Justice at the centre of evangelisation

No one living in the world today needs convincing as to how poverty crucifies its victims. It comes mostly in the lack of access to basic things like food sustenance, water, health, and so on. Is it any wonder then that the poor are sometimes referred to as “the crucified”?

There’s no denying that in our country the majority fall under the title of the crucified. The Church says it has a preferential option for the poor. It preaches the Good News. But what is Good News to the crucified people? Put another way; what is the Church’s duty when the dominant economic and political structures exacerbate, instead of alleviate, the plight of the poor?

To be incarnate the Church has no choice but to enter the conflict-ridden, messy path of history on the side of the poor, no matter what the costs. Her role, beyond saving souls, is to be a sign that gives the suffering redemptive meaning, and here on earth a new impulse for hope.

Among those who understood this was the late Archbishop Oscar Romero — brutally slain in March 1980 by the repressive regime of El Salvador because he stood with the people against their persecution and repression.

Archbishop Romero found in the suffering of the people a source of grace and a path to consolidate his fidelity to Christ’s call. He believed the poor are a sacrament that can transform our lives if we take part in their journey. What is the call of history if not to respond to the cry of the poor?

Behind the veil of history is the restoration of dignity for all, a process that’ll obviously fully achieved on the other side of this life, otherwise called afterlife. This is the real call of history.

The people of El Salvador called Archbishop Romero the entregado, the one who has given up his life to the people. His tragic end reminds us of the costs of real conversion from social conformity to the demands of truth and Christ’s call. They’re costly and often lead to the cross.

Archbishop Romero said: “Some want to keep a Gospel so disembodied that it doesn’t get involved at all in the world it must save. Christ is now in history. Christ is in the womb of the people. Christ is now bringing about a new heaven and a new earth.”

Often now when you look within the “wound of the people”, you hardly find representatives of the Church. Yet the political dimensions of the Gospel are undeniable for some of us, and certainly for Archbishop Romero.

If the Church is apostolic, to whom is it sent? If she’s Catholic, why is she often insular, parochial and defensive? What does it mean to preach liberty to the oppressed? If speaking truth to power is not Jesus of Nazareth’s message, then what is it? If the Church does not insert herself in the socio-political world, where will she find the conduit for Grace she must disperse to people of good will?

I was inspired to ask these questions by reading the life of Archbishop Romero. I feel the Church is losing in the realm of evangelisation because it has not taken to heart its pastoral response to the structural faults of our world. There’s an overriding necessity of justice for the majority that it is not passionate enough about.

Our times cannot afford a situation where the Gospel is nothing but a taming tool for the people to accept the structural sin of  modern systems. Religion, despite what the Marxists say, is not an opiate for the people, but the most radical message of freedom this world has ever seen.

This is how Archbishop Romero saw it: “A Church that tries to keep itself pure and uncontaminated would not be a Church of God’s service to the people. The authentic Church is one that does not mind conversing with prostitutes and publicans and sinners, as Christ did — and with Marxists and those of various political movements — in order to bring them salvation’s true message.”

And the Church is not only its structures and representatives, but its people also. Only then will we be in a position to talk of ourselves as people of resurrection.