Between India & New York

...However, in the case of our Indian friends we must not fool ourselves...

...Although they enjoy greater comforts and can indulge more whims, the price they pay is the elimination of any form of asceticism in their daily lives...

...It seems to me that Christian social doctrine completely changes the rules of the game and the definition of the problem...

...Perhaps many of the necessities which are part of human development are not felt by them...

...They do not use mattresses or complicated beds...

...There are many real necessities which they are unable to satisfy...

...are minimal, and they quickly wash what they have worn or will be wearing...

...Later I discovered that in many countries of the East there is almost no importation of mechanical and electrical devices, such as washing machines, so that unemployment, which is already severe, might not increase through the automation of work...

...But it must be asked whether the three of four daily meals consumed in the Western world are really necessary...

...The family friends are gracious and hospitable in the same way as the poor people of Latin America...

...It would then seem that the majority of the ideologues of development and of the struggle against poverty seem to be trapped between two equally frustrating viewpoints: either one tolerates a dehumanizing poverty often under the guise of a pseudo-asceticism, or one embarks upon an indefinite search for greater well-being and comfort which the rich countries have decided to call "progress" and "development," and which they try to present as such to the rest of the planet...

...THE CHALLENGE REMAINS: LIBERATION THEOLOGY '85-111 Between India & New York SEGUNDO GALILEA ON A RECENT trip to India I spent a few days in Kondivita village, an ancient and typical rural village of West India, now absorbed by the spreading city...

...rather they reduce their needs and control them...

...In effect, my friends in Kondivita village seem to have resolved the problem of development in an original way: they do not satisfy every need, real or artificial...

...But, in the midst of everything, there is an important and redeemable dimension of liberation in the way of life of an Indian village...

...This is typical of extreme poverty...

...Hunger is of course a relative and cultural phenomenon...

...It can help my friends in Kondivita village and also my friends in New York, redeeming what is of value in their respective attitudes towards life...

...Asceticism requires profound spirituality...

...In a nutshell, any valid plan of development and social or personal liberation must be in harmony with the ultimate purpose and motivation of human life...

...Paradoxically, their budgets are as stretched as those who hardly earn anything and hardly spend anything...

...They eat very little, at least in my view, with often only one regular meal a day, snacking here and there...

...I was the guest of an enchanting and numerous Indian family, who were Christians, and who keep up a great old house built in the last century...

...In India it is not proper that a guest who is a minister of a religion not make a courtesy visit to the neighboring friends of the family with which he is staying...

...It is always the activity of a minority, and when it is practiced on a massive scale it becomes highly suspicious...

...After some days of adhering to this dietary plan, I began to wonder if this was not all that an adult needs to eat each day...

...Taking everything into consideration, my friends of Kondivita village, despite their poverty, have no desire to share the level and manner of life of a middle-class New Yorker...

...Instructed by my previous experience, I began to ask myself to what extent this multitude of things was necessary for human development, and whether it actually represented progress in the quality of living...

...to the contrary, the asceticism which they practice has an air of dehumaniza-tion and even of alienation...

...They seem to reject any "third way" proposals, reducing them to one of the previous alternatives...

...Progress based on unlimited comfort and infinite production of goods and services cannot bring an authentic socio-economic liberation...

...Only a degree of austerity and the application of restraint, in the personal and the collective realm, can bring such a change...

...What inspires us in this authentic Christian humanism is the teaching that asceticism and austerity are dimensions of true development...

...The apartment of my friend was bursting with furniture, utensils, and the latest electric devices offering efficiency and comfort...

...Theirs is a pattern of life and development which can be neither imitated by the majority of peoples on the planet, the so-called'' Third'' and " Fourth Worlds," nor would this be in their best interest...

...It was not so much the difference between poverty and wealth, but the contrast between two philosophies of development...

...In face of this dilemma, many Christian thinkers and preachers seem to offer only a false economistic alternative, with its related type of liberation...

...8 February 1985: 83...

...His most recent book is The Beatitudes: To Evangelize as Jesus Did (Orbis...

...But it does not mean that they are not called to satisfy their needs in order to achieve fullness of life...

...Although they have different ideological and social concerns, they have in common an exacerbated economic model which forces them to forget and sometimes to disdain the culture and religion of the nations...

...Paradoxically, in order to escape from poverty, whether it be the through the redistribution of wealth or through self-advancement, it is necessary to know how to practice poverty...

...The majority are neither saints nor ascetics, and the way of life they lead is imposed on them by poverty...

...The New Yorkers earn a great deal of money, but spend more...

...Their shacks, quite often having only one room, do not have chairs, or high tables, or the electric devices which are common among the poor peoples of the West...

...I made an inventory of the latest devices I encountered, and I found that the great majority were not designed to better the quality of life, but to provide greater comfort — the saving of a few seconds, the avoidance of a movement or change in temperature...

...They sit comfortably on the floor in the Hindu fashion, and this makes chairs unnecessary...

...It offers a new humanism and conception of life, including the quality of life, and the motives for which one continues to live...

...Faced with the use and consumption of so many superfluous things which have come to be considered necessary in the life of the so-called "First World," and which constitute the framework of a way of conceiving development which is unilateral and dehumanizing, I thought back to the shacks of the Indians...

...Liberation is not merely the satisfaction of needs...

...Through a spirituality of revitalizing progress and material well-being it is close to the best religious tradition of India...

...These people cannot present themselves as ideal models of human development...

...In the FATHER segundo GALILEA, a Chilean priest who has served on the staff of several pastoral institutes including the Center for Intercul-tural Formation in Mexico and the Latin American Pastoral Institute in Chile, has in recent years returned to grass roots pastoral ministry in Santiago...

...Think only of health needs and education...

...It is also moderating and controlling both needs and expectations...

...On this point the similarities between the capitalisms, the state socialisms, and the Marxisms are surprisingly strong...

...Latin America, perhaps more than any other area, because of its Western and' 'newly-prosperous'' character, is caught in this dilemma...

...Closets, dressers, etc...

...Arriving from India, the contrast overwhelmed me...

...I visited a few neighbors...

...This could be a way towards humanization and growth, if we agree with the testimony of the saints, the monks, and the ascetics, which in all religions Commonweal: 82 constitutes a way (an extra-ordinary way, it must be recognized) of human liberation...

...They use a sari for all occasions and seasons...

...What kind of development is this which diminishes the capacity to resist the harshness of life, to have control over oneself, and to accept certain necessities as part of the human condition...

...They are perfectly accustomed to sleep on mats, and would be very uncomfortable sleeping any other way...

...Some were simply luxury items which go out of fashion or end up not being practical...

...Just as the Indians do not feel necessities that they ought to feel, the people here are continually conscious of more needs than they ought to feel...

...It is a poverty of economic scarcity combined with austerity and divestiture...

...but they evidently spend almost nothing for the needs of life...

...Several weeks later, when I left India, I had the opportunity to stop in New York...

...On the other hand, it has a cultural and religious substratum which is profoundly "humanistic" and, for that reason, stands in opposition to this...

...But the poverty in which they live is more startling, not so much in terms of deterioration and misery, as of austerity and nakedness...

...On the one hand, it desires the type of development of the "First World," without the slightest hope that its poor majorities will be able to take part in it...

...I stayed in the apartment of a friend...

...This article, previously published in Spanish by the Oficina Nacional de Catequesis, was translated by M. O'Laughlin...

...Perhaps they are correct if the "third way" is again ideological and economistic...

...These people earn almost nothing, if in fact they have a job...

...But others conceive of a "third way" that is a leavening represented by the social doctrine of Christianity...

...meantime they do not seem to need or to miss the household articles which I am accustomed to use...

...The women are unaffected by the costly problem of fashion and its changes...

...Perhaps after a certain age a human being begins to eat more than necessary, being habituated to doing so by consumerism and the pleasures of eating...

...Seeing so many poorly nourished children, I became convinced that the problem of world hunger is based not only on the shortfall of supply, but on poor distribution, on the fact that one part of humanity has hardly anything to eat while the other part eats excessively...