NEWS STORY: Pope: Americas plagued by `social sins which cry to heaven’

c. 1999 Religion News Service UNDATED _ Offering a message of hope to a hemisphere plagued by”social sins which cry to heaven,”Pope John Paul II on Saturday (Jan 23) urged Roman Catholics of the Americas to draw on their religious faith to make the region a more just and merciful society _”a continent of life”_ […]

c. 1999 Religion News Service

UNDATED _ Offering a message of hope to a hemisphere plagued by”social sins which cry to heaven,”Pope John Paul II on Saturday (Jan 23) urged Roman Catholics of the Americas to draw on their religious faith to make the region a more just and merciful society _”a continent of life”_ in the new millennium.

John Paul issued the challenge on the second day of his six-day trip to Mexico City and St. Louis. His message _ an agenda for the church in the 21st century _ was contained in”an apostolic exhortation”made public as he celebrated a solemn Mass in the Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe, the world’s largest shrine to the madonna.


Hundreds of thousands of Mexicans, many holding candles and the omnipresent yellow and white papal flags, lined the pope’s route to the basilica and packed the area surrounding the church.

The Mass formally concluded the special meeting of bishops from throughout the Americas held at the Vatican in late 1997. During the Mass, John Paul drew large cheers by urging churches throughout the Americas to make Dec. 12 a holiday honoring the Virgin of Guadalupe, said to have appeared to on the cloak of an Aztec peasant in 1531 and leading to the conversion of many of the Indians of the Americas to Catholicism.”We must stir up a new springtime of holiness on the continent,”John Paul said in his homily, and he told bishops from both North and South America that”the church must proclaim the gospel of life and speak out with prophetic dignity against the culture of death.” At the center of the pope’s exhortation, which drew heavily on 76 recommendations presented to him by the bishops, was a call for the 500 million Roman Catholics of the Americas to join in”a new evangelization.” He deplored a litany of”social sins which cry to heaven because they generate violence, disrupt peace and harmony between communities within single nations, between nations and between the different regions of the continent.” John Paul cited”the drug trade, the recycling of illicit funds, corruption at every level, the terror of violence, the arms race, racial discrimination, inequality between social groups and the irrational destruction of nature.”In the absence of moral points of reference, an unbridled greed for wealth and power takes over, obscuring any gospel-based vision of social reality,”he said.

The pontiff’s message also strengthened his longstanding criticism of the excesses of capitalism but he said it is up to Catholic laity to seek practical solutions to these”grave social problems.”He proposed the church publish a”Catechism of Catholic Social Doctrine”to guide them.”On a continent marked by competition and aggressiveness, unbridled consumerism and corruption, lay people are called to embody deeply evangelical values such as mercy, forgiveness, honesty, transparency of heart and patience in difficult situations,”John Paul said.

In a sweeping survey of problems facing the Americas on the threshhold of the year 2,000, the pope said much of the region suffers from high unemployment and many industrial and rural workers are subjected to harsh conditions.

He warned that an increasingly globalized economy could foster rising”unemployment, the reduction and deterioration of public services, the destruction of the environment and natural resources, the growing distance between rich and poor, unfair competition which puts the poor nations in a situation of ever increasing inferiority.” The message sharply criticized neo-liberal economic theory _ a version of capitalism which minimizes government regulation and seeks limits on government social spending _ which the pope said victimizes the poor.”Based on a purely economic conception of man, this system considers profit and the law of the market as its only parameters to the detriment of the dignity of and the respect due to individuals and peoples,”he said.

While acknowledging that foreign debt is”often the result of corruption and poor administration,”John Paul renewed his appeal for a substantial reduction or cancellation of the crushing debt burden on developing countries to mark next year’s jubilee celebrations.

The pope urged representatives of the developed world and leaders of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund to work with Vatican experts from the Secretariat of State and Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace to seek ways to resolve the foreign debt problem and producing guidelines on future loans.”On the broadest level,”he said, it would be helpful if internationally known experts in economics and monetary questions would undertake a critical analysis of the world economic order in its positive and negative aspects so as to correct the present order and”propose a system and mechanisms capable of ensuring an integral and concerted development of individuals and peoples.” (OPTIONAL TRIM _ STORY MAY END HERE)


John Paul called for an end to the marginalization of indigenous people.”This means, first of all, respecting their territories and pacts made with them; likewise, efforts must be made to satisfy their legitimate social, health and social requirements,”he said.

Recalling slavery as one of”the dark chapters of America’s history,”he said Catholics must work to end remaining prejudice against African Americans and spoke out strongly in behalf of the economic migrants moving from Latin America into the United States.

Noting that immigrants to the Americas also include Eastern rite Catholics from the western Ukraine and the Middle East, the pontiff urged Roman rite Catholic priests to help the recently established Eastern Churches by offering liturgical assistance lending them space in their churches.

While endorsing ecumenical dialogue with the Orthodox, Anglican and Protestant churches and cooperation with Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists and members of other mainline religions, the pope attacked Pentecostal, evangelical and new religious groups who are winning converts among Catholics.”The proselytizing activity of the sects and new religious groups in many parts of America is a grave hindrance to the work of evangelization,”he said.”The word proselytizing,”he said,”has a negative meaning when it indicates a way of winning followers which does not respect the freedom of those to whom a specific kind of religious propaganda is directed.” The pope called for Catholic evangelization to help counter the effects of these groups. He said that although the poor should be among the first to be evangelized, leaders of society must not be ignored.”Love for the poor must be preferential but not exclusive,”he said.

DEA END RNS

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