More than 200 political leaders and referents of social, educational and business spaces in Argentina participated in the retirement that the Archbishopric of San Juan de Cuyo offers annually.
The retirement had the purpose of promoting reflection and dialogue. On this occasion, the issue that illuminated the meeting was: “Being servers of fraternity and social friendship.”
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In this context, Mons. Dante Braida, Bishop of La Rioja and president of the Episcopal Commission of the Social Pastoral, was in charge of the morning preaching, where he longed for the meeting to be the occasion to “strengthen the vocation of service in the construction of a world where everyone has a place and living in peace, assuming the current challenges”, and in that context, he pointed to two dimensions: the fraternity and the social friend He relied on the teachings of Pope Francis, and then offered 11 keys in that regard.
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Cultivate a strong bond with God
“Learn to stop, to make pauses that allow me to become aware that we are limited and in need of God and others. Be aware of what we do and how we do it. Of what is fine and what it has to change. For this, silence is more than necessary. He humanizes us, allows us to return to the center of our life, of our being. Back to God.”
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Assume and live with delivery the social dimension of faith
“Just as we express faith in prayer and participating in a mass or cult or making a pilgrimage, we also have to express it in everyday life, in our responsibilities and link of each day,” he recommended.
“Being part of the commission of a club, of a neighborhood, of the school cooperator, a chapel commission and any institution that aims to seek the good of the entire population helps us express our faith through commitment and service in them.”
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The social inclusion of the poor
“We need to include the furthest, poor or discarded from the system,” he said. Francis says: “Of our faith in Christ made poor, and always close to the poor and excluded, the concern for the integral development of the most abandoned of society springs.”
At this point, the bishop called to be challenged by “the poverty of our country, people in problematic consumption, violence.”
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Bet on a new lifestyle that reduces the level of consumption
Taking the teachings of Pope Francis in Laudato if, ‘Mons. Braida pointed to the importance of the care of the common house, and criticized the current economy that drives to generate in each person a consumer of the same that occurs in the world.
In the words of the Holy Father: “The more empty the person’s heart is, the more he needs objects to buy, possess and consume … because the obsession with a consumerist lifestyle, especially when only a few can sustain it, can only cause violence and reciprocal destruction.”
In that line, he called the awareness that “you can live very well with little, with sobriety and beauty.”
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GIVE TO OTHERS AS THE GOOD SAMARITANO
Mons. Braida urged to put yourself in the place of the other, understanding its fragility, sympathizing, taking care of it and looking for others to participate in the aid.
“In each person around us there is a needy and we can know and understand their needs when we generate a link and we encourage ourselves to sustain it in time,” he recalled.
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Strengthen multilateralism
That is, “assume that social reality is complex and nobody can address it only or a single institution.” To do this, he called to greatly favor citizen participation so that all members of society can contribute their points of views, gifts and talents.
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Fight against indifference globalization
At this point, he described indifference as “one of the social diseases that affect fraternity and social friendship”, since “we see problems, we glimpse challenges in society and hope that others address them.”
In that sense, he called “to promote solidarity and mercy in all, particularly in those who have responsibilities.”
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Promote dialogue
“If we start from the fact that each one has something valuable to contribute to society, as well as each institution, the dialogue generates many more growth possibilities by allowing articulation among all,” he said, also highlighting its importance “to face the differences and conflicts that usually arise in a society.”
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Work for peace and the common good
“Human growth needs peace environments and to be able to have within reach all necessary assets. Therefore, all political activity has to be focused on guaranteeing these assets for the entire population, not only for some sectors,” he said.
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Rehabilitate politics
At this point, and following the teachings of the Pope, Mons. Braida called to “value politics as the most sublime act of charity”, also warning of “the risks of populisms and immediately, as well as certain liberal conceptions that undervalue community and cultural ties, exacerbating individualism.”
Bishop Braida recalled that “political greatness is shown when, in difficult times, it is played by great principles and thinking about the common long -term good.”
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Testimony value
To grow in fraternity and social friendship, the bishop considered, “coherence is necessary.”
“How one lives and embodies the essential values that build social life is essential,” he said, as is “the coherence of life even in the midst of our fragilities, expressed in importance that I give to the care of the family itself, the will to serve everyone, to overcome all kinds of indifference and fight corruption.”
Finally, he reminded the retirement participants that “the role as leaders, participation in the public and political life of a municipality or the province, in the nation or in different social organizations is an exceptional occasion of service”, and called to work in that line, to “develop and take care of this beautiful vocation they have received: to be servers of fraternity and social friendship.”
Julieta Villar
I am a journalist, a graduate in Communication from the National University of La Matanza in Argentina. I have work experience in non -governmental organizations. Since 2016 I dedicate myself to Catholic journalism, first in the Argentine Catholic Information Agency (AICA) and, since 2022, as a correspondent for ACI Press for Argentina, Chile, Uruguay and Bolivia.