From Paraguay Pope Francis charts bold new future for Latin Americans

(Austen Ivereigh) Basking in the warmth of Paraguay's deeply Catholic Guaraní people, Pope Francis has used the final leg of his extraordinary eight-day, three-nation South American visit to show the bond between the Church and poor, proposing the historic Jesuit missions of the region as a model of how an economy and society can work for the good of all.Francis flew to Paraguay on Friday afternoon, following a moving meeting that morning in a prison in the Bolivian city of Santa Cruz (see report in America and CNS). Following joyous scenes of dancing and music at the airport of the Paraguayan capital, Asunción, Pope Francis was received by the country's president, Horacio Cartes, at the presidential palace."Paraguay is known as the heart of America, not only because of her geographic location, but also because of the warmth of her hospitality and the friendliness of her people," Francis said in his address.Referring to Paraguay's history, he paid tribute to "the many ordinary Paraguayan people, whose names are not written in history books but who have been, and continue to be, the real protagonists in the life of your nation."Paraguay, which was more than twice its current size in the early nineteenth century, was laid waste after a devastating war with its neighbours Argentina, Brazil and Uruguay in the mid nineteenth century. As result of the War of the Triple Alliance, the Paraguayan male population was reduced by more than 90 per cent, and the state was all but destroyed. The country survived and was rebuilt as a result above all of the women.Francis told President Cartes of his "profound admiration [for]the role played by the women of Paraguay in those dramatic historical moments.  As mothers, wives and widows, they shouldered the heaviest burdens; they found a way to move their families and their country forward, instilling in new generations the hope of a better tomorrow."There was, however, no mention of the war as genocide, which the Paraguayan ambassador to London told a Catholic Voices meeting a week ago that the government had been hoping for.Francis went on to give his vision of authentic development:

May all social groups work to ensure that there will never again be children without access to schooling, families without homes, workers without dignified employment, small farmers without land to cultivate, or campesinos forced to leave their lands for an uncertain future.  May there be an end to violence, corruption and drug trafficking.  An economic development which fails to take into account the weakest and underprivileged is not an authentic development.  Economic progress must be measured by the integral dignity of the human person, especially the most vulnerable and helpless.

After the speeches there was a concert that featured a selection of baroque music from the era of the Jesuit missions in Paraguay in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, as well as pieces from the The Mission, the Ennio Morricone-scored dramatization of their tragic suppression.SaturdayThe following morning, Saturday, Francis visited the Niños de Acosta Ñú pediatric hospital in San Lorenzo, about 19 miles from the capital, home to children with cancer and cardiovascular problems (see address) before celebrating Mass at the national shrine of the Virgin of Caacupé.As Cardinal Archbishop, Jorge Bergoglio was close to the hundreds of thousands of Paraguayans living in the shanty towns of Buenos Aires, and has a strong personal devotion to the Virgin, celebrating her feast each year. Before the Mass began, the local bishop later told reporters, Francis was so overcome with emotion that the start of the celebration had to be delayed for a few minutes.During the Mass, which was rich in languages from Paraguay's 17 different ethnic groups. Pope Francis prayed the Our Father in Guaraní, beginning, "Ore Ru, yvagape reimeva. ..."In his homily -- a homage to Mary -- Francis began with a favorite theme of the Aparecida document: the vital place of shrines and sanctuaries in the faith of the ordinary faithful.

Being here with you makes me feel at home, at the feet of our Mother, the Virgin of Miracles of Caacupé.  In every shrine we, her children, encounter our Mother and are reminded that we are brothers and sisters.  Shrines are places of festival, of encounter, of family.  We come to present our needs.  We come to give thanks, to ask forgiveness and to begin again.  How many baptisms, priestly and religious vocations, engagements and marriages, have been born at the feet of our Mother!  How many tearful farewells!  We come bringing our lives, because here we are at home and it is wonderful to know there is someone waiting for us.

Francis returned to the theme of the women who had saved Paraguay (see Crux), describing them as the "most glorious women of America".

Here I would like especially to mention you, the women, wives and mothers of Paraguay, who at great cost and sacrifice were able to lift up a country defeated, devastated and laid low by war.  You are keepers of the memory, the lifeblood of those who rebuilt the life, faith and dignity of your people.  Like Mary, you lived through many difficult situations which, in the eyes of the world, would seem to discredit all faith.  Yet, like Mary, inspired and sustained by her example, you continued to believe, even “hoping against all hope” (Rom 4:18).  When all seemed to be falling apart, with Mary you said: “Let us not be afraid, the Lord is with us; he is with our people, with our families; let us do what he tells us”.  Then and now, you found the strength not to let this land lose its bearings.  God bless your perseverance, God bless and encourage your faith, God bless the women of Paraguay, the most glorious women of America.

Hundreds of thousands of the Pope's fellow Argentines -- including Paraguayans who have made Argentina their home, and who knew Cardinal Bergoglio -- boosted the crowds at Caacupé, which is only 25 miles from the border with Argentina. Immigration officials have reported the biggest ever cross-frontier crowds in the two countries' history.In the afternoon, at a lively meeting with civil society leaders (see The Tablet), Pope Francis gave a significant address to civil society leaders, developing his idea of a "culture of encounter". Urging passion and honesty and not to be afraid of differences and conflict, he said "true cultures are not closed in on themselves, but called to meet other cultures and to create new realities."  Without this "essential presupposition", he said, "it will be very difficult to arrive at dialogue.  If someone thinks that there are persons, cultures, or situations which are second, third or fourth class…  surely things will go badly, because the bare minimum, a recognition of the dignity of the other, is lacking."Among the teachers, artists, business leaders, communications professionals, indigenous leaders and farmers -- Pope Francis said he was impressed by the variety of groups and their commitment to working for the common good -- was Simon Cazal, co-founder of the LGBT rights group Somos Gay (see Guardian interview and Crux backgrounder), who said afterwards he was delighted with the Pope's message of inclusion.In response to a question, Pope Francis lambasted extortion. "One method which does not give people the freedom to take on their responsibilities in society, is extortion: you need to do this in order to obtain that. Extortion is still corruption. And corruption is the gangrene of a people.”Francis repeated his message that helping the poor meant getting close to those in need, not using them as a political category. Observing that "a fundamental part of helping the poor involves the way we see them", Francis said "an ideological approach" sought to instrumentalize the poor in the service of political or personal interests.

To really help them, the first thing is for us to be truly concerned for their persons, valuing them for their goodness.  Valuing them, however, also means being ready to learn from them.  The poor have much to teach us about humanity, goodness and sacrifice.  As Christians, we have an additional reason to love and serve the poor; for in them we see the face and the flesh of Christ, who made himself poor so to enrich us with his poverty (cf. 2 Cor 8:9).

He then turned to his theme of a more human economy, noting that "every country needs economic growth and the creation of wealth, and the extension of these to each citizen, without exclusion" but wealth creation "must always be at the service of the common good, and not only for the benefit of a few."Those charged with promoting economic development, he said, should ensure that "it always has a human face".

Work is a right and it bestows dignity.  Putting bread on the table, putting a roof over the heads of one’s children, giving them health and an education – these are essential for human dignity, and business men and women, politicians, economists, must feel challenged in this regard.  I ask them not to yield to an economic model which is idolatrous, which needs to sacrifice human lives on the altar of money and profit.  In economics, in business and in politics, what counts first and foremost is the human person and the environment in which he or she lives.

He then alluded to the Jesuit missions of Paraguay in seventeenth and eighteenth centuries as offering a model of a socioeconomic organization that met peoples' core needs.In their heyday between 1640 and 1720 -- before being suppressed by the Spanish Crown jealous of the Jesuits' independence -- there were around 150,000 Guaraní Indians in at least 30 Reductions (villages with farms, based around a central plaza and church) in what is today northern Argentina and Paraguay. Each Reduction was nurtured by just a handful of Jesuits, who not only protected the Indians from Portuguese slave-traders and Spanish colonists, but created prosperous, self-sufficient communities that provoked amazement and admiration in those who visited them.Pope Francis said:

Paraguay is rightly known throughout the world for being the place where the Reductions began.  These were among the most significant experiences of evangelization and social organization in history.  There the Gospel was the soul and the life of communities which did not know hunger, unemployment, illiteracy or oppression.  This historical experience shows us that, today too, a more humane society is possible.  Where there is love of people and a willingness to serve them, it is possible to create the conditions necessary for everyone to have access to basic goods, so that no one goes without.

 SundayThis morning (Sunday), Pope Francis visited a riverside slum in Asunción known as Bañado Norte (See AP) where people live in shacks of plywood and corrugated metal in an area notorious for flooding. Francis told the dwellers that he wanted “to see your faces, your children, your elderly, and to hear about your experiences and everything you went through to be here, to have a dignified life and a roof over your heads, to endure the bad weather and the flooding of these last few weeks.”Pope Francis wrapped up his visit with a huge Mass this morning in the Ñu Guazú field outside Asunción, which was attended by well over a million people.The altar was in the shape of the characteristic façades of the Jesuit missions, and included huge images of St Francis of Assisi and St Ignatius of Loyola. Remarkably, it was made out of foodstuffs of the Guaraní people -- using 40,000 ears of corn, 200,000 coconuts and 1,000 squash gourds.Preaching on this morning's Gospel from Matthew, Pope Francis spoke of evangelization as the capacity to offer hospitality. Noting that Jesus' instructions to his disciples were above all that they would learn a new hospitality of the heart, he said:

Jesus does not send them out as men of influence, landlords, officials armed with rules and regulations.  Instead, he makes them see that the Christian journey is about changing hearts.  It is about learning to live differently, under a different law, with different rules.  It is about turning from the path of selfishness, conflict, division and superiority, and taking instead the path of life, generosity and love.  It is about passing from a mentality which domineers, stifles and manipulates to a mentality which welcomes, accepts and cares.

These, he said, were "two contrasting mentalities, two ways of approaching our life and our mission."He said too often Christians thought in terms of converting others with sophisticated strategies or fine arguments, yet Jesus was clear that this was not how to evangelize.

How many times do we see mission in terms of plans and programs.  How many times do we see evangelization as involving any number of strategies, tactics, maneuvers, techniques, as if we could convert people on the basis of our own arguments.  Today the Lord says to us quite clearly: in the mentality of the Gospel, you do not convince people with arguments, strategies or tactics.  You convince them by learning how to welcome them.

Describing solitude as an evil destroying peoples' lives, he said "the real work of the Church" was not to manage works and projects "but to learn how to live in fraternity with others." God's Word, he said, "breaks the silence of loneliness".

One thing is sure: we cannot force anyone to receive us, to welcome us; this is itself part of our poverty and freedom.  But neither can anyone force us not to be welcoming, hospitable in the lives of our people.  No one can tell us us not to accept and embrace the lives of our brothers and sisters, especially those who have lost hope and zest for life.  How good it would be to think of our parishes, communities, chapels, wherever there are Christians, as true centers of encounter between ourselves and God.

And he urged that all Christians "provide a home, like Mary, who did not lord it over the word of God, but rather welcomed that word, bore it in her womb and gave it to others."(Two texts follow: the address to civil society leaders, and this morning's homily.)July 11, Asunción (Paraguay): Pope Francis’ Meeting with representatives of the civil society at León Condou stadium of San José SchoolDear Friends,I am pleased to be with you, the representatives of civil society, and to share our hopes and dreams for a better future.  I thank Bishop Adalberto Martínez Flores, Secretary of the Paraguay Bishops’ Conference, for his words of welcome in your name.Seeing all of you together, each coming from his or her own sector or organization within Paraguayan society, each bringing his or her own joys, concerns, struggles and hopes, makes me grateful to God.  A people unengaged and listless, passively accepting things as they are, is a dead people.  In you, however, I see great vitality and promise.  God always blesses this.  God is always on the side of those who help to uplift and improve the lives of his children.  To be sure, problems and situations of injustice exist.  But seeing you and listening to you helps to renew my hope in the Lord who continues to work in the midst of his people.  You represent many different backgrounds, situations and aspirations; all together, you make up Paraguayan culture.  All of you have a part to play in the pursuit of the common good.  “In the present condition of global society, where injustices abound and growing numbers of people are deprived of basic human rights and considered expendable” (Laudato Si’, 158), to see you before me is a real gift.I also want to thank those of you who prepared the questions.  These have enabled me to see above all your commitment to keep working together for the good of the nation.1. In the first question, I was pleased to hear a young person express concern that society be a place of fraternity, justice, peace and dignity for everyone.  Youth is a time of high ideals.  It is important that you, the young, realize that genuine happiness comes from working to make a more fraternal world!  It comes from realizing that happiness and pleasure are not synonymous.  Happiness is demanding, it requires commitment and effort.  You are too important to be satisfied with living life under a kind of anasthesia!  Paraguay has a large population of young people and this is a great source of enrichment for the nation.  So I think that the first thing to do is to make sure that all that energy, that light, does not grow dim in your hearts, and to resist the growing mentality which considers it useless and absurd to aspire to things that demand effort.  Be committed to something, be committed to someone.  Don’t be afraid to take a risk.  Don’t be afraid to give the best of yourselves!But don’t do this alone.  Try to talk about these things among yourselves, profit from the lives, the stories and the wisdom of your elders, of your grandparents.  “Waste” lots of time listening to all the good things they have to teach you.  They are the guardians of that spiritual legacy of faith and values which define a people and illumine its path.  Find comfort, too, in the power of prayer, in Jesus.  Keep praying to to him daily.  He will not disappoint you.  Jesus, in the memory of your people, is the secret to keeping a joyful heart in your quest for fraternity, justice, peace and dignity for everyone.I liked the poem of Carlos Miguel Giménez which Bishop Martínez quoted.  I think it sums up very nicely what I have been trying to say, “[I dream of] a paradise free of war between brothers and sisters, rich in men and women healthy in heart and soul… and a God who blesses its dawn”.  Yes, God is the guarantee of the dignity of man.2. The second question spoke about dialogue as a means to advance the project of a fully inclusive nation.  Dialogue, we know, is not easy.  There are many difficulties to be overcome, and sometimes it seems as if our efforts only make things even harder.  Dialogue must be built on something.  It presupposes and demands a culture of encounter.  An encounter which acknowledges that diversity is not only good, it is necessary.  So we cannot start off by thinking that the other person is wrong.  The common good is sought by starting from our differences, constantly leaving room for new alternatives.  In other words, look for something new.  Don’t just take “your own slice of the cake”, but discuss, think, and discover together a better solution for everybody.Many times this culture of encounter can involve conflict.  This is logical and even desirable.  It is not something we should be afraid of or ignore.  Rather, we are called to resolve it.  This means that we have to “face conflict head on, to resolve it and to make it a link in the chain of a new process” (Evangelii Gaudium 227), because “unity is greater than conflict” (ibid., 228).  A unity which does not cancel differences, but experiences them in communion through solidarity and understanding.  By trying to understand the thinking of others, their experiences, their hopes, we will be able to see more clearly our shared aspirations.  This is the basis of encounter: all of us are brothers and sisters, children of the same heavenly Father, and each of us, with our respective cultures, languages and traditions, has much to contribute to the community.  True cultures are not closed in on themselves, but called to meet other cultures and to create new realities.  Without this essential presupposition, without this basis of fraternity, it will be very difficult to arrive at dialogue.  If someone thinks that there are persons, cultures, or situations which are second, third or fourth class…  surely things will go badly, because the bare minimum, a recognition of the dignity of the other, is lacking.3. All this can serve as a way of approaching the concern expressed in the third question.  How do we hear the cry of the poor in order to build a more inclusive society?  A fundamental part of helping the poor involves the way we see them.  An ideological approach is useless: it ends up using the poor in the service of other political or personal interests (Evangelii Gaudium, 199).  To really help them, the first thing is for us to be truly concerned for their persons, valuing them for their goodness.  Valuing them, however, also means being ready to learn from them.  The poor have much to teach us about humanity, goodness and sacrifice.  As Christians, we have an additional reason to love and serve the poor; for in them we see the face and the flesh of Christ, who made himself poor so to enrich us with his poverty (cf. 2 Cor 8:9).Certainly every country needs economic growth and the creation of wealth, and the extension of these to each citizen, without exclusion.  But the creation of this wealth must always be at the service of the common good, and not only for the benefit of a few.  On this point we must be clear.  For “the worship of the ancient golden calf (cf. Ex 32:1-35) has returned in a new and ruthless guise in the idolatry of money and the dictatorship of an impersonal economy lacking a truly human purpose” (Evangelii Gaudium, 55).  Those charged with promoting economic development have the responsibility of ensuring that it always has a human face.  They have in their hands the possibility of providing employment for many persons and in this way of giving hope to many families.  Work is a right and it bestows dignity.  Putting bread on the table, putting a roof over the heads of one’s children, giving them health and an education – these are essential for human dignity, and business men and women, politicians, economists, must feel challenged in this regard.  I ask them not to yield to an economic model which is idolatrous, which needs to sacrifice human lives on the altar of money and profit.  In economics, in business and in politics, what counts first and foremost is the human person and the environment in which he or she lives.Paraguay is rightly known throughout the world for being the place where the Reductions began.  These were among the most significant experiences of evangelization and social organization in history.  There the Gospel was the soul and the life of communities which did not know hunger, unemployment, illiteracy or oppression.  This historical experience shows us that, today too, a more humane society is possible.  Where there is love of people and a willingness to serve them, it is possible to create the conditions necessary for everyone to have access to basic goods, so that no one goes without.Dear friends, it is a great pleasure to see the number and variety of associations sharing in the creation of an ever more prosperous Paraguay.  I see you as a great symphony, each one with his or her own specificity and richness, yet all working together towards a harmonious end.  That is what counts.Love your country, your fellow citizens, and, above all, love the poor.  In this way, you will bear witness before the world that another model of development is possible.  I am convinced that you possess the greatest strength of all: your humanity, your faith, your love.I ask Our Lady of Caacupé, our Mother, to watch over you and protect you, and to encourage you in all your efforts.  God bless you.12 July, Asunción (Paraguay): Homily at Ñu Guazú field “The Lord will shower down blessings, and our land will yield its increase”.  These are the words of the Psalm.  We are invited to celebrate this mysterious communion between God and his People, between God and us.  The rain is a sign of his presence, in the earth tilled by our hands.  It reminds us that our communion with God always brings forth fruit, always gives life.  This confidence is born of faith, from knowing that we depend on grace, which will always transform and nourish our land.It is a confidence which is learned, which is taught.  A confidence nurtured within a community, in the life of a family.  A confidence which radiates from the faces of all those people who encourage us to follow Jesus, to be disciples of the One who can never deceive.  A disciple knows that he or she is called to have this confidence; we feel Jesus’s invitation to be his friend, to share his lot, his very life.  “No longer do I call you servants... but I have called you friends, for all that I have heard from my Father I have made known to you”.  The disciples are those who learn how to dwell in the confidence born of friendship.The Gospel speaks to us of this kind of discipleship.  It shows us the identity card of the Christian.  Our calling card, our credentials.Jesus calls his disciples and sends them out, giving them clear and precise instructions.  He challenges them to take on a whole range of attitudes and ways of acting.  Sometimes these can strike us as exaggerated or even absurd.  It would be easier to interpret these attitudes symbolically or “spiritually”.  But Jesus is quite precise, very clear.  He doesn’t tell them simply to do whatever they think they can.Let us think about some of these attitudes: “Take nothing for the journey except a staff; no bread, no bag, no money...”  “When you enter a house, stay there until you leave the place”.  All this might seem quite unrealistic.We could concentrate on the words, “bread”, “money”, “bag”, “staff”, “sandals” and “tunic”.  And this would be fine.  But it strikes me that one key word can easily pass unnoticed.  It is a word at the heart of Christian spirituality, of our experience of discipleship: “welcome”.  Jesus as the good master, the good teacher, sends them out to be welcomed, to experience hospitality.  He says to them: “Where you enter a house, stay there”.  He sends them out to learn one of the hallmarks of the community of believers.  We might say that a Christian is someone who has learned to welcome others, to show hospitality.Jesus does not send them out as men of influence, landlords, officials armed with rules and regulations.  Instead, he makes them see that the Christian journey is about changing hearts.  It is about learning to live differently, under a different law, with different rules.  It is about turning from the path of selfishness, conflict, division and superiority, and taking instead the path of life, generosity and love.  It is about passing from a mentality which domineers, stifles and manipulates to a mentality which welcomes, accepts and caresThese are two contrasting mentalities, two ways of approaching our life and our mission.How many times do we see mission in terms of plans and programs.  How many times do we see evangelization as involving any number of strategies, tactics, maneuvers, techniques, as if we could convert people on the basis of our own arguments.  Today the Lord says to us quite clearly: in the mentality of the Gospel, you do not convince people with arguments, strategies or tactics.  You convince them by learning how to welcome them.The Church is a mother with an open heart.  She knows how to welcome and accept, especially those in need of greater care, those in greater difficulty.  The Church is the home of hospitality.  How much good we can do, if only we try to speak the language of hospitality, of welcome!  How much pain can be soothed, how much despair can be allayed in a place where we feel at home!  Welcoming the hungry, the thirsty, the stranger, the naked, the sick, the prisoner (Mt 25:34-37), the leper and the paralytic.  Welcoming those who do not think as we do, who do not have faith or who have lost it.  Welcoming the persecuted, the unemployed.  Welcoming the different cultures, of which our earth is so richly blessed.  Welcoming sinners.So often we forget that there is an evil underlying our sins.  There is a bitter root which causes damage, great damage, and silently destroys so many lives.  There is an evil which, bit by bit, finds a place in our hearts and eats away at our life: it is isolation.  Isolation which can have many roots, many causes.  How much it destroys our life and how much harm it does us.  It makes us turn our back on others, God, the community.  It makes us closed in on ourselves.  That is why the real work of the Church, our mother, is not mainly to manage works and projects, but to learn how to live in fraternity with others.  A welcome-filled fraternity is the best witness that God is our Father, for “by this all will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another” (Jn 13:35).In this way, Jesus teaches us a new way of thinking.  He opens before us a horizon brimming with life, beauty, truth and fulfillment.God never closes off horizons; he is never unconcerned about the lives and sufferings of his children.  God never allows himself to be outdone in generosity.  So he sends us his Son, he gives him to us, he hands him over, he shares him... so that we can learn the way of fraternity, of self-giving.  He opens up a new horizon; he is the new and definitive Word which sheds light on so many situations of exclusion, disintegration, loneliness and isolation.  He is the Word which breaks the silence of loneliness.And when we are weary or worn down by our efforts to evangelize, it is good to remember that the life which Jesus holds out to us responds to the deepest needs of people.  “We were created for what the Gospel offers us: friendship with Jesus and love of our brothers and sisters” (Evangelii Gaudium, 265).One thing is sure: we cannot force anyone to receive us, to welcome us; this is itself part of our poverty and freedom.  But neither can anyone force us not to be welcoming, hospitable in the lives of our people.  No one can tell us us not to accept and embrace the lives of our brothers and sisters, especially those who have lost hope and zest for life.  How good it would be to think of our parishes, communities, chapels, wherever there are Christians, as true centers of encounter between ourselves and God.The Church is a mother, like Mary.  In her, we have a model.  We too must provide a home, like Mary, who did not lord it over the word of God, but rather welcomed that word, bore it in her womb and gave it to others.We too must provide a home, like the earth, which does not choke the seed, but receives it, nourishes it and makes it grow.That is how we want to be Christians, that is how we want to live the faith on this Paraguayan soil, like Mary, accepting and welcoming God’s life in our brothers and sisters, in confidence and with the certainty that “the Lord will shower down blessings, and our land will yield its increase”.[ends]