The president of the Spanish Episcopal Conference and Archbishop of Valladolid, Luis Argüello, regrets that “in these days we have also witnessed the rapine and populism of anti-politics”, and he asks “who will free us from the original guilt of which greed and domination arise?”
He speaks in these terms in his latest pastoral letter, published this Saturday, in which he refers to the disaster caused by DANA in Valencia and other localities in Spain. “The tragedy is immense and the tearing of individuals, families and the entire economic and social fabric is not easy to repair; the loss of the deceased is humanly impossible. For this reason and “with tears in his heart”, Argüello asks: “where to look? Where to find a lifebuoy? Whose fault is it? Who gives justice to the dead?.
In this scenario, the President of the EEC refers to how “analyses, comments and cries have been abundant on the causes, consequences and responses” in the face of a reality in which “Nature said ‘here I am’ with all its overwhelming force”. Remember that we are talking about “prevention and warning technology, coordination of responses in the autonomous State, relationships between politicians and calculative and political use of everything that happensof the people who save the people’…«. Even, underlines Argüello, “we can go back, to the urban planning of recent decades, to the warming of the Mediterranean due to our system of production and consumption, to the convenience of building dams and reservoirs or to the defense of things even at the risk of his own life and that of others.
All this to conclude, in the words of the Archbishop of Valladolid, that “neither the state nor the market They can save us, even if, in the last period of modern times, they presented themselves as saviors capable of keeping their promises. » In this sense, he warns that “reduced to consumers and voters, the market and the State offer us a salvation, progress!, which is not enough”. » But the tragedy has once again awakened a common and fraternal soul, a desire to share and help, a gift which is not a trade and a commitment which is not a vote. The State and the Market need the Gift to regenerate and abandon all messianic pretensions,” he adds.
In his pastoral letter, Argüello concludes that “the fraternity exercised during these weeks is an indicator of the goodness that resides in the human soul, an appropriate response to our irremediable vulnerability.” He thus emphasizes that “we are called to transform pain into virtue, to allowing shovels and brooms to also be a call take other instruments: that of associated life, that of political charity, that of not letting pass as many opportunities as we have to cultivate social friendship and fraternity among us.
