experience are of course intimately related terms but I feel that “religious experience” is broader, partly because it makes more explicit the dimension of feelings. By “feeling” I do not mean “sentiment” or “emotion” but rather that profound orientation of our human character as conscious and responsible beings. It is what St. Paul referred to when he said that the “Spirit is poured out into our hearts.” (Rom. 5, 5) Unfortunately, we often tend to assimilate “faith” with “beliefs,” that is to say the intellectual formulation of the insights that arise out of the basic experience. While “faith” is ultimately, in biblical terms, relational, that often gets lost in the popular mind. So, I conclude that the term “experience” carries all the elements better, in my view.
   I find that Catholics sometimes have a tendency to be suspicious of their own religious experience and to reject, with a wave of the hand, the experience of others. Asked point blank if they have had an experience of God, many Catholics answer “no.” I find this an indication of an incredible gap in their religious formation. Far too often Catholics prefer to rely on authorities in the hierarchy or on theologians to affirm their beliefs and practices and to leave it to the saints to have religious experiences. Even if I find that collective co-responsibility as church is important in the religious sector and in the formulation of beliefs, we cannot abandon our own contributions, that is to say, what comes from our own experience and our own reflections. Living on “borrowed” experience is both dangerous and ultimately fruitless. We certainly need traditions and doctrines to help us recognize the depths and dimensions of our experience but they are not replacements for the work of facing our own religious experience. Religious experience is a fundamental element of being human; it is the ground, to use Tillich’s phrase, for human yearning and reaching out for “more,” for transcendence, to borrow a term from Karl Rahner and Bernard Lonergan. It is also to religious experience that we return always to find the responses, in terms of meaning, belief, practice, that ground our yearning. Without it we wither and die. It is the fundamental process of becoming human from the time of birth as we encounter the “other,” who is beyond us and without whom we cannot become fully human.
   All of this may seem obvious, and even obvious to many Catholics. However, we live in a context of growing integralism. This is true, along with other traditions, of many branches of Christianity and they are strong in North America. It also touches the Catholic Church very directly. We live under an institutional pressure to adopt integrist (or fundamentalist) attitudes. Catholic institutions are moving more and more toward integrist positions and unfortunaely this is influencing many in the Catholic ranks.I think we need to be clear that integrism is not acceptable, or wise. It is high time we moved beyond those narrow views and those narrow self-protective stances however subtly they insinuate themselves into our consciousness and practices. As a whole, I think we are getting there, certainly more than 100 years ago. Nevertheless all of us need to keep an eye out lest integrist influences limit our ability to face today’s challenges. At this point then, either we move forward together or, quite literally, we all perish !

Señor de la Esperanza

2011-01-07T15:28:00.001-05:00

Renato, un amigo peruano, me hizo conocer este video del grupo Siembra candando una canción comusionado por mi parroquia cuando yo estuve allí en los años 80. Me conmueve encontrarlo en el internet:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JOYO4kj4hW0&feature=related

Allí tambien se encuentre otros videos del mismo grupo, tan conocido desde más de 30 años en el Perú comprometido.