RADAR

The Greenest Parish in The World

Pope Francis’ special Laudato Sì (LS) year is being marked across the world. A parish in Malaysia’s Penang State has pledged to become the ‘greenest’ in the whole of the Malaysia and beyond

The Church of the Divine Mercy parish celebrates the fifth anniversary of Pope Francis’ encyclical LS with special pride. Even two years prior to its publication, the parishioners had already begun to show their love for the Lord through all His creatures, starting with the world of plants. Although not a Franciscan, the parish’s priest, Fr Martin interprets the spirit of St Francis in a predominantly Muslim country, transforming his church into a ‘green nativity scene’. “I only wish we had more land”, he says.

He became the first parish priest of the Divine Mercy church seven years ago, when it separated from the Cathedral of the Holy Spirit. Helping and supporting him is Magdalene, head of the ministry of Friends of Creation. She is full of ideas for the parish’s green future. The group working with Fr Martin and Magdalene are not only young people, as is often the case, but a mixture of women and men of all ages.

BEYOND A TROPICAL PARADISE

Pope Francis’ LS goes well beyond making one’s home a tropical paradise. It is an aspect of the Church’s social doctrine; of justice, development, peace and of human rights. Formation is one of the core necessities of Magdalene’s work: how to apply the concept of sustainability, the use of resources, rejecting waste and showing respect for the natural world.

Their work, they emphasise, is not a reflection of the aristocratic British ‘green thumb’, but a reflection of God’s love, the Church’s social tradition and the idea of bettering a poor world.

Fr Martin and Magdalene want to make the Church of the Divine Mercy a visible beacon of hope for those who live in the surroundings, a humble, housing area. If it is aesthetically pleasing, it becomes a welcoming meeting point for everyone. Thus, in just seven years, a building that was all bricks and concrete has been completely transformed.

Magdalene says that it is difficult for their parishioners, the majority of whom live in neighbouring apartment blocks, to dedicate their time to gardening. She encourages them to use their food waste to make compost, and to either take it to the parish’s grotto, or to use it to fertilise their very own saplings, given to them by the parish.

USING WHAT THEY HAVE

There is little land; both Magdalene and Fr Martin feel the need for more space. Thanks to the enthusiasm and the work of the parishioners, they have managed to apply scientific methods of irrigation, exploiting the large amounts of rain, normally considered a scourge in Southeast Asia.

As an engineer, Fr Martin knows how to set up irrigation systems that channel water through a series of miniature water stations. Each cultivation requires either more or less water, dosed by parishioners every morning according to the season and according to the type of cultivation. The water also ends up in the kitchen, where the scraps of the lovingly grown vegetables ultimately end up in the compost… becoming in their turn, food for future plants.

WASTE EQUALS RESOURCE

Fr Martin and Magdalene work to improve the lives of those who are not aware of the fact that when they throw away their rubbish, they are eliminating so many riches that can be used to better one’s life.

As in a small utopian society, they have managed to achieve a circular economy, transforming their waste into energy as well as into small material goods such as toys and t-shirts made by the neighbourhood children.

As long as people produce waste there will be the problem of how to eliminate it. In the small Church of the Divine Mercy waste has become a resource.

RELIGIOUS WORK

The parish is not only a laboratory for research, it’s also a Christian community in a land where Christianity is a minority. This implies many things: Mass, prayer, being together.

The project, therefore, is not merely philanthropic or to provide social assistance. It is a religious act, a spiritual gesture, where even a grain of rice, more common than bread in Malaysia, is a divine sign. According to an oriental proverb, “in a grain of rice there is the weight of the universe”. Everything is respected, even a single lettuce leaf.

LEARNING WITH CHILDREN

Another focus of the parish is making children aware of the importance of caring for our common home, teaching them how to do so, finding solutions and solving problems. Teaching the children teaches us so much, says Fr Martin. Communal life is based on play and teaching. For example, the children re-enact animals: we have the lion, the rooster, just like in Old McDonald’s farm… but with a fundamental difference: that they all have to defend themselves from humans, who have already changed, destroyed and distorted the nature that surrounds them.

Children are rewarded for BYO (Bring Your Own), and for each cup of chocolate milk poured into a cup brought from home they get a sticker. Their plates, also brought from home, must all be left empty at the end of each meal and a photo is taken of the empty rubbish bin, to remind each parishioner of how it should always look.

LAUDATO Sì WEEK

Fr Martin was unable to reach out to his parishioners physically during Laudato Sì week. So, they decided to celebrate a Laudato Sì month, with live-streamed daily Masses and by sharing different videos about climate change and the preservation of nature. Since “so many miss the parish’s grotto”, as a finale, Fr Martin celebrated Mass there, from their little garden, immersed in nature. “ But maybe, we celebrate LS every morning, every day, all year round and maybe, we had already been doing so for two years before the encyclical was published,” said Fr Martin.

(www.vaticannews.va)

EDITORIAL

An Economic Model for Integral Development

BY FR RAFAEL ARMADA | EDITOR

JESUS TELLS us that He has come so that “we may have life and have it in abundance“ (Jn 10: 10), but we can ask ourselves what this fullness of life means for humanity today. In the past, many people may have associated it to unlimited economic growth. However, unequal economic prosperity, and lacking integral human development for all, has not produced a better world. In his latest encyclical, Fratelli Tutti (FT), Pope Francis stresses it: “Obsession with a consumerist lifestyle, above all when few people are capable of maintaining it, can only lead to violence and mutual destruction (FT 36).

We have created an economy that kills, discards people and depletes our natural resources. The capitalistic mentality of the free market, with a nearly exclusive concern for obtaining a maximum profit, has failed us and provoked havoc in swaths of people. It has pushed them to the ditches of society and brought along a vertiginous deterioration of the planet, this manifested both in acute climate change and a rapid loss of biodiversity.

The cry of the earth and the poor are one; and both are crying under the current dominant economic paradigm. We find ourselves immersed in a world full of conflicts, the threat of climate change, with its devastating effects, especially for the poorer countries, and paralysed societies due to COVID. Often, the dignity of every human being, sacred and inviolable as it is, and gra- tuitously given to all by God, is not respected.

Therefore, we need an alternative economic model that puts the human person at its centre and searches for the common good; a paradigm that allows all people to satisfy their basic needs and to have a dignified life. “The decision to include or exclude those lying wounded along the roadside can serve as a criterion for judging every economic, political, social and religious project“ (FT 69).

We cannot think anymore as isolated nations; we need instead a global order that sees the interest of all. We have realized that human beings and the planet share a common destiny; we are inextricably interwoven. The earth has the capacity to maintain us all, but not if greed and selfishness become unbridled. In fact, some studies show that ‘more is not always better’. Societies that have reached a moderate income of $12 000 per capita a year, can experience good levels of happiness. A country such as Costa Rica, with that approximate income, occupies the 58th position in the world ranking of wealthiest nations, according to the International Monetary Fund (IMF), but scores the 15th place in the list of most happy societies. On the contrary, not always the richest societies are happier. For instance, the USA, the 5th richest country in the world as per capita income, according to IMF, goes down to 18th place in the world ranking of happiness.

We cannot think of a decent life for humanity without considering sustainability, respect for ecosystems and protection of their biodiversity. Climate change threatens the lives of the poor and of the planet; we need to act urgently. The wealthiest groups will have to decrease their economic growth if we want a sustainable world. It is morally unacceptable to demand the poorer societies to decelerate economically, when many of the basic needs of their populations are not yet catered for. Nevertheless, they should avoid the path of mistakes and havoc done to the environment by the developed countries.

When you read this magazine — if our Post Office does not delay even more — we will probably be close to celebrating the Pascal Triduum or immersed already in the Pascal season. It is a time of joy, as the Risen Lord invites us to fraternity and to dream together for a better world and sends us as His collaborators to build it up.
As Fr Giraud, SJ states: “Christianfaith nourishes a ‘hope against hope’. Today I perceive the fragility of creation much more strongly, as well as the fact that creation has been placed in our hands and that we have the responsibility as its caretakers.” A Blessed Easter to all!

RADAR

The South African Catholic Church Against Human Trafficking

BY WORLDWIDE | STAFF WRITER

The feast of St Bakhita was celebrated at St Sophia chapel, Khanya House, seat of the South African Catholic Bishop Conference (SACBC), Pretoria, on 8 February 2021. Josephine Margaret Bakhita (born in 1869, in Darfur and died in 1947, in Schio, Italy) was a Sudanese who, as a girl, suffered the scourge of the human slave trade. Afterwards, she became a religious in the congregation of the Canossian Sisters, dedicating her life to prayer and forgiveness towards her perpetrators. She was canonized by Pope St John Paul II on 1 October 2000 and proclaimed patron saint of Sudan and of the victims of human trafficking.

The celebration of the Mass in memory of St Bakhita and the victims of human trafficking, physically attended mainly by the staff of Khanya House and broadcasted online, was presided by his Grace Archbishop of Johannesburg, Buti Tlhagale. In his homily, he addressed the congregants — confronting the culture of patriarchy and silence as one of the main root causes of abuse and violence against women and children in society. After the homily, a moment of prayer with candlelight followed, in memory of the victims of human trafficking.

Human trafficking is one of the most lucrative illicit business in the world, after the arms and drug trade, affecting more that 40 million people last year. This shameful scandal against human dignity, modern day slavery includes criminal actions of the buying and selling of people for the purpose of the sex trade, prostitution, organ trafficking, and child labour exploitation, among others. Youth and children, particularly women and girls, are the most vulnerable groups in human trafficking. In South Africa, in recent years, it has annually affected more than 248 000 people who lived in conditions of modern slavery, according to the Global Slavery Index. https://nationalfreedomnetwork.co.za/2018 /04/11/the-epidemic-human-trafficking/

The SACBC established a department, the Counter Trafficking in Persons Office, led by Sr Melanie O’Connor, against human trafficking. It dedicates its efforts to protection against human trafficking by creating awareness of this reality through workshops, talks, demonstrations, and building the capacity of concerned people to fight this terrible evil. There is also a toll-free phone number (0800 222 777) where anonymous calls can be made to alert possible cases of human trafficking.

RADAR

The Global Insecurity of Climate Change

On the 23 February, the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) organised a debate on international peace and security and climate change, chaired by Boris Johnson, United Kingdom Prime Minister. This country, currently holder of the Security Council (SC) presidency, will also host the 26th UN Climate Change Conference of the Parties (COP26), in November, in Glasgow, Scotland.

Among the participants, David Attenborough, British natural historian and popular wildlife broadcaster, affirmed that “the rising global temperatures, the despoiling of the ocean — that vast universal larder which people everywhere depend for their food — the change in the pattern of weather worldwide can turn forests into deserts, drown great cities and lead to the extermination of huge numbers of the other creatures with which we share this planet”, unless we react soon. “If we continue on our current path, we will face the collapse of everything that gives us our security: food production, access to fresh water, habit- able ambient temperature and ocean food chains,” he added.

UN Secretary-General António Guterres singled out the last decade as the hottest in human history when wildfires, cyclones and floods were the new norm which affected political, economic and social stability. “Climate disruption is a crisis amplifier and multiplier, dries up rivers, reduces harvests, destroys critical infrastructure, displaces communities and it exacerbates the risks of instability and conflict.” He referred to a study of the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute that affirmed that 8 of the 10 countries hosting the largest multilateral peace operations in 2018 were in areas highly exposed to climate change. Guterres sees 2021 as a critical year, not only for curbing the rapidly spreading COVID-19 pandemic, but also for meeting the climate challenge targets. “UN will focus this year on building a global coalition for carbon neutrality by 2050”, he said.

Alongside the SC debate, the 5th session of the UN Environment Assembly, attended by government leaders, businesses, civil society and environmental activists, took place on the theme “Strengthening actions for Nature to achieve the sustainable development goals”. Joyce Msuya, Deputy Executive Director for the UN Environment Programme (UNEP), commented that the health of Nature and humanity were inextricably linked and the crisis in Nature was linked with the climate and pollution crisis.

“For our own wellbeing we must make peace with Nature in a way that demonstrates solidarity,” she said referring to a UNEP report that tackles the triple emergencies of climate, biodiversity loss and pollution and provides detailed solutions by drawing on global assessments. Msuya added that the world now had the chance to put in place a green recovery “that will heal our planet”, on a path to a low-carbon, resilient, post-pandemic world.

CLIMATE CHANGE AND INSECURITY IN SUDAN

“We are living in a continuous insecurity due to many factors that puts Sudan on top of the list when it comes to climate vulnerability. This vulnerability is also directly linked to insecurity within the country,” said Nisreen Elsaim, Sudanese climate activist and chair of United Nations (UN) Secretary General’s Youth Advisory Group on Climate Change, a participant in the Security Council (SC) debate.

Already in 2018, the SC stated in a resolution, that “the adverse effects of climate change, ecological changes and natural disasters, among other factors, including droughts, desertification, land degradation and food insecurity” influenced the situation of conflict in Darfur, Sudan”, added Elsaim.

The United States Agency for International Development ranks Sudan as one of the world’s most vulnerable countries when it comes to climate change. Increased frequency of droughts and high rainfall variability over decades has stressed Sudan’s rainfed agriculture and pastoralist livelihoods, which are the dominant means of living in rural areas such as north Darfur.

“In a situation of resources degradation, hunger, poverty and uncontrolled climate migration, conflict is an inevitable result,” said Elsaim. “Climate-related emergencies result in major disruptions to healthcare, livelihoods and migration, increasing also the risk of gender-based violence. Women, youth and children are the groups most adversely affected by climate insecurity.”

In January, inter-communal violence in Darfur displaced over 180 000 people, 60% under the age of 18. “Displacement has declined in recent years in Sudan, but many of its triggers remain unaddressed. Ethnic disputes between herders and farmers over scarce resources overlap with disasters such as flooding and political instability,” according to the Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre. There are currently 2.1 million internally displaced persons in Sudan.

“Land and resources in Africa, and in many parts of the world, can no longer maintain young people, because of climate change,” said Elsaim. “In the youth’s search for decent lives, jobs and proper access to services, within the new challenge of COVID-19, the only solution for many is cross-border or international migration. The issue is a global one. World leaders need to engage with the youth and listen to them. Stop conflict by stopping climate change. Give us security and secure our future,” Elsaim said.

(Nalisha Adams, www.ipsnews.net)

RADAR

Global Warming Can Be Stopped

Fr Shay Cullen, from Preda Foundation, affirms in his article, Global warming can be stopped that we have to take serious action now to stop climate change. “The deadline is a tipping point of global temperature that when reached could make the warming irreversible”, he says. If we continue destroying forests, burning fossil fuels in coal plants to make electricity and populating the world with billions of cattle that release methane — a dangerous greenhouse gas to the planet — we are making big trouble for humankind. The forests are threatened not only by greedy humans in Hungary, the Amazon and South East Asia, by logging and growing soya and raising cattle for beef, but by disease due to the warmer temperature where tree-destroying diseases and insects thrive. We too can change our community to be more climate friendly by protecting our local environment, speaking out against logging, planting trees, recycling, and establishing organic food gardens to feed ourselves and eat less meat. This is the challenge for our future and the future of our families and the next generation. Each of us can find a way to be involved in saving the environment in our community.”

(www.preda.org )

RADAR

COVID-19 Holds Lessons for The Future of Social Protection

A THIRD of South Africa’s 20 million children were living in households below the food poverty line before the pandemic. The lockdown pushed many more into food insecurity and hunger. COVID-19 crisis did not cause a national food shortage or a distribution failure, but poverty, exacerbated by loss of employment income.

The national income dynamics survey revealed massive job losses: approximately three million fewer people were employed in April than in February 2020, of them two million were women. Half of the survey respondents said that they ran out of money to buy food in April, and 15% of those who lived with children reported child hunger. This was the case even if most of these households received at least one Child Support Grant (CSG).

The food security of over nine million children was further undermined when schools closed and school feeding programmes stopped operating, straining more the resources of caregivers who needed to replace the lost meals. In a pernicious twist, food prices rose substantially too.

Inadequacy of the social protection programme

South Africa’s extensive social grants programme transfers close to 18 million grants to low income and vulnerable people each month. The CSG targets vulnerable households, including 80% of individuals in the informal sector. It is the most pro-poor of all the grants and has the broadest reach, as it is paid to over seven million caregivers to support nearly 13 million c hildren. However, the CSG — R440 per month in 2020 — has not been enough to provide for a child’s nutritional needs in a situation of shock, like COVID-19, which amplified the existing inequalities and vulnerabilities and drew attention to gaping holes in the safety net.

Some temporary relief came with the disaster relief package, namely, a R300 top-up to the CSG and R250 top-ups to the other existing grants. It also included a new R500 caregiver monthly allowance and a R350 COVID-19 social relief of distress grant, this for working-age unemployed adults not receiving any other grant. They were scheduled to last until October 2020, and a further extension of the Covid 19 grant was announced by the president in February this year.

However, the grant top-ups were not extended after October, neither was the caregiver allowance. Caregivers, mostly women, who received the CSG for their children, were excluded from applying for the social relief of distress grant for themselves. The same rule doesn’t apply to elderly caregivers, nearly a million pensioners, who receive the older persons grant and also the CSG. The system recognises that the elderly caregiver and the child both need income support — they cannot be expected to share a single grant, but this is not applicable in the case of unemployed caregivers.

Women were also over-represented among those who lost jobs or were furloughed in 2020 during Covid 19, but under-represented in the support mechanisms put in place for employees who lost work, since they were less likely employed in the formal sector than men.

Child hunger and malnutrition

UN human rights bodies have advised that families with children should be prioritised in relief programmes. Poor child nutrition has devastating effects, stunting their growth and hollowing out their life chances.

A quarter of children under five years are too short for their age due to chronic under-nutrition. This number has not shifted substantially in the last two decades. Despite its wide reach, the meagre CSG has not been able to reduce the persistently high stunting rates.

The national income dynamics survey tracked measures of adult and child hunger over 2020. The pattern is clear: there was a dramatic rise in hunger in the early months of lockdown, which was reduced to some extent by July and August. After cessation of the top-ups and caregiver grants, these improvements were reversed. Child hunger increased despite more relaxed lockdown regulations and some improvement in the employment figures.

NECESSARY MEASURES

From a piecemeal, temporary and insufficient disaster relief grant, it is time to progress to an adequate social protection for all. There are three recommendations that flow from this:

• The government must invest in increasing the amount of the CSG.
• The COVID-19 social relief of distress grant must be changed into a permanent income support grant for adults.
• The income support grant must be made available to unemployed caregivers, including those who receive the CSG.

From a child health and development perspective, an increase in the value of the CSG is key, at least to a level beyond
the food poverty line. This needs to be complemented by programmes to support the nutrition and mental health of pregnant women. Tackling the persistent burden of malnutrition is an urgent imperative. It will be costly in the short term, but failure to do so will be too costly for children, their families and for the country in the long term. (Katharine Hall, The Conversation Africa, at https://allafrica.com/)

INSIGHTS • SOLIDARITY

COVID-19: An Invitation To Solidarity

BY MIKE POTHIER | PROGRAMME MANAGER, SACBC PARLIAMENTARY LIAISON OFFICE

A LOT has been written about how COVID-19 has exposed the inequalities in our society, both here in South Africa and around the world. In many ways, it has also extended the gap between rich and poor. People in low-income or casual employment, for example, were more likely to have lost their jobs, and of course, less likely to have had savings or reserves to tide them over until the re-opening of the economy.

Poorer people often live in crowded accommodation — in Cape Town there was a report of 47 people sharing a single house in Mitchell’s Plain — and have to travel by taxi; they don’t have the luxury of private medical care when they fall ill; and due to a lifetime of sub-optimal nutrition they have high rates of some of the co-morbidities that can make COVID quickly fatal, such as diabetes, high blood-pressure, and obesity.

Studies in the USA have shown that African-Americans were disproportionately affected, and in the United Kingdom working-class, inner city communities suffered more than their middle-class, suburban counterparts.

None of this is surprising and the causal factors, some of which I’ve mentioned, are pretty clear. However, it is interesting to look at how our country responded to the socio-economic effects of COVID, firstly, in the steps taken by the government and, secondly, in the more organic responses of ‘ordinary’ people.

The government quickly announced that it would provide a ‘special relief of distress’ grant of R350 per month, aimed at people who had no income and who were not already receiving one of the other social grants. Government also instituted the ‘temporary employer/employee relief scheme’ (TERS), operated by the Unemployment Insurance Fund. This scheme provided funds to help employers to pay the wages of employees who had to be sent home as a result of workplace closures.

These were both very worthwhile interventions, despite the fact that they ran into problems when it came to implementation (once again, our plans are good, but our capacity to bring them to reality is lacking.) However, they were always going to be short-term steps. Before COVID hit us, the economy was already in the doldrums, and the government was having to bor- row more and more each year to meet its budget. All the extra cost of grants has just added to the amount of debt we are racking up as a country. the simple fact is that, when a disaster like COVID hits, the state cannot manage the response on its own.

This is where we ordinary people come in. Perhaps one day someone will write a thesis on how churches, community organisations, clubs and societies of all kinds, and thousands of individuals, spontaneously took up the challenge of looking after their neighbours in need. This was a textbook expression of the value of solidarity, which Pope Francis spoke about in his recent encyclical, Fratelli Tutti (FT):

“Solidarity finds concrete expression in service, which can take a variety of forms in an effort to care for others. And service in great part means ‘caring for vulnerability, for the vulnerable members of our families, our society, our people’” (FT 115).

I’m sure we can all think of examples of the ‘solidarity of service’ over the last year. One interesting development was the emergence of Community Action Networks, which paired wealthier residential areas with poorer ones, and in which assistance measures were jointly decided upon; these were a step beyond simply the rich giving to the poor. There were also numerous efforts within low-income communities; people who were not going to work, for example, spent time organising feeding schemes for children or helping to run neighbourhood kitchens. Restaurants and hotels, without customers due to the lockdown, started cooking for people in need in their areas.

These initiatives were undertaken without waiting for government to give the go-ahead or for million-rand corporate sponsorships. COVID showed us what people can achieve when their sense of solidarity is awakened.
The challenge now is to take it to the next level. If we say that COVID has exposed the inequalities in our world then surely we must ask how, after COVID, we can avoid slipping back into a meek acceptance of such inequalities. Because, as Pope Francis tells us,

“Solidarity means much more than engaging in sporadic acts of generosity. It means thinking and acting in terms of community. It also means combatting the structural causes of poverty, inequality, the lack of work, land and housing, the denial of social and labour rights. It means confronting the destructive effects of the empire of money… Solidarity, understood in its most profound meaning, is a way of making history, and this is what popular movements are doing” (FT 116).

Can we use the COVID disaster to do more than engage in spontaneous generosity, vital as that is? Can we use it also to look at the structures, the vested interests, the greed and the corruption that keep so many people in poverty and which will render them once again vulnerable when the next pandemic comes along?

WORLD REPORT • PARTICIPATION AND COMMUNION

The Kind of Fruit That Endures (Jn 15:16)

BY ARCHBISHOP THOMAS MENAMPARAMPIL SDB
ARCHBISHOP EMERITUS OF GUWAHATI | INDIA

STRANGE TO say, tragedies reveal certain truths in the most convincing manner, which in normal times we tend to ignore. Cruel as Covid-19 and crime are, they also expose some vulnerable dimensions of the human situation and certain humiliating dimensions of human nature. Nevertheless, the consolation is that it is the same human nature that searches for remedies.

There are blessings in store after every tragedy. Persisting war and violence reveal the monsters lurking in the collective unconscious of societies, but peace initiatives and risk-taking for the common good highlight the stock of goodness hidden in human hearts. While acquisitions gained by violence and unfairness remain fragile, the fruit of collaboration and fairness ‘endures’ (Jn 15: 16); for they are built on the undeniable truth of human interdependence and shared destiny. We are the beneficiaries when we are fully awakened to our sense of togetherness and “common horizons to unite us — Fratelli Tutti (FT 26)”.

People in solitary confinement discover how strongly social we humans are by our very nature. In isolation, we long for company, communication, sharing, joy and laughter. We want to belong. We are relationship-starved. The present tragedy is that an economy-driven society is placing itself in this sort of self-chosen solitary confinement. A ‘go-getter’ wants only to win. A recent survey showed that fame and achievement have become the most coveted values for people; ‘community feeling’ the eleventh, and benevolence the twelfth. Loneliness, once an affliction of the old, today is the proud possession of every self-isolating individual, says George Monbiot in his Out of the wreckage. This is the age of atomisation. The role models before our youth are money-makers, self-starters, cut-throat competitors who ultimately end up as winners, but loners, and leave everyone else behind as ‘losers’.

Some go further: they describe the losers as idlers, deviant characters, even morally unsound. For them, the ‘market’ norms have become infallible. What the business barons want, the market wants. Mass producers are to be respected because they are wealth creators. Everyone else is an obstacle, a mere parasite. Once this theory becomes dominant, the party in power may change, but the policies remain much the same. The consequence is that people do not belong together any more. There is no inner cohesion, no common bonds, no saving norms. No wonder that the social capital (relationship norms, social values, trust, bonds) on which healthy societies were founded is withering away. Consequences are terrible: increasing violence, crime, adolescent suicide, homicide, drug use, incarceration, decaying neighbourhoods, declining academic performance, out-of-wedlock births, family breakdown. Sociologists, economists, policy makers, and educators are at a loss as how to rebuild the fading social capital and rescue democratic traditions.

Strengthen local collaboration

Meantime, people are longing to belong to a loving and caring community. That is why perceptive people suggest the rebuilding of local communities where social values are generated and nurtured. This is within the reach of everyone. Local communities that promote a participatory culture make the biggest contribution towards rebuilding social capital. Such communities, as they emerge successfully in local participative ventures, gain confidence. They see only opportunities before them, not obstacles; while atomised individuals with partisan prejudices see enemies and problems everywhere. Participation opens doors to other people, people of other cultures. They trust people, they co-operate. They organize community conversations, sharing local problems and launching programmes to address them. Paul Mason’s Post Capitalism speaks about local communities and their participatory culture as the builders of the future. Even a small group of strongly united people can influence an entire population.

Even a small group of strongly united people
can influence an entire population.

Local communities can put their talents and financial resources together. Their co-operatives may share tools and equipment and mending facilities. They may set up libraries, reading rooms, and discussion halls. They may go ahead setting up shops, business ventures, offering services to the sick and children, assisting in cases of debt and neighbourhood illiteracy. They may proceed further with start-ups, micro-funding, and crowd-sourcing. Cohesive communities like theirs will prevent the domination of the few. They are the guardians of social capital in their own area of influence. The state itself and the international order will have to count on such local bodies. George Lakey in his Viking economy speaks of co-operatives in Sweden, Denmark, and Norway, based on cultural traditions, which resisted the authoritarian trends in Europe in the 1920s and 1930s. Wherever there is co-operation, social values have remained strong. Today there is a desire that the spirit of sharing be strengthened, that the intellectual property rights appropriated by big corporations be controlled, that digital giants be regulated. Creating ‘new commons’ can be another helpful initiative, like regulating the internet and collaborating in outer space.

Strengthen civil society, respect accepted norms

Robert Putnam believes that the government and social institutions are influenced by citizen engagement in the public square. That is why the capacity of groups to exert a healthy influence ought to be strengthened. Countries like the former Soviet Union lacked an enlightened civil society. Today even in free countries, social values and concern for each other are on the decline. Such values need to consciously and methodically be re-cultivated. Catholic Social Teaching has always held that the social nature of the human being is not fulfilled by the government alone, and that the family, and other economic, social, political, cultural associations have a complementary role to play in ensuring the common good. Today’s economists do not even accept the phrase ‘common good.’ They describe it as “positive externalities”, which, of course, they admit, is the fruit of social values: social capital. Social capital can be saved only if people actively participate in voluntary associations, working according to their internal norms and discipline.

Some of these norms may be culturally inherited, traditional, but others are contextually formulated and cultivated. Norms gradually become ‘institutionalized’ when they are diligently fostered so that they become ingrained. For example, Francis Fukuyama refers to professional education that insists on certain “professional standards” for engineers, doctors, lawyers, accountants, architects that prescribe certain dignity and decorum. Catholic tradition has always insisted on providing educative and formative assistance to children, adolescents and newly married couples. It is all the more urgent in places where family values have weakened. Fukuyama admits that parental care is more important than the curriculum and per capita spending. Unfortunately, religious education and ethical training have floundered of late. What is promoted today is self-interest. No wonder that families and communities break down! However, psychological assistance from counselling centres and spiritual help from retreat centres can help.

Creating a sense of belonging and participation
contributes, as also utilization of diverse skills
in appropriate “disciplines and traditions”.

If there is determination, all kinds of associations, groups, and clubs can help. Every type of non-governmental organization can strengthen social capital. The more intense the association, the greater the development. All organizations need to be revitalized: sports clubs, professional associations, church groups, boy scouts, and the Red Cross. What is important is that they create lives that are meaningful, self-actualizing, and enjoyable. Co-operatives with equal voice and standing given to members help to create social capital best, not those with impersonal bureaucracies like the staff of multinational corporations. Attention is to be given to cultural diversity in pluralistic societies. Creating a sense of belonging and participation contributes, as also utilization of diverse skills in appropriate “disciplines and traditions”.

The economy of communion

In this context, it is interesting to study the concept of the Economy of Communion that Chiara Lubich, the reputed foundress of the Focolare Movement, had developed. She was specially inspired by these words of the Acts of the Apostles about the primitive Christian community: “No one among them was in need” (Acts 4: 34). Where there is a sense of co-belonging like in tribal societies, no one is helpless. The primary message of Chiara to her collaborators always was, “Be a family”. She strongly believed that Christianity itself was a Social Message. Christ is an example of social relationships. Where there is imbalance, she feels, there will be resentment, hostility, revenge. So, terrorist violence needs to be understood in context. Fundamentalism arises among the discontented and amidst unfairness.

Chiara understands that the dialogue of life consists in working together with all for common welfare. What she encouraged was not a politics of selective exclusion, but of fraternity. It is in that context that the Economy of Communion takes meaning. How do we tap the economic energies hidden in talented people on the one hand, and at the same time be fair to all? What she suggests is the “communion of goods”. The earnings of the Company (Communion) are brought together and the profits divided: one portion goes to the Company to ensure its continuity and development; another portion goes to the members of the Communion without distinction of roles or status. The third portion is to be given out in charity. Idealistic as it sounds, many Companies of Communion have come up in different parts of the world, taking inspiration from Chiara. She believed that theory must descend to practice. The Gospel must be taken to concrete human situations.

Sure enough, the Economy of Communion respects efficiency that wins respect everywhere in the world of economy, but it combines with fairness, solidarity and recognition of human dignity. Further, there is indeed something like the Economy of Gift, which believes in sharing with the needy. Such concepts are nothing new in Catholic tradition. In the eighteenth century Giusseppe Toniolo had placed the common good at the centre of the economy, which meant giving importance to solidarity, gratuitousness, and reciprocity. St Francis of Assisi taught that it is in giving that we receive. . . Solidarity produces fruit that endures.

Let us dream together, produce fruit that endures

Pope Francis laments in Fratelli Tutti that ‘solidarity’ has become a dirty word today. The true meaning of this sacred word has to be recovered. Apart from all that we have described above, it means struggling against the “structural causes of poverty, inequality, the lack of work, land and housing, the denial of social and labour rights”. In fact, it really seeks to take on the empire of money (FT 116). The Pope confirms what we said above about ‘communities of solidarity’ at the local level, and “popular economy” and “community of production”. Participation of many individuals and groups can strengthen such endeavours to make an impact at the national and international levels. It will mean “involving millions of actions, great and small, creatively intertwined like words in a poem”. Such ‘social poets’, the Pope says, develop policies “with” the poor, so that their liberation is complete (FT 169).

The economy of Communion respects efficiency
that wins respect everywhere in the world of economy,
but it combines with fairness, solidarity
and recognition of human dignity

We know, all such challenging things are not easily accomplished. “We need a community that supports and helps us, in which we can help one another to keep looking ahead…How important it is to dream together…Let us dream, then, as a single human family” (FT 8), working for ‘fruit that endures’ (Jn 15: 16).

SPECIAL REPORT • ECONOMICS OF SOLIDARITY

A Christian Fraternal Invitation To Equity

BY REV. PROF. CALLUM D. SCOTT | UNIVERSITY OF SOUTH AFRICA AND PERMANENT DEACON OF THE ARCHDIOCESE OF PRETORIA

IN AUGUST 2020, the Mail & Guardian newspaper reported that the South African government had spent R10 billion (approximately USD 680 million) on personal protective equipment (PPE) for healthcare and essential workers, to protect them from the contagious Covid-19 virus (Smit & Harper 2020). While one would be hard pressed to criticize a State spending money on the purchase of equipment for the sake of protecting its citizens, it is what transpired in the procurement of the PPE, as well as other COVID-19 related expenditure, that has significant relevance to discussions surrounding economies, and particularly how economic activity is undertaken. It soon began to emerge that roughly half of the money spent on PPE (approximately USD 340 million) had been granted to questionable tenders, some including tenders granted to government employees, making a conflict of interest clearly evident (Koko 2021).

The embattled South African state-owned power utility, Eskom, has also been in the news in recent days. The enterprise squandered an astonishing R680 million (approximately USD 46 million) on its Wilge Residential Complex at Kusile Power Station near Balmoral in Mpumalanga. The accommodations lie vacant, unfinished, despite the massive expenditure of funds (Lindeque 2021).

These examples — but two among many — serve as cases wherein a few people have been enriched at the expense of the many who have paid income tax and value added tax contributing to state coffers. Sadly, they reveal a particularly un-Christian manner of engaging in economic activity, that is, a personal economics of greed and self-enrichment (since corruption is the action resultant from the behaviour of individuals), which has seemingly become societally acceptable.

In the last edition of Worldwide, I considered the idea of a gentler, more fraternal politics. In the light of the deeply self-referential economics that we have come to encounter throughout many parts of the globe — not only in Western countries, the hub of both liberal and neo-liberal economics — we are impelled to consider a dimension of human life that flows from one’s political disposition, i.e. economics. In particular, this article will consider what an authentically Christian economics could look like. Certainly, the Gospel lets us know very bluntly what Christian economics cannot be like. Consider the Parable of the Good Samaritan:

“A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and fell into the hands of robbers, who stripped him, beat him and went away, leaving him half dead… [A] Samaritan while travelling came near him; and when he saw him, he was moved with pity” (Lk 10: 30, 33).

Pope Francis uses this parable as the lens through which he evaluates fraternity and social friendship in his encyclical, Fratelli Tutti (FT). In the Christians’ economic dealings, abuse of others cannot occur; we cannot behave like the brigands in the Parable of the Good Samaritan, who beat, who steal (FT §75). These robbers represent the worst of humanity.

The Christian economic tradition from the Early Church and the Fathers

Acts of the Apostles describes the lives of the first Christians after Jesus’ ascension, as they began birthing the dynamics of the Early Church. The manner in which they undertook their economic activity stands as the ideal Christian model:

“The whole group of believers was united, heart and soul; no one claimed for his own use anything that he had, as everything they owned was held in common… None of their members was ever in want, as all those who owned land or houses would sell them, and bring the money from them, to present it to the apostles; it was then distributed to any members who might be in need” (Acts 4: 32, 34–35).

Although not of one voice — given their number and the variety of their time period (roughly the first six centuries after Christ) — the Church Fathers elaborated upon and developed the Church’s social teaching from very early on in its existence (Stander 2014). Perhaps there was no other way but to do this, since the faith spread rapidly and Christians were to be found in so many parts of society, as the 2nd century African Church Father, Tertullian (1885) noted:

“We [Christians] are but of yesterday, and we have filled every place among you — cities, islands, fortresses, towns,
market-places, the very camp, tribes, companies, palace, senate, forum — we have left nothing to you but the temples of your gods” (Apology 37).

Pope Francis points out that a number of the Church Fathers argued — in line with Acts 4: 32, 34, 35 — for the common ownership of material goods (FT §119). St Basil (perhaps his position was coloured by his monastic life) rather radically argued that being born with no possessions, no person is entitled to own any possessions, in fact, viewing private ownership as akin to robbery (Stander 2014: 26). In a similar vein of thought, although not to the extreme of denying private property rights, St John Chrysostom argued: “Not to share our wealth with the poor is to rob them and take away their livelihood. The riches we possess are not our own, but theirs as well” (FT §119).

St Ambrose echoes this idea, for all that we have belongs to God (On Naboth 16); and by St Gregory the Great who, in his Pastoral Rule (§21), said that in giving the needy what is needed, we simply return to them what properly does not belong to us. For the Church Fathers, the theme of need comes across as important. St Basil, for example, argued that if all people utilized only what they needed then there would be enough for all people (Stander 2014: 29). Moderation is key. If we truly have care for our brothers and sisters, we will need only what we require to suffice, as excessiveness results in others wanting, given that there is always only a limited supply of goods.

This leads me to contemplate why some of the Fathers were so against the private ownership of goods, holding literally to the example described in Acts. Perhaps the radicality of their critique was not so much against the holding of goods, but the manner in which the goods were utilized to the exclusion of others.

Rerum Novarum (On capital and labour)

In 1891, Pope Leo XIII issued a revolutionary encyclical letter that became foundational to Catholic Social Teaching. Rerum Novarum (On capital and labour) gave Pope Leo the opportunity to speak “… on the condition of the working classes” (§2), who the Pope saw as enduring both “misery and wretchedness” in their daily lives as a consequence of economic exploitation (§2). Although this encyclical was written in favour of the rights of the worker, it also criticises unrestrained capitalism as well as socialism (§4).

Pope Leo considered the rights and obligations of the employed and the employee. The progressiveness of this should be recalled. He was writing in the 19th century! While the workers have the responsibility of working hard and faithfully, the employers should not enslave employees, for they are persons of dignity, not to be exploited for personal gain or to be burdened unjustly with too much labour, and they must earn a just wage (§20).

The position that employees should earn justly leads us directly back into the issue of ownership of property, because a just wage implies usage of the wage for the sake of living. Pope Leo endorses that all are entitled to possess private property (§6). It is in the usage of property that Pope Leo hearkens back to the earlier teachings of the first Fathers of the Church — and of St Thomas Aquinas (No date) in the Summa Theologica: “… [W]hen what necessity demands has been supplied… it becomes a duty to give to the indigent out of what remains over” [cf. IIa-IIa, q. ixvi, a. 2. §22].

The obligation to care for those who do not have from the excess that one does have, points to the basic moral principle of the ‘common good’, that is, the shared conditions within a society that enable all people to live in accordance with their potential fulfilment (Rerum Novarum §34; Catechism of the Catholic Church 1995: §1906).

The moral measure of economic activity

What would the measure of the moral standing of a particular economic activity be, then? Catholic moral teaching must always uphold the foundational premise that all human life is sacred (Catechism of the Catholic Church §2258). The gauge that indicates the morality of any economic action, then, is whether or not an action enhances the fundamental sacredness of human life through the actualization of the common good (United States Catholic Bishops 1986: viii). Oftentimes, when the economy is distorted — as in the examples given of corruption at the heart of government projects — human beings are consciously maligned (FT §§18, 20), as a few financial oligarchs greedily increase their bank accounts, or fund their lavish, ostentatious lifestyles.

Economic activity, whether that of the employed or the employer, must be understood as being a moral action which has the potential to work for the sacredness or the denigration of human life (United States Conference of Catholic Bishops 1996). Every economic action bears consequences. It is surprisingly sad, therefore, to realise that the world’s economy is terribly skewed in favour of the super-rich. Oxfam reports that the world’s 2153 billionaires are richer than 4.6 billion people combined (Coffey et al. 2020). Sadder still for our own African context is that “[t]he richest 22 men in the world own more wealth than all the women in Africa” (Coffey et al. 2020).

Pope Francis’ invitation

To an “economics of solidarity” Pope Francis’ diagnosis for the reason behind the ever-widening gap between rich and poor rests in what he considers to be the conscious distance between the self and the common good:

“[T]he gap between concern for one’s personal wellbeing and the prosperity of the larger human family seems to be stretching to the point of complete division between individuals and the human community…” (FT §1906).

We — all who engage in capitalist-like economic actions — seem to forget the Christian law, ‘You shall love your neighbour as yourself (Mt 22: 39). Rather, love of ourselves and our nuclear families, perhaps extended family at a push, has displaced the love of others. to share the excess that we do not need rather than piling it up in our bank accounts, this is the challenge. We need to be reminded of the command to love our neighbours. We need to be reminded of the virtue of solidarity.

To be ‘in solidarity’ with another person or group of people means loving, acting, serving for the sake of the good of that person or those people. It is, no doubt, a challenge! In a world where we are constantly told by financial planners that we should store up as much as is possible, solidarity will not be easily accepted. Yet, it is a deeply human way of being. It links up beautifully with Ubuntu, Botho, and Ujamaa.

“… [Solidarity] means thinking and acting in terms of community. It means that the lives of all are prior to the appropriation of goods by a few. It also means combatting the structural causes of poverty, inequality, the lack of work, land and housing, the denial of social and labour rights. It means confronting the destructive effects of the empire of money…” (FT §1906).

The invitation to consciously embrace and live out an “economics of solidarity”, implies that economic activity is placed second, whereas the good of others is given primacy because of all people’s innate dignity (FT §168). In this sense, “[t]he economy should work for people,” people should not work for the economy (United States Catholic Bishops 1986). Perhaps, however, the challenge that rests before the invitation to an “economics of solidarity” can be taken up, is the surrendering of our own “consumerist individualism” (FT §222), which is thoroughly incompatible with Jesus’ command to love others as we love ourselves.

Pope Francis bids the Christian faithful to embrace a truly Christian way of economics:

“In the name of the poor, the destitute, the marginalized and those most in need, whom God has commanded us to help as a duty required of all persons, especially the wealthy and those of means…” (FT §285).