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Mariano Puga     INTERNATIONAL RESPONSIBLE’S REPORT

Virgilio Leite Uchôa: Elements to Reflect on Economic Conjuncture

Günther Lendbradl: “Re-invent with the strength of the Spirit, in our cultures and Churches, the witness of Brother Charles”.

Mariano Puga , priest

Dear brothers in Jesus Caritas Priests’ Fraternities,

In all these visits I tried to meet Little Brothers and Little Sisters of Jesus in order to discover these countries "through the poor" and to reconnect myself to the spirit and witness of Bro. Charles.

In these six years, globalisation is moving from West to East (China and India), even if the "central power" continues in the USA, Japan and Europe. The new Economy generates a new culture, which we are to discuss these days, in solidarity with the poor.

1. A CERTAIN UNIVERSALITY OF OUR FRATERNITIES

Our presence in these Churches is significant, in the social and ecclesiastical

First of all! A Spiritual attitude. Br Charles was "a man of the Wind": he lived the adventure of life, opened to the Spirit in his culture and time. "Re-create, through the Force of the Spirit, in our Cultures and Churches , Br Charles’witness". ¡St Nicodemus pray for us!

Challenges for our Fraternities:

Challenges to the Spirituality of Nazareth:

Challenges to our universal brotherhood:

Mission challenges:

St. Anthony, Colo, October 5^th 2006.

Facing the ocean and the mountains.

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 Elements to Reflect on Economic Conjuncture

                                   (November, 2006)                                          

Virgilio Leite Uchôa:

1 A Balance of Frustrated Hopes

What goes on in Brazil, in Latin America and the Caribbean is easily understood if we 

see it as a world trend.

Globalization, the result of immense technologic progress, improves both economic and social life and political and cultural life. The problem is that up to now we know it mainly through the general liberation of economy, also known as neoliberalism that intends to solve world problems through the invisible hand of the expanded market penetrating all dimensions of individual and collective life.

The great changes show that there are models where technical progress made it possible, with competence and speed, access of all to the minimum necessary to survive, balancing in a rational way the use of benefits.

 Decisions, however, depend less and less on the democratic will of the majority. The hegemony of financial globalization –intensified in the last years and associated to the speculative flux of money without frontiers—has reduced the role of national states and the social control of public policies by citizens and civil society.

In the early nineties, there were expectations about welfare which most unfortunately gave place to realist measures that reinforced the hegemony of money and consumerism and weakened the national states and favoured large unions of companies.

All frustrated expectations have a strong cultural and political component in their origin. It was expected a decade of wealth distribution, fulfilment of basic necessities, social development, and technological progress as positive answers to the welfare of people and societies.  

The major world conferences of the United Nations which were held after the fall of the Berlin wall mentioned some of such expectations. The main ones were: children’s rights (New York, 1990); environment (Rio de Janeiro, 1992); human rights (Vienna, 1993); demographic growth (Cairo, 1994); social development (Copenhagen, 1996); women’s rights (Beijing, 1995); human habitat (Istanbul, 1996); food (Rome, 1996); climate changes (Kyoto, 1997). 

Whenever we have an international financial crisis, disastrous consequences come along from the social¹ point of view. It brings unemployment, misery and violence. The true reasons of such instability, however, are never effectively attacked by the world economic order. On the contrary, the latter strengths instability through the untouchable strategy of financial liberalization.    

The Dismounting of Social Welfare

The dismounting of social welfare has been an immediate consequence of this new international view. Slowly we see the transference of substantial masses of financial and productive resources to private companies. Efficiency and productivity are fundamental laws, provoking large fusions of companies. What had been before essential public services, such as education, health, transport, security, access to land, and dwelling now they are explored as commercial activities ruled and controlled by the new order, not as minimum social rights.

The idea of a national state was inherent to the conquests of universal rights and social welfare which should be a guaranty to everybody. This does not happen due of the new requirements of our present historic cycle of capitalism where the absolute laws of financial marked prevail.

Poverty grows and wealth concentrates.

Although many refuse economic globalization, seeing it as a mechanism of poverty, the world lives under its empire. The neo liberal project has been commanding economy for a long time, without alternatives, after the fall of real socialism. Those who support such type of order tend to show that poverty grows in countries which did not prepare themselves for the new world situation. They say that inequalities continue where the State onerous structures remain, with chronic fiscal deficit, and adequate reforms were not accomplished. According to them many countries stop in the middle of the way of their reforms which would prepare the advent of the new order.

All that can even have bits of truth. But even if crises were overcome, the fact remains unquestionable, because the model² imposed as hegemonic is deeply concentrative of wealth and consequently provokes the increase of poverty.  

Today national economies, mainly the ones of the so called emergent countries, are easy preys of capital funds that are concentrated in the hands of market speculators whose profits are the most important results, being rarely applied to produce and distribute wealth.

Therefore there is a perverse logic under the empire of lack of ethics that cuts down social investments, flexes labour rights, undermines social assistance as a guarantee of the universal rights; finally, it does not prioritise the human beings and their fundamental necessities: dwelling, health, sanitation, education, labour security.

It is from such logic we should look for the main cause of poverty growth in the world. As a matter of fact the market absolute laws perpetuate the cause of poverty growth and inequalities in wealth distribution.  Money and information tyranny are on the base of the present disarrangement of global capitalism³

It is also from the perverse logic of financial globalization that we can explain the generalised corruption that invades political structures, questioning ethnical patterns when dealing with public affairs. 

Important international financial institutions such as the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the World Bank and others even adopt new discourses and are against corruption and in favour of fighting poverty. However, they are still in favour of total submission to market laws which originate the destruction of welfare and cause this new global disorder. Thus their anticorruption receipts become counterproductive, not to say hypocrite, as the mechanism of uncontrollable flux of funds itself creates its spaces of macro corruption –such as the hidden fiscal paradises—while those receipts only reached minor effects of ethnic corrosion .

Economic globalization in question

In Davos, Switzerland, as we know, a forum that congregates the crème de la crème of financial globalization is held every year. It is true there are expressive reactions against globalization which become more visible when public manifestations occurred on the occasion of the 3th Ministerial Conference of the World Commerce Organization (WCO),October 1999,Seatle, USA. The UN Conference for Commerce and Development (Unctad 10) held in Bangkok, Thailand, 12 -19 February 2000, was a kind of Davos of the poor. The effects of globalization were discussed and a new economic paradigm was looked for. This new paradigm was “defined in two points: go back to some type of regulation of economies, especially controls on short term financial flux, and decide on how to deal with commerce and investments in a way developing countries can participate in the international market”⁴. In same year, in 2000, in Havana, Cuba, the 77 Group meet having in mind similar purposes to those of the Unctad 10.

The antithesis of the hegemony of financial globalization was solidified when in 2001 the World Social Forum came into being. Today it agglutinates the hopes of all who believe  “another world is possible”.

II Brazil in Latin America⁵

If we ask a sample of Brazilians, including people with a university degree, to draw by heart the map of Brazil, the probable result is that the sea coast will be close to reality, but not the lines of frontiers with their neighbours. In fact our knowledge about the other peoples and countries of the continent is tiny. Indeed we know very little about other peoples and countries in our continent. In this context, preparing the 5^th Conference of Latin American Episcopal Council (LAEC) to be held in Aparecida do Norte, São Paulo, in May, 2007, it will an excellent opportunity for Brazil to know our neighbours better so that we can search for integral and integrated development. This ecclesial event will certainly benefit Brazilian society efforts towards welfare state, because today development is not achieved without regional cooperation. If we have the Conference of Puebla, which was held almost thee decades ago, as a reference, we see in the social and political fields facts that deserve our attention.

Social Reality

In our countries, poverty and misery persist, because wealth, income and land concentration persist. The capitalist promise saying if the cake were bigger it would be easier to share it has not materialized. Post war economic growth up to the 1970’s was annulled by the foreign debt and the neo liberal model applied since the 1980’s in spite of its high social cost (unemployment above all) has given coarse results as far as economic growth is concerned. Therefore social inequality has persisted if not worsened: at an extreme a very small but powerful class of enterprisers in the global market –mainly through exporting primary products—and at the other extreme an enormous mass of people excluded from the market, surviving through informal economy, social assistance, and even illicit activities. Between these two poles, an intermediate level formed by different social classes in urban and rural areas, some within the modern economic sector (agriculture, industry, and services), others aggregated to the State apparatus and still others preserving traditional ways of living, mainly in the country. In this context the “preferential option for the poor” that now also includes those excluded from the market, it is even more pertinent than last century.

A visible consequence of such inequality is the growth of violence, mainly in the cities and areas where drug traffic is intense. Death rates among young people reach such levels that the effects can be detected in demographic studies. Those people are more victims than agents of violence, but it is them that frighten society due to their contestation counter

culture. Here we can also refer  to “option for the young” made in Puebla.                        

Migrations also grow due to this inequality situation, mainly of young people to North America and Europe. Though they are very useful to perform low or even non-qualified economic functions such migrants are socially discriminated and their lives are seriously at risk: only in 2005 464 people died when trying to cross the frontier between the USA and Mexico, mostly in the Arizona desert. To avoid their entry, the USA government wants to build a new “shame wall” to separate the rich north from the impoverished south. The cruellest face of this migratory process is the traffic of women and children deluded or forced to leave their home country to satisfy the sexual appetite of frustrated people.             The traffic of people in an ampler sense is the third most profitable business in the world (it only loses for arms and drugs). This causes the fragmentation of family values which are pillars of our culture. Researches have shown that it is as much a question of loss of values but above all families and individuals can be affected in their fragility to resist the market attacks promising all type of material gains. As families are hit in their integrity, the “option for the family” is very up to date.

However, we cannot fail to see that beside these tenebrous realities, there is light on Our America, because societies are reacting against injustice and inequality. Under a generic form of social and popular movements, there more and more organizations bringing alternative proposes. The most visible is obviously the World Social Forum that not by chance was shaped in Latin America announcing to the other peoples that “another world is |possible”. It is not the only sign of vitality of our peoples: movements of indigenous, peasants, women, blacks, and many other groups are creating new forms of solidary economy, mobilizing for Peace and Human Rights, finally reviving our hope for a fairer, more democratic and pacific world. We should add the Church has been a partner of these movements and organizations in search for a civilization of love.                              

Culture

The national states’ cultural matrix is their colonial heritage which is difficult to surpass: whatever comes from abroad (mainly from the USA and Europe) is highly valued while their only culture, history, national and Latin America tradition is underestimated. Such cultural matrix was aggravated by the slavery or servile experience undergone by the majority of our countries, generating racial prejudice against afro descendents and indigenes. In various countries, however, we have seen indigenous movements that want their identity recognized and claim back the use of their lands. Peoples from Mexico, Equator, Bolivia, Guatemala, Peru, and Brazil have many positive experiences in this field.     

Movements in defence of prejudiced afro descendents have grown and in some countries such as Cuba and Brazil important measures have been taken. Thus Latin America and Caribbean culture have their Latin and Christian bases enriched by other peoples and traditions.

Politics and economy

We cannot forget the colonial project when analysing our present scenario: our countries were formed to be economically exploited by the metropolis. That was the scope of the Portuguese and Spanish empires from the XVI to the XVIII centuries and also  of the marked capitalism that from the XIX century substituted previous interests without eliminating all types of slave and servile work. Our people are not utterly free from that subordinate situation and are still in the periphery of the world economic system. But today we notice there have been very meaningful events within the process of national emancipation and social and economic development, such as:

• Emergence of the poor, mainly workers and indigenes whose participation in            

            politics had never gone beyond their role of coadjutant actors in the political             

            scenario. In the last decades of the 20^th century they contributed in the process

            of overthrowing military regimes which oppressed our countries and  contributing

            this way to redemocratization. And at the beginning of this century they are

            bringing to government higher posts a project from popular sectors.

• People are more aware of the importance of ethics in politics when facing political systems based on corruption and favouritism which always assured the powerful of  

            their impunity. This consciousness expresses itself in social mobilizations that 

            become more and more frequent. The revision of laws that prevented the

            verification of torture and other violations of human rights committed in the

            military regime is good example of such mobilizations.

• The bankruptcy of Argentinean economy exposed the failure of neo liberalism in

           Latin America and made various countries turnb to centre left proposals: 

           Argentina, Venezuela, Brazil, Uruguay, Chile, and Bolivia. That reconfiguration of

           the political scenario caused the search for another model of Latin America  

integration. Its first effect was the disarticulation of the Free Trade Area of  Americas (FTAA) and the consequent pressure from the USA so that the most dependent countries should sign the Treat of Free Commerce (TFC) whose items are more unfavourable to their development.

• On facing economic globalization, the number of countries which favour regional

economic integration to leave a peripheral position and as a block can participate in

world commerce in parity. The South Cone Common Market (Mercosul) is one of

signs of a regional economic policy which is able to break old submission ties of our economies to the United States’ interests.

We should mention here that the Federal Senate on September12, 2006 approved the creation of the Mercosul parliament already approved by Chamber of Deputies. The Protocol was signed by the governments of Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay, and Uruguay and it needs the ratification of the parliaments of those countries to be installed. It is expected the Mercosul  Parliament  will be inaugurated this month so that the political positions of the Block will be more transparent and tuned in. The inaugural section will occur at the moment of adjustment in  Mercosul which has received the adhesion of Venezuela and the possible entrance of Chile and Bolivia, but faces some criticism from its minor partners –Uruguay and Paraguay—that have announced their intention of searching  free commerce agreements with the United Sates of America.                                               

Ecology          

We are conscious of our responsibility for our Planet’s life which is menaced today. The ecological movement which in the 1980’ was slightly more than mere curiosity is very important now and it really weighs in political decisions. The market economy that does not care for Earth’s rights when profits are at stake confronts this social conscience. Its hegemony puts at risk life on Earth, because the market insists on surpassing the limits of renewable resources without taking into account that life on Earth should be the parameter of economic development.                   

As a consequence of this ecological conscience we have the beginning of a regional movement in defence of the Amazonia and the Pantanal whose basins reach almost all South American countries. Defending these two basins and their ecosystems imposing ecologically sustainable developing projects tends to be one of the ideas capable of uniting the whole continent,

                                            III- The Quest of Latin America Identity

The process of globalization, in its political and neo liberal aspects, has not involved in the same way central countries and peripheral countries as the Latin American’s: “the central countries propellers of the model are the most reticent to accept it as a whole while Latin

America behaved again as an open continent” ⁶

Today we try to find out the reasons that push the countries, with a higher or lower degree of economic difficulties and immense social problems, such as Brazil, Argentina, Equator, Chile, Paraguay, Bolivia, Venezuela and other ones to face neo liberal hegemony that hinders forming national identity.

Everything suggests that the neo liberal model established in Latin America raises difficulties to autonomous and socially advanced national projects. The great revolutions that happened in Europe—since the French Revolution, passing through the Enlightenment and the Industrial Revolution—arrived here late or did not arrive. Changes provoked by revolutions were the bases for national states in the Old World.

There are in Latin Americans some sings of changes and questioning of the present model that favours in a society its economic aspects not the social ones.

The neo liberalism is questioned by governmental decisions, some personalities and popular mobilizations. Such signs are distinct because they depend on each country situation, but they are convergent. Venezuela and Bolivia, strongly supported  by popular, nationalist and populist groups, look for new ways. The election of Lula in Brazil in 2002 awoke great expectations, though some were not fulfilled.

Lula’s impressing victory in 2006 consecrates social democracy as a preliminary effort, though incomplete, to democratization and income distribution among popular bases and the ascendant middle class. This has created a fissure in the old political oligarchies, the powerful elite that benefits from concentrated wealth.

Seeing the president as “one of us” has solidified an unusual vote of confidence in spite of all contradictions of his political bases and corruption accusations. The large popular reach of Lula’s personal figure, the small but successful social projects of his administration have promoted indeed the beginning of a popular revolution which was expressed in the magnitude of the votes he was elected President of the Republic.

Once economic stability is secured in Brazil accompanied by popular bases which are overcoming poverty, we still have the challenge of   projecting a nation constructed, in a sustainable way with the participation of all, having the face of those who emerge from poverty and exclusion.

Brazil appears in Latin America and the Caribbean centre as a sigh of hope due to its natural geographic presence as a positive influential factor, to help all to grow in national interlinked projects. Besides, all countries seem to be conscious that it is urgent to strengthen national projects turned up to overcome the colonialist subtracts.

There are clear signs that small struggles and public policies from the government have helped to invigorate the advent of a new moment in our history. Overcoming misery, poverty, discriminations, and strengthening universal and inalienable rights, preserving   the environment and national resources are not mere dreams and become true in a democratic and accessible way through popular participation.

Within this context the 5^th General Conference of Latin American Episcopate emerges as a prophetic sign of commitment, life and hope for Latin America and the Caribbean.

                                               Fr. Virgílio Leite Uchôa

                                                         Organizer

Notes:

1. “Stabilizing currency had become a focal point in peoples’ and governments’  political thought; restoring gold basis was the supreme aim of all organized efforts in the economic area. Paying external debts and returning to stable currency were recognized as standard models for political rationality. No personal suffering, no violation of sovereignty were considered too great sacrifices for recuperating currency integrity. The sufferings  of the unemployed, jobless due to deflation, the demission of public servants, sacked without any pension, even the abandon of national rights and the loss of constitutional liberties were considered a fair price to pay for fulfilling stable budgetary requirements and solid currencies, these a priori of economic liberalism” Karl Polany- “ A grande tranformação: as  origens da nossa época”, Rio de Janeiro, Campus, page 147 (the book was originally published in 1944). Cf.”Sessão reprise”, LAFIS- Pesquisa e investimento em Ações na América Latina, Carta Capital,13/10/99 pag.66-70. It is worth reading the whole article. We shall translate some of the main passages. “The resemblance between the 20’ and the 90’ makes Polany’s work, published in 1944, extremely up to date… “After the 29 crash, the USA raised interests and devaluated the dollar, devastating emergent markets in Central Europe and Latin America…Polany predicted more accurately than Marxists the terrible effects of progress and the market on traditional cultures and environment”

Cf Still about the same subject Rubens Ricupero, “Mudança de Discurso”, Folha de São Paulo, 3/10/99, pág 2-2: “some months  after the Berlin Wall fall, the United Nations Conference on Commerce and Development predicted that the 90’s would be characterized by frequent, intensive, powerfully destructive monetary and financial crises”.

2 Isabel Clemente, “Crise eleva desigualdade no mundo”, Folha de São Paulo,21//9/99, pág 2-1.

3 Milton Santos, “ Normalidade da Crise”, Folha de São Paulo,26/9/99, Cad.Mais, pág 5-3.

4Clóvis Rossi, ONU busca novo paradigma da economia”, Folha de São Paulo, 12/2/00, pág. 1-6 quoting Rubens Ricupero.

5 Fr. Bernard Lestienne SJ, Daniel Seidel, Gilberto Souza, Fr. José Ernane  Pinheiro, Lúcia Avelar and Fr.Thierry Linard SJ. Pedro A. Ribeiro de Oliveira have contributed  to this analysis which was presented at the 61th Ordinay Meeting of the Permanent Council—Brasília, 24 to 27 of October, 2006.

6 Milton Santos, “Brasil na encruzilhada” –Entre a submissão ao pensamento único

e um autêntico projeto nacional” Carta Capital,12/4/00, 25, no. 4.

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FRATERNITY OF PRIESTS JESUS CARITAS

GENERAL ASSEMBLY

São Paulo – Brazil, November 06 to 22, 2006

Günther Lendbradl:

THE  THEME OF THE ASSEMBLY

“Re-invent with the strength of the Spirit, in our cultures and Churches, the witness of Brother Charles”.

Mariano asked me to do a re-rerading of our directory.  Right from the beginning I asked myself the following questions: (1). what does re-reading mean? (2) What is the purpose of a re-reading? (3) The re-reading is directed to whom? (4). How should this re-reading be done?

1.      What does a re-reading of our directory mean?

Why not a revision or avaliation?  Is there a diference between review, avaliation and re-reading?  Would it be correct to say: a re-reading should indicate omissions, clear up formulations that are doubtfull, give deeper interpretations?  A revision is done to modify the directory?  A re-reading is done to see if the life of the Fraternity is still in agreement with the directory, or the other way around, is the directory capable of inspiring life in the fraternities?  A re-reading is of the directory or of the Fraternity?

Finally, a re-reading would simply be to read again, after a certain time, and with care our Directory so that we can recll all the richness that this text contains?

2.      A re-reading or new reading of our directory is useful for what purpose?

I read and re-read our directory.  I can only say that for me the directory is well done and I easily identify myself with its proposals because this is what I want to live , but in pratice I am not always able to do so.  The Fraternities are notalways being able to live what the Directory proposes.  Our Diorectory, elaborated and approved in 1976 in our Assembly at Montefiolo begins with the story of the dried up bones of the prophet Ezeqiel (EZ 37.5).  The story is important because it calls our attention to our always being tempted to be satisfied with ourselves.  Have our bones dried up?  But, even being dead, the Spirit can revive and re-animate our “dreid up bones”.  We always need a new breath of the Spirit.  How can we comunicate with the Spirit to be reanamated?  How can we let the Spirit work in us?  The Spirit breathes where he wishes.  The Spirit “breathed” very strongly in the beginning of the Fraternity.  That is why it is good to go back to our “roots”, to recall our beginnings, to have the courage to convert ourselves, to have the will to be once again autentic.

But, it seems to me that the re-reading has another motive that it imposes.  After 30 years of Montefiolo, the world has changed it is not the same history is on going.  We live in a new context, with new parameters for the Church and the World.  We need to update our spiritualty, capture and become conscious of the new challenges and descover how to live the charisma of Brother Charles and the Fraternity today in a time and geografical spacethat has changed.  A re-reading can be a contribuition to help the Fraternity to be faithfull to our charisma but at the same time have theliberty and courage to walk new paths. 

·          What to do so that the Directory helps the action of the Spirit?

3.      A re-reading is directed to or at whom?  Is it directed to the priests of the Fraternity?

Who are we?

Even though we belong to the Fraternity we have chosen to continue being diocesan priests belonging to the Presbyterate.  We do not consider ourselves religious priest or as beloning to a secular institute.  We find ourselves part of a diocese and a church structure which we carry and mantain. Most of the time we work in parishes. Because we are continually smaller in numbers we have parishes more and more larger and many of us feel over burndened.  Are we a breed inextention? As secular priests, we live in the world.  We experiment this world ore and more secularized.  It is this world that influences our faith.  Our Faith is no longer the Faith of a child, not even the Faith  we learned in the Seminar, in our time of formation.

·          How can we live the Faith in a secularized world?

For the majority of the people we are considered only as priests.  The priest is to celebrate Mass.  His place is the sacristy. The Second Vatican Council said that the People of God and also we priest participate in the threefold mission of Christ:  in his mission that is prophetic, priestly and king\pastor. As priests, then, we are prophets, priests and king-pastors. The question is do we exercise the three missions we received on our ordination or do we feel ouselves only as priest, ministers of the sacred, connected to the cult?  It is the mission of the priest to coordinate the commuity, descover the various vocations and ministries thst the Spirit rises up and take care that the people of God fufill their mission.

·          What is the image that we have of ourselves?  What is our identity? 

Even though we are diocesan priests we consider ourselves priests of the Priestly Fraternity Jesus Caritas. We have our own espirituality. Trying to describe our espirituality we culd say: we want to follow Jesus Christ as diocesan priest. But how to follow Jesus Christ? It is possible to follow Jesus Christ in a thousand ways.  Among the many possibilities we choose to follow Jesus Christ in the manner of Brother Charles and the Fraterniyu.  He became our guide.  Why did we choose this way and not another?  This is where we touch on the mystery of our call.  I believe that it was the Spirit of God who made us descover and like Brother Charles, get to know the brothers of the priestly fraternity, to feel part of the great spiritual family of Brother Charles. Something captivated us; the witness of an autentic life in poverty and abondoness, the new ways of the Church, the fraternal lifing, the desire to lead a contemplative life.  There was formed in us a spiritualiyu. We began to cultivate it, we felt at home and comfortable with others who followed the same path.  We identified ourselves. We choose and joined. We discovered our spirituality.  Brother Charles, the Priestly Fraternity became the inspiration of our lives, motivated us and helped us to follow Jesus Christ.

·          How was my journey to the Fraternity Jesus Caritas?

4        How to make a “re-read”?

Do it in a group.  A re-read can not be made by one person only.  The “vieux frére” said “the fraternity is the life of the priest”. How is it the life of the priests?  The life of the priests should be the starting point and at the same point the finishing point.  The starting point because it is there that we touch the reality of each of us.  The finishing point because with the re-reading we hope to re-animate and give inspiration to help the members of the Fraternity in their living of and witness to the Gospel. of Jesus Christ for the people. I think that a re-read should be a colection of that that the Fraternity thinks and lives. To know the lives of the priest it is necessary, as a starting point, an effort to see, with a contemplative attitude. What are the experiences, the joys, the dificulties, the challenges and questions that the priests have; where do they see the novelty?  A second step could be a sharing of what we see and feel with the participation of all.

To know the charisma  of the Fraternity we should know and meditate again and again the life and witness of Brother Charles; know and contemplate the life of a priest who belongs to he Fraternity.  This is an on-going effort.  How to do this?  What can we do to catch the richness that we live?

·          We have two options.  Either we leave the directory as it is and just make some new commentaries (a type of internal regiment) or we reformulate the Directory.  This is the first fundamental option and on which everything else depends.

OUR DIRECTORY

My re-reading is of the Directory of Montefiolo, not of the Canonical Directory.

·          How should we understand the relationship between Directory and Statutes?

1.      NAME 

Fraternity of Priests Jesus, Caritas

In Portuguese and Spanish there is a diference between “sacerdote” and “presbitero”.  Sacerdos = owner of the sacred, connected to cult to liturgy. Presbyteros = a person of a certain age, maturity, pricipally in the Faith, a member of the Senate (Presbyterorum Ordinis 7). In the English, French and German language there only exists the term priest, prétre, Priester, which comes from the Greek, presbyteros.

Jesus did not consider himself, nor was he considered by anyone as “sacerdote”. He was of the people (laity) and considered a prophet. He was not from a priestly family, he did not belong to the priestly tribe; he never offered sacrificies in the temple in Jerusalem.  Quite the contrary, he questioned the pratice of the priests, lived in growing conflict with them and it was the priests and the highpriest who began the process to condemn Jesus to death.  Also his first diciples were never considered priests, but prophets, evangelizeres, pastors and doctors (l cor l2, 29 and Ef 4,11)  Even in the letter to the Hebrews which atributes only to jesus the title “high priest”, those responsable for the community are called  leaders

·          There exists Fraternities in which pastors, laymen and women participate.  Can they be considered members?  Who can be a member of our Fraternity?

2.      THE SPIRIT AND END OR PURPOSE

Because of Jesus and the Gospel:

Jesus.  What Jesus?  Who is Jesus for us? 

·          JESUS OF NAZARETH. The great inspiration for Brother Charles was Nazareth, the life of Jesus inNazareth.  Brother Charles meditated and tried to live the 30 years of the hidden life of Jesus.  He descovered a Jesus encarnate.  A Jesus who went down (with his parents) to Nazareth where he was submissive (Lc 2,51) Not  a Jesus distant, apart, but near, in the midst of the people, Jesus the worker, a human Jesus, merciful, capale of feeling with the people. A Jesus of Nazareth and not of Jerusalem, of the outskirts, not the center.  From Nazareth could there come any good (Jo 1.46). Jesus identified himself with the most abandoned and rejected.

·          JESUS THE SAVIOR. His name “God saves”.  I have come so that you may have life and have it in abundance (Jo10, 10). Jesus came to save principally sinners.  “I did not come to call the just, but sinners” (Lc5, 32). Who are the sinners today?  Brother Charles wanted to be a Savior as Jesus was. 

·          JESUS PROPHET. For the people Jesus was considered a prophet.  Before speaking the prophet must hear God. God speaks to both the priest and the prophet.  The priest belongs to the hierarchy.  The prophet to the people.  The prophet knocks down the power, he re-creates, recovers and re-integrtes the community.

·          JESUS THE SERVANT OF YAHWEH. John the Baptist presents Jesus as the Lamb of God, “ebed Iahweh”, the suffering servant described in the 4^th canticle of Izaih (Is 52, 13-53, 1-12).  The servant becomes “goel”. That is he pays the debt for and in favor of another to put him in liberty and redeem those who are opressed and enslaved.  John sys the Lamb of Gopd carries and takes away the sin of the world (Jo 1, 29).

·          EUCARISTIC JESUS. Jesus came to this world to revel the Father and make him present.  He is the sacrament of the Father: “who sees me, sees the Father” (Jo.14.9). He affirms: my food is to do the will of he who sent me and do his work (Jo 4.34). He makes the Father present in his proclamation, in his goodness and mercy and in his giving of his life for the “brothers”.  His life is a life of praise, full giving, and thanksgiving to the Father.  He asks of us:”do this in memory of me”.  The Eucharist is jesus´s way of being.  The Eucharist is Jesus sign, reality and the realization of God´s love, the beginning of the kingdom, of a new future.

·          JESUS CARITAS. This is the resumé of who Jesus is. 

·          How are the priests of the Fraternity living and experiencing the following of Jesus of Nazareth? => Examples

Gospel 

Brother Charles wished to shout the Gospel through his life.  The Gospel, in the first place, is to be lived.  That is why Brother Charles studied and meditated on the Gospels.  He recomended” Read nd re-read without stopping the holy Gospels, so that you always have before you the spirit, the acts the wordds, the thoughts, so that you will think, speak and act as Jesus did. Let us return to the Gospel:  if we do not live the Gospel Jesus does not live in us”. An exercise to be able to shout the Gospel with our lives is to pratice the “prayerfull reading”.  Besides that, those who love the word of God will have the desire to study it more and more.  Always we read the Gospel with the glasses we have on our eyes.  This means we read the Gospel from the perspective of the social place we occupy and because we are prt of this position weonly descover what is already on our horizan.  That is why to descover all the richness of God’s word it is necessary to read the Gospel in groups with our brothers and become aware of what interpretations have been descovered. One must take into account the historical demension of Jesus.  The content of the Gospel of Jesus is the proclamation of the Kingdom of God which is near, at the door.

·          What place do meditation, sharing and the study of the word of God have in our lives and in our fraternities? => Examples

To be brothers to all, to all people.

TO BE BROTHER TO ALL means welcoming each personthat comes to me with love, happiness, gentleness, to see in every person a brother,  a sister; to welcome in a special way those that Jesus considered his brother and sister and those with whom he identified. (Mt.25, 31)

·          The poor and exclude

·          The victims and those who find no justice

·          The sick

·          The women, children, elderly

·          Those that are “diferent”, those “others” who don´t fit in and bother us (those in jail, hippies, gays)

·          Those that are “diferent”, the “others” because of their religion and culture (foreigners, the Moslems).

·          How is the envolvement of our priests with these groups of people? => Examples

·          To know if we are brothers does not depnd on our evaluation. Who will tell me if I am a brother, is not me, but the other

·          How can we live univrsal fraternity?  To build fraternity, solidarity in the world is not just an individual effort, but implies a struggle to change unjust structures that impede the living out of universal fraternity.  This is the political demension of our faith.

·          In what has the Fraternity helped me, and helps to build fraternity?

Abandoning ourselves to the Father

Abandoning ourselves to the Father not as slaves but as partners.  He opens my ears so I can hear as a follower. To abandon myself to the Father is a full answer to gratuiitous love.  Abandon myself to the Father means not to live for myself, but for him. “If the grain of wheat falling into the ground does not die it is alone, but if it dies it will produce much fruit.” (John l2.24). Abandon oneself to the Father means not having fear of  the enemies of the Kingdom, pricipaly not to have fear of the last enemy to be conquered, death.  Who conquered fear and to the degree that it was conquered, becomes a free person.

3.      TO LIVE AT THE CROSS-ROADS OF THE WORLD AND THE CHURCH

Our world – the challenges

• We see the world from the social place in which we live.  We are used to dividing the world into north and south. Thus the criterion is the economic point of view.  The rich, clever, adaptable north and the poor south, supporting  all of this with no reaction. But there exists another axis less perceived occident – orient. The occident, who always felt superior in everything, is now being challenged by the orient. It is challenged in its religion, culture and even its economy (China)  The accusation that the orient makes is: “The occident is decadente in its customs, promiscious in its sexual morals, apostate in its religion, politically imperialist.”  The respose of the occident:  The orient is fundalmentalist, terrorist, aggressive and intolerant, violent and full of resentment.

Our world – marked by economics

• Who always tried to dominate the world was money.  This idol, who wants to be God, has a name - Mamon -Satin. Capitalism just changes the name, market economy but it continues to be the old capitalism. Consumption of goods determines more and more the lives of men and their relationship.  It criates the social diferences, the rejected of society and their lives are its cost.  Capital acumulated in the hands of a few, not controlled by society, has arrived at the point where it subjugates and enslaves the lives of mny, both in their private life as well as public life.  Capitalism never was to resolve the question of work or resources. It creates unemployment and the destructionof nature.

  Our Culture

Since the theme of the Assembly is “re-invent with the strength of the Spirit, in our cultures and Churches, the witness of Brother Charles, this item deserves special atention

• A migratory culture and multiculture

Principally in the countries of Europe and the United States, but more and more in all the countries of the world, there exists the phenomenon of imigration.  The emigrants, an expressive group and getting larger nd larger, bring with them their nativetongue, their religion, their culture.  Because of their customs and different manner of life, they interfer in the culture, in the social living of the countries of immigration and of the living together with the people of these countries. Who wishes to live the great challenge of universal fraternity must learn to dialogue, understand, and live with these differnces to avoid, as much as possible shocks.

• An urban culture

In Brazil in l960 80% of the population lived in the rural area.  Today, 2006, 80% of the population is living in cities.  The city is atractive, pluralistic.  It offers possibilities, it stimulates people to take decisions, it makes a person autonomous.  But at the same time the city is respnsable for the absence of human relacionship between persons.  There is no social control.  In the city people feel free but isolated.

• A violent culture

Brazil today is a violent country.  Violence in the family, violence in the schools, violence in the traffic, violence with robberies, assausts, growing crime in the city, violence against women, desrespect for human rights, drug trffic, violence against nature and the atmosphere.

The theory of René Girard says that in the human heart there is rooted what he calls” the mimetic desire”.  This desire creates rivalry, exclusion, violence, war and destruction.  The overcoming of conflict happens when everone units around a scape goat andputs all the fault on it.  Throwing on the scape goat all the violence union is created.  All culture and social systems obey, acording to Girard, these tendencies.  However, the human being can not be reduzed to a mere “mimetic” desire.  There exists the possibility of overcoming this tendency.  The Bible message, the Gospel lived in a following of Jesus, the innocent victim, opens the way for peace.

• A liberal and tolerant culture

Every human being has the desire to be free, to live without boundaries.  Humanity conquered and defends as a value theliberty of the human person, liberty of religion, of the press, to express your opinion, to come and go.  The chllenge is to understand that liberty does not mean do what I want, as I want.  Free is he who is capable of accepting limits. Without liberty there is no living together in society.

• A scientific and technological culture

The society in which we live is a society highy marked by science and tecnology.  The discoveries and inventions have made life very pleasant; the comunication in all areas of life from radio, TV, phone, cell phone computores cars. The studies in the area of health, the medicines and many other tings, on one habd, raised greatly the quality of life, but on the other hand they have made it more complicated.  Science and Tecnology need an Ethic.  We live more and more in a world which we humns have made.  This world dictates the norms of social living.  On the other hand, nature, the world God has created, is more sistant, less repected.

• A culture which still has to learn to be ecological

On our planet there live, currently, more than 6 billion people.  All of them want to eat, dress, to have a house, land. We are squandering our planet earth. We are responsible for the change in climate, for the contamination of our food.  We need to learn to distrbute with justice all the resources available: thepetrolium, the water, the air, the forests.

• A society that wants to be democratic

The Christian faith has a political dimension. Politics is the art of making possible social living between peoples, groups and people. However, more and more politics is considered as a fight for power. And less and less this power is used for the common good.  In public life there exist many individual interests. Politics is dominated by a neo-liberal economy and globiliation which wants a minimal state or government.

• A society that needs to learn to be just and defend human rights

Not only with internacional relationships, but more and more on a national level there appears the gap between the elite and the masses. The salary of the executive and public officials (judges, deputies) is more and more elevated, more and more priledges. On the other hand we see unemployment, the rights won that workers have lost, the lack of igual oprtunities in the area of education and health: The traffic of human beings, women for prostitution, of the organs of children. It is urgent to re-vindicate and fight for equality of all before the law.

• What does live at the cross-roads of the world mean to us, priest of the Fraternity?

Our Church – People of God

• When Pope John XXIII caled the Second Vatican Council he wnted to oped the windows of the Church.  He felt the need of “aggiornamento” to reconsile the Church and the modern world.  There seemed to happen a time of Spring in the Church.  The world was hopefull and held new exspectations for the Church. The Holy Spirit breathed strongly.  The Council produzed excelent documents.  The document “Gaudium et Spes” reaffirmed that the finality of the Church was not in herself but that she was a sign of God´s Kingdom and had as a mission the transformation of the world.
• In Latin America, the the most catholic continent of the world, the Bishops, wanting to apply the Council to the continent, appoved the document of Medellin.  The time right after the Council in Latin America was a time of a prophetic church- live, open.  The Church base communities flourished, Liberation Theology, the importnce of laity, new ministries. At the 3^rd conference of CELAM, in Puebla, the Church made an option for the poor; many cistians got envolved and fought for equality and social justice.  After the Council, in Latin America, was a time of prophets. But they were silenced.  Many Christians paid with their lives. The leaders of the Church (cupola) became worried. There began a return to the great discipline. Liberation Theology suffered harsh criicism.  Instead of base-church communities, an expression of the action of the Holy Spirit in Latin America, there were approved church movments from outside. Many customs, considered out dated, were re-introduced into the church. There was a return to fundamentalism, clericalism returned.   Why did the leaders of the Church not understand the signs of the time and break the possibility of ordaining “viri probati”.  By the chronic absence of priests and thusly the absence of the Catholic  Church in the rapid process of urbanization permit, in Latin America, the expassion of Protestant  and pentecostal Churches, which today have aproximately 20% of the population.
• In Europe we assist internal crises of the Church, the agony of popular cristianity.  The Church is no longer able to maintain her structures. Churches are being closed and sold, parishes closed.  The people have become indifferent.  The Church and the Family are simly ignored.  For many it is possible to live without God and without the Church.
• The Mission. The Council affirms:  The pilgrim Church is of its nature missionary (AG2).  But how do we understand mission? Even though there is good will and enrmous work to put together religion and social developement, many people and etnic groups feel the missionary effort as colonizing and as agression to their religious identity and as cultural domination.

Brother Charles was a misionary.  Even still, he was able to write: Announce Jesus to the Tuaregues is something that I don´t believe that Jesus wanted, neither of me or anybody else.  It would be a a way of delaying and not hastening his conversion.

(letter to Mon. Guerin 6/03/08).  He was not preocupied in baptising a number, the more the better, or converting them to his religion.  His concept of the Mission was a mission of being in their midst.  Before beginning the explicit announcement of the wor d he wanted to learn from the others. He studied the language, the customs, became a friend and was accepted by the tuaregues. He was worried about bettering the agriculture, the heard, how to better the quality of life.  He wanted to shout the Gospel through his witness and example.  His was an apostolate of kindness, friendship, caring for all because of his love for Jesus and his religion.  He wanted to be a missionary purely by his presence. He wanted to shout the Gospel with his life. He dreamt with lay missionaries, cristian families living amongst the Tuaregues, exercising their professions, teaching how life could be bettered.  Brother Charles is at the beginning of small fraternities and the church base communities.

• What does it mean to us priests of the Fraternity be at the cross-roads of the Church?
• How do we understand Mission?

4.      IN THE SPIRIT OF BROTHER CHARLES

To understand the life of Brother Charles it is important to take into consideration the influence that Islam had on him.  During an expedition to Marrocos, still an unbeliever, he became impressed with the faith of the Mohammedans and did not hide his admiration.  Right after his ordination he went to Algeria and lived until his death amidst Mohammedans. His project was missionary. 

The Search for the Absolute of God

Against the belief in one God, today, there exists the suspect and questioning and even the accusation that this bel ief creates intolerance and violence.  This question is a reaction brought on by the action of fundalmentalist groups, be they Jewish, Cristian or Moslems, who in the name of the God of their faith practice acts of violence because they can not admit an other opinion. 

But the question is: What God do we accept?  The God of the Jews is a liberating God: “I am Iahweh, your God who made you come out of Egypt, the house of slavery.  You should not have other gods before me” (Ex20.1) It seems that God has an adversary and that there exist a fight between Iahweh and the false gods.  As a matter of fact, Iaheweh is fighting against evil. The God of the Cristians is “Trinity”, is community is love.  God is not God without us, his creatures.  Man is the center of the Trinity.  God choose a people, began a history and constantly intervenes in the history of this people.  The God of Christians always is relating and is present in history; he is transcendent but also always present.  The God of the Christians is not a God inacessible alone, not purely transcendent.

The Faith in the “Absolute” of God, by necessity leads to intolerance? The Faith in the absolute of God could not help give life a certain direction, leave behind indiference, the tiredness of life with no aim?  To have God as an Absolute means to love God.  The “shemá” Israel of Deut 6, 4 repeated in the Gospel of Mark teaches: Love the Lord your God with your whole heart, your soul, your understanding and with all your power.  Love your neighbor as yourself (Mc 12, 29ss).God becomes my absolute if he is experienced in his glory, face to face, without any mediations, God he himself not his representative or a symbol of him.

Brother Charles, when still an unbeliever, became impressed, when he saw the Mohammedans practice their faith. After his conversion Brother Charles wrote: “When I began to believe in God I unsderstood that I could not live without him.”  For Brother Charles God became an Absolute.  The Faith transformed his lifeless life, life without a direction into a life full of meaning, of perspective and hope. He began the adventure of a dance with an invisable partner. Brother Charles never became a fanatic or intolerant; on the contrary the Faith in the Absolute of God and his son Jesus Christ made him more human, a man of love.

• How can we priest of the fraternity promote ecumenical and interrelious dialogue?

Universal Fraternity – Love that is Solidity

The dream of Brother Charles was to be the brother of all. This dream was not an abstraction, but something very concrete. Universal love is go to the most abandoned and forgeotten, to not let anyone alone.  The path to be brother to all is treating with friendship and fraternity every person that crosses my path, whoever they may be. If at the end of my life I am able to afirm that I treated all as brothers, then I was brother to all. The universal fraternity is built day by day, in acceptance of all, whoever comes to me. The center is not me, but the other. Besides the path to build universal fraternity uses strutures and organizations like education for solidarity and friendship. A way to live universal fraternity is life in small fraternities. These small fraternities, through their witness of life can become a sign of universal fraternity. 

The Evangelical councils 

Instead of speaking of the vows we prefer to use the expression “evangelical councils” because the proper Gospel recommends this style of life. Living according to the consecrated life means overcome the Me, defeat the desire of power and to have and pleasure and to reach out to the other. Only he shall be capable who wants to love. It is the   Holy Sprit who rises up the desire and the will to wish to live this way. Those that live the evangelical councils are called “happy” and become persons integrally free. They do not feel anything missing. 

1.      To live poor

There are three stages: live for the poor, live with the poor and live as they live. The motive why we live as the poor can not be because we despise things, but it is a question of love and solidarity. Brother Charles: “I do not want to travel through life in the class while Jesus travelled third class. I can not love like that. How quickly one would become poor who loves you with all his heart, because he would not to resist be richer than the beloved”. But to live as a poor person not only means to do away with material goods. Spiritual poverty is more than this; it means make your heart empty of everything. God then is able to take over and enrich him with his love. A heart poor like that is capable of loving all.

2.      To live unmarried because of the Kingdom of Heaven.

To not marry does not mean to not value marriage not because of Jesus but because of the cause of the Kingdom. He who makes himself a castred man accepts to be impotent.  He wants to overcome the exclusivness in relationship with people. Not everybody is capable of understanding this word, but only those to whom it is granted.  Who is capable of understanding, understand. (Mt 19.11)

3.      To be obedient 

Brother Charles: “Obedience is the last, the highest and the most perfect step of love, that love in which someone ceases to exist personally, in which he dies to himself as Jesus did on the cross. God wants the annihilation of a person?  I don´t believe so. But in obedience, because I want to open my hands of my desires, ideas, plans, objectives, my “Ego”. Because I want to do the will of the Father: “My food is to do the will of he who sent me.” (John 4.34).

5. OUR PATHS – THE MEANS TO FRATERNITY

Fraternity – the monthly day of fraternity

The priestly fraternity Jesus Caritas only exists in the small local fraternities. Without meetings in the small local fraterity there is no fraternity. It is there, on the local level that happens the challenge to live the Gospel in day by day practice. The encounter with the person of our brother enriches me, corrects me, makes me mature and is necessary for me to find my identity. The fraternity is a group of brothers and friends. Brothers do not choose they receive. Friends and friendship is a gift and is also a chore where it is possible to constuct and cultivate.

• “The Fraternity is a true community of the Church”.  This afirmation made by the directory is theologically correct?  A group of priests alone can be considered a community of the Church?

In Search of a contemplative Prayer

To be contemplative does not depend on us.  It is a gift of God which motivates and awakens in us the desire for prayer. To be contemplative is look with the eyes of God.  Whoever feels attracted to a contemplative life knows that he is before an ardous journey. “Go up to Mount Carmel”. He has to be capable of supporting hardship and conquering the “Dark night”.  For this he must learn self control, perseverance, and fidelity. The mediocre don’t make it. As one moves along the road of contemplation he becomes a free person, integral, at oeace with himself, with others and with creation.  Everything is possible because he is at peace with God, feels himself loved by God.  The contemplative found the center of his life in God. He does not seek to realize his personal projects, but asks how to do the will of God. He lives and has only one desire: “Father, that they know you, the only true God”. (John 17.3). To know God in his glory changes completly the life of a contemplative, his manner of seeing, of living, of acting.  His food is to do the will of the Father.

• All are called to a contemplative life?

The daily Eucharist Prayer (Adoration)

In the Fraternities it is asked and asked what the sense of the Eucharist prayer is. Our understanding of the Eucharist is dinamic and not static. The Eucharist is celebration, action. Adore the consecrated host makes sense? Is it only devocation and nothing more?  There also arises the question: we want to adore the Eucharist or adore God, in the presence of the Eucharist?

• Celebrate the Eucharist means: sit around a table in memory of JesusChrist- do this in memory of me-to eat together, to share the bread and wine and our lives.  The sharing creates communion. The communion makes Jesus present amongst us. “Where two or three are united in my name I am there in the midst of them.”(Mt. l8.20). The presence of Jesus brings peace, new life, redemption and reconciliation.  These are the fruits and gifts given by the Father in response to the life of Jesus in his love until the end. Love until the end is give your life (in substitution and at times acting as goël) for your friends (Jo 15. l3). Eucharist is to experiment that acting as Jesus we are pleasing to the Father. It is a dessire to be santified and the will to praise him giving or giving back our life with Jesus and as Jesus. 
• Adore the Eucharist or before the E