Editorial

We are all one global family

By Kathy VanLoon
March/April 2007

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When I answered the phone, I wasn't expecting to hear my friend's trembling voice filled with emotion and fear. She is usually so easygoing and joyful, seemingly able to handle whatever life dished out. Something was terribly wrong. She asked for my help. It was late at night and bitterly cold outside, and I was already in bed, but my response was a hurried, " I'll be right there."

At one time or another, most of us will have this expereince. Someone close to us asks for help in carrying aburden too heavy to bear alone. We feel their fear, pain and worry, stirring in us a desire to do whatever we can to help.

But what of people not so near and dear, people we do no know, whose suffering we only hear about in the media and elsewhere?

In this issue, you will read about such people. Scarboro's Justice and Peace Office coordinator, Karen Van Loon, writes about the impact of foreigh debt on the world's poor. One of the perpetuating roots of poverty is unpayable debt as a country's resources are redirected away from its people in order to make endless debt payments. The results include hunger, disease, illiteracy, child mortality, no opportunities for work resulting in loss of hope and human dignity.

Scarboro missioner Beverley Vantomme gives her firsthand experience of living among the people of Malawi, one of the poorest countries in the world. These are people who have lost all hope in themselves and in their ability and potential to determine their own future.

Is it our tendency, says Beverley, as people in the developed world to close in on ourselves and tune out the cries of the poor?

Young Katie O'Connell is also concerned that "our society has become self-centered, so absorbed with our own lives and worries that we cannot see the bigger picture." Katie decided to step out of what she calls her protective little bubble by volunteering abroad.

She travelled to Costa Rica to experience life in another culture and to become more aware of the struggles of others elsewhere in the world.

Are Beverley and Katie correct? Is it true that we are closing our eyes and hearts to the cries of the poor? Are we not people capable of compassion?

So why do we limit our response? Some reasons come to mind: we may already feel stretched by the stresses and demands of life; we are afraid of stepping too far out of our comfort zone; we feel incapacitated by the chronic, overwhelming need of the world's poorest peoples.

In her article about the Scarboro Mission Centre, Tina Petrova writes about Scarboro's retreat facility open to people of all faiths and cultures. Retreat director Kathy Murtha is developing programs that will help people deepen their compassion out of the recognition of the Oneness of all – that we are all one global family; that all deserve the same level of response as I was willing to give my friend; that is, to do whatever it is in our power to do.

God's mission continues to call for our ongoing participation, says Scarboro's Superior General Fr. Jack Lynch in his article about the missionary priesthood. To understand mission today, he says, we need to reflect through discernment and prayer on how the Kingdom is present in our world and what needs to be done so that God's Kingdom comes closer to becoming a reality.

Throughout the world, more than 800 million people go hungry every day. UNICEF reports that some 29,000 children under the age of five die daily, mainly from preventable causes.

Are we doing all we can to help "the least of these" realize their dignity in the fullness of God's love? If not, Beverley Vantomme says, we are hindering our own journey toward God and our own ability to experience the fullness of life.

As people of the wealthy nations, we are being asked to question why this is happening; to inform ourselves; to join others in challenging the unjust economic structures that maintain poverty. You will be asked to join the growing mass of global voices calling on world leaders to cancel unjust, unpayable debts to impoverished nations.

Consider this a phone call from a friend in crisis. Should our response be any different?

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