Responsible in hope

The Declaration of the Spanish Bishops on the country’s moral and economic crisis was presented on Friday 11 December. The document was approved during the last plenary assembly of the Spanish Bishops’ Conference, at the end of November. On the economic and social difficulties of so many families and victims of the crisis, the bishops wish to transmit “words of hope” and to invite Christian communities and men of good will to dedicate themselves with generosity and solidarity. “The economic crisis from which we are suffering – say the bishops in the introduction to their document – must be tackled by addressing its causes and its victims and by a moral judgement that may permit us to find the right way of solving it”.Victims of the crisis. The Declaration is divided into four points: “Causes and victims of the crisis”; “No real development without God”; “We are called to take decisions and alleviate poverty”; “Our permanent commitment as the Church”. As regards the first point, the causes of the grave situation from which we are suffering have their origin in the “loss of moral values, the lack of honesty, greed, which is the root cause of all evils, and the lack of structures for the control of the financial institutions, strengthened by the globalized economy”. The crisis, observe the bishops, is especially felt in families, especially in large families and in the young; and in this respect the bishops denounce the lack of social protection for the family and the birth control policies that are damaging for society and that will have negative economic effects for future generations. Small and medium businesses, agricultural and livestock farmers, and the immigrants who come from poor countries are also damaged by the crisis.Real development. As regards the second point, “God – declare the Spanish bishops – is the guarantor of the real development of man” and “real development must reach the whole of man and all men”. Starting out from these premises, the Declaration poses questions of an anthropological character: “What kind of man do we wish to promote with the social style we are developing today?”. In the view of the bishops, “We need to say on this occasion that the man who has recognized Christ will recognize himself responsible for social change in its authentic truth” because, as Benedict XVI said in his Encyclical “Caritas in veritate”, “development is impossible without upright men, without businessmen and politicians who strongly feel in their conscience the call to the common good”.Work. In the third point, the bishops emphasize how the sight of the suffering man touches the heart of believers. Given that God himself asks us to alleviate this suffering and that the problems caused by the crisis require an immediate response, the bishops, in their Declaration, propose to encourage “a new dynamic in the workplace that pledges us all to support a dignified form of work that is the expression of the fundamental dignity of each man and each woman”. In particular, they ask that “human treatment be accorded and solidarity shown to immigrants” because “the recent approval of the law on immigration restricts their rights and has a decisive impact on their dignity as persons”.For mission. The Church, say the bishops in their fourth point, offers her service to the world and to its progress as an inherent need of her mission, as is also indicated by the social doctrine of the Church. There is, therefore, a need to “aspire to an integral development. This requires a renewal of the ethics of social and economic life that takes into account the right to life” given that “the opening to life is at the centre of real development”. It is also essential, as the Church, to renew a commitment to the poor who in our globalized world are suffering from the effects of the crisis more than anyone else; to continue to combat poverty, as a requirement of charity; to regard the crisis as an opportunity for discernment and conduct inspired by hope for each one of us, for the public authorities and for the institutions, which can contribute to overcoming the crisis; and to place God as the fundamental criterion to evaluate the goodness of our actions. The Declaration, therefore, underlines the need to gain awareness of the suffering of our fellowmen who are suffering most from the crisis and to show solidarity towards them. It also urges the need for discernment in making expenditure decisions; and to foster a sense of responsibility to the common good, including Christian activities of sharing” by collaborating “with other social institutions and organizations”.On abortion. During the presentation of the Declaration, the general secretary of the Spanish Bishops’ Conference, Mgr. Juan Antonio Martínez Camino, declared that it is impossible to understand how it is possible to believe that “abortion is not a crime”. Mgr. Martínez Camino called abortion “a very grave sin”, which “cannot be accepted as legal”, and at the same time criticized those who would like to claim it as “a right”.