Some thoughts on A Question of Commitment

There has been encouraging feedback from readers of Progressio's new Comment: it has inspired; it has amazed by its 'spread' and, for a Sister of St Clare, it 'brought back to me many of my experiences in El Salvador during the last 32 years of our mission there. Our mission was - and is - always our option for the poor and the right to life.'

The Comment has inspired because, quoting as it does the 'unhistoric acts' of ordinary people as well as the more publicised acts of the icons of our time, it makes readers feel that they are called too. And it is up to date - for example  it quotes from Jim Wallis's new book God's Politics, which got a mention in The Tablet of 18 February on its Notebook page: 'Gordon Brown endorses Wallis's book God's Politics thus: "His call for a global covenant through which rich countries  will meet their obligations to the poor will have a resonance across the world."' (Wallis and Gordon, p17).

We have noticed echoes of the call to commitment in writers/speakers ranging from Pope Benedict XVI to the rock star Bono, through the Catholic theologian Hans Küng and Margaret Swedish, co-founder of the Washington-based Religious Task Force on Central America and Mexico, and supremely in Jim Wallis's new book God's Politics.

Pope Benedict's first Encyclical Letter, Deus Caritas Est, has as its theme Christian Love in creation and salvation history and the practice of love by the Church. For all those engaged in the 'practice of love', section 28 is singularly appropriate. It sets out 'to define more accurately the relationship between the necessary commitment to justice and the ministry of charity …' It describes the meeting between politics and faith and stresses that while the Church cannot replace the State in the battle to bring about a just society, the Church 'cannot and must not remain on the sidelines in the fight for justice. She has to play her part through rational argument and reawaken the spiritual energy without which justice, which always demands sacrifice, cannot prevail and prosper. A just society must be the achievement of politics, not of the Church. et the promotion of justice through efforts to bring about openness of mind and will to the demands of the common good is something which concerns the Church deeply.'

In another context, a special issue of Sojourners (A Question of Commitment, p22) reports on Bono's speech at the National Prayer Breakfast in Washington in early February, when he spoke like a modern-day prophet about extreme global poverty and pandemic disease and called upon the American government (George Bush and Congressional leaders were present) to do much more. The movement had already begun in the churches, he said, 'moving people of all kinds to work with others they had never met, never would have cared to meet … conservative church groups hanging out with spokesmen for the gay community, all singing off the same hymn sheet on AIDS… This is what happens when God gets on the move: crazy stuff happens!  … I'm here today in all humility to say: you changed minds; you changed policy; you changed the world.' Bono, too, questions the G8 commitment to Africa: 'Africa makes a fool of our idea of justice; it makes a farce of our idea of equality. It mocks our pieties, it doubts our concern, it questions our commitment.' (A Question of Commitment, p3) Wallis said on his return from his visit to the UK: 'I wrote in God's Politics that both Gordon Brown and Bono often remind me of the tones of the prophet Micah when they talk about the subject.'  

Hans Küng, the theologian who came in for severe criticism from Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger when he headed the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, met Ratzinger when he was wearing his new hat as Pope Benedict XVI over a friendly meal. Küng has just written the 'Declaration of a Global Ethic'. In the face of the fundamental crisis in which the world finds itself, Küng underlines the lack of a grand vision. 'Never' he says,' has there been such a need for a mechanism to counter global distress. Fortunately, a common ethic already exists within all the religious teachings of the world. This can supply the moral foundation for a vision to lead men and women away from despair, and society away from chaos.' The Declaration 'seeks to go beyond laws and prescriptions and touch the instinct for justice in men and women, and to bring about a change in the inner orientation, the mentality and hearts of people, so that they find once again their lives' direction, values and meaning.'  (Hans Küng: in search of a global ethic by Diana Holland; Share International Archives). 

An old friend from the solidarity community of the 1980s, Margaret Swedish, writes of her doings since leaving the Religious Task Force on Central America and Mexico. Giving herself time to 'listen to the signs of these new times', she comments: 'What I have heard has given me great pause… I believe that this world, and this society [the USA] in particular, is headed for a very difficult future… We have abused this earth, we have grown our global economy, we have developed our land, built our subdivisions, developed our coastlines and deserts, polluted the air and waters, disappeared our topsoil, destroyed much of our forests, warmed our atmosphere, overpopulated the planet, built lives that rely on diminishing supplies of oil and gas, consigned hundreds of millions of people to permanent poverty - and we thought this could go on forever… It seems to me that "the great comeuppance" is upon us.' Her hope is in the contribution the solidarity community can make: 'This is what the solidarity community brings - a fierce commitment to solidarity with the poor, to their inherent dignity, to their inherent right to have what they need for dignified lives, no greater or less than our own.' And, another sign of hope: 'There is so much already going on in the effort to conscientize people and educate and inform people about this heavy human footprint on the planet - one that could well crush the very life support systems on which we depend, biological beings that we are, after all.' (Send your comments on this to Margaret Swedish).

A Question of Commitment is in its small way a contribution to the serious discussions of spirituality and politics which Jim Wallis was heartened to find in the UK:  'Just as we have found all over America,' he said, 'a new generation is looking for an agenda worthy of their gifts, energy, commitment, and lives.'

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