Page 20 - Reflexions of African Bishops and Priests

There was a great believer and researcher who is clean money and dirty money. Dirty money creates
came to see me to discuss and he asked me: “Sup- nothing, dirty money of prostitution, of all kinds of
pose everything is destroyed, including all the Bibles; evils that we cannot name. It exists, the banks create
what are the one or two phrases that couyld summa- money. All money that the banks receive is money
rize it all?” We do not need to search very long, for that is clean and earned, but the money that banks cre-
it is Christ who has already given the answer: “You ate out of nothing is dirty money.
will love God with all of your heart, with all your I come back to what the Church has done from
strength; you will love your neighbor as yourself” the social point of view. There is the Social Doctrine of
(Mark 12: 29-30). It is the law of the prophets, it is the the Church. But also there is also the social action of
holy Scripture condensed. the Church. Starting from all that we have learned, we
When we, the five Cardinals, were given the first have seen this action bear fruit.
draft of the “Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the In the history of humanity, that is long and odi-
Church,” it was a big book, we re-edited (to reduce the ous, the Catholic Church has instilled the Gospel, little
number of pages) and effectively when you read it you by little. While looking at the misery of man, she said
see each moment a reference to the New Testament as her Master said: “I have pity for this crowd.” (Mt
and Old Testament. This means that everything which 9:36.) When there was slavery, what did the Church
had been revised and corrected was from this funda- do? She did everything so that the owners did not
mental text of the Gospel. keep all of the slaves or servants at work. She insti-
When I saw you here, living this way, I noticed tuted what? She instituted feast days. The feast days
that you live the Gospel and you pray to Jesus Christ were multiplied and the Church then demanded that
and the Virgin Mary, and it goes together. they observe Sundays. There was a long battle so that
For example, if you read the Compendium; it is Sunday would be institutionalized as a day of rest for
full of Bible quotations. There are Bible quotations and all people. It was to give relief to the workers; it was to
there is the Second Vatican Council, the Catechism of give relief to the slaves.
the Catholic Church, and the Compendium. Today you And the Church started to build schools and uni-
should have, for your Christian and permanent forma- versities that are issued in direct line from the Church,
tion, four manuals: 1. The Bible, 2. the decrees of the from the modern part of our history. The universities
Council, 3. the Catechism of the Catholic Church, (I and schools, you have them everywhere, plus hospi-
suppose you have all read it, and that you have it in tals and leper-houses, so that we can gather the poor.
your library) 4. You have a goldmine in the Compen- “Give them something to eat,” says Jesus Christ; give
dium that assembles all what the great Popes spoke them something to eat and do not content yourselves
and said about society, starting with those who spoke only with speaking, but give them something to eat.
most: Pius XI, Pius XII, John XXIII, Paul VI who also Very often people were waiting. In certain regions
wrote a lot, and John Paul II. It is all of this together they waited for the priests who are really the benefac-
that makes the Social Doctrine of the Church. We must tors of all. In a certain village that was very poor, the
remember this. people did not eat every day and so when Lent came
Money is not to be rejected, but earned honestly, the priest explained to all the people that they had to
and one must be careful. I leave you with this phrase: fast, they had to eat only once a day. When he finished
“We must dishonor money earned through evil.” This his homily one of the faithful came to tell him: “Ah,
means that today all the banks create money, but there Father, you said that we could only eat once a day, but

The participants at our week of study on Economic Democracy in Rougemont in August, 2008