David Attenborough’s “The Truth about Climate Change”

Yesterday I ran into David Attenborough’s DVD The Truth about Climate Change as produced by the BBC and the Open University. It contains two parts: Are We Changing Planet Earth? and Can We Save Planet Earth? This is an excellent introduction to the challenge of global climate change, pointing out the seriousness of the challenge, the urgency to act responsbly, and providing, mainly in the second part, a set of very concrete steps individuals and societies can take. The despair viewers may feel when confronted with climate change is, therefore, always turned into positive energy. I recommend this as a top introduction and will invite my students and as many as possible of my fellow Jesuits to watch it. One cannot remain unmoved when encountering the passion of David Attenborough!

Victor Codina SJ on Ignatius Loyola’s Two Standards

I finished reading a short and inspiring reflection on Ignatius Loyola’s meditation on the two standards (Spiritual Exercises 136-148) by the Bolivian Jesuit Victor Codina (*). He shows how this ignatian meditation intends deeper ways of spiritual discernment and how it addresses two different logics and approaches to our commitments in the world. The kenotic way of Jesus is unveiled in Luke’s narrative about Jesus’ temptations in the desert, after his baptism by John the Baptist and the revelation of the Trinity. Following Jesus in his kenotic life style and approach, in his friendship with the poor, is listening and following the Holy Spirit’s guidance in our lives. Codina’s hermeneutics and analyses are thought provoking. E.g., he emphasizes Jesus as the Galilean (“Galilea, región despreciada”): “La Bandera de Jesús es el estilo particular de Jesús de Nazaret, un estílo galileo, nazareno”, a theme that is also addressed by Virgilio Elizondo in his emphasis on the Galilean Jesus, as well as by Elías López in his work on forgiveness and reconciliation. These theologians are not mentioned by V. Codina, who refers chiefly to Aloysius Pieris, Ignacio Ellacuría, and Joseph Ratzinger (Benedict XVI). For those interested in the reflection on ignatian spirituality, V. Codina offers interesting material for reflection on the importance of the Trinity and especially of the Spirit (not very often mentioned explicitly in the Spiritual Exercises), as well as the connection of the work of the Spirit with the ignatian “magis” in its dynamism towards  the “minus” that is also visible in the gospel beatitudes. For those who know Spanish, I recommend V. Codina’s reflection on the two standards. 

* Victor Codina’s full text “Dos banderas” como lugar teológico has been published by Cristianisme e Justicia (Barcelona) in its Eides series (July 2009) and will, I suppose, be very soon available on the Eides webpage.

Porto Velho – XII Interecclesial CEB Meeting

In his second letter, Afonso Murad, emphasizes how the hard realities of the Amazon Region, the exploitation of the natural resources, the oppression of indigenous people, the agro-industries and the neccessity for water resources, the innercity violence and drug abuse, do not lead to despair, but unveil the hopes and the desire to commit of the participants in Porto Velho. This finds its expression in the liturgies, in the atmosphere of solidarity, and in the sharing of experiences and contexts. This already the articulation of the dream for a just, inclusive and sustainable society.

I received some further web references concerning the meeting in Porto Velho:

Adveniat in Germany hosts a blog on the event: http://adveniat.de/blog/.

The official site of the Brazilian Bishops Conference offers further materials and photographs: http://www.cnbb.org.br/ns/

Porto Velho – CEB Meeting

I promised to keep track of the XIIth Interecclesial Meeting of the Ecclesial Base Communities. I received a letter from one of the participants, Afonso Murad, a theologian from Brasil.

In his address to the meeting, the Archbishop of Porto Velho, Mgr. Moacir Grechi, quoted an African thought : “Little people who do small things in unimportant places, reach extraordinary results”. It illustrates well the awareness of people who are locally committed in very concrete situations, but who are also aware of the fact that their struggles have a universal, planetary importance. The first celebration of the meeting illustrated symbolically the complexities of the Amazon region: the river and the forest, the inhabitants, the biodiversity and cultural diversities in the region, the destruction of nature by agricultural industry, the hope and the resistance of its people. The perspective of the meeting is “socio-environmental” and originates with the situation of the poor.

The way of proceeding of the meeting is also highly symbollical: the central meeting point is called the “haven”, to which the 12 miniplenaries or “rivers” report. The 144 smaller discussion groups, in which participants can exchange their personal experiences, approaches and convictions, are called “canoes”. Today’s theme concentrated on the effort to “SEE” and to hear the prophetic cry of the earth and of the peoples of the Amazon region as a gift to the whole of humanity and the whole planet. The hopes and struggles that are articulated in this meeting, although they may be small and insignificant, and although they concern truly local issues in unimportant places, are nevertheless crucial for a planetary hope and struggle.

For maps of the Amazone region, see: http://www.raisg.socioambiental.org/.

12th Interecclesial Meeting of Brazilian Ecclesial Basic Communities

From July 21st to July 25th Brazil’s Ecclesial Basic Communities meet in Porto Velho around the theme of Ecology and Mission: “From the belly of the earth, the cry that comes from Amazonia”. This is a very important and well attended meeting in which the socio-environmental concerns of the Amazonia region as well as the indigenous viewpoints, theologies and cosmologies will receive full attention. The meeting is important not only because of the Amazone region itself, which is threatened by deforestation and inconsiderate use of its water resources, but also because of the threats to what its indigenous may contribute to the reflection on worldwide sustainable lifestyles in a period of growing global environmental concerns (as illustrated in an IRIN notification that the IPCC plans to prepare, by 2011, a special report on Managing the Risks of Extreme Events and Disasters to Advance Climate Change Adaptation). I will provide some more news on the meeting in Porto Velho over the coming days, as I also hope that participants will be aware of the contribution they can offer towards the preparation of the coming United Nations’ Climate Change Conference (COP15: COP stands for “Conference of the Parties”) in Copenhagen from December 7th to 18th, 2009.

Two Thoughts About a Faculty of Theology

Today’s proclamation of the exam results at our Faculty of Theology, K.U.Leuven, provided a welcome oportunity for the inauguration of the newly renovated collegium veteranorum, a building which will host the dean and the key administration offices of the Faculty from August 15th, 2009 on. Two thoughts struck me in the various speeches that were on offer. They concern the role and the place of a faculty of theology in today’s world.

Prof. Mathijs Lamberigts, a former dean of the faculty, told us how he had moved forward the project of the renovation of the collegium veteranorum. One of his arguments with the university authorities claimed that a faculty of theology needs a front door that opens it up to the street and through which the street can enter. It’s a powerful metaphor to state that the world and the concrete realities of that world should never be very far from the heart of our concerns and thoughts. Theologians cannot isolate themselves from the concrete real lives of people, a fact which our current dean, Prof. Lieven Boeve, put forward by saying to those students graduating today that their input, arising out of their pastoral and educational commitments, will be crucial to our faculty and our ways of thinking in Leuven. We need that input to feed our thought.

One of the university’s top managers, Prof. Koenraad Debackere, praised the Leuven theologians for their entrepreneurial spirit – they know how to acquire funding, they know how to manage the greatest theology library in the world, etc. – and referred to the importance of values in setting up economic systems so as to point to the role theologians can and have to play in a world that is suffering one of the worst economic crises in its history: the renovated building can be an embodiment in the midst of the university precisely to highlight and emphasize the role of theologians.

I liked both remarks, because I am convinced that we live in a rapidly changing world – the environmental crisis being a key player in these dramatic changes – and as a theologian I feel the urgency to build up a theological reflection that addresses these challenges. How can we, in a faculty of theology, empower (in Flemish, I would say: “toerusten”, to equip, to provide with the necessary tools and skills) our young students so that they become more capable to address a world, the shape and contours of which we can hardly imagine today. And, inevitably, as professors we will increasingly have to learn to listen to the intuitions of our young students – not only when they describe the crisis and its dangers, but also and foremost when they express their hopes and their ideas about what will be important to address the challenges. To try to find out the ways in which theology can become a source of creativity and of hope in a rapidly changing world is, I think, the main challenge of a faculty of theology. May the new offices of the dean remind us constantly of this!

 

Brian Lennon’s “So You Can’t Forgive …?”

Brian Lennon is an Irish Jesuit, committed to the Northern Ireland peace process and involved in many grassroots processes. He has recently published a very interesting little book that I had the occasion to read today: So You Can’t Forgive …? Moving Towards Freedom (Dublin: The Columba Press, 2009, 84 pp.). He concentrates on and analyses the processes of forgiving in a wronged person, stresses the importance of separating from the wrongdoer before, in a Christian movement as illustrated by many biblical references, moving beyond the separation. Brian synthetically summarizes the process of forgiving (he doesn’t want to use the word “forgiviness” or “reconciliation” as he concentrates on the processes in the wronged person alone) in four steps, the latter two reflecting the move into a Christian attitude and its call to forgiving:

1. Recognizing my anger and accepting it as legitimate.
2. Letting go of the desire for revenge by separating myself from the wrongdoer.
3. Developing a degree of empathy with the wrongdoer by distinguishing between the bad act and the person who did it.
4. Wishing the perpetrator well.

The use of the “I” person involves the reader as if it were in the process of a challenging workshop and, indeed, the book offers insights which are grasped with more depth when readers become involved with their own histories of being called to forgiving, when the book begins to tickle one’s own life.

I am really impressed by this book as it unknots what I could call the “compulsive Christian” in me, who feels guilty while having to fathom patiently all the diverse aspects of a process of forgiving, thereby unlocking many possible pitfalls that I would have liked to avoid, but that I am called to address if I desire to heal in freedom. I allow myself to quote a passage from the book, on p. 27, that is profoundly compassionate, full of humor and encouragement:

COMPARING OURSELVES TO OUR LORD
Another trap, for Christians, is to compare ourselves to Our Lord: he did it, so why can’t we? One answer is because we are not Our Lord!
Yes, we are called to follow Our Lord. Yes, he did say ‘Be perfect as my heavenly Father is perfect.’ But nowhere in the gospels does it say that we have to achieve this overnight.
We have to be patient with ourselves. One old, old trap is to set ourselves a goal, e.g. giving up drink, then beat ourselves up for not achieving it, and then because we are fed up on account of this we go back on the drink!
It can be the same with forgiving: we can set ourselves impossible goals, and then when we fail we give up the whole idea.

Brian invites us to engage into forgiving as a life process of growing in freedom and of following God, unfolding patiently the rich complexity of a love that heals us by allowing us to explore our depths.

Rodrigo Plá’s “La Zona”

This evening I saw Rodrigo Plá’s impressive movie “La Zona”, about human reactions when in a rich area of a Mexican city, separated as an enclave from the rest of the poor city by walls and private security people, robbers kill one of the inhabitants, who take revenge in their own hands while protecting their secure life. It is a very hard movie, not only because of its plot itself, but also because some very profound logics of human behaviour are unwrapped: violence and greed are all at once not strange to us, to the viewers of the movie. Do we not live in protected zones of many kinds, keeping our privileges by keeping others out and policing our neighbours dictatorially when these privileges become threatened? To me, the movie is also a metaphor for the contrast between rich and poor in our world and it explains how people become trapped in violent logics so as to maintain the advantages of power, status and wealth.

This is not the most beautiful side of our human nature and behaviour and I came out of the movie with pain in my heart. The young Alejandro, who befriends Daniel, one of the persecuted robbers in the zone, gives hope: in him profound and compassionate humanity works its way to the surface of existence. The mystic Jan Ruusbroec wrote that compassion is the deepest of human characteristics, and the theologian Jon Sobrino insists that compassion is the starting point of every serious theology into which we sometimes have to be shocked. These ideas are also present in the movie and they stimulate me to change myself, the people around me, and the world.

Added later: While talking to a friend, it struck me how this movie also invites me to think about the Church as a holistic, inclusive and universal endeavour. The Church is about bridging in a life giving way murderous differences and separations … it’s about constructing frontierspaces of encounter on borderlines of separation.

Colony Collapse Disorder

Colony Collapse Disorder is a frightening pheonomen taking place in the USA, but apparently also spreading to Europe and other parts of the world. I quote a recent BBC-World article: “Accross the Atlantic US honey bees are being wiped out in vast numbers by a mysterious condition that leaves hives deserted”. The exact causes of CCD are as yet unknown and that is all the more disturbing, as bees are primary actors in processes of polinization, crucial to the growing of our food. This is certainly something to know about and to follow-up, but there is more.

I was listening to a radio report on the issue this morning and to my great surprise the seriousness of the issue was measured in terms of money losses to the US and the world economy. No mention at all was made of the fact that CCD may add to the already existing worldwide food problems, that it may mean (at least) serious hardship to many people, particularly poor people. We measure losses in dollars or euros … do we forget about human lives?

White Pebbles …

Yesterday, I started reading Lytta Basset’s very moving book Ce lien qui ne meurt jamais (Paris: Albin Michel, 2007), a conversation with a diary she started writing five years ago after the suicide of her 24 year old son Samuel (May 7, 2001). I am very touched by the way she speaks about the capacity of people to be near, to embody Christ’s presence next to us, to interact in consoling situations and events which she calls “white pebbles” (“cailloux blancs”):

“Mais qu’appelle-t-on ‘caillou blanc’ au juste? Pour moi, c’est une coïncidence, une convergence, une résonance … tout événement instaurant un trait d’union entre des vivants. Pourquoi ‘événement’? Parce que cela arrive, sans que nul ne l’ait programmé ni prévu, sans que l’entourage n’y voie rien (de particulier): c’est un événement uniquement pour la personne à qui il est destiné” (p. 45).

I understand this as follows: an event that happens to us, in life-giving and empowering relationships with others, and in which we touch a depth of reality which at that precise moment opens up to us, to the person to which this depth is addressed, a sudden density in which many elements of our lives touch one another and in which some depth of our life comes to the surface. It is really moving that this happens amidst interactions with people who by coïncidence open up reality to us without even being aware of it, people who are a gift without knowing it. For their openness to become such a gift, these people are very dear to us.

I am grateful to Lytta Basset to describe these experiences so precisely. They are so vital and crucial to us, and I was reminded of their simple beauty on the train between Leuven and Brussels. There was a seat free next to me, as there was also one next to a person sitting in the row before me. People crowded in, many people … amongst them, an elderly couple, the man clearly somewhat distressed that they will have to sit on different rows, not next to one another, not facing one another. The tenderness between them was very moving and I stood up and said: “well, I think both of you want to sit side by side … I’ll move to another row, then there are two seats free here”. The man answered: “we’ve been together 51 years, I think we can sit on different rows of twenty minutes or so … but I am glad to accept your offer”. To me, this was one little white pebble, one with a great sense of humor, reminding me to trust in love and friendship and tenderness over very long periods of time, encouraging me to overcome anger and pain in relationships. A wonderful combination, coïncidence, encounter with L. Basset and two wonderful people, still in love after 51 years.

Blogs … Fragments of Unfinished Thoughts

Today, I have been wondering about what it means to keep up a blog. A couple of critical remarks were made, that have their importance: (a) whether blog contributions are sufficiently crafted and researched; (b) whether one should not take into account that a blog is never totaly private, in the sense that the blogger also belongs to organisations or groups of people (in my case, for example, I am a Jesuit and I am a professor of theology at the faculty of theology, K.U.Leuven, Leuven, Belgium); (c) whether the time invested in blogging could not be used in a better way. I feel these are important remarks, and they made me think about what blogging means to me and what are my goals when I invest time in it.

Blogging, to me, refers to thoughts that I want to share with others, to stimulate critical reflection, but also to be challenged in what I say or claim. Thoughts put on a blog are not necessarily finished or polished, they may be tentative and heuristic, probing into deeper understandings or inviting others to think. In that sense, blog thought will always be fragmented – a blog is not an article or a book. Of course, that doesn’t mean that a blog contribution should not have been thought through, or that the author should not be careful when writing about him/herself or about others.

I think the openness of blog entries is important: are they open to further thought, and discussion?

Given the world in which we live and given the importance of internet interaction, I am convinced that good blogs are crucially important. Not only do they keep alive a sound critical sense, they also challenge us into new ways of thinking together. However, I will keep wondering on how this can best be done and what decency, quality, and honest seriousness mean when blogging.

Advertising and Persuasion … Hit us Right where We Want

I have been very impressed by Frontline’s 2004 program “The Persuaders” about the art of advertising products and policies, the art of persuading people to buy or to vote. If I understood correctly, the idea is the folllowing: efficient advertising is about persuading people to buy into what they already want. This entails both discovering what people want (and sometimes people don’t know themselves, as there structures of desire are like a hidden “reptilian code”, beyond any rational argumentation and very akin to deep seated emotions), and presenting what you have on offer with words and emotions that connect with the deep wants of people. A piece of political advice that struck me: don’t speak about “the Iraq war”, but rather about “the war on terror” (the latter one seems acceptable, while the former sparks off discussion and debate); don’t speak about “global warming”, but about “climate change” (the latter doesn’t show the same urgency as the former).

I like the program, as it awakens in me a double critical sense: (a) be aware of the fact that there are structures and patterns of desire in people that they are not always aware of, and that can also be approached as a sociological phenomenon, and unearth this hidden “code” not to use it for advertisement, but to make people and societies more self-aware; (b) be aware that advertisers and persuaders are using this hidden code for their own goals and interests.

Moreover, as a theologian, I would like to point out two more elements that may be important for sound social and political discernment about our ways of life. This deeper “reptilian code” may be an important given, but we can unearth it (at least the “persuaders” do it to better sell their products and policies) and bring it to the level of consciousness. That also means, that we can be critical of its content, that we may take some distance and ask ourselves if this code is really the last word about our lives and our desires. I think, as a theologian, that this is exactly the point where we have to ask the question: how does this “code” relate to God and how God created/s us in our world? Can we assume responsibility in the face of this code, so as not to allow persuaders to play us all to easily …

The second critical note I want to add as a theologian, concerns the fact that the focus on playing the tunes of this “reptilian code” moves out of play arguments of content: as consumers we are reduced to our emotions and codes, our argumentative capacities are bypassed. This is a dangerous thing to do with regard to our consumption habits, particularly in times of human caused global warming. It is also a very dangerous feature in politics. My Christian faith tells me that we have been created as rational and emotional beings, and I think this is confirmed by who we are and what we can … we should not drop these fundamental features or ourselves. Codes are there to be unravelled and to be critically assessed. In this case, religion and the reference to God may be a good help to do so.

Human Beings … Are We Important?

In view of the evil that human beings have wrought and continue to bring about, as well as in view of the destructive human caused global warming and abuse of natural resources on the planet earth, the question whether our world and the universe would be better off without human beings around, seems a legitimate one. Add to that that human beings are one, merely one, of the many living beings that originated in a long and complicated process of evolution … despite the fact that many philosophical and religious arguments have been constructed to ideologically underpin the idea that human beings are the focus and goal of the cosmos and of cosmic evolution. Should we not be more humble about ourselves, all the more so when we consider that amongst living beings, humans enjoy great abilities and capacities, not in the least their developed skills of thinking and of (self-)reflection which provide them with means to order their world? Is humility not appropriate when one realizes that one has received these gifts not for oneself, but as part of the cosmos and towards the service of the cosmos. In a way, it as is if the cosmos, over a long period of time and complicated processes of evolution and change, has given itself possibilities for further development.

Reflections as these point towards a balanced view on human beings as part of the world, the universe, the cosmos. Of course, human beings are special and precious – there are not many of us around in our own corner of the galaxy, as Stephen Hawking reminds us on a TED talk -, and that means that they have a role and a responsibility as part of the world. “As part of the world” cannot, I think, be replaced by “as goal of the world”. Overshooting on the side of the importance of human beings, has rightly been criticized – when human beings belong their sense of belonging to the universe and start to instrumentalize all other beings and resources just in view of themselves, then a destructive dynamism ensues that will, in the end, also lead to the destruction of the living conditions and possibilities of the human beings themselves. But, not recognizing the special role and capacities of human beings at the service of change in the universe and not allowing for human beings to be considered “something special”, deprives the world of a capacity it has given itself. It’s important to strike the balance well, when considering the role and place of human beings in the universe, when asking the question of anthropocentrism.

The issue is of great importance for philosophers and theologians, as well as for scientists. All of them are aware that our knowledge about the world – and if one wants to say: a kind of knowledge that the world reaches about itself – is human. But this capacity of knowledge and reflection seems to, so to say, separate the knowing subject from the known object, and it is highly tempting, as a consequence, to consider the knower, the human being, as something very special ánd separate from the rest. What I would plea for – and after re-reading Pierre Teilhard de Chardin’s introduction to his Le phénomène humain, I have the impression that I am here in his good company – is to be aware of the human being as “special” but “not-separate” from the rest of the world, and even dependent on the whole rest of the world for survival. As a theologian, I would say it as follows: in creating the universe and allowing it to bring forth human beings, the Creator gave creation a potential for development and ran a risk. Our interwoven anthropologies and cosmologies should articulate this double perspective.

A Thesis on Migration and the Common Good

An excellent student at the Faculty of Theology, K.U.Leuven, yesterday defended his advanced master’s thesis on the right to migrate – a right explicitly and emphatically recognized by Roman Catholic Church (RCC) authorities and RC theological and moral teaching. The question posed in the thesis concerns the relationship between the common good and this right to migrate, whether the latter would not be limited by the former. I was impressed by the research done, as I was impressed by the very decided way in which the RCC affirms this right to migrate. While reading the thesis, some ideas came to my mind, and I want to share them on this blog. They are not more than ideas or suggestions.

(0) I think that one cannot truly speak and think about the complex reality of migration without clarifying one’s own context. For myself, I would point to experiences of life abroad, but also to the complex and touchy political situation with regard to migrants in my own country [Belgium and Flanders] and in Europe, to my contacts with the Jesuit Refugee Service (JRS), and to my deep concerns about environmental migrants and refugees particularly in view of the likely sharp increase in their numbers over the coming years.

(1) The experiences of the migrants should be taken into account, in the very way the migrants themselves narrate and analyze them. There “texts written by the migrants” will show the various contexts and causes of migration and allow us to discover a very complex reality: indeed, migration may be forced, or due to economic factors, or involve a brain drain … it may be environmental migration, or migration because of political violence and persecution, etc. To gain insight in the myriad migrations, it will be crucial to pay attention to the voices of the migrants, particularly to the voices of those who suffer the consequences of forced migration. This is, from a theological point of view, a perspective in line with the preferential option for the poor. I would also like to draw attention to a focus on the spiritual resources of migrants that help and strengthen them to overcome their painful experiences and to adapt to their changing situations. Daniel C. Groody has done pioneering theological work in this area.

(2) The experiences of the migrants and the causes for migration, do not only reflect events and decisions in individual lives. They also point to societal realities and sometimes even to injustices that are embodied in global relationships, e.g. poverty and unequal distribtution of power and resources. Migrations, in that sense, are a pulse measure for our societies: they reveal tensions and challenges that cannot easily be dismissed. Therefore, migration issues are never sufficiently or adequately addressed when only the migrants themselves are looked at and not the societal and structural realities that surface in realities of migration.

(3) At the occasion of an Omnes Gentes colloquium on migration in 2007, the bishop of Antwerpen (Belgium), Mgr. Paul Vandenberghe, emphasized the RCC’s insistence on the right to migrate, as well as on the right not to migrate. The latter means, of course, that people must enjoy the freedom not to migrate in case they don’t want to: there is a right to remain in one’s own country and this entails a responsibility for the larger world to provide, as much as possible, good and dignified human living conditions all over the world. I think there is even more. Given the situations in sending and receiving countries, particularly in view of existing social needs, we may also have to speak of a responsibility to migrate, a responsibility not to migrate, or a responsibility to return to one’s country. There may be a responsibility for some people to go and study in foreign countries, so as to return home, after having studyings, with knowledge that is dearly needed in one’s home country. The rights and responsibilities to migrate or not, balance individual decisionmaking with complex social realities at various levels. Migration is always the decision of individual people (whether under duress or not), but it reflects and impacts on social realities.

(4) A recent ethical principle, emphasized by international organisations such as the UN, as well as recently by the RCC in its interventions at the UN, concerns the responsibility to protect or R2P, an idea which is mainly applied today in the case of conflicts and the responsibility of the international community to intervene in some conflicts. It may be interesting to apply this perspective to the realities of migration. Migration is a challenge to the international community: it represents risks and difficulties, but also opportunities (the concept of “mestizo” as understood in Virgilio Elizondo’s theology may be of help here), and it that sense it pertains to the responsibility of the international community.

(5) The Jewish and Christian traditions contain an important element of migration: Abraham, the move out of Egypt to the promised land, experiences of exile, being a stranger in a foreign country; migration as an important factor in the spreading of Christianity and its community, as is illustrated by St Paul. Not only do these religious traditions refer to migration, it also can be considered an important topic for anthropology, as is illustrated, for example, by the life and writings of Bruce Chatwin.

(6) It is very stimulating to think in terms of the common good, and at a moment of our histories characterized by globalization and worldwide challenges (as violence and the environment) our understanding of this concept also evolves. Indeed, it is interesting to observe that “common good” has a (geographical) “scope”: it is important that we always clarify to whom we are willing to apply the features of the common good. Who should we take into account when we talk about “common good”? Moreover, there is a methodological challenge: how do we best think about the very idea of the common good and about the elements it consists of. It seems that not only the content of the common good (what should be considered to pertain to the common good), but also the very concept or idea of what “common good” means and how it articulates the tension between individual and social rights, responsibilities and duties, are objects of common discernment processes that involve many people and actors and that require that interests and prejudices are unmasked. There is, therefore, a close connection between “common good” and “common discernment processes”. 

To conclude, I can only repeat what I said at the onset of this contribution, that these are merely some ideas that arose while reading a very good thesis. As usual, I welcome any further reflections.

Floods in Bihar and Assam (India)

While attention was paid – and rightly so – to the effects of hurricane Gustav in the Carribean, in Haiti, Cuba, and the coastal areas at and near New Orleans, and while US federal, state and city authorities acted appropriately to avoid a major disastre, natural disasters in India also took their toll. Monsoon rains caused the river Kosi in Bihar, northern India, to change its course, provoking massive floods, resulting in many casualties and in the internal displacement of between 500,000 and 1,000,000 people. Today, flooding caused by the Brahmaputra river, threatens people and villages in the North-Eastern Indian state of Assam.

In the coming years we will increasingly be confronted with such massive natural crises and catastrophes. I would want to plead that these be considered not merely as national issues, but as matters of worldwide concern, as events that touch all of us as world citizens, responsible for one another. Two days ago, I signed an AVAAZ petition concerning low islands in the Pacific Ocean that already suffer the consequences of rising sea levels due to climate change … it gave me this sense of being co-responsible for what will happen to my fellow human beings on these islands.

I would like to encourage the development of a sense of responsible and caring world citizenship …