At the end of this session from the
10–25 July at Paris, Rue Violet, in which we have participated, we should
like to tell you something of what we have experienced here because it
dealt with subjects that are extremely important and on which it is
becoming urgent to act.
The first week, facilitated by a Belgian
couple, Benoďt and Ariane Thiran, co-founders
of the association 'Sortir de la Violence',
enabled us to work on the culture of peace and non-violence. They proposed
a way of emerging from conflicts by outlining five stages for us:
1. Discover the other person's truth and express this
verbally.
2. Discover and recognise my errors and my
responsibility, and express this.
3. Express my truth,
beginning with the values that we agree about and in the name of which I
am speaking.
4. Describe the injustice, the problem.
5. Propose a concrete and realistic solution.
The five stages were presented with
illumination from the Gospel of Mark, the process being essentially work
on oneself. In addition, the couple enlightened us on the process of
non-violent actions.
The second part of the session, which lasted a week,
was facilitated by Fr Geróid O'Conaire, an
Irish Franciscan who has lived in El Salvador. He led us into the
whirlwind of the 'big bang', going through all the history of the
universe, the Bible, and documents of the Church Fathers, down to our own
day.
We were awed,
astonished, surprised, disturbed, unsettled and questioned in a new way.
We had always
understood that humanity was on the earth to subdue and dominate creation,
but we discovered that in fact, being related to all other creatures, we
are of the same family and therefore this leads us to another type of
relation, one composed of respect and responsibility, in interdependence
and interconnectedness with all the animate and inanimate systems of our
planet.
In this context we looked at:
– the greenhouse effect, with average temperatures
rising,
– climate change,
– water as an essential
element,
– the variety of species and the danger of their
disappearing,
– the 'oil peak' and the challenge of
developing renewable forms of energy.
A new
way of looking at our vows enabled us to see that the religious life
dimension calls us to denounce injustices and resist the pressures
(oppression) of over-consumption. We have the responsibility to protest,
to draw attention to our real needs and to invent new forms of life that
would be more respectful of the environment and more orientated towards
justice.
A
final day was dedicated to presentations by the L.S.A. international
secretariat for Justice, Peace and Integrity of Creation on their
participation at international level.
We are far from having shared everything with you. Over and beyond the
emotion we experienced, we have become aware that each one has a
responsibility going beyond our group as participants. For ourselves, we
are proposing that we commit ourselves to a simple life (it is an urgent
need) because
'The ever-growing gap between rich and poor cannot leave
anyone indifferent, nor can the over-use of the resources of the earth and
accelerating species loss.'
(Cardinal F.X. Nguyen Van
Thuan, President of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace)
