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Statement on the
Formation of Conscience
Participation of Catholics
in political life |
It is advisable to clarify at the outset the terms of this paper. First of all,
reference is made to "promotion of life" which, for a Christian, embraces the
various dimensions of the human person: the intellectual, spiritual, mental,
physical and social dimensions.
The Lord Jesus, who came into the world so that everyone "may have life, and
have it in abundantly"[1] invites us to promote it as a whole and to promote its
components.
Secondly, the present paper addresses action for "developing countries," but it
is principally intended for donor countries so that they may help developing
countries to achieve their own overall progress by receiving the yeast of the
Christian values of justice and love and service.
I would like to begin with a personal testimony. I come from India, an
"emerging" country with a non-Christian majority. Indeed, out of a population of
1.2 billion people, 80% are Hindu, 13% are Muslim and only 2.3% are Christian.
The rest are made up of Buddhists, Jainars, Sikhs, Parsees and Jews. Despite
this fact, Christians are responsible for 20% of all primary education in India,
provide 10% of health care and literacy programs in rural communities, direct
25% of institutions for orphans and widows, and are responsible for 30% of homes
for the mentally and physically handicapped, for lepers and for people living
with AIDS.
Most of those who benefit from these services are not Christians, and this is a
fine example of the role of Christians in a developing country in the promotion
of life. Non-Christians appreciate this genuine witness of Christians, but they
are at times scandalized by the behavior of certain governments, bodies and
people of the Christian faith who at times impose conditions that are in
contrast with Christian values.
For example, there is a famous international bank which grants aid to developing
countries on the condition "sine qua non" that they must adopt birth control
programs based on artificial contraceptive methods.
This is why the father of the Indian nation, Mahatma Gandhi, who admired Jesus
Christ and believed that the Sermon on the Mount was the most beautiful sermon
ever given in the world, said: "I love Christ, but not Christians, because they
do not do what Jesus taught and commanded."
Beginning with such realities, I would like to outline three fundamental
principles -- by way of a orientation -- that should guide the role of
Christians in the promotion of life in developing countries.
The primacy of charity
The Church, which is a subject for the promotion of human life, through her
individual believers and aid bodies, prolongs in history the presence of Christ,
the Good Samaritan.
"As our previous reflections have made clear," writes Benedict XVI in his
encyclical "Deus Caritas est," "the true subject of the various Catholic
organizations that carry out a ministry of charity is the Church herself -- at
all levels, from the parishes, through the particular Churches, to the universal
Church."[2]
A primary task of a Christian involved in overall development is thus the
"witness of charity" and "charity without pretense"[3] which is lived to begin
with within ecclesial communities. In fact, Christ says: "By this all men will
know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another."[4]
This witness of love makes the prophetic mission of the Church credible only if
it is open to the entire world.[5] Indeed, prophecy, as a proposal of values to
be followed and goals to be achieved, is sterile if it is not accompanied by the
witness of concrete facts. This is because "faith without works is dead."[6] In
this way, prophecy makes witness clearer and witness makes prophecy more
credible.
The preaching of the "Gospel of life" becomes persuasive if it is followed by
gestures of welcoming and service. Even though, in fact, responses to
emergencies continue to have value, the complexity of today's problems means
that a broader horizon of action is required. Thus, although it is necessary to
respond to what is urgently needed, it is no less essential to remove the
obstacles that are often its cause, unless we want to run the risk of
institutionalizing situations of acute poverty that wound the dignity of human
life, as though such situations were unavoidable and not, as ...
in fact they are, the outcome of personal and social
responsibilities.
The belief that "politics is an eminent form of charity" maintains all its
importance,[7] but it is necessary to intervene in relation to conditions that
make offenses to life possible. This is a matter of preparing the ground so that
bad fruit is replaced by good fruit.
At times, however, a commitment to dealing with emergencies makes more of an
impact and is more gratifying than humble and laborious action designed to
defeat the culture of death.
The recent encyclical of Benedict XVI[8] throws light on the relationship
between justice and charity, and in particular when this document declares: "The
Church cannot and must not take upon herself the political battle to bring about
the most just society possible. Yet at the same time she cannot and must not
remain on the sidelines in the fight for justice.... A just society must be the
achievement of politics, not the Church. Yet the promotion of justice through
efforts to bring about openness of mind and will to the demands of the common
good is something which concerns the Church deeply."[9]
The Supreme Pontiff thus invites us to make charity the constitutive and
permanent core of the person, even where the conditions to assure justice are
already present.[10] Thus, the commitment to human life in developing countries
is based upon the witness of charity.
The formation of conscience
A second, less-visible path in supporting life requires that efforts be made in
the formation of consciences. Such a task should be seen in relation to the
relational dimension of the person.
Although one cannot deduce a political model of society from the Gospel, it
emerges with clarity, however, that charity should be the engine-principle of
every political institution. Thus, to form consciences means to learn to direct
choices beginning with charity, taking into account the historic concreteness
within which man lives.
In this framework, it necessary to form consciences to that sense of
responsibility that is born from the relationship between the life of the
individual and the life of other people. This is an invitation to exit from
individualism so as to open oneself up to others.
The dominant culture, which is called postmodern, has recently developed a
tendency which absolutizes a partial element such as the market and makes it
become a unifying factor of all the experiences of life. Indeed, globalization
tends to homogenize the lives of people and countries in line with a standard
dictated by economic requirements, and it ends up by reducing local cultures to
a stage part.
Here is the root of responsibility for the unfair structures that are now
working against those very forces that produced them.[11] In this way the lives
of people are subjected to the effects of an injustice that has become
institutionalized. To promote life in this situation means to begin a path of
conversion that contemporaneously brings back man to God and his neighbor.[12]
Globalization itself, with its world network of distribution, could be a new
opportunity to serve the cause of life. In order to promote life in developing
countries, attention must be turned to countries which are already developed,
forming a conscience that goes beyond the immediate interests of a group or a
multinational. This must be done without, however, forgetting about the
formation of conscience to solidarity, in developing countries as well.
To form conscience means to be convinced that as long as in some part of the
world people are dying of hunger, there will be elsewhere those who eat for two,
not because they are hungrier than others, but because they have greater
abundance.
God is the Lord of human life
Lastly, I would like to suggest a renewed commitment to the preaching of the
absolute and universal lordship of God over the world and men as a concrete path
for the promotion of human life.
"God alone is the Lord of life from its beginning until its end: no one can, in
any circumstance, claim for himself the right to destroy directly an innocent
human being." With these words the Instruction "Donum Vitae" sets forth the
central content of God's revelation on the sacredness and inviolability of human
life. God proclaims that he is absolute Lord of the life of man, who is formed
in his image and likeness (cf. Genesis 1:26-28). "Human life is thus given a
sacred and inviolable character, which reflects the inviolability of the Creator
himself."[13]
At least two consequences derive from this statement. The first concerns the
call to man to share in God's lordship over the world and life.14] The second
concerns the responsibility due to such participation.[15] Thus, as lord, man
cannot be subjected to any other man and any other human reality. Because it is
shared in by ...
God, his lordship should be carried out in obedience to
God's will. It follows from this that only obedience to God guarantees human
life against every shameless abuse. No anthropology is secure when God is
removed and replaced with absolute claims of a political or market character.
The lordship of God, in which man participates, is revealed and made present in
the words and work of Jesus, who conceived his mission as obedience to the
Father and as a response to the needs of men, beginning with the poorest and the
last.
Here we are dealing with the law of the grain of wheat: "Truly, truly, I say to
you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone;
but if it dies, it bears much fruit. He who loves his life loses it, and he who
hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life. If any one serves
me, he must follow me; and where I am, there shall my servant be also; if any
one serves me, the Father will honor him."[16]
Human procreation remains impossible outside a context of love. It is not enough
to have procreated life to generate it. It is necessary to love it because only
love gives life. At times exaggerated procreation, sought for at any cost and
with any means, makes people forget that love can "re-generate" people who are
already born, but humiliated in their dignity as children of God.
When the lordship of God over human life is obscured, some people are tempted to
end their own lives and request that euthanasia be made legal.
Others tend to give emotive opinions on the question of the death penalty and
ignore the cruel realities of thousands of children who are brutally killed
every day in their mothers' wombs, a crime often camouflaged by so-called civil
laws which are in reality totally "uncivil" because they condemn innocent and
defenseless children to death.
Conclusion: the Gospel of hope
More than a real conclusion, I have taken the liberty of offering two approaches
for a rereading of the subject that has been examined.
The first is that the promotion of human life in developing countries goes
beyond the questions and issues of genetics and forms of reproduction. The
ethical question calls into the debate the political and economic structures of
the world that produce conditions that are adverse to the development of the
life of man.
One could venture the conclusion that what injures the dignity of life is not so
much a couple that wants a child through artificial procreation at any cost, but
cultures and markets that are obsessed with finding responses to desire and at
times to the whims of individuals or nations and forget about the real needs of
the majority of mankind.
A second approach is that the Gospel of charity and life invites everyone to
live a vigilant waiting for the return of the Lord. One cannot crush hope of a
better future on our experience of life today.
However, many efforts we may make, we will never be able to respond in an
exhaustive fashion to the request for fullness of life. This is because only
Christ is the answer.
"The expectation of a new earth must not weaken but rather stimulate our concern
for cultivating this one. For here grows the body of a new human family, a body
which even now is able to give some kind of foreshadowing of the new age.... For
after we have obeyed the Lord, and in his Spirit nurtured on earth the values of
human dignity, brotherhood and freedom, and indeed all the good fruits of our
nature and enterprise, we will find them again, but freed of stain, burnished
and transfigured."[17]
The Gospel of life, in fact, is entirely bound up in its preaching with the
Gospel of charity and hope.
Notes
[1] John 10:10
[2] Benedict XVI, "Deus Caritas Est," Dec. 25, 2005, No. 32.
[3] Romans 12:9.
[4] John 13:35.
[5] "Today as in the past, the Church as God"s family must be a place where help
is given and received, and at the same time, a place where people are also
prepared to serve those outside her confines who are in need of help." (Benedict
XVI, "Deus Caritas Est," No. 32).
[6] James 2:26.
[7] "Here politics and faith touch meet" ("Deus Caritas Est," No. 28).
[8] Cf. ibid., Nos. 26-29.
[9] Ibid., No. 28.
[10] "Love -- caritas -- will always prove necessary, even in the most just
society. There is no ordering of the state so just that it can eliminate the
need for a service of love. Whoever wants to eliminate love is preparing to
eliminate man as such" (ibid., No. 28).
[11] "It is important to note therefore that a world which is divided into
blocs, sustained by rigid ideologies, and in which instead of interdependence
and solidarity different forms of imperialism hold sway, can only be a world
subject to structures of sin.
"The sum total of the negative factors working against a true awareness of the
universal common good, and the need to further it, gives the impression of
creating, in persons and institutions, an obstacle which is difficult to
overcome.
"If the present situation can be attributed to difficulties of various kinds, it
is not out of place to speak of 'structures of sin,' which, as I stated in my
apostolic exhortation 'Reconciliatio et Paenitentia,' are rooted in personal
sin, and thus always linked to the concrete acts of individuals who introduce
these structures, consolidate them and make them difficult to remove. And thus
they grow stronger, spread, and become the source of other sins, and so
influence people's behavior" (Pope John Paul II, "Sollecitudo Rei Socialis,"
36).
[12] "The exercise of solidarity within each society is valid when its members
recognize one another as persons. Those who are more influential, because they
have a greater share of goods and common services, should feel responsible for
the weaker and be ready to share with them all they possess. Those who are
weaker, for their part, in the same spirit of solidarity, should not adopt a
purely passive attitude or one that is destructive of the social fabric, but,
while claiming their legitimate rights, should do what they can for the good of
all. The intermediate groups, in their turn, should not selfishly insist on
their particular interests, but respect the interests of others (ibid., No. 39;
see also Nos. 38, 40).
[13] John Paul II, "Evangelium Vitae," No. 53.
[14] "To defend and promote life, to show reverence and love for it, is a task
which God entrusts to every man, calling him as his living image to share in his
own lordship over the world" (ibid., No. 42).
[15] "A certain sharing by man in God's lordship is also evident in the specific
responsibility which he is given for human life as such.... But over ad above
the specific mission of parents, the task of accepting and serving life involves
everyone; and this task must be fulfilled above all towards life when it is at
its weakest" (ibid., No. 43).
[16] John 12:24-26
[17] Second Vatican Council, "Gaudium et Spes," No. 39.
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