wfn.org | Brazil: Churches also need the Jubilee

[FRANK_IMHOFF.parti@ecunet.org (FRANK IMHOFF)]

CLAI President Walter Altmann warns against "triumphalist canticle"

BRASILIA, Brazil/GENEVA, 20 August 1998 (alc) - The idea of forgiving the
foreign debt of poor countries, proposed by the Jubilee 2000 initiative,
supposes providing for justice as well as for measures to sustain it, said
the president of the Latin American Council of Churches (CLAI), Walter
Altmann, speaking at a symposium on "Foreign Debt: Implications and
Perspectives," held in Brasilia from July 21 to 22.

The symposium was organized by the Brazilian Bishops' Conference, the
National Council of Christian Churches, the Ecumenical Service Coordinator,
Caritas of Brazil and the Missionary Indigenous Council.

Fulfillment of God's purpose calls us to face and denounce the multiple
manifestations of injustice and oppression, without becoming overwhelmed by
resignation, Altman noted. There are currently stark paradoxes in the
distribution of the fruits of creation. "It is ethically unacceptable that,
at a time when these resources are available in an unprecedented fashion,
there is a simultaneous exacerbation of inequalities and not just in
countries historically marked by inequality, but in those that had reached
a relative social development," he said.

The CLAI president warned that the Jubilee should not be a "triumphalist
canticle" for Churches. This should also be the occasion for Churches to
acknowledge their historical co-responsibility in the development and
conservation of numerous models of domination throughout the centuries. Not
only the world, but churches also need a Jubilee on a regular basis to
"renew them as instruments of divine justice to serve the world," he said.

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