Card. Turkson: Practical priorities

50 years ago, in his prophetic encyclical Mater et Magistra, Pope John XXIII warned of the growing inequality between rich and poor in an increasingly globalised world. He also underlined the important tradition of the Church's social teaching, a tradition which Pope Benedict developed in his most recent encyclical Caritas in Veritate. But how can Catholics put this rich tradition into practise and make a difference to people's lives at the local and international level?

That is the subject of a three day conference organised by the Pontifical Justice and Peace Council in Rome this week - council president, Cardinal Peter Turkson from Ghana talked to Philippa Hitchen about his hopes for the meeting:

Q you are here looking back at the prophetic document of Pope John XXIII Mater e magistra, what are you hoping to achieve with this conference.

Card. Turkson: Well is nothing else then at least to remind people of the existence of such an encyclical. At to remind people what has happened between the 50 years since its publication for the revolutionary way it spoke about the decolonisation, the threat again of European countries granting independence to African countries and probably going back in the form this time to exercise some form of neo-colonialism in the control of basic resources, primary products etc.. that was an issue that was discussed. Another issue it addressed was agricultural, the inequality that exists, the imbalances that exists in price determination of agriculture products. European farmers for example have subsidies to produce, in Third world there are no subsidies. How can you expect African farmers to compete on global markets? All of these inequalities still exist and the encyclical spoke about them. 50 years ago they spoke about them, 50 years later they are still with us. This just means that at a certain point we need to go beyond doctrine and going beyond doctrine means touching the human heart; it means a change of lifestyle. There is something very basic: Jesus’ Gospel was not just meant for anyone on the street, it was meant for those who are ready to convert. It is for them that the Gospel work. And we should recognise that it is the same thing for the Churches’ social doctrine, it has got a lot of beautiful things to say, it can change lives, but it is really for those who are ready to make a change.

Q: How do you do that? As you say it’s a very pessimistic picture, 50 years on we are facing the same issues. How do you make the Churches Gospel more relevant to people?

Card. Turkson: We can preach the Gospel differently. Here in Rome the recognition of the Council for New Evangelisation is addressing exactly that issue. We need to depart from that view of simply making converts or simply teaching catechism which provides people with notions but doesn’t touch the heart. We need to go for the experience of conversion, rather than simply imparting knowledge of Christ and his Gospel, that is not enough to show conversion. When conversion takes place – like the example of Zacchaeus in the Gospel – he was a tax collector, he used to get rich at the expense of the poor until something touched him, until he met Christ. For a lot of people it’s the same, if the love of Christ was enough to open Zacchaeus’ heart and make him realise he was hurting his brothers. That’s the type of conversion that can make the social doctrine work. I think that this is still possible for us, it may be difficult, we may not be able to make mass conversions – Christianity is not about mass conversions – but individuals who come gradually. There are groups of entrepreneurs, in the US for example a group of Catholic businessmen who are becoming actively involved in our work, so gradually there are cells building up, cells that sow the leaven in the business world that will have some effect. I met a guy in New York the other day who used to be a banker, now he has retired and deeply feels that all that he has made must go into helping build Christian groups, so that is what he is investing his money in. Its not happening on a very big scale but still there are instances of good practices and initiatives to show its all not bleak there are some bright spots in our world of people responding to the Gospel and the Churches social doctrine. Listen: