The Church, while carrying on her service to the Lord,
cannot forsake the problems and difficulties of man (health, education…). In
fact Jesus Christ has left her with an unambiguous commandment: it is not
sufficient to love and honor God, it is as much mandatory to love one’s
neighbor and to cater to his needs. The services that the Church renders to
society through her sons and daughters have no purposes of religious
proselytism. She serves man in his diversified needs only and simply because
charity is a constitutive part of her faith: in fact, “faith without charity is
dead” (Jm 2,26).
With reference to the nationalization of the Catholic
Church’s clinics by the Eritrean government, in the last few weeks we have
recorded some comments and declarations, which are overtly untrue and
misleading. Hence, the need, on our part,
to offer our clarifications and refutations to such allegations for the sake of
anyone interested in knowing the truth of the matter.
1.-
The recent measures taken by the
Government would be, it is said, an application of a 1995 proclamation!
When the Proclamation was issued, the Catholic Church
earnestly elaborated a clear and articulate response on the central points of
the document, and delivered a finalized text to the highest government
authorities. Her aim in doing so was to facilitate a mutual understanding and
to suggest modifications and amendments to the Proclamation. The legitimate
presupposition from which the Church’s response set out was that it was
impossible to keep silent when one is confronted with issues and approaches
that, directly or indirectly, infringed on one’s identity, rights and duties.
The proposal that was submitted to the Government as a result of the above
premise was to be open to dialogue, as this was a substantial part of freedom,
which in turn would allow the Church to define herself and to illustrate her
duties, rights and mandate. More concretely, in her response, the Church
clarified, specified and amended the errors and inaccuracies contained in the
Proclamation.
With all of the above in mind, our response restated
that whatever service that the Church carries out fort man’s benefit, far from
being incompatible with law and legality, purports to buttress the principles
that the state itself, every state for that matter, claims to be committed to, for
the promotion of society’s veritable growth and maturity. In terms of time and
space, the Church has pursued such goals for two thousand years now and in
every latitude of the globe. She does not need only churches and chapels to
celebrate her faith and to perform her worship. She needs places and structures
as well, in order to give concreteness to that other dimension of her faith
which is love for neighbor. Obviously the Church would never force anyone to
resort to her social and charitable services. Instead, she has the duty, and
the right, to fulfill all her responsibilities towards anyone who chooses to
benefit from such services, because, let us repeat it once again, this is an irreplaceable
part of her religious faith. If the
Church misses such a dimension, it is faith itself that falls into irrelevance.
Woe then, if due to inertia or laziness, the Church fails to meet her vocation
to the ministry of charity. On the other hand, if and when external forces
prevent her from carrying on her works of charity, then they would violate her
right to the free exercise of faith.
2. The
charitable institutions of the Church - here is another specious allegation -
would belong neither to her, nor to the religious institutes in charge of them,
and they wouldn’t even concern them, as the said charitable institutions are donations
from external benefactor entities.
a. The
aid that is delivered out to the needy who come to our structures for help
originates not from unspecified, undefined, self-styled benefactors; it is
rather the result of an organic and properly planned inter-ecclesial
cooperation, i.e. between the Catholic communities throughout the world and the
church communities living and ministering in the developing countries. In this
context, the donor entities deliver their aid to us with the clear
understanding that it is put entirely at our disposal, so that, thorough us, it
may reach out the needy. To that
purpose, the aid is delivered to us by the donors on the basis of a proven and consolidated
trust towards us. Otherwise one cannot fathom why the donors would not send
their donations to the state authorities! On the other hand, who can deny that
the governments themselves do receive aid for the population from individuals,
groups, and organizations which they call “supporters” or “partners”?
b. The donor institutions are free, always with due
respect for the law, to choose or select whomever they see fit to run and
administer their aid. In our specific
context, from the very beginning they have chosen to avail themselves of the
Catholic religious institutes, and entrusted them with the responsibility of
administering their contributions. This they have done on the basis of their
high consideration for our personnel’s competence and first-hand knowledge of
the needs and problems of our people.
b. Inasmuch as a juridical person, the Church too has
the native right to acquire and possess. Such a right is rooted in her very
identity, faith and multifarious charitable ministries.
c. This said, we don’t see any reasonable motivation
why the exercise of such a right should be outlawed, as long as it remains
immune from crime, or whatever action retraceable to crime. To the contrary,
the exercise of such a right is made imperative by the urgent needs of the
people. In this connection, we have the privilege of stating, with clear
conscience, the moral integrity and the transparency of our charitable services
to the people, yesterday as much as today, and to reiterate the critical
importance of all such services for the people. This can be attest to, anytime,
by everybody, friends and not friends alike.
d. In view of the above points, the competent
ministerial and government authorities themselves have always recognized
whatever aid came into our hands, through a process of recognition, legal
recording and related documentation under our own name.
3.
Another gross misrepresentation: the clinics and schools of the Catholic Church
would be located only in Catholic areas!
a. Gross misrepresentations such as the above wouldn’t
deserve the slightest attention, if it were not for the existence of some incurably naïve people ready to bite the hook,
and for the need to keep track of the fabricators of lie running about the wide
spectrum of social media. The sheer
number and the worldwide spread
of Eritrean men and women educated and treated in our catholic institutions
irrespective of ethnicity, religion and culture, is an incontrovertible
evidence of the universalism of our work.
All such activities are so well documented, properly filed and
accurately recorded, that it would be extremely easy, for anyone interested, to
verify who has studied or was treated where. Leafing through the registers kept
in our centers and at the relevant government ministries would be sufficient to
confirm the truth of our statements.
b. Another
point which does not require particular enquires or deep analyses is the
distribution of our charitable activities and
social promotion facilities (clinics and schools) throughout the
national territory: it would suffice to give a glance at the map and
identify the location of our social
structures on the one hand, and the areas of Catholic settlements on the other:
no doubt, the falsehood of the above contention would come to the fore in no
uncertain terms!
c. One more solid evidence disproving the claim that
the services provided by our centers obey to ethnic, religious or cultural
biases, is the fact that not only the beneficiaries of our centers, but the
staff and the personnel working in them too, right from the doorman up to the
teaching staff, the paramedical and the medical personnel, belong to the most diversified
ethnic, religious, and cultural provenances.
4. According
to one more hoax, our charitable institutions would be instruments of religious
proselytism.
a. The
propagandists of such an allegation, generally, reconnect themselves to the one
we have already mentioned above (see n.3), and inevitably their accusation is
pulverized by its own internal contradiction: if our social structures are
supposed to serve only the members of the Catholic community, how on earth is
it possible for them to become, at the same time, instruments of Catholic
proselytism?
b. At this point, may we launch a challenge? If, from
among the hundreds of thousands of men and woman who have attended our
institutions, there is someone to whom conversion to Catholic faith was requested
as a precondition for access to our services, can he or she please raise his or
her hand? We are definitely certain that the above accusers would be hopelessly
belied by all the evidences to the contrary. More simply, it is a normative
modus operandi of he Church not to exploit the poverty of people in order to
increase the numerical consistency of her membership. By the same token, the
Church would never accept anyone who would ask to join her faith community
guided by material interests; for the Lord’s word is explicit: “you are looking
for me, not because you saw the signs I have performed, but because you ate the
loaves and had your fill” (Jn 6,26).
C. Quite different is instead the situation of those
who, inspired by the witness of total dedication to God and to the brothers
offered by the men and women serving in our structures, freely and
spontaneously ask to join the Catholic Church. Here we have an instance in
which the applicant cannot be deprived of the right of free choice. Rather,
there is sufficient room for a legitimate pride for all the parties involved:
for those who, with their life and selfless service, incarnate a living and
credible witness, as well as those who, with full knowledge, mature discernment
and free deliberation, choose to join the Catholic Church. The truth in fact is that every person has the
inalienable right, rooted in the natural law and recognized by international
legislation, to make his religious choice, without coercion, manipulation or
conditioning of any type.
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