Catholic Commission for Social Justice
On this last Sunday of the year, let us reflect on how we have developed over the past year. Ask yourself: During 2010, how have I developed each dimension of myself e.g. spiritual, moral, social, cultural, physical, and mental? What have I done to promote integral human development among members of my family/the wider community?
“…a society unable to accept its suffering members and incapable of helping to share their suffering and to bear it inwardly through ‘compassion’ is a cruel and inhuman society.” (Saved in Hope, Pope Benedict XVI, 2007)
How long will it take before we become a compassionate society/world? At a recent Heads of Department meeting, Fr Joe Harris challenged me to “dream”. I was bemoaning the fact that at the end of 2010, progress in making a dent in building a just society/world this year has been slow.
During this Advent season, let us open our hearts and minds to welcome the Prince of Peace more fully into our lives. Jesus came to “give light to those who live in darkness and the shadow of death, and to guide our feet into the way of peace.” (Luke 1:79).
Recently I attended the launch of the UNDP’s 20th Human Development Report (2010). The report, entitled: “The Real Wealth of Nations: Pathways to Human Development”, opens with the words uttered by Nobel Laureate, Amartya Sen, in the first report published in 1990: “People are the real wealth of a nation.”
“The trade in human persons constitutes a shocking offense against human dignity and a grave violation of fundamental human rights. Already the Second Vatican Council had pointed to ‘slavery, prostitution, the selling of women and children’…as ‘infamies’ which ‘poison human society, debase their perpetrators’ and constitute ‘a supreme dishonour to the Creator’ (Gaudium et Spes, 27).(Pope John Paul II, 2002)