MARITAL INFIDELITY: TO PUNISH OR NOT TO PUNISH (Part II of two parts)

 By CHERYL L. DAYTEC


(The contents of this  paper were  presented during a policy session with officers of the Department of Social Welfare and Development facilitated by Atty. Germaine Trittle Leonin. The session was intended to come out with an output for consideration by the Congress of the Philippines. )


D. Practice of Other States

Among Western countries, it is only in the United States where marital infidelity is a crime. In 21 States, it is either a misdemeanor, a crime punishable with incarceration for one year or less,  or a felony which is punished more than a misdemeanor.

Most of the States that still maintain penal laws against marital infidelity   are those where the dominant religion is Islam, and Sub-Saharan African Christian-majority countries. Among non-Muslim countries in Asia, it is only  Taiwan and the Philippines which define marital infidelity as a crime. There is of course the peculiar case of India where adultery may be committed only by a man who engages in sex with the wife of another man who did not consent to the act.[1] Although facially, it is discriminatory against men, it is also substantially degrading to women as it treats them as their respective husbands’  property. A husband can consent to his wife’s adultery and she will not incur any criminal liability.

There is now a pending bill in the House of Representatives authored by Gabriela party-list representatives Luz Ilagan and Emmi de Jesus which seeks to amend the Revised Penal Code by erasing  the distinctions between concubinage and adultery and  making marital infidelity a crime of  husbands and wives. What is sauce for the gander must be sauce for the goose.

On the other hand, the UN Working Group on Discrimination against women in law and in practice has issued a call to Governments to repeal laws criminalizing adultery.[2]


A.  Arguments For The Enactment of a Gender-Neutral Law Penalizing Marital Infidelity

1.    The current criminal laws in the Philippines on marital infidelity reinforce gender inequality and promote misogyny. Proof of sexual intercourse is enough in adultery, but in concubinage, the prosecution must prove that the sexual intercourse was under scandalous circumstances, or that the husband kept a mistress in the conjugal dwelling or cohabited with her in any other place. The penalty for concubinage is lower than that of adultery. The penalty for the concubine is only destierro, while the penalty for the “other man” in adultery is the same as that for the guilty wife. To erase this discrimination, the law must be amended to treat men and women equally.

2.    The sex-based discrimination in the  treatment of marital infidelity under the Revised Penal Code violates the equal protection clause of the 1987 Philippine Constitution (Sec. 1, Art. III) taken together with Sec. 2,  Art. II which  provides that “(t)he State recognizes the role of women in nation-building, and shall ensure the fundamental equality before the law of women and men.”

3.    The amendment of the Revised Penal Code to incorporate a gender-neutral provision penalizing marital infidelity is mandated by Sec. 12 of RA 9710 or the Magna Carta of Women (MCW) which directs  the amendment or repeal of laws that are discriminatory to women.

4.    The Philippines ratified the Convention on all Forms of Discrimination Against Women which is therefore part of its domestic law under the incorporation doctrine[3] in the Constitution. Article 2(g) of CEDAW requires the State to modify or abolish existing laws, regulations, customs and practices that constitute discrimination against women. Article 15 of CEDAW provides:  “States parties shall accord to women equality with men before the law.” Article 16 provides that “States parties shall take all appropriate measures to eliminate discrimination against women in all matters relating to marriage and family relations and in particular shall ensure, on a basis of equality of men and women…(t)he same rights and responsibilities during marriage and at its dissolution.”

5.    The Philippines also ratified the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and is part of its domestic law. It is in keeping with the ICCPR to adopt a gender-neutral criminal law on marital infidelity. Article 23 of the ICCPR provides: “States Parties to the present Covenant shall take appropriate steps to ensure equality of rights and responsibilities of spouses as to marriage, during marriage and at its dissolution. In the case of dissolution, provision shall be made for the necessary protection of any children.”

6.    The Family Code of the Philippines (EO 209, as amended) provides  marital infidelity as a ground for legal separation. It makes no distinction whether the one who breached the marital trust is the husband or the wife. To harmonize the Family Code with the Revised Penal Code, Arts. 333 and 334 of the latter must be accordingly amended.

7.    The discrepancy  between the treatment of infidelity by the wife and  the infidelity by the husband  has been legally and judicially justified in US v. Mata[4] as necessary to prevent “the danger of introducing spurious heirs into the family, whereby the rights of the real heirs may be impaired and a man may be charged with the maintenance of a family not his own.”[5] With the advancement and progress in science and technology which has made DNA tests available, it is now easy to establish the paternity of a child a woman may give birth to. The philosophical underpinning of or spirit behind the discrimination has disappeared. There is no reason to maintain it in law. When the spirit disappears, so must the letter of the law.

B.    Arguments Against The Enactment of a Gender Neutral Infidelity Penal Law

According to the UN Working Group on women, “Criminal law definitions of adultery may be ostensibly gender neutral and prohibit adultery by both men and women. However, closer analysis reveals that the criminalization of adultery is both in concept and practice overwhelmingly directed against women.”[6]  In societies like the Philippines where patriarchy rules  and where social norms still regard the husband’s infidelity as an affirmation of his macho image and the wife’s infidelity as an affirmation of her image as a whore or vampire (if she is not a virgin or a Madonna), a facially gender-neutral law will be enforced in a discriminatory way.


C.   Arguments for the  Decriminalization
of Adultery and Concubinage

1.       The current laws on marital infidelity reinforce gender inequality and misogyny which expose women to more vulnerabilities and risks. According to the United Nations Working Group on discrimination against women in law and in practice, “maintaining adultery as a criminal offense, even when it applies to both women and men, means in practice that women mainly will continue to face extreme vulnerabilities, and violation of their human rights to dignity, privacy and equality.”[7]  This is because as earlier pointed out, the enforcement a law, which is gender-neutral in literal expression, in a society where women are still regarded inferior will be discriminatory.  By decriminalizing adultery, the State eliminates such risks and vulnerabilities to further discrimination.

2.    The criminalization of infidelity is an invitation of too much government interference into the personal lives of people including on matters that should be dealt with privately .It  obviously represents State overreach into people’s private lives. It  is indubitably  a violation of  the right to privacy which is protected by the Constitution.

3.    The Philippines ratified the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights which is therefore part of its domestic law under the incorporation doctrine[8] in the Constitution. Under Art. 17 of the ICCPR, it is provided: “No one shall be subjected to arbitrary or unlawful interference with his privacy, family, home or correspondence, nor to unlawful attacks on his honour and reputation…Everyone has the right to the protection of the law against such interference or attacks.” International human rights jurisprudence established that criminalization of sexual relations between consenting adults is a violation of their right to privacy and infringement of article 17 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.[9] States parties to the Covenant are obliged to ensure that domestic norms take account of developments in international law and incorporate interpretations of the decisions of international courts and international and regional human rights mechanisms, including the treaty bodies and special procedures.[10]

4.    Adultery/concubinage involves a breach of trust and commitment of fidelity “until death do us part”  and is therefore a breach of   a marriage contract; thus, liability for dishonoring the contract should  be civil in form and substance  and not criminal.[11] Decriminalization respects the free will and autonomy of the spouses to determine whether to remain  married. Such decision should not be imposed by the State through a penal law.  Maintaining trust and fidelity in a marriage should not be enforced through the threat of criminal prosecution and punishment. It should be the product of negotiation by the spouses since after all one of the essential requisites of marriage is consent freely given by them..[12]

5.    The penalization of marital infidelity is an undue exercise of police power. While through police power, the State may regulate liberties, the purpose of such regulation must be the common good. What common good is realized when a philandering wife or husband  is put to jail?

6.    Decriminalization does not necessarily leave the aggrieved spouse without recourse. S/he can file an action for legal separation. If the infidelity is  serial and inveterate and of such nature that it manifests psychological incapacity, the aggrieved spouse may go to court to file an action for declaration of nullity of marriage. S/he may also file an action for civil damages. In case the aggrieved is a wife, she may file a criminal action and/or a civil case based on Republic 9262 or the Anti-Violence Against Women and their Children Act of 2004.

7.    The criminalization of marital infidelity has not been shown to contribute to the preservation  of  marriage and  has not been demonstrated  to deter infidelity. For instance, despite penalizing marital infidelity from 1953 until very recently to protect women from divorce to which they were vulnerable owing to their lower status than men, South Korea witnessed its  divorce rate shoot up in the last 15 years and is now among the highest in Asia.[13] Note that non-Muslim Asian countries, with the exception of Taiwan and the Philippines, do not penalize marital infidelity.  How come South Korea has raced ahead of them in divorce rates?

8.    Gabriela Women's Party-List’s   records reveal that criminal complaints for adultery and concubinage are filed in practice as "bargaining suits" or leverage to make the other spouse cooperate in the action to dissolve the marriage or to capitulate to demands for support.[14] These complaints are not brought to their logical conclusion since, “while pursued in the initial stages, (they) are often withdrawn or dismissed.”[15] According to statistics, married people resort to court action more to dissolve their marital unions than to seek penal  vindication of adultery or concubinage.[16] If this is the case, then the law criminalizing adultery and concubinage which may be initiated at the instance of the offended party, does not serve its purpose or has been rendered functus officio. So why maintain it in the statute books?

9.       States’ practice indicates the abandonment of infidelity as a criminal offense on the belief that it is their obligation to do it under international law or in honor of individual privacy rights. The recognition of marital infidelity as a non-criminal offense by many members of the international community  might have ripened into customary international law. All the Western countries have decriminalized adultery, with the exception of the United States where adultery is still penalized in 21 States.[17] In Asia, only the Philippines and Taiwan among non-Muslim countries still penalize marital infidelity.[18] Those decriminalizing it are justifying their actions invoking treaty obligations or constitutional limitations.

10. Many of the arguments against decriminalization are based on religious dogmas which the State, as  a secular entity, need not enforce.

D.   Arguments Against Decriminalization

1.       Decriminalization destroys the nature of ”marriage (a)s a special contract and a three-party agreement that involves the husband, the wife and the State.” This means “that although the personal rights of the spouses are involved in cases of infidelity, the State also considers itself as an offended party, not because of a breach of public order but because of the violation of marital vows which the State itself protects.“[19]

2.       “Striking them (adultery and concubinage) off the catalogue of crimes will send the message to Philippine society that now, sexual liaisons  and dalliances with persons other than with one’s spouse are now allowed? How can such a legislative proposal ‘protect and strengthen the family as a basic social institution?’[20]

3.    “Under our VAWC Law--passed as domestic legislation in response to international covenants, the CEDAW as well as the CRC among them--we consider violence not only physical but psychological cruelty. What can be more cruel for a spouse than to have the other sexually engaged with another and entering into intimate liaisons with another? How can it serve legal coherence for us to de-criminalize under one title what we consider criminal cruelty and violence under another?”[21]

4.     Decriminalization is a public health issue. Without a law criminalizing marital infidelity, married people may be wont to be unfaithful and may acquire Sexually Transmitted Diseases (STDs).  Since most married couples do not routinely use barrier contraceptives,  innocent spouses may be infected with STD.


E.     Policy Proposals

1.    Adultery and concubinage should be decriminalized for reasons explained in the arguments in its favor. Although there are arguments against it, these are parried by the arguments supporting it. Other arguments border on the absurd and stand on their own demerit.

2.    However, as a companion to the repeal of the marital infidelity provisions of the Revised Penal Code, there is a need to  enact a divorce law that paves  a way out for people trapped in marriages debased or perverted by marital infidelity. The two remedies —annulment and declaration of nullity- available to people seeking marital dissolution  address only issues of validity and nullity of the marriage. Infidelity is not a validity issue. While it is a ground for legal separation, this is an insufficient remedy for the aggrieved spouse as it does not sever the marital ties.  Infidelity is an indication that a foundation of marriage which is trust or fidelity is disappearing or is no longer present. The marriage may no longer exist except in name only. Divorce must be made available to dissolve the marriage.

3.    In order to settle concerns that the decriminalization of adultery and concubinage will encourage or abet licentious sexual lifestyle on the part of married people, marital infidelity should be treated as a matrimonial offense and be meted out civil penalties in proceedings for legal separation or divorce. Thus,   in the determination of custody of children, division of properties, or support in the event of legal separation or divorce, a spouse’s infidelity should be factored in. As marital infidelity will still produce adverse legal consequences short of criminal punishment, spouses may be deterred from committing it.



[1] Gangothri.org, Adultery: Indian Legal Perspective, 10 April 2013. Retrieved from http://www.gangothri.org/?q=node/6; See also, Sec. 497 of the Indian Penal Code. (“Whoever  has sexual intercourse with a person who is and  whom he  knows or  has reason  to believe  to be  the wife  of another man,  without the  consent or  connivance of  that  man,  such sexual intercourse  not amounting to the offence of rape, is guilty of the offence  of adultery,  and shall  be punished with imprisonment of either description  for a term which may extend to five years, or with fine, or  with both.  In such case the wife shall not be punishable as an abettor.”)
[2] See,  “Joint Statement by the United Nations Working Group on discrimination against women in law and in practice” of 18 October 2012, available at http://www.ohchr.org/EN/NewsEvents/Pages/DisplayNews.aspx?NewsID=12672&LangID=E.
[3] The 1987 Philippine Constitution states as one of its principles, as follows:
 Section 3. The Philippines renounces war as an instrument of national policy, adopts the generally accepted principles of international law as part of the law of the land, and adheres to the policy of peace, equality, justice, freedom, cooperation, and amity with all nations.
[4] G.R. No. L-6300, 2  March  1911. 
[5] Evans v. Murff, 135 F. Supp. 907, 911 (1955)
[6] Supra n. 2.
[7] Id.
[8] Supra n. 3.
[9] Supra n. 2.
[10] Id.
[11] Rep. Emmi De Jesus, during the House of Representatives Committee on Revision of Laws Meeting on 17 March 2015, in The Pros And Cons Debate: Should RPC Article 333 on Adultery & Article 334 on Concubinage Be Amended or Repealed? (Author unknown) (On file with author)
[12] See Art. 2, Family Code of the Philippines.
[13] Supra, n. 12.

[14] Dionisio P. Tubianosa, Repeal discriminatory provisions on extra marital affairs in the Revised Penal Code, House of Representatives, Congress of the Philippines, 27 May 2014. Accessed from: http://congress.gov.ph/press/details.php?pressid=7894.

[15] Id.
[16] Rep. Barry Gutierrez, House of Representatives Committee on Revision of Laws Meeting, 17 March 2015, in The Pros And Cons Debate: Should RPC Article 333 on Adultery & Article 334 on Concubinage Be Amended or Repealed? (Author unknown) (On file with author)

[17]New Hampshire Senate votes to repeal anti-adultery law,  accessed from: http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation-now/2014/04/17/anti-adultery-laws-new-hampshire/7780563/.

18] In  Indian law, adultery may be committed only by a man who engages in sex with the wife of another man who did not consent to the act. See, Gangothri.org, Adultery: Indian Legal Perspective, 10 April 2013. Retrieved from http://www.gangothri.org/?q=node/6. See also, Sec. 497 of the Indian Penal Code (stating, "Whoever  has sexual intercourse with a person who is and  whom he  knows or  has reason  to believe  to be  the wife  of another man,  without the  consent or  connivance of  that  man,  such sexual intercourse  not amounting to the offence of rape, is guilty of the offence  of adultery,  and shall  be punished with imprisonment of either description  for a term which may extend to five years, or with fine, or  with both.  In such case the wife shall not be punishable as an abettor.")

[19] Philippine Commission on Women, Policy Brief No. 3, Addressing the Inequality in our Penal Law on Adultery and Concubinage: Enacting The Anti-Marital Infidelity Law. See also, Domini M. Torrevillas,  “Amending the marital infidelity law,” From The Stands, The Philippine Star,  June 30, 2015, accessed from: http://www.philstar.com/opinion/2015/06/30/1471565/amending-marital-infidelity-law

[20] Catholic Bishop Conference of the Philippines, accessed through
http://cbcpwebsite.com/Messages/divorce.html)
[21] Id.

Posted by: on 2 comments:
Labels: , , , , , , , ,

MARITAL INFIDELITY: TO PUNISH OR NOT TO PUNISH (Part I of a Series)

By CHERYL L. DAYTEC


(The contents of this  paper were  presented during a policy session with officers of the Department of Social Welfare and Development facilitated by Atty. Germaine Trittle Leonin. The session was intended to come out with an output for consideration by the Congress of the Philippines. )

A.  Introduction

Marriage is a sacred union which obliges  the parties “to live together, observe mutual love, respect and fidelity, and render mutual help and support.”[1]

To maintain the  sanctity of marriage, the parties to it should remain faithful to each other. Infidelity is regarded as a perversion of marriage such that in  most if not all countries, it is a ground for divorce. In the Philippines which shares stellar billing with Vatican as the two member-States of the United Nations without a divorce legislation,  it is a ground for legal separation. The most extreme way the can law address  marital infidelity with the end in view of curbing it is by defining it as a criminal conduct.

As they began in the dawn of human history, criminalization projects  dealt with wives more severely than husbands. Adultery is  the common term for marital infidelity regardless of whether it is attributable to the husband or the wife. Gender-based discrimination has always been the order of the day with  harsher sanctions for wives than husbands  who breached  their  vows of fidelity.  This is true  in the Philippines which is the only unfaithfulness-penalizing country where the nomenclature for the crime committed through marital infidelity changes based on the sex of the spouse. The crime has been baptized by the Revised Penal Code adultery if committed by the wife, and concubinage if committed by the husband.

It is not only  in name where the two crimes differ but also in terms of nature, proof required, and penalty.  Adultery[2] is committed by a married woman and her  paramour aware of her marital  status when they engage in carnal relation, whether discreetly or not. Every single sex act constitutes adultery. Mere proof of sexual intercourse is sufficient for conviction. The penalty ranges from  2 years, 4 months and 1 day to  6 years of imprisonment. On the other hand, concubinage[3]  is committed by a husband and his  paramour aware of his marital status when they engage in carnal relations  under scandalous  circumstance, or when they cohabit within the conjugal dwelling or any other  place. Obviously, mere proof of sex does not warrant a conviction. The penalty for concubinage ranges from 6 months and 1 day to a maximum of 4 years and 1 day of imprisonment for the husband and destierro for his paramour. The light penalty for concubinage and the stringent  proof requirement for a husband’s conviction speaks the message that the  husband is not responsible for breaching his marital vows because  social expectations  shaped him to behave in that manner.

This brief paper delves into the present proposal to amend the Revised Penal Code of the Philippines to make its provisions on marital infidelity gender-neutral and the alternative call for  decriminalization. The purpose of this paper is to provide discussion points in discourses on policies regarding marital infidelity.

B.  The Justification for Gender-Bias in Infidelity Penal Laws

The criminalization of adultery must have been a progeny of the  privatization of economic goods or property. According to the Supreme Court of the United States in US v. Mata, “The gist of the crime of adultery under the Spanish law, as under the common law in force in England and the United States in the absence of statutory enactment, is the danger of introducing spurious heirs into the family, whereby the rights of the real heirs may be impaired and a man may be charged with the maintenance of a family not his own.”[4] This was  echoed  in Evans v. Murff[5] where a United States District Court said, “The application of the term to the act appears to arise from the idea that "criminal intercourse with a married woman ... tended to adulterate the issue  of an innocent husband ... and to expose him to support and provide for another man's [children]."

 This harkens back to the age of feudalism when a woman was regarded as chattel, a baby factory  whose function was to produce the heirs to inherit the fruits of her husband’s labor.  

The argument that anchors the  gender bias in our Revised Penal Code  is a relic of the past and  has lost currency.  Science and technology have made steady progress such that they are now available to easily establish the paternity and filiation of a child.

C.  Decriminalization Movements Around the Globe

In several jurisdictions in the world, marital infidelity has been decriminalized although maintained as a ground for divorce. It  is no longer a crime in any European country..[6] Then called criminal conversation, it was decriminalized in England as early as in 1857, and in predominantly Catholic Ireland in 1976.[7] The latter  was one of the last European countries to  strike adultery from their penal codes.[8]

Decriminalization movements invoked equality guarantees of domestic and international laws. In 1996, the  Guatemalan Constitutional Court decriminalized marital infidelity or adultery holding that it was repugnant to the constitutionally protected  equality of sexes.[9] The landmark decision also stressed Guatemala’s need  to honor its human rights treaty obligations  including those under the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW)..[10] Turkey’s  adultery law was declared unconstitutional  in 1996 because it  was deemed discriminatory as it differentiated between women and men.[11] In 2007, the  Ugandan Constitutional Court also hurled into the dustbins of history the State’s adultery law  penalizing women but not their male partners. The latest to take marital infidelity  off the penal statute books   is South Korea. This year, its Constitutional Court struck down its  law against adultery declaring that  it  is a private matter which should not be invaded by the State.[12]

(TO BE CONTINUED...)


[1] Art. 68, Family Code of the Philippines.
[2] See, Article 333 of the Revised Penal Code.
[3] See, Article 334 of the Revised Penal Code.
[4] US v. Mata, G.R. No. L-6300,  2  March  1911.
[5] 135 F. Supp. 907, 911 (1955).
[6] Prof. Frances Raday, Chair of the WG on Discrimination against Women, Background Information on the Statement Issued by the Working Goup on Discrimation Against Women. Accessed through:  http://www.ohchr.org/EN/NewsEvents/Pages/DisplayNews.aspx?NewsID=12672&LangID=E
[7] Id.
[8]. Id.
[9] See,  “Joint Statement by the United Nations Working Group on discrimination against women in law and in practice” of 18 October 2012, available at http://www.ohchr.org/EN/NewsEvents/Pages/DisplayNews.aspx?NewsID=12672&LangID=E.
[10] Id.
[11] BBC News: Europe, Turkey signals U-turn on   adultery, 14 September, 2004. Accessed from:  http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/3654650.stm.


[12] Hail Ji,  South Korea and Adultery, The New York Times, 1 April 2015. Accessed from: http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/02/opinion/south-koreans-and-adultery.html.


Posted by: on No comments:
Labels: , , , , , , , ,

THE REAL PEOPLE'S REPRESENTATIVE

by CHERYL L. DAYTEC



Bae Bibiyaon Ligkayan Bigkay, the only female tribal chieftain in Mindanao, proved her mettle by dressing down North Cotabato Congresswoman Nancy Catamco for the latter's act of further exposing the indigenous  Manobos to militarization and human rights violations. The Manobos fled their village and sought refuge in Davao City because of military and paramilitary Alamara's presence. They were subjected to daily harassment and had to parry accusations of being members of the revolutionary group New People's Army.

For media mileage and political points, this cerebrally-unendowed pathetic excuse for a Congresswoman named Nancy Catamco brought the police to Davao City to aid her in forcing the Manobos to return to their village. The trespass into the sanctuary provided by the United Church of Christ in the Philippines (UCCP) was definitely brutal. Scores were hurt.

Using Orwellian parlance, Catamco  announced that she was rescuing the more or less 700 Manobos  from their place of refuge (Figure out that one yourself.)  She acted with condescension while professing to be indigenous herself. When the people- whose culture looks up to sincerity more than power- expressed incredulity when she gave a litany of promises, she   raised her voice at them  and called them stinky. And this is the shocker: She chairs the House of Representatives committee on indigenous peoples.

Undaunted by the indigenous people's rejection of her "assistance," Rep. Catamco  returned to them and tried to give the same old, poisonous wine in the same old poisonous, bottle. She engaged in a virtual  monologue which was essentially double talk.

Then  an old woman spoke. She had no script. She had sheer courage and the issues of her people. Her rhetoric was shorn of euphemisms and subservient tone. She was defiant. For five minutes, she gave a loud  voice to sufferings  that demand to be heard. Each time Rep. Catamco tried to interrupt, she would say, "Shut up! Listen!" That is what representatives should do more than talk: Listen to their principals, the people they claim to represent in the august body called Congress.

All of us who articulate indigenous concerns cannot measure up to the courage and eloquence of  Bae Bibiyaon Likgayan Bigkay. Step aside and forget your ambitions to go to Congress to represent IPs. She's The One!

Let us demystify that body called House of Representatives. To it, let us elect people who walk the streets, not people who walk on clouds. Let us send issues, not ambition. Let us send solutions, not problems. Let us send true-to-life stories, not fairy tales. Let us send hearts, not money. Let us send selflessness, not greed. Let us send human beings, not gods and goddesses.

Let us send this woman.
Posted by: on No comments:
Labels: , , , , , , , ,

Pope Francis \ Speeches

Pope Francis: Speech at World Meeting of Popular Movements

- RV
10/07/2015 00:30
(Vatican Radio) Pope Francis spoke Thursday evening at the World Meeting of Popular Movements, taking place in Santa Cruz, Bolivia.
The World Meeting of Popular Movements, organized in collaboration with Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace and the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences, brings together delegates from popular movements from around the world.
Below, please find the full text of Pope Francis’ prepared address for the World Meeting of Popular Movements:
Address at Expo Fair
Santa Cruz de la Sierra
Thursday, 9 July 2015
Good afternoon!
Several months ago, we met in Rome, and I remember that first meeting. In the meantime I have kept you in my thoughts and prayers. I am happy to see you again, here, as you discuss the best ways to overcome the grave situations of injustice experienced by the excluded throughout our world. Thank you, President Evo Morales, for your efforts to make this meeting possible.
During our first meeting in Rome, I sensed something very beautiful: fraternity, determination, commitment, a thirst for justice. Today, in Santa Cruz de la Sierra, I sense it once again. I thank you for that. I also know, from the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace headed by Cardinal Turkson, that many people in the Church feel very close to the popular movements. That makes me very happy! I am pleased to see the Church opening her doors to all of you, embracing you, accompanying you and establishing in each diocese, in every justice and peace commission, a genuine, ongoing and serious cooperation with popular movements. I ask everyone, bishops, priests and laity, as well as the social organizations of the urban and rural peripheries, to deepen this encounter.
Today God has granted that we meet again. The Bible tells us that God hears the cry of his people, and I wish to join my voice to yours in calling for land, lodging and labor for all our brothers and sisters. I said it and I repeat it: these are sacred rights. It is important, it is well worth fighting for them. May the cry of the excluded be heard in Latin America and throughout the world.
1.
Let us begin by acknowledging that change is needed. Here I would clarify, lest there be any misunderstanding, that I am speaking about problems common to all Latin Americans and, more generally, to humanity as a whole. They are global problems which today no one state can resolve on its own. With this clarification, I now propose that we ask the following questions:
Do we realize that something is wrong in a world where there are so many farmworkers without land, so many families without a home, so many laborers without rights, so many persons whose dignity is not respected?
Do we realize that something is wrong where so many senseless wars are being fought and acts of fratricidal violence are taking place on our very doorstep? Do we realize something is wrong when the soil, water, air and living creatures of our world are under constant threat?
So let’s not be afraid to say it: we need change; we want change.
In your letters and in our meetings, you have mentioned the many forms of exclusion and injustice which you experience in the workplace, in neighborhoods and throughout the land. They are many and diverse, just as many and diverse are the ways in which you confront them. Yet there is an invisible thread joining every one of those forms of exclusion: can we recognize it? These are not isolated issues. I wonder whether we can see that these destructive realities are part of a system which has become global. Do we realize that that system has imposed the mentality of profit at any price, with no concern for social exclusion or the destruction of nature?
If such is the case, I would insist, let us not be afraid to say it: we want change, real change, structural change. This system is by now intolerable: farmworkers find it intolerable, laborers find it intolerable, communities find it intolerable, peoples find it intolerable … The earth itself – our sister, Mother Earth, as Saint Francis would say – also finds it intolerable.
We want change in our lives, in our neighborhoods, in our everyday reality. We want a change which can affect the entire world, since global interdependence calls for global answers to local problems. The globalization of hope, a hope which springs up from peoples and takes root among the poor, must replace the globalization of exclusion and indifference!
Today I wish to reflect with you on the change we want and need. You know that recently I wrote about the problems of climate change. But now I would like to speak of change in another sense. Positive change, a change which is good for us, a change – we can say – which is redemptive. Because we need it. I know that you are looking for change, and not just you alone: in my different meetings, in my different travels, I have sensed an expectation, a longing, a yearning for change, in people throughout the world. Even within that ever smaller minority which believes that the present system is beneficial, there is a widespread sense of dissatisfaction and even despondency. Many people are hoping for a change capable of releasing them from the bondage of individualism and the despondency it spawns.
Time, my brothers and sisters, seems to be running out; we are not yet tearing one another apart, but we are tearing apart our common home. Today, the scientific community realizes what the poor have long told us: harm, perhaps irreversible harm, is being done to the ecosystem. The earth, entire peoples and individual persons are being brutally punished. And behind all this pain, death and destruction there is the stench of what Basil of Caesarea called “the dung of the devil”. An unfettered pursuit of money rules. The service of the common good is left behind. Once capital becomes an idol and guides people’s decisions, once greed for money presides over the entire socioeconomic system, it ruins society, it condemns and enslaves men and women, it destroys human fraternity, it sets people against one another and, as we clearly see, it even puts at risk our common home.
I do not need to go on describing the evil effects of this subtle dictatorship: you are well aware of them. Nor is it enough to point to the structural causes of today’s social and environmental crisis. We are suffering from an excess of diagnosis, which at times leads us to multiply words and to revel in pessimism and negativity. Looking at the daily news we think that there is nothing to be done, except to take care of ourselves and the little circle of our family and friends.
What can I do, as collector of paper, old clothes or used metal, a recycler, about all these problems if I barely make enough money to put food on the table? What can I do as a craftsman, a street vendor, a trucker, a downtrodden worker, if I don’t even enjoy workers’ rights? What can I do, a farmwife, a native woman, a fisher who can hardly fight the domination of the big corporations? What can I do from my little home, my shanty, my hamlet, my settlement, when I daily meet with discrimination and marginalization? What can be done by those students, those young people, those activists, those missionaries who come to my neighborhood with their hearts full of hopes and dreams, but without any real solution for my problems? A lot! They can do a lot. You, the lowly, the exploited, the poor and underprivileged, can do, and are doing, a lot. I would even say that the future of humanity is in great measure in your own hands, through your ability to organize and carry out creative alternatives, through your daily efforts to ensure the three “L’s” (labor, lodging, land) and through your proactive participation in the great processes of change on the national, regional and global levels. Don’t lose heart!
2.
You are sowers of change. Here in Bolivia I have heard a phrase which I like: “process of change”. Change seen not as something which will one day result from any one political decision or change in social structure. We know from painful experience that changes of structure which are not accompanied by a sincere conversion of mind and heart sooner or later end up in bureaucratization, corruption and failure. That is why I like the image of a “process”, where the drive to sow, to water seeds which others will see sprout, replaces the ambition to occupy every available position of power and to see immediate results. Each of us is just one part of a complex and differentiated whole, interacting in time: peoples who struggle to find meaning, a destiny, and to live with dignity, to “live well”.
As members of popular movements, you carry out your work inspired by fraternal love, which you show in opposing social injustice. When we look into the eyes of the suffering, when we see the faces of the endangered campesino, the poor laborer, the downtrodden native, the homeless family, the persecuted migrant, the unemployed young person, the exploited child, the mother who lost her child in a shootout because the barrio was occupied by drugdealers, the father who lost his daughter to enslavement…. when we think of all those names and faces, our hearts break because of so much sorrow and pain.  And we are deeply moved…. We are moved because “we have seen and heard” not a cold statistic but the pain of a suffering humanity, our own pain, our own flesh. This is something quite different than abstract theorizing or eloquent indignation. It moves us; it makes us attentive to others in an effort to move forward together. That emotion which turns into community action is not something which can be understood by reason alone: it has a surplus of meaning which only peoples understand, and it gives a special feel to genuine popular movements.
Each day you are caught up in the storms of people’s lives. You have told me about their causes, you have shared your own struggles with me, and I thank you for that. You, dear brothers and sisters, often work on little things, in local situations, amid forms of injustice which you do not simply accept but actively resist, standing up to an idolatrous system which excludes, debases and kills. I have seen you work tirelessly for the soil and crops of campesinos, for their lands and communities, for a more dignified local economy, for the urbanization of their homes and settlements; you have helped them build their own homes and develop neighborhood infrastructures. You have also promoted any number of community activities aimed at reaffirming so elementary and undeniably necessary a right as that of the three “L’s”: land, lodging and labor.
This rootedness in the barrio, the land, the office, the labor union, this ability to see yourselves in the faces of others, this daily proximity to their share of troubles and their little acts of heroism: this is what enables you to practice the commandment of love, not on the basis of ideas or concepts, but rather on the basis of genuine interpersonal encounter. We do not love concepts or ideas; we love people... Commitment, true commitment, is born of the love of men and women, of children and the elderly, of peoples and communities… of names and faces which fill our hearts. From those seeds of hope patiently sown in the forgotten fringes of our planet, from those seedlings of a tenderness which struggles to grow amid the shadows of exclusion, great trees will spring up, great groves of hope to give oxygen to our world.
So I am pleased to see that you are working at close hand to care for those seedlings, but at the same time, with a broader perspective, to protect the entire forest. Your work is carried out against a horizon which, while concentrating on your own specific area, also aims to resolve at their root the more general problems of poverty, inequality and exclusion.
I congratulate you on this. It is essential that, along with the defense of their legitimate rights, peoples and their social organizations be able to construct a humane alternative to a globalization which excludes. You are sowers of change. May God grant you the courage, joy, perseverance and passion to continue sowing. Be assured that sooner or later we will see its fruits. Of the leadership I ask this: be creative and never stop being rooted in local realities, since the father of lies is able to usurp noble words, to promote intellectual fads and to adopt ideological stances. But if you build on solid foundations, on real needs and on the lived experience of your brothers and sisters, of campesinos and natives, of excluded workers and marginalized families, you will surely be on the right path.
The Church cannot and must not remain aloof from this process in her proclamation of the Gospel. Many priests and pastoral workers carry out an enormous work of accompanying and promoting the excluded throughout the world, alongside cooperatives, favouring businesses, providing housing, working generously in the fields of health, sports and education. I am convinced that respectful cooperation with the popular movements can revitalize these efforts and strengthen processes of change.
Let us always have at heart the Virgin Mary, a humble girl from small people lost on the fringes of a great empire, a homeless mother who could turn a stable for beasts into a home for Jesus with just a few swaddling clothes and much tenderness. Mary is a sign of hope for peoples suffering the birth pangs of justice. I pray that Our Lady of Mount Carmel, patroness of Bolivia, will allow this meeting of ours to be a leaven of change.
3.
Lastly, I would like us all to consider some important tasks for the present historical moment, since we desire a positive change for the benefit of all our brothers and sisters. We know this. We desire change enriched by the collaboration of governments, popular movements and other social forces. This too we know. But it is not so easy to define the content of change – in other words, a social program which can embody this project of fraternity and justice which we are seeking. So don’t expect a recipe from this Pope. Neither the Pope nor the Church have a monopoly on the interpretation of social reality or the proposal of solutions to contemporary issues. I dare say that no recipe exists. History is made by each generation as it follows in the footsteps of those preceding it, as it seeks its own path and respects the values which God has placed in the human heart.
I would like, all the same, to propose three great tasks which demand a decisive and shared contribution from popular movements:
3.1       The first task is to put the economy at the service of peoples. Human beings and nature must not be at the service of money. Let us say NO to an economy of exclusion and inequality, where money rules, rather than service. That economy kills. That economy excludes. That economy destroys Mother Earth.
The economy should not be a mechanism for accumulating goods, but rather the proper administration of our common home. This entails a commitment to care for that home and to the fitting distribution of its goods among all. It is not only about ensuring a supply of food or “decent sustenance”. Nor, although this is already a great step forward, is it to guarantee the three “L’s” of land, lodging and labor for which you are working. A truly communitarian economy, one might say an economy of Christian inspiration, must ensure peoples’ dignity and their “general, temporal welfare and prosperity”.[1] This includes the three “L’s”, but also access to education, health care, new technologies, artistic and cultural manifestations, communications, sports and recreation. A just economy must create the conditions for everyone to be able to enjoy a childhood without want, to develop their talents when young, to work with full rights during their active years and to enjoy a dignified retirement as they grow older. It is an economy where human beings, in harmony with nature, structure the entire system of production and distribution in such a way that the abilities and needs of each individual find suitable expression in social life. You, and other peoples as well, sum up this desire in a simple and beautiful expression: “to live well”.
Such an economy is not only desirable and necessary, but also possible. It is no utopia or chimera. It is an extremely realistic prospect. We can achieve it. The available resources in our world, the fruit of the intergenerational labors of peoples and the gifts of creation, more than suffice for the integral development of “each man and the whole man”.[2] The problem is of another kind. There exists a system with different aims. A system which, while irresponsibly accelerating the pace of production, while using industrial and agricultural methods which damage Mother Earth in the name of “productivity”, continues to deny many millions of our brothers and sisters their most elementary economic, social and cultural rights. This system runs counter to the plan of Jesus.
Working for a just distribution of the fruits of the earth and human labor is not mere philanthropy. It is a moral obligation. For Christians, the responsibility is even greater: it is a commandment. It is about giving to the poor and to peoples what is theirs by right. The universal destination of goods is not a figure of speech found in the Church’s social teaching. It is a reality prior to private property. Property, especially when it affects natural resources, must always serve the needs of peoples. And those needs are not restricted to consumption. It is not enough to let a few drops fall whenever the poor shake a cup which never runs over by itself. Welfare programs geared to certain emergencies can only be considered temporary responses. They will never be able to replace true inclusion, an inclusion which provides worthy, free, creative, participatory and solidary work.
Along this path, popular movements play an essential role, not only by making demands and lodging protests, but even more basically by being creative. You are social poets: creators of work, builders of housing, producers of food, above all for people left behind by the world market.
I have seen at first hand a variety of experiences where workers united in cooperatives and other forms of community organization were able to create work where there were only crumbs of an idolatrous economy. Recuperated businesses, local fairs and cooperatives of paper collectors are examples of that popular economy which is born of exclusion and which, slowly, patiently and resolutely adopts solidary forms which dignify it. How different this is than the situation which results when those left behind by the formal market are exploited like slaves!
Governments which make it their responsibility to put the economy at the service of peoples must promote the strengthening, improvement, coordination and expansion of these forms of popular economy and communitarian production. This entails bettering the processes of work, providing adequate infrastructures and guaranteeing workers their full rights in this alternative sector. When the state and social organizations join in working for the three “L’s”, the principles of solidarity and subsidiarity come into play; and these allow the common good to be achieved in a full and participatory democracy.
3.2.      The second task is to unite our peoples on the path of peace and justice.
The world’s peoples want to be artisans of their own destiny. They want to advance peacefully towards justice. They do not want forms of tutelage or interference by which those with greater power subordinate those with less. They want their culture, their language, their social processes and their religious traditions to be respected. No actual or established power has the right to deprive peoples of the full exercise of their sovereignty. Whenever they do so, we see the rise of new forms of colonialism which seriously prejudice the possibility of peace and justice. For “peace is founded not only on respect for human rights but also on respect for the rights of peoples, in particular the right to independence”.[3]
The peoples of Latin America fought to gain their political independence and for almost two centuries their history has been dramatic and filled with contradictions, as they have striven to achieve full independence.
In recent years, after any number of misunderstandings, many Latin American countries have seen the growth of fraternity between their peoples. The governments of the region have pooled forces in order to ensure respect for the sovereignty of their own countries and the entire region, which our forebears so beautifully called the “greater country”. I ask you, my brothers and sisters of the popular movements, to foster and increase this unity. It is necessary to maintain unity in the face of every effort to divide, if the region is to grow in peace and justice.
Despite the progress made, there are factors which still threaten this equitable human development and restrict the sovereignty of the countries of the “greater country” and other areas of our planet. The new colonialism takes on different faces. At times it appears as the anonymous influence of mammon: corporations, loan agencies, certain “free trade” treaties, and the imposition of measures of “austerity” which always tighten the belt of workers and the poor. The bishops of Latin America denounce this with utter clarity in the Aparecida Document, stating that “financial institutions and transnational companies are becoming stronger to the point that local economies are subordinated, especially weakening the local states, which seem ever more powerless to carry out development projects in the service of their populations”.[4]  At other times, under the noble guise of battling corruption, the narcotics trade and terrorism – grave evils of our time which call for coordinated international action – we see states being saddled with measures which have little to do with the resolution of these problems and which not infrequently worsen matters.
Similarly, the monopolizing of the communications media, which would impose alienating examples of consumerism and a certain cultural uniformity, is another one of the forms taken by the new colonialism. It is ideological colonialism. As the African bishops have observed, poor countries are often treated like “parts of a machine, cogs on a gigantic wheel”.[5]
It must be acknowledged that none of the grave problems of humanity can be resolved without interaction between states and peoples at the international level. Every significant action carried out in one part of the planet has universal, ecological, social and cultural repercussions. Even crime and violence have become globalized. Consequently, no government can act independently of a common responsibility. If we truly desire positive change, we have to humbly accept our interdependence. Interaction, however, is not the same as imposition; it is not the subordination of some to serve the interests of others. Colonialism, both old and new, which reduces poor countries to mere providers of raw material and cheap labor, engenders violence, poverty, forced migrations and all the evils which go hand in hand with these, precisely because, by placing the periphery at the service of the center, it denies those countries the right to an integral development. That is inequality, and inequality generates a violence which no police, military, or intelligence resources can control.
Let us say NO to forms of colonialism old and new. Let us say YES to the encounter between peoples and cultures. Blessed are the peacemakers.
Here I wish to bring up an important issue. Some may rightly say, “When the Pope speaks of colonialism, he overlooks certain actions of the Church”. I say this to you with regret: many grave sins were committed against the native peoples of America in the name of God. My predecessors acknowledged this, CELAM has said it, and I too wish to say it. Like Saint John Paul II, I ask that the Church “kneel before God and implore forgiveness for the past and present sins of her sons and daughters”.[6] I would also say, and here I wish to be quite clear, as was Saint John Paul II: I humbly ask forgiveness, not only for the offenses of the Church herself, but also for crimes committed against the native peoples during the so-called conquest of America.
I also ask everyone, believers and nonbelievers alike, to think of those many bishops, priests and laity who preached and continue to preach the Good News of Jesus with courage and meekness, respectfully and pacifically; who left behind them impressive works of human promotion and of love, often standing alongside the native peoples or accompanying their popular movements even to the point of martyrdom. The Church, her sons and daughters, are part of the identity of the peoples of Latin America. An identity which here, as in other countries, some powers are committed to erasing, at times because our faith is revolutionary, because our faith challenges the tyranny of mammon. Today we are dismayed to see how in the Middle East and elsewhere in the world many of our brothers and sisters are persecuted, tortured and killed for their faith in Jesus. This too needs to be denounced: in this third world war, waged piecemeal, which we are now experiencing, a form of genocide is taking place, and it must end.
To our brothers and sisters in the Latin American indigenous movement, allow me to express my deep affection and appreciation of their efforts to bring peoples and cultures together in a form of coexistence which I would call polyhedric, where each group preserves its own identity by building together a plurality which does not threaten but rather reinforces unity. Your quest for an interculturalism, which combines the defense of the rights of the native peoples with respect for the territorial integrity of states, is for all of us a source of enrichment and encouragement.
3.3.      The third task, perhaps the most important facing us today, is to defend Mother Earth.
Our common home is being pillaged, laid waste and harmed with impunity. Cowardice in defending it is a grave sin. We see with growing disappointment how one international summit after another takes place without any significant result. There exists a clear, definite and pressing ethical imperative to implement what has not yet been done. We cannot allow certain interests – interests which are global but not universal – to take over, to dominate states and international organizations, and to continue destroying creation. People and their movements are called to cry out, to mobilize and to demand – peacefully, but firmly – that appropriate and urgently-needed measures be taken. I ask you, in the name of God, to defend Mother Earth. I have duly addressed this issue in my Encyclical Letter Laudato Si’.
4.
In conclusion, I would like to repeat: the future of humanity does not lie solely in the hands of great leaders, the great powers and the elites. It is fundamentally in the hands of peoples and in their ability to organize. It is in their hands, which can guide with humility and conviction this process of change. I am with you. Let us together say from the heart: no family without lodging, no rural worker without land, no laborer without rights, no people without sovereignty, no individual without dignity, no child without childhood, no young person without a future, no elderly person without a venerable old age. Keep up your struggle and, please, take great care of Mother Earth. I pray for you and with you, and I ask God our Father to accompany you and to bless you, to fill you with his love and defend you on your way by granting you in abundance that strength which keeps us on our feet: that strength is hope, the hope which does not disappoint. Thank you and I ask you, please, to pray for me.
FOOTNOTES
[1] JOHN XXIII, Encyclical Mater et Magistra (15 May 1961), 3: AAS 53 (1961), 402.
[2] PAUL VI, Encyclical Populorum Progressio (26 March 1967), 14: AAS 59 (1967), 264.
[3] PONTIFICAL COUNCIL FOR JUSTICE AND PEACE, Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church, 157.
[4] FIFTH GENERAL CONFERENCE OF THE LATIN AMERICAN AND CARIBBEAN BISHOPS, Aparecida Document (29 June 2007), 66.
[5] JOHN PAUL II, Post-Synodal Apostolic Exhortation Ecclesia in Africa (14 September 1995), 52: AAS 88 (1996), 32-22; ID., Encyclical Letter Sollicitudo Rei Socialis (30 December 1987), 22: AAS 80 (1988), 539.
[6] Bull of Indiction of the Great Jubilee of the Year 2000 Incarnationis Mysterium (29 November 1998),11: AAS 91 (1999), 139-141.
10/07/2015 00:30
Posted by: on No comments:
Subscribe to: Posts (Atom)