“While the this house was still being built, I wrote a little work called The Delights of the Country, which contained a sketch in embryo of the foundation I had started. This little book has been very helpful in Cuba, and ranch owners give copies of it to their foremen and tell them to follow it”

(Aut. 568).

FOR AN INTEGRAL EVANGELIZATION

Let the bishops write pastoral letters on the doctrine and themes of religion; this does not cause anything strange. It is their way of communicating with the basic realities of the people (a communication unilateral enough, for the others). It is a communication written clearly within the limits considered to be their property. They are within their territory. But when a bishop writes on the issues so much attached to the earth, namely, the issue of farming or on the justice in the social net work (here come Bartholomeo de Las Casas of 500 years ago and Samuel Ruiz, Pedro Casaldáliga, Sergio Méndez Arceo, Enrique Angelelli, Oscar Romero…of our times) it produces disconcert and even heartaches in the goody-goodies church circle.

St. Anthony Mary Claret invaded the social field without doubting the efficacy of the publication of a little book that would be useful for the impoverished ones of the Cuban Island. It is surprising to see a bishop writing on the agricultural issues…..But, we have to remember once again the saying, “The important thing is not what is done, but what is done with love”. The love and apostolic zeal moved Claret to help his brothers, to serve by all ways possible the faithful whom the Church had entrusted to him.

There are people who don´t accept that the Church lands up with concrete solutions through its agents of evangelization (bishops, priests, religious, committed laity….); they prefer to present the Gospel to remain at the level of general advices. But, if it does not reach the ground realities, where does remain the love for the poor? Are they not merely words?

Are you of the opinion of those who consider that the pastors involved in the politics are occupying a field that do not belong to them? and let their duty remain in speaking about God and the life beyond and neither on the agrarian reforms nor on social injustices?