The relevance of the Synod Document “Justice in the World” today
Address given by Victor Scheffers in Port of Spain, Trinidad, at the Sir Ellis Clarke Memorial Conference, 12 November 2011
Dear friends of the Catholic Commission for Social Justice.
I am very pleased to be here with you in this conference.
This conference is a significant undertaking that does honour to the first president of your country, Sir Ellis Clarke who died last year. And it is by means of such initiatives that we are able to make manifest the importance of catholic social teaching for our personal life, for our work, for our society. I am very grateful for the invitation to be here, and I wish to thank in particular Ms Leela Ramdeen, the chair of the Commission for Social Justice, who thought it would be a good idea to invite me to travel from The Netherlands for participating in this conference. During the last couple of years we have met several times, in Paramaribo and in Rome, and discussed developments in Church and society and how to respond to the challenges from the perspective of justice and human rights.
I am Victor Scheffers, general secretary of the Catholic commission for Justice and Peace of The Netherlands, and director of the secretariat of the commission. Since most of you are not familiar with me and with the Dutch commission, let me say a few words about myself and about our work.
Religion deeply influenced my youth and education. In my country during the nineteen fifties and sixties faith was actually everywhere: at home, at school, in the church, in social life. My high school time with the Jesuit fathers coincided with the important developments in church and society between 1962 and 1968. As a freshman, my fellow students and I had to go to the chapel every morning break to pray a rosary for the “prosperity of the Second Vatican Council.” Later the fathers introduced us to the council documents, and to encyclicals such as Pacem in Terris and Populorum Progressio. The Jesuits also significantly contributed to my awareness that the gathering of knowledge must be of use to society.
In the summer of 1983 I applied for the function of Justitia et Pax secretary. I was convinced that this job would allow me to realize something I had wanted for a long time: give form to my engagement with church and society and with politics in the broadest sense of the word and to my interest in management and organization. It was a unique chance to bring passion and profession closer together
Justitia et Pax was founded in 1967. At that time the spirit of idealism was taking over the world. The Second Vatican Council had just ended. This Council emitted a sense of optimism in relation to the world. Joy and hope, Gaudium et spes, were the first words of the important constitution about the role of the Church in the contemporary world. The document recommended the foundation of Justitia et Pax, in 1967. The Dutch Commission for Justice and Peace, Justitia et Pax, was established by the Dutch Bishop’s Conference in 1968. Justitia et Pax stands up for human rights and social justice, worldwide and in our own country. We promote access to justice for vulnerable groups, with a special focus on women and minorities. Access to justice may be lacking when people are unaware of their rights or unable to exercise them. Social exclusion and a partial legal system are further barriers to access to justice. We closely cooperate with human rights and other civil society organisations, with religious groups and institutions in The Netherlands and in more than 10 countries worldwide.
And of course, we are proud of being part of this worldwide network of commissions for justice and peace, and for social justice. All our commissions are actors of the social doctrine of the Church. We contribute not only to the reception of magisterial texts, but, through the multiple competences that we represent thanks to our commission members and in spite of the simplicity of our structures, we also have an approach of being close to the grassroots, of being close to what happens on the ground and this permits us to be attentive to the signs of the time, which the Second Vatican Council invites us to scrutinize. We thus have a role to play of being vigilant and to express the cry of the most poor and of all those who are victims of injustice. This attention given to life itself and to the multiple dramas of our time has nourished the exchanges between us and has given birth to promising initiatives for new solidarities.
Now the topic for today: Justice in the World, and its relevance today.
