Last week prominent people were busy in Europe, in Australia and in South America. In two continents they left the air foetid. In the other it was fresh.
Europe, a nation whose prosperity was built on the remission of its debt, and which rescued its own banks, condemned the already dispirited of another nation to limitless penury. And all in defence of economic orthodoxy. The air where the finance ministers met was indeed foetid.
In Australia it was no less so. Ministers contributed to environmental degradation and economic decline by backing coal mines and their sponsors and putting out of work people working in renewable energy.
In such an atmosphere the Pope’s visit to Latin America came as a breath of fresh air. After issuing his Encyclical on the environment he was with his own people, sharing a common language with the poor who battled for survival in unequal societies. In two engagements in Bolivia he focused on what matters.
The first was his visit to the Palmasola jail. Built for 800 prisoners it holds 5000, of whom more than three quarters are still awaiting trial. Prisoners who met the Pope told him that bribery, drug-dealing and violence are rife.
What mattered to the Pope was the people held there. He was clearly delighted to share their company and to speak to them in their simple and earthy language. He shared with them his own frailties, his enthusiasm for faith, his empathy with their pain on separation from families, their anger and fear at the conditions in the jail and their tenacious hope for something better. He nurtured their hope and their generosity.
In his speech to the grassroots community groups, he also showed he knew intimately their struggle to live. He encouraged them to keep hope alive and to work together. But here he also invited them to look at the wider forces that made for a sour world, and spoke urgently of the need to address them. It is worth quoting from his speech at length to show its directness and passion.
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