Rest on the Flight into Egypt, Gerard Davi, 1500
National Gallery of Art, Washington DC [Web Gallery of Art]
The Injustice That Causes Poverty
by Fr Shay Cullen
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 & 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.
Full article on Preda website here.
Freedom Song
By Róisín Seoighe
I have no recollection of feeling any affection around here.
No one comes to sympathize or listen to my weeping cries, around here.
I feel so scared all they do is stand and stare..,staring at me.
There are too many people here I wish I could disappear,
I can’t breathe.
Chorus.
Could I please have some freedom?
It’s not like I don’t deserve to feel the sun
Locked up like an animal treated like a criminal.
My life has just begun,
Could I please have some freedom?
I’m put into a cage with no way to escape, all I want is to be free,
I dream of a foreign land where children have freedom in their hands,
Unlike me,
Excitement on Christmas day,and I’m crying my sorrows away,
Aching to be free
How can they just ignore me sleeping, and this cold floor beneath me
Tríd PREDA, tabhair saoirse
Do na gasúir atá sánaithe go fóill,
Ó mo chroí, an tAthair Shay.
Beidh muid ag fáil níos fearr ó céim go céim.
Tabhair misneach do na gasúir bocht,
Bímid ag cuimhneamh ortha anocht.
(English translation)
Though Preda, give freedom
to the children who are still trapped.
From my heart, Father Shay.
We’ll be getting there step by step.
Give courage to the poor children,
Let us be thinking of them tonight.
——-
You can read the story of this song, inspired by the awful conditions of so many children in jails in the Philippines, written in English and Irish and sung by an Irish high school student, on the Preda website here.