The Injustice that Causes Poverty

Christmas is here already and we have to think what it means. It’s much more than Santa Claus and consumerism. It’s about compassion, love for the poor and seeking justice in an unjust world. Jesus was sent to help change it. We must carry on this mission. We have to understand what that challenge is.

The world economic trade system is constantly depriving the poor of land and livelihood, fairness is excluded and corruption and exploitation take over the world. This evil system of unjust trade policies and practices is growing and has caused great damage to families. No less than Pope Francis himself condemned this unfettered liberal runaway economic system that causes such social and economic injustice. He, quoting a fourth century bishop and making the fat cat capitalists cringe, called it the “dung of the devil.”

In the Philippines, it is said that 140 politically-powerful families control the Congress and consequently, the lives of 100 million Filipinos. Jose is representative of the many poor Filipinos who suffer from deprivation because of this unjust power system.

There was a great moment during the visit of Pope Francis to Bolivia when he spoke out and supported the rights of farmers and peasants. It was in the city of Santa Cruz where participants of the Second World Meeting of popular movements gathered. This is an international group of organizations, mostly victims of oppression, as well as globalization and multinational corporations.

Millions of poor are living outside the normal economy. They are mostly people on the peripheries of society, landless and disposed people. Poor and unemployed, they are the voiceless. But Pope Francis gave them a voice heard around the world. He told the leaders that he stood with them in the demands for justice and social and economic inclusion. This is his mission of lifting up the downtrodden and sending the rich away empty-handed as we read in the gospel song Magnificat.

“Let us not be afraid to say it: we want change, real change, structural change,” Francis, referring to the unjust globalization of the economic system that “has imposed the mentality of profit at any price, with no concern for social exclusion or the destruction of nature,” told the cheering crowds.

“This system is by now intolerable: farm workers find it intolerable, laborers find it intolerable, communities find it intolerable, peoples find it intolerable. The earth itself – our sister, Mother Earth, as St. Francis would say – also finds it intolerable,” he said.

At one point, the Pope spoke against the unbridled capitalism that ran roughshod over the rights of the poor. This he called a new form of colonialism, which, like the Spanish empire, regrettably backed by the Church, damaged native peoples and culture in the name of kings, emperors, and big traders.

“The new colonialism takes on different faces. At times it appears as the anonymous influence of mammon: corporations, loan agencies, certain ‘free trade’ treaties, and the imposition of measures of ‘austerity’ which always tighten the belt of workers and the poor,” he said.

The gospel values of fairness and economic and social justice are very important today. We need to know how and why this is happening and what it means in the daily lives of the discarded and unwanted people. We need to wake up from apathy and fence-sitting and become involved in a mission to find and implement positive solutions.

Fair trade is one way to do this. It is a movement that creates an alternative way of doing business with fairness, honesty, profit-sharing and positive empowerment of the poor so that they can be educated and break the cycle of poverty.

In developed countries, as well as in developing countries, more people are producing goods and food under fair trade conditions, becoming avenues for fair earnings and social development projects. Fair trade brings together the producer and the consumer in a positive, respectful partnership; the buyer knows the producer and how the food or the products are produced.

The poor suffer depression of a kind that most citizens of developed countries and economies cannot understand. In developed countries, the poor and the jobless will have the social net of welfare and unemployment payment by the state. These benefits are unheard of in developing countries. In this ocean of unfair trading and economic activity, the rulers and the rich are the characters in the story of Jesus that contrasts the life of Dives, the filthy rich man in the palace at whose gates Lazarus begged for the crumbs that fell from the table.

The leftovers were all Lazarus wanted but Dives was so mean he would not give them from a loaded table that groaned from the weight of food. There, at gates of a heaven or hell-on-earth, depending on how one sees it, Lazarus died of his sores and ulcers. Only the dogs had pity and came to lick his sores. They had more compassion than the humans.

Jesus, Mary and Joseph had rejection, poverty and killers chasing them and they escaped as refugees to Egypt. Today, we see many refugees welcomed and others made unwelcome and rejected .

It’s an image of our world today.

The Greatest Mission

Malala Yousafzai, the 16 year-old Pakistani girl who defied the Taliban's ban on girls’ education and was shot in the head but survived, has been granted the European Human Rights Award. Many thought she would be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. Instead, it went to the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW). Malala wanted to change the world as she knew it in Pakistan Taliban-controlled areas and beyond.

She has been campaigning for education for girls. She has a mission and is pursuing it with great success since she was ten years old. She has a mission in life and that gives her the strength to take risks and live with death threats at a very young age and become an inspiration to many thousands of young girl students all over the world.

Young people like Malala give us hope and encouragement so that we too want to help to make this a better, happier, and more just world but just don't know how. Around the world, there are millions of people working for justice, peace, human rights, the dignity of women and children, and work to end drug proliferation, human trafficking, and sex slavery. We can help them by supporting their work and be part of their mission. They are serving humanity. Never think there is only misery and evil. There is abundant good everywhere, we just have to look and see and join in.  

These agents of change look upon the world and see human suffering and misery, oppression and exploitation, apathy, indifference, greed, corruption and injustice and with deep compassion and care for others they say, “I will try and change it, if I could save even one child, one person, I have done great good. My life will be worth a human life. Thousands of people have become missionaries and volunteers to be an agent of change for others. 

Some want to change the people doing evil or doing nothing at all. They promote spiritual transformation. Others attempt to change the political systems that in some nations condone, allow and actually do evil, violate human rights, as in cruel oppressive dictatorships or corrupt political systems devoid of morality and compassion and that harm the common good.

Others strive to change one aspect or other of society like Malala believing that if you bring change in one vital sector of society, it will impact on all others and that will make a better world. Many see the suffering in the world and hurry to be the good Samaritan to heal, help and protect the victims, the orphans, and the abused. 

Others become partners in a mission and do good providing the resources, support, and logistics to make these missions possible; each work according to their abilities and at the level of their enlightenment and inner goodness.  

Those with a mission have convictions in the value and dignity of the human person.  For many, they are inspired and motivated by that “man with a mission” who wanted to turn the world upside down and change it forever - the man from Nazareth. Jesus is the unschooled son of a carpenter turned prophet, teacher, healer, reformer, spiritual prodigy and leader, a washer of feet, a social revolutionary, a man of peace and a friend to all.

His mission was to save the world and everyone from the effects of evil, sin, poverty, oppression, exclusion of all kinds, and much more. He challenged the world of his day with great social life changing truths and values and teachings that are still relevant today.

They were unthinkable and unacceptable to the rulers, authorities, the theocracy and the landowning elders of society in his time. They are universal values of unselfish concern and love of others. To serve others without reward is unacceptable for most people and it never really caught on. The great values and the Man, a true son of God, and his mission was turned into an ideal to be worshiped in religious rites and rituals. Not a way of life for all to be imitated and widely practiced. Most people want to pursue comfort, prosperity and find happiness that way but seldom do.

He taught that all human beings are equal in dignity, rights and status in the world and before God, his spiritual father. He offended the religious elite by calling God Abba, meaning Papa.  

He put the most impoverished and unrecognized of all as the model for all - a child. A child or a woman had practically no status, rights, position or value in society at that time but he gave them status and position.

Yet when asked who is the greatest in society and religion, he called out for a child, unless we become as morally clean and as innocent as a child we can't be intimate with the man from Nazareth, Jesus and his heavenly Father. The status and rights of the child was elevated that day but never recognized until recent times. 

The innocent children are representatives of Jesus of Nazareth himself. "Whoever welcome one such as this child, welcomes me", he told them. That's a profound teaching. Its implications were and are far reaching. It directly challenged the ruling class and the authorities. His spiritual mission was to change everything and that eventually led to his execution. But his mission never ends, we are challenged to carry it on just as he lives on us and children like Malala.

A Mission in Life

We have to have a mission in life, to make it meaningful,with purpose and to live more fully.The mission can be to accomplish any good work,motivated by a spiritual value of compassion, love of justice, care of others,empathy and solidarity with the sick, the oppressed and lonely. These inner convictions and commitments can be the driving force of mission.

It can be caring for our family, helping the local community,dedicating ourselves to prayer,helping the poor in anyway we can or even going out to change the world and to help others without seeking to enrich ourselves or to gain from it.The more selfless and pure our motivation the better. Unable to be engaged personally on a mission to serve  and directly save others many find a mission in sharing their surplus wealth in close partnership with a chosen mission or charitable work.

A mission in life is its own reward because it takes us out of ourselves toward others and it is a life of sharing and a life lived for others where we can find happiness, friendship and fulfillment. There is no better way to live as Jesus of Nazareth showed us. No greater love can anyone have,than to lay down their life for a friend.  

I have been on mission with the Columban Missionary Society for almost 44 years. The Columbans made my mission possible from the beginning by sending me to the Philippines.Then the Holy Spirit took over and guided me  the way I should go.

The latest chapter in my mission story happened a short while ago.I went with Preda social workers to get another youth named Miguel out of dehumanized prisons and to find  his  mother. His father had left them years before.

We got him out with a court order from the dirty infested prison cell, a den of iniquity where innocent kids are treated like criminals.The  minors are held pending an investigation of some allegation made against them, usually with little evidence to support it, It takes weeks or months in the Philippine system to have  a child brought before a court. Meanwhile in the  overcrowded cells the child is abused, molested, starved and even beaten by other inmates or cruel guards.

While the Preda social workers can save up to a hundred minors every year (some as young as 13)  thousands more could be jailed and no one will know or help them. We have to change the system and get the juvenile justice law that forbids the jailing of minors under 15  be respected and implemented by the authorities.Those over 15 cannot be jailed unless the act was with discernment.But many are  framed up. Changing that system is one mission I am on but it could take a life time.

Its in the jail where we are called upon to look for Jesus of Nazareth to see him present among the poor ,the hungry naked and the unjustly imprisoned . On the day of Judgement St.Mathew tells us Jesus will call us to himself.  `Come, O blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world;  for I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me,  I was naked and you clothed me, I was sick and you visited me, I was in prison and you came to me.' Then we will ask when did we do all that to you Lord? and he will answer, "so long as you did it to the poorest of my brothers and sisters you did it to me"(Matthew 25:31-46). Its a powerful  passage where Jesus identifies himself with the poorest of the poor, the hungry, sick, lonely, abandoned and unjustly imprisoned.  

So from the jail I went to Paranaque in Metro Manila where there are millions of men women and malnourished sickly children living in the most unhygienic slums imaginable. I walked into a quagmire of filth, misery among the dwellers of the slums.Perverse poverty reigned supreme.

It's was not the first time that I visited a slum one of many.This was just a bit worse than the rest. They are the result of the great social equality in most modern societies where the wealth never trickles down to the poor. Where an estimated  two percent owns or controls 70 percent of the national wealth. The revelations of many politicians stealing billions of pesos support the point.

A great divide exists between rich and poor like that between Lazarus at the gate of the rich man. Not even the crumbs that fell from his table could Lazarus get. The only creatures who had compassion were the kind dogs that licked his sores to try and heal him. What a condemnation of the irresponsible greedy rich. The children of the poor have to beg or steal to eat and then they go to jail.

To get to the shacks and shanties where Miguel 's mother lived, we crossed a river thick smelly and as black as tar with the pollution nothing could exist there.Plastic bags and human waste floated there as the slums have no sewerage or toilets. The foot bridge was rickety, dangerous and made by the people themselves with scraps like their  shacks and hovels.

They met. Miguel's mother embraced her lost son in tears and something good and beautiful entered their impoverished world.

I looked up into the distance at the towering condominiums and skyscrapers of the super rich and wondered if there was a Zacchaeus among them who would have a change of heart and give back to the poor.