From our charism, we could assume the UN’s invitation to celebrate the Human Rights Day 2018 as done for us: “We defend equity, justice, and human dignity, since all human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights.”
Human Rights Day is observed every year on 10 December – the day the United Nations General Assembly adopted, in 1948, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. This year, Human Rights Day marks the 70th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, a milestone document that proclaimed the inalienable rights which everyone is inherently entitled to as a human being — regardless of race, colour, religion, sex, language, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status.
The option for the poor and the commitment to the eradication of poverty, characteristic of our charism, today places in the foreground of our collective consciousness some evangelical commitments that seemed, in the past, mere political commitments: the commitment to justice, peace, creation, solidarity, and, above all, commitment to human rights. This is a transcendental contribution of the reflection that we are doing in the systemic-change perspective to reinterpret Saint Vincent’s legacy in the current circumstances of our history.
In these 400 years since the birth of the charism, it is easy to observe a certain orientation of the Vincentian action of the different branches that had over-privatized our experience and practice of the charism, limiting it almost exclusively to the sphere of charity assistance or religious pietism. In this process of understanding and living the charism, the social, public, or political dimension, which was not at all strange to Saint Vincent’s experience, was diluted. The context is broad. Justice, solidarity, and human rights were issues historically associated exclusively with political action and not with a praxis of faith or a religious experience. To invoke these causes was sufficient reason for suspicion and incomprehension. In the best case, those who did it were accused of ‘getting involved in politics.’ In the worst of case, they were accused of being “communists,” which was like disavowing their word and their praxis. In our societies, the struggle for human rights continues to be politicized and stigmatized, especially by groups that violate them openly or underhandedly. Within the Church, there are those who still think that the only valid field of Christian action is sacramental celebration and charity, but disconnected from the social and political struggle for justice. This issue has not escaped Pope Francis’s teaching:
The other harmful ideological error is found in those who find suspect the social engagement of others, seeing it as superficial, worldly, secular, materialist, communist or populist. Or they relativize it, as if there are other more important matters, or the only thing that counts is one particular ethical issue or cause that they themselves defend. Our defence of the innocent unborn, for example, needs to be clear, firm and passionate, for at stake is the dignity of a human life, which is always sacred and demands love for each person, regardless of his or her stage of development. Equally sacred, however, are the lives of the poor, those already born, the destitute, the abandoned and the underprivileged, the vulnerable infirm and elderly exposed to covert euthanasia, the victims of human trafficking, new forms of slavery, and every form of rejection. We cannot uphold an ideal of holiness that would ignore injustice in a world where some revel, spend with abandon and live only for the latest consumer goods, even as others look on from afar, living their entire lives in abject poverty (Gaudete et Exsultate 101).
Most characteristic of the charism, and I believe that we all agree on this, is our commitment, which has many forms, to the most abandoned of our society. Some live out this experience admirably by direct attention to charity to maintain the lives of those who are at risk from hunger, disease, lack of affection, age, physical limitation, poverty. Others live it out by developing systemic-change projects that try to break the malicious cycle of poverty, which puts the life of the poor at risk. Others do it by educating and developing social awareness in classrooms, the media, writing books, etc. Finally, there are those who do it through political impact and the structural defense of the rights of the poor and of land rights. All these elements are complementary and inseparable and belong in their own right to the charism that was born in Saint Vincent’s heart and that expanded from there to reach us today.
The commitment to justice, peace, and creation, the defense of life and human rights are inevitable commitments of the Vincentian Family in the name of the charism and the Gospel from which it came. They are not mere political commitments, but also essential dimensions of Vincentian mysticism and spirituality. The reflection on Vincentian mysticism calls for a direct mention of this political and social commitment to the transformation of the world. There is an essential relationship between faith and politics, between mysticism and politics. Christian faith and all charisms coming from the Gospel, including the Vincentian Charism, have a liberating function (cf. Luke 4:16-22) and enter into an attitude of dialogue and collaboration with any person or group of goodwill who is committed to the same cause. In the last 30 years, we have learned that the social and political impact of faith and the Vincentian praxis are essential elements for interpreting and living out the charism in the 21st century.
There is an extraordinary harmony between the ethical perspective that arises from the Gospel that has as its fundamental values solidarity, respect for others, defense of life and human dignity, justice, truth, fraternity, and the values that the global movement, supported by civil society, has defended for human rights. Today we have the task and the opportunity systematically to include the issue of the defense of human and land rights in the understanding and historical praxis of our charism to keep alive the prophecy proper to our baptismal identity.
Guillermo Campuzano, CM
Coordinator of VIN-JPIC
