Page 19 - Reflexions of African Bishops and Priests

there as I did in Canada — I noticed that Switzerland
is a country poor in natural resources, there are only
mountains and cows. But the inhabitants are rich. The
country is poor, but the people are rich because they
are clever, they have all the banks there, they are or-
ganized.
In my country, we look for the way and means to
be free of this recurrent and paradoxical poverty.
So there is hope; here while listening, seeing and
reading, we cannot say that we are completely ig-
norant about the problem or its solution now. But
we must educate the people amd make them aware
of the solution; we must speak with them and teach
them how to organize themselves. Alone, they can-
not do anything, but together, they can achieve a lot;
they can take action with lecturers and specialists
who without a doubt will come to explain the solu-
tion to us, as it was explained here.
What has made me speak here? It is the atmos- Cardinal Agré is greeted by our Directors upon his
phere. You know, I was in the diocese of Man, organiz- arrival at our headquarters in Rougemont.
ing a new diocese full of pagans, Muslims and others;
many times we had meetings. I did not speak of Heav- which they stick together in evil ... they know very
en with the leaders who came to fraternize. However, well that they are heading for a dead end, they create
they asked me questions about it. wars, they create chaos ...
There was a pagan leader wanted to become When I went to the United States, they gave me a
Catholic. He said to me: “You always speak of Heaven chauffeur and we transported things; he was a young
and Hell, but what is Hell? What is Heaven?” I could American and I asked him: “What is it that you do?”
not give him a theological reply. He said to me: “My job is to create chaos here and
So I said to him: “Hell is a place where I would there in the world in order to sell weapons.”
not want you to go, because there each one keeps his Here is what he did for his main job, with a “liaison
problems for himself and cannot communicate with agent” job to cover-up. In fact, he sells weapons. And
the others because the walls are closed. So you see, in order to sell them wars must be created. So when
when we go in the villages, the old do not speak with we see in history that wars were fomented for money,
the young, and vise versa. They are alone; this is hell it is true.
because Heaven and Hell start on the earth. Each one You call money: iniquity, Mammon, etc. What are
keeps his problems to himself. young people told today? Value is money. Money is
On the contrary, I would like to you to be the first not a value that is absolute. It is a means of work, it
one in Heaven, and myself second. In Heaven we com- cannot be the master. We must use this money to do
municate, we speak and our joys are shared; there is good, this money is good as a servant but not as a
no pain at all. It is the same as if in your village every- master. Many times the dollar has become an abso-
one communicated and made decisions together; it lute in the heads of people. Money comes first and
would be already a bit of Heaven. And in Heaven it people after.
is not like the Tower of Babel in which everyone talks Now in the Gospel we have a modification. When
at the same time and nobody hears anything, but it is you speak of Social Credit it is based on the Gospel.
like Pentecost! If you speak in Portuguese, Spanish, or When they speak of love in the Focolari Movement,
English we understand; that is very important: frater- their founder Chiara Lubich, with whom we spoke
nal communion. many times, used to say: “It is the living Gospel, ap-
We have lived through a bit of Heaven here in plied in everyday life.”
total communication and in communion we searched When you take the ten lessons on Social Credit,
for the ways and means to create a better world. I they directly orginate from the thought that was con-
wanted to stress this because we cannot have trav- densed in the Compendium of the Social Doctrine of
eled so many kilometers to come live together with- the Church; you can fully sense the content of the
out developing much friendship. You have exchanged Social Doctrine and the application of the Gospel in
much peace, have you not? Together, we can search these ten lessons. I believe that we must pay much
for ways to make a good presentation. attention to this. The Gospel is there and we explain,
What is it that is blocking us? A small group we teach from the Gospel and we take something
of people who take refuge in a system, a system in from it.

www.michaeljournal.org 2008 session 19