despondency it spawns.   
    "Time, my brothers and sisters, seems to be running out; we are not yet   
   tearing   
   one another apart, but we are tearing apart our common home. Today, the   
   scientific community realises what the poor have long told us: harm, perhaps   
   irreversible harm, is being done to the ecosystem. The earth, entire peoples   
   and   
   individual persons are being brutally punished. And behind all this pain, death   
   and destruction there is the stench of what Basil of Caesarea called 'the dung   
   of the devil'. An unfettered pursuit of money rules. The service of the common   
   good is left behind. Once capital becomes an idol and guides people's   
   decisions,   
   once greed for money presides over the entire socio-economic system, it ruins   
   society, it condemns and enslaves men and women, it destroys human fraternity,   
   it sets people against one another and, as we clearly see, it even puts at risk   
   our common home.   
    "I do not need to go on describing the evil effects of this subtle   
   dictatorship: you are well aware of them. Nor is it enough to point to the   
   structural causes of today's social and environmental crisis. We are suffering   
   from an excess of diagnosis, which at times leads us to multiply words and to   
   revel in pessimism and negativity. Looking at the daily news we think that   
   there   
   is nothing to be done, except to take care of ourselves and the little circle   
   of   
   our family and friends.   
    "What can I do, as collector of paper, old clothes or used metal, a recycler,   
   about all these problems if I barely make enough money to put food on the   
   table?   
   What can I do as a craftsman, a street vendor, a trucker, a downtrodden worker,   
   if I do not even enjoy workers' rights? What can I do, a farmwife, a native   
   woman, a fisher who can hardly fight the domination of the big corporations?   
   What can I do from my little home, my shanty, my hamlet, my settlement, when I   
   daily meet with discrimination and marginalisation? What can be done by those   
   students, those young people, those activists, those missionaries who come to   
   my   
   neighbourhood with their hearts full of hopes and dreams, but without any real   
   solution for my problems? A lot! They can do a lot. You, the lowly, the   
   exploited, the poor and underprivileged, can do, and are doing, a lot. I would   
   even say that the future of humanity is in great measure in your own hands,   
   through your ability to organise and carry out creative alternatives, through   
   your daily efforts to ensure the three 'L's' (labour, lodging, land) and   
   through   
   your proactive participation in the great processes of change on the national,   
   regional and global levels. Don't lose heart!   
    "You are sowers of change. Here in Bolivia I have heard a phrase which I like:   
   'process of change'. Change seen not as something which will one day result   
   from   
   any one political decision or change in social structure. We know from painful   
   experience that changes of structure which are not accompanied by a sincere   
   conversion of mind and heart sooner or later end up in bureaucratisation,   
   corruption and failure. That is why I like the image of a 'process', where the   
   drive to sow, to water seeds which others will see sprout, replaces the   
   ambition   
   to occupy every available position of power and to see immediate results. Each   
   of us is just one part of a complex and differentiated whole, interacting in   
   time: peoples who struggle to find meaning, a destiny, and to live with   
   dignity,   
   to 'live well'.   
    "As members of popular movements, you carry out your work inspired by   
   fraternal   
   love, which you show in opposing social injustice. When we look into the eyes   
   of   
   the suffering, when we see the faces of the endangered campesino, the poor   
   labourer, the downtrodden native, the homeless family, the persecuted migrant,   
   the unemployed young person, the exploited child, the mother who lost her child   
   in a shoot-out because the barrio was occupied by drug dealers, the father who   
   lost his daughter to enslavement. When we think of all those names and faces,   
   our hearts break because of so much sorrow and pain. And we are deeply moved.   
   We   
   are moved because 'we have seen and heard' not a cold statistic but the pain of   
   a suffering humanity, our own pain, our own flesh. This is something quite   
   different than abstract theorising or eloquent indignation. It moves us; it   
   makes us attentive to others in an effort to move forward together. That   
   emotion   
   which turns into community action is not something which can be understood by   
   reason alone: it has a surplus of meaning which only peoples understand, and it   
   gives a special feel to genuine popular movements.   
    "Each day you are caught up in the storms of people's lives. You have told me   
   about their causes, you have shared your own struggles with me, and I thank you   
   for that. You, dear brothers and sisters, often work on little things, in local   
   situations, amid forms of injustice which you do not simply accept but actively   
   resist, standing up to an idolatrous system which excludes, debases and kills.   
   I   
   have seen you work tirelessly for the soil and crops of campesinos, for their   
   lands and communities, for a more dignified local economy, for the urbanisation   
   of their homes and settlements; you have helped them build their own homes and   
   develop neighbourhood infrastructures. You have also promoted any number of   
   community activities aimed at reaffirming so elementary and undeniably   
   necessary   
   a right as that of the three 'L's': land, lodging and labour.   
    "This rootedness in the barrio, the land, the office, the labour union, this   
   ability to see yourselves in the faces of others, this daily proximity to their   
   share of troubles and their little acts of heroism: this is what enables you to   
   practice the commandment of love, not on the basis of ideas or concepts, but   
   rather on the basis of genuine interpersonal encounter. We do not love concepts   
   or ideas; we love people. Commitment, true commitment, is born of the love of   
   men and women, of children and the elderly, of peoples and communities, of   
   names   
   and faces which fill our hearts. From those seeds of hope patiently sown in the   
   forgotten fringes of our planet, from those seedlings of a tenderness which   
   struggles to grow amid the shadows of exclusion, great trees will spring up,   
   great groves of hope to give oxygen to our world.   
    "So I am pleased to see that you are working at close hand to care for those   
   seedlings, but at the same time, with a broader perspective, to protect the   
   entire forest. Your work is carried out against a horizon which, while   
   concentrating on your own specific area, also aims to resolve at their root the   
   more general problems of poverty, inequality and exclusion. I congratulate you   
   on this. It is essential that, along with the defence of their legitimate   
   rights, peoples and their social organisations be able to construct a humane   
   alternative to a globalisation which excludes. You are sowers of change. May   
   God   
   grant you the courage, joy, perseverance and passion to continue sowing. Be   
   assured that sooner or later we will see its fruits. Of the leadership I ask   
   this: be creative and never stop being rooted in local realities, since the   
   father of lies is able to usurp noble words, to promote intellectual fads and   
   to   
   adopt ideological stances. But if you build on solid foundations, on real needs   
   and on the lived experience of your brothers and sisters, of campesinos and   
   natives, of excluded workers and marginalised families, you will surely be on   
   the right path.   
    "The Church cannot and must not remain aloof from this process in her   
   proclamation of the Gospel. Many priests and pastoral workers carry out an   
   enormous work of accompanying and promoting the excluded throughout the world,   
   alongside cooperatives, favouring businesses, providing housing, working   
   generously in the fields of health, sports and education. I am convinced that   
   respectful cooperation with the popular movements can revitalise these efforts   
   and strengthen processes of change.   
    "Let us always have at heart the Virgin Mary, a humble girl from small people   
   lost on the fringes of a great empire, a homeless mother who could turn a   
   stable   
   for beasts into a home for Jesus with just a few swaddling clothes and much   
   tenderness. Mary is a sign of hope for peoples suffering the birth pangs of   
   justice. I pray that Our Lady of Mount Carmel, patroness of Bolivia, will allow   
   this meeting of ours to be a leaven of change.   
    "Lastly, I would like us all to consider some important tasks for the present   
   historical moment, since we desire a positive change for the benefit of all our   
   brothers and sisters. We know this. We desire change enriched by the   
   collaboration of governments, popular movements and other social forces. This   
   too we know. But it is not so easy to define the content of change - in other   
   words, a social program which can embody this project of fraternity and justice   
   which we are seeking. So do not expect a recipe from this Pope. Neither the   
   Pope   
   nor the Church have a monopoly on the interpretation of social reality or the   
   proposal of solutions to contemporary issues. I dare say that no recipe exists.   
   History is made by each generation as it follows in the footsteps of those   
   preceding it, as it seeks its own path and respects the values which God has   
   placed in the human heart. I would like, all the same, to propose three great   
   tasks which demand a decisive and shared contribution from popular movements.   
    "The first task is to put the economy at the service of peoples. Human beings   
   and nature must not be at the service of money. Let us say 'no' to an economy   
   of   
   exclusion and inequality, where money rules, rather than service. That economy   
   kills. That economy excludes. That economy destroys Mother Earth. The economy   
   should not be a mechanism for accumulating goods, but rather the proper   
   administration of our common home. This entails a commitment to care for that   
   home and to the fitting distribution of its goods among all. It is not only   
   about ensuring a supply of food or 'decent sustenance'. Nor, although this is   
   already a great step forward, is it to guarantee the three 'L's' of land,   
   lodging and labour for which you are working. A truly communitarian economy,   
   one   
   might say an economy of Christian inspiration, must ensure peoples' dignity and   
   their 'general, temporal welfare and prosperity'. This includes the three   
   'L's',   
   but also access to education, health care, new technologies, artistic and   
   cultural manifestations, communications, sports and recreation. A just economy   
   must create the conditions for everyone to be able to enjoy a childhood without   
   want, to develop their talents when young, to work with full rights during   
   their   
   active years and to enjoy a dignified retirement as they grow older. It is an   
   economy where human beings, in harmony with nature, structure the entire system   
   of production and distribution in such a way that the abilities and needs of   
   each individual find suitable expression in social life. You, and other peoples   
   as well, sum up this desire in a simple and beautiful expression: 'to live   
   well'.   
    "Such an economy is not only desirable and necessary, but also possible. It is   
   no utopia or chimera. It is an extremely realistic prospect. We can achieve it.   
   The available resources in our world, the fruit of the intergenerational   
   labours   
   of peoples and the gifts of creation, more than suffice for the integral   
   development of 'each man and the whole man'. The problem is of another kind.   
   There exists a system with different aims. A system which, while irresponsibly   
   accelerating the pace of production, while using industrial and agricultural   
   methods which damage Mother Earth in the name of 'productivity', continues to   
   deny many millions of our brothers and sisters their most elementary economic,   
   social and cultural rights. This system runs counter to the plan of Jesus.   
    "Working for a just distribution of the fruits of the earth and human labour   
   is   
   not mere philanthropy. It is a moral obligation. For Christians, the   
   responsibility is even greater: it is a commandment. It is about giving to the   
   poor and to peoples what is theirs by right. The universal destination of goods   
   is not a figure of speech found in the Church's social teaching. It is a   
   reality   
   prior to private property. Property, especially when it affects natural   
   resources, must always serve the needs of peoples. And those needs are not   
   restricted to consumption. It is not enough to let a few drops fall whenever   
   the   
      
   --- MPost/386 v1.21   
    * Origin: Sursum Corda! BBS=Huntsville AL=bbs.sursum-corda.com (1:396/45)