Constructing fraternity

The national meeting of “Diaconia 2013 – Servons la fraternité” will be held in Lourdes from May 10-13 2013. The purpose of the event attended by the National Conference of men and women religious, by the French Committee for Deaconry, by Christian bodies and movements, is to take stock of the three-year process undertaken in November 2010 and to share related joint commitments and projects. The initiative, explained Msgr. Bernard Housset, bishop of la Rochelle et Saintes, president of the national Solidarity Council, stems from an “appeal aimed at extending the service to all our brothers in faith and to all members of the Church”. It “lies within the framework of ‘Ecclesia 2007’, a similar appeal to encompass the entire Church realm as the recipient of the service to the Word”. In an article appeared on the March issue of Études (www.revue-etudes.com), the contemporary culture review of the Jesuits of France, Etienne Grieu, Jesuit from the Centre Sèvres tackled the challenges of “Diaconia 2013”, which encompass economic, institutional and political spheres, highlighting Church thought to this regard along with new proposals for her presence in society.Ethical and theological question. The term “diaconia”, Grieu remarks, indicates to the Church that “the question of charity works is necessarily both ethical and theological. Ethical in the sense that acknowledging the suffering enables the human persons to rediscover their mutual fraternal bond”, and theological “as the poor, the sick and even our enemies prompt a pilgrimage to the fountainhead of our authentic life that was naturally bestowed upon us”. Diaconia should be understood as “helping Christians interpret their solidarity commitments” as “a spiritual experience and as a sacramental encounter”. Diaconia, continues Grieu, equally reminds us that “the Christian community cannot progress if those overcome by misery or sickness, those experiencing the threat of uncertainty or injustice, regardless of their Church membership, are being neglected”. Rather, the community of faithful is called to make these people present “in their deeds and in their prayers”.The new role of the Church in the public arena. “When the Church acknowledges the crucial importance of those who usually do not count – the Jesuit underlines – her role in the public arena gains new impetus”, since the Church “is thus no longer considered as a mere religious institution and is instead viewed as a societal player, sensitive to the faith of those marked by dire living conditions”. Accordingly, says Grieu, “the Church contributes to a different handling of situations such as migrant flows, the claims of the handicapped, of those striving to enter the job market, the needs of those who are not self-sufficient, of terminal patients etc”. These questions, underlined Fr Grieu, “should be viewed not as problems needing a solution, or as fears, but as true opportunities for society as a whole”. For the Jesuit father, in this way the Church “is a player in the political debate”, not in the sense “of being involved in the socially-burdening conflicts of interest”, but as a player “that vigils and combats, with others, all those elements that risk leading us to loose our soul: namely, reducing society to a system of opportunistic relations”.Local Churches’ engagement. The challenges of “Diaconia 2013”, underlines the Jesuit, may become lead “to a new role of local churches’ solidarity commitments”. Since 1989 Diocesan Solidarity Councils have been set up across French dioceses. These coordination bodies are also tasked “with providing the bishop with information and advice, raising public awareness and relating to public institutions”. According to Grieu, in preparation for “Diaconia 2013”, their role “could evolve” in the direction of the above-mentioned challenges and “take on new forms”. Referring to the post-Synodal Apostolic Exhortation “The Word of God” whereby pastors are called to listen to the poor, learn from them, guide them in the faith and motivate them to be the originators of their own history”, Grieu claims that the importance of “learning from the poor” is explicitly underlined for the first time. “This conscience awareness, if confirmed – and the Church of France could seize the occasion of “Diaconia 2013″- is extremely interesting”, the religious said, since “it involves the possibility of establishing a different relationship between the Church and her world”. A relationship marked by “decreasing the opposition” conveyed when the Church, “not seeing that her message has been received, risks stiffening up” instead of “accompanying” the “common engagement for the poor, for those risking forms of social death, so as to reach out to them and listen to what they have to tell us”. “It this not another way of proclaiming the Gospel?” he concludes.