standup.comboniyouth.org.uk

Proclamation

Elections in the UK have gone by, with the three major parties all claiming victory and the ruling Labour Party coming on top, after the counting. Though in a proportional system the new parliament would have been more evenly representative of the country. The new MPs in Westminster saw 1,000 religious from Anglican and Roman Catholic orders lobbying them in a humble but determined way to support the Make Poverty History campaign.

This religious Lobby of Parliament was organized by CAFOD to speak against global poverty and to tell some sharp facts: a woman dies in childbirth every minute; 150 million children are malnourished; 1.1 billion people have no safe water; every three seconds, poverty takes a child's life; more then 1 billion people live on less than $1 a day; more than 100 million children are unable to go to school. Unfair trade rules deny poor countries nearly $700 billion every year. The fact that so many people in this world live in abject poverty is a scandal. The fact that poverty is so often caused by the West, as we pillage their limited natural resources and use sweat-labour to maintain our unsustainable lifestyle, is totally unacceptable. Poverty is more than looking at skinny babies and helping to feed people. It is bigger than that: it's about trade, aid and debt.

As missionaries and religious the challenge is there to working for a preventive peace that may become preventive justice. How do we achieve this? With simplicity and joy; by the testimony of thrusting ourselves into the love of a God that loves his creatures; by answering to this love through prayer; a prayer that becomes a fact, the real only revolutionary fact that can bring about a change. The invitation is a simple one. Do not be there sidelined or brushed aside. Enter the growing numbers that are asking: "how many more of the poor will have to die in the statistics before it's enough?" This is the sense of the pressure put on the world leaders by the Make Poverty History campaign. Let us put the Make Poverty History campaign at the centre of our prayer. "What do we want? Justice! When do we want it? Now!" Wear the white wristband, be a campaigner! Like Sir Bob Geldof, who has just proclaimed that on 2 July the LIVE8 concerts will take place in 5 cities: London, Philadelphia, Paris, Berlin and Rome. He said: "I think the Pope should turn up". My own opinion is that Benedict XVI will still prefer Beethoven. Once he was reported as saying: "musical sense has been stunted since the beginning of the sixties by rock music and related forms". Will there be any conversion on his side? I doubt it!