• What is the answer that the Christian Life Movement gives in the face of the new problems posed in society and in the Church?
To really answer that question would take a lot of time. But something can be said about it. Above all, the conviction that without God neither man nor society can attain their goals. The Movement's answer is born out of the faith and of affective and effective adherence to the Church. Today in which so many things are put in question, the firm conviction that the faith and the active ecclesial life constitute the key for the realization of the human person and for the finding of answers to the difficulties which are presented in economic, social and cultural life is essential.
Diagnoses about today's situation abound. There are catalogues of different diagnoses! What cannot be denied is that we are living in a time ruled by the culture of death, by the relinquishing of the human. We have investigated and reflected about the challenges and possible solutions. In March of this year an important Conference Seminar with distinguished participants from different Latin American countries took place. The result was of the greatest importance and serenity. It was confirmed that the same old problems had to be attended to, and that there are new problems requiring equal attention. This is a fact, as is the fact that the root of all of thesesituations is the rupture with God, with oneself, with others, with the cosmos, introduced by original sin and increased by personal sins. The fundamental problem is spiritual! The other real problems, which should be attended to, are sequels of this spiritual problematic. History offers reliable proof of it. The failures of so many programs, ideologies, and governments tragically mark history. Many, attending to what is urgent, neglect the essential and necessary. It is fundamental to go to what is essential. Setting off from this perspective it is possible to attempt answers to the other problems. It is like having a compass. With it the basic coordinates are marked out and a route can be established. Without it we go around in circles. Today it seems that there is too much going around in circles.
A little more than three years after the Movement's foundation, Pope John Paul II proposed a highly indicative way: Hunger for God, yes! But, hunger for bread, no! "I see that there is a hunger for God, hunger that constitutes a true richness, the richness of the poor that ought not be lost with any program." And he added: "There is hunger for bread. For this reason the Lord has taught us to pray: 'Give us this day our daily bread.' Everything possible has to be done to bring this daily bread to the hungry." These are the coordinates that speak of an integral program that goes out to meet the needs of the concrete human being. That is what it's about! Pope Benedict in his first visit to Latin America has moved within these coordinates orienting the People of God of these lands in the face of the problems that are posed in the Church and society. He said from the beginning, "the principal motive of my trip has a Latin American scope and an essentially religious character". His teachings are extensive and of prudent wisdom. One can't intend to summarize them in one interview, but his repeated invitation to implement an intense evangelization that employs the Catechism of the Church, and in living social charity the resource to the Social Teaching of the Church cannot help but attract attention. In this line the Christian Life Movement has been developing its activities, seeking to actively attend to the hunger for God, as well as with solidarity and fraternity to the hunger of bread, hunger of health, hunger of housing, hunger of clothing, hunger of reconciled social life together, for structures that respond to the dignity and rights of the human being following the Divine Plan. Evangelization as such, in which is essential the proclamation of the Lord Jesus and his Kingdom, in the face of the growing de-Christianization of our times, should not allow us to forget that following Christ has consequences in social life that ought to be implemented.
July 2007 - FIDES Agency
The interview made by the Vatican agency has been offered to you in a special English translation based on the one published by Fides.
