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The principle of compassion and the Covid-19

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                                            Leonardo Boff

Through Covdi-19 Mother Earth is moving a counterattack against humanity as a reaction to the overwhelming attack it has been suffering for centuries. It is simply defending itself. Covif-19 is also a sign and a warning to us: we cannot wage war on her as we have done up to now, for she is destroying the biological basis that sustains her and all other life forms, especially human life. We have to change, otherwise it might send us even more lethal viruses, perhaps even an indefensible one against which we could do nothing. Then we would be as a species seriously endangered. It is not without reason that Covid-19 has struck only humans, as a warning and a lesson. It has already led millions to their deaths, leaving a via-sacra of suffering to millions more, and a lethal threat that could strike everyone else.

The cold numbers hide a sea of suffering for lives lost, loves broken, and projects destroyed. There are not enough tissues to wipe away the tears of the dear relatives or friends who have died and who have not been able to say a final goodbye, or even to celebrate their mourning and accompany them to the grave.

As if the suffering produced for a great part of humanity by the prevailing capitalist and neoliberal system, fiercely competitive and uncooperative, was not enough. It has allowed the richest 1% to personally own 45% of all global wealth, while the poorest 50% get less than 1%, according to a recent report by Crédit Suisse. Let’s listen to the person who best understands capitalism in the 21st century, the Frenchman Thomas Piketty, referring to the Brazilian case. Here, he says, we have the highest concentration of income in the world; the Brazilian millionaires, among the richest 1%, are ahead of the oil millionaires of the Middle East. No wonder the millions of marginalized and excluded that this disastrous inequality produces.

Again the cold numbers cannot hide the hunger, the misery, the high mortality of children and the devastation of nature, especially in the Amazon and other biomes, implicated in this process of plundering natural wealth.

But at this moment, by the intrusion of the coronavirus, humanity is crucified and we hardly know how to take it down from the cross. It is then that we must activate in all of us one of the most sacred virtues of the human being: compassion. It is attested in all peoples and cultures: the ability to put oneself in the place of another, to share their pain and thus alleviate it. 

The greatest Christian theologian, Thomas Aquinas, points out in his Summa Theologica that compassion is the highest of all virtues, because it not only opens the person to the other person, but it opens the person to the weakest and most in need of help. In this sense, he concluded, it is an essential characteristic of God.

translatorWe refer to the principle of compassion and not simply to compassion. The principle, in a deeper (philosophical) sense, means an original and essential disposition, generating a permanent attitude that is translated into acts but is never exhausted in them.It is always open to new acts. In other words, the principle has to do with something belonging to human nature. For this is how the English economist and philosopher Adam Smith (1723-1790) could put it in his book on the Theory of Ethical Sentiments: even the most brutal and anti-communitarian person is not immune to the power of compassion.

Modern reflection has helped us to rescue the principle of compassion. It has become increasingly clear to critical thinking that the human being is not only structured on intellectual-analytical reason, which is necessary to account for the complexity of our world. There is something deeper and more ancestral in us, which appeared more than 200 million years ago when mammals burst into the evolution: the sensitive and cordial reason, which means the capacity to feel, to affect and be affected, to have empathy, sensitivity, and love.

We are rational but essentially sensitive beings. In fact, we build the world on emotional ties that make people and situations precious and valuable. We do not only inhabit the world through work, but through empathy, care and love. This is the place of compassion.

The one who has worked better than us Westerners is Buddhism. Compassion (Karuná) is articulated in two distinct and complementary movements: total detachment and essential care.detachment means letting the other be, not framing him, respecting his life and destiny. Caring for him implies never leaving him alone in his suffering, getting affectively involved with him so that he can live better by bearing his pain more lightly.

The terrible thing about suffering is not so much the suffering itself, but the loneliness in suffering. Compassion consists in not leaving the other alone. It means to be with him, to feel his suffering and anguish, to tell him words of comfort and to give him an affectionate hug.

Today, those who suffer, cry and are discouraged by the tragic fate of life need this compassion and this deep humanitarian sensitivity that is born of sensitive and cordial reason. The words spoken that seem so ordinary gain a new sound, reverberate inside the heart and bring serenity and raise a small ray of hope that everything will pass. The departure was tragic, but the arrival in God is blessed.

The Judeo-Christian tradition testifies to the greatness of compassion. The God of Jesus and Jesus himself show himself to be especially merciful, as revealed in the parables of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10:30-37) and the Prodigal Son (Luke 15:11-32).

More than ever before, in the face of the devastation wrought by Covid-19 on the entire population, without exception, it becomes urgent to live compassion with the suffering as our most human, sensitive and solidary side.

Leonardo Boff wrote with Werner Müller the book Compassion & Care Principle, Vozes 2009; Covid-19 Mother Earth Strikes Back at Humanity, Vozes 2020.

    &The reunion of the Eagle and the Condor

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                                           Leonardo Boff

Planet Earth, due to the systematic aggression of the last centuries, is in a clear and dangerous decline. The intrusion of Covid-19, directly affecting the entire planet and exclusively the human species, is one of the severe signs that the living Earth is sending us: our way of life is too destructive, leading to the death of millions of human beings and nature beings. We have to change our way of producing, consuming, and living in the only Common House, otherwise we may experience an ecological-social armageddon.

Curiously, in the opposite of this process that some see as the inauguration of a new geological era – the Anthropocene and the Necrocene – that is, the systematic destruction of lives perpetrated by the human being itself, the native peoples are emerging, bearers of a new consciousness and a vitality that has been repressed for centuries. They are biologically remaking themselves and emerging as historical subjects. Their way of relating amicably with nature and Mother Earth has become our masters and doctors. They feel so united to these realities that by defending them they are defending themselves.

The European invaders made a big mistake by calling them “Indians” as if they were inhabitants of a region in India that everyone was looking for, but in fact they called themselves by several names: Tawantinsuyo, Anauhuac, Pindorama, among others. The name Abya Yala prevailed, given by the Kuna people of northern Colombia and Panama, which meant “mature land, living land, land that flourishes”. There were peoples with their names such as Taínos, Tikunas, Zapotecs, Aztecs, Mayas, Olmecs, Toltecs, Mexicans, Aymara, Incas, Quechua Tapajos, Tupis, Guaranis, Mapuches, and hundreds of others.

The adoption of the common name Abya Yala is part of the construction of a common identity, in the diversity of their cultures and expression of the joints that unite them in an immense movement that goes from the north to the south of the American continent. In 2007 they created the Abya Yala Peoples’ Summit.

But over them weighs a vast shadow that was the extermination inflicted by the European invaders. One of the greatest genocides in history took place. About 70 million representatives of these peoples were killed by wars of extermination or by diseases brought by the whites against which they had no immunity, by forced labor and forced crossbreeding.

The most reliable data were gathered by sociologist and educator Moema Viezzer and Canadian sociologist and historian living in Brazil Marcelo Grondin. The book, with preface by Ailton Krenak, is entitled Abya Yala: genocide, resistance and survival of the original peoples of the Americas (Editora Bambual, Rio de Janeiro 2021). They collect the data on the genocide of the two Americas. We have given a short summary:                                                                                                 

In the Caribbean in 1492 when the colonizers arrived, there were four million indigenous people. Years later there were none left. They were all killed, especially in Haiti.

In Mexico in 1500, there were 25 million indigenous people (Aztecs, Toltecs and others).

In the Andes in 1532 there were 15 million Indians, in a few years only one million remained.

In Central America in 1492 in Guatemala, Honduras, Belize, Nicaragua, El Salvador, Costa Rica and Panama there were between 5.6-13 million indigenous people, of which 90% were killed.

In Argentina, Chile, Colombia and Paraguay, on average about one million Indians died, in some countries more, in others less.

In the Lesser Antilles such as in the Bahamas, Barbados, Curaçao, Grenada, Guadeloupe, Trinidad and Tobago, and the Virgin Islands, they experienced the same almost total extermination.

In Brazil when the Portuguese arrived in these lands, there were about 6 million original peoples of dozens of ethnic groups with their languages. The violent mismatch reduced them to less than a million. Today, unfortunately, due to the carelessness of the authorities, this process of death continues, victims of the coronavirus. A wise man of the Yanomami nation, the shaman Davi Kopenawa Yanomamy relates in his book The Fall of Heaven what the shamans of his people are glimpsing: the race of humanity is heading toward its end.

In the United States of America there were about 18 million native peoples in 1607, and soon after only two million survived.

In Canada in 1492 there were two million native inhabitants, and in 1933 there were only 120,000.

The book tells not only of the immeasurable tragedy, but especially of the resistance and, in modern times, of the various organized summits between these native peoples, from the south and the north of the Americas. In doing so, they reinforce each other, rescue the ancestral wisdom of the shamans, the traditions, and the memories.

A legend-prophecy expresses the reunion of these peoples: the one between the Eagle, representing North America, and the Condor, representing South America. Both were generated by the Sun and the Moon. They lived happily flying together. But fate separated them. The Eagle dominated the spaces and almost led to the Condor’s extermination.

However, this same destiny willed that in the 1990s, when the great summits began to take place between the different native peoples, from the south and the north, the Condor and the Eagle met again and began to fly together. From their love was born the Central American Quetzal, one of the most beautiful birds in nature, a bird from the Mayan cosmovision that expresses the union of heart and mind, art and science, masculine and feminine. It is the beginning of a new time, of the great reconciliation of human beings with each other, as brothers and sisters, caretakers in nature, united by the same beating heart and dwelling in the same generous Pachamama, Mother Earth.

Who knows, in the midst of the tribulations of the present time in which our culture has found its insurmountable limits and feels urged to change course, this prophecy may be the anticipation of a good end for us all. We will still fly together, the Eagle of the North with the Condor of the South under the beneficent light of the Sun that will show us the best path.

Leonardo Boff wrote The Marriage between Heaven and Earth: tales of the indigenous peoples of Brazil, Mar de Ideias, Rio de Janeiro 2014.

In the midst of the pandemic: the urgency of the Spirit of Life

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                           Leonardo Boff

In the midst of the pandemic with thousands of deaths every day, we celebrate the feast of Pentecost, of the life-giving and healing Spirit. His action with all those who are on the front lines in the fight against Covid-19 is urgent to keep them alive, protected, and with the heroic spirit to continue in their mission of saving lives, putting their own at risk.

The liturgical hymn of today’s feast speaks of him being the “great comforter and the sweet refresher”.More than ever he must show himself with these gifts to all who work in hospitals.

Let us reflect for a moment on the nature of the Holy Spirit and his relevance to life and to the present dramatic moment.

First of all it is important to say that the Spirit was the first to come into this world and is still coming. He came and pitched his tent on Mary of Nazareth. That is to say, he fixed his permanent dwelling place in her (Lk 1:35) and raised the feminine to the height of the Divine.

From this presence, the holy humanity of the Son of God originated. The Word pitched his tent (Jn 1:14) in the man Jesus, begotten by Mary. At one moment in history, she, the simple woman of Nazareth, is the temple of the living God: Two divine Persons dwell in her: the Spirit who makes her “blessed among all women” (Lk 1:42) and the Son of God, growing within her, whose mother she truly is.     

Then the Spirit descended on Jesus at the baptism by John the Baptist and inflamed him for his liberating mission. He descended on the first community gathered in Jerusalem on the feast of Pentecost that we now celebrate, giving birth to the Church. He continued to come down, regardless of whether the people were Christians and baptized or not, as happened to the Roman official Cornelius, still a pagan (Acts 11:45).

And throughout history He has always come before the missionaries, making sure that in the hearts of the people love prevailed, justice was cultivated, and compassion was lived out. Once he entered history, he never left it. He takes what belongs to Jesus, passes it on, but also “announces new things to come” (Jn 16:13).

It is by the Spirit that prophets burst forth, poets sing, artists are created, and people practice what is good, just and true. From the Spirit are shaped the saints, especially those who give their lives for the lives of others, like now those who work, almost to the point of exhaustion, in the hospitals of Brazil and the world.

It is also by the Spirit that old and crepuscular institutions suddenly renew themselves and provide needed service to communities as Pope Francis is doing and also other Christian churches.

The world is pregnant with the Spirit even as the spirit of iniquity perseveres in its work, hostile to life and all that is sacred and divine. This is happening in our country with a government that is friendlier to death than to life.

The poor feel most penalized at this moment, without an adequate house to live in, without knowing what they will eat the next day, without a job and without any security against the attacks of the lethal virus.

Today there are millions of them. The poor cry out. And God is the God of the cry, that is, the one who listens to the cry of the oppressed. He leaves his transcendence and comes down to listen to them and to free them, as in the case of the captivity in Egypt (Cf. Ex 4:3). It is the Spirit who makes us cry out Abba, dear Father (Rom 8:15; Gal 4:6). That is why the Spirit is the father and the godfather of the poor (pater pauperum), as the Church sings today on this feast.

He certainly does not do it miraculously, but he gives them courage and resistance, the will to fight and to conquer. He does not let his arms go down. He sent the light to the hearts of the poor to discover the right initiatives, to persist, and in fact to come alive until today; if the indigenous people could not be totally exterminated and now, because of the negligence of the oficial authorities, are at serious risk, if the Afro-descendants could not succumb to the weight of slavery, it was because inside them there was an energy of resistance and liberation, what the hymn calls the gifts and light of hearts: the Holy Spirit, no matter what name we give it.

To the desperate He shows Himself as a comforter without equal. He doesn’t assist them from outside. He has come to dwell within them as a guest to help and advise them, for this is His mission. In the great difficulties and crises, He announces Himself as a reference of peace, of calm: a refresher, for so says the Pentecost hymn that I am quoting verbatim.

He appears as the great comforter. How often, in these dark times of epidemics, the hardships of life make us fill our eyes with tears. When we lose a loved one without saying good-bye and without doing the necessary mourning, or when we experience deep frustrations, affective or professional, or when we are unemployed, we seem to fall into an abyss. It is in these moments that we must plead: “Come Spirit, be our comfort; wipe away our tears and cool our sobs.

The Holy Spirit came once and keeps coming permanently. But in dramatic moments like ours, under Covid-19 we must cry out, “Come Holy Spirit and renew the face of the earth and save our country and the world.

If the Spirit doesn’t come, we will be condemned to see the landscape described by the prophet Ezekiel (c.37): the earth covered with corpses and bones everywhere. But when he comes, the corpses are clothed with life and the desert becomes a vergel. The poor will receive his justice, the sick will gain health, and the sinners, which are all of us, will receive forgiveness and grace.

This is our faith and even more, our undying hope, united with a deep solidarity with all the victims of Covid-19 around the world.

Leonardo Boff is a theologian who wrote The Holy Spirit: inner fire, giver of life, and father of the poor, Vozes 2013, Orbis Books 2014..

It is not enough to be good, one must be merciful

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The golden law, present in all religions and spiritual ways is: “love your neighbor as yourself”. Or to put it in other words: “don’t do to others what you don’t want them to do to you.

Christianity incorporates this minimal ethic and thus inscribes itself within this ancestral tradition. However, it abolishes all limits to love so that it is truly universal and unconditional. It states: “love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be children of your Father. For He makes the sun rise on the evil and the good and rains on the just and the unjust. If you love those who love you, what advantage will you have? Do not the tax collectors do it too? If you greet only your brothers, what extraordinary thing is there in that? Don’t the pagans do it too? (Mt 5:44-47).

The version that St. Luke gives in his Gospel is instructive: “Love your enemies. In this way you will be sons and daughters of the Holy Father, for he is kind to the ungrateful and wicked; be merciful as the Father is merciful” (6:35-36).

This statement is deeply consoling. Who doesn’t sometimes feel “ungrateful and wicked”? It is then that we are comforted by these encouraging words: the Father is kind, in spite of our wickedness.And so we are relieved of the burden of our conscience that haunts us wherever we go. Here resound the consoling words of St. John’s first Epistle: “If our heart accuses us, know that God is greater than our heart” (1 John 3:20). These words should be whispered in the ear of every dying person with faith.

Such divine understanding brings us back to the words of one of the most encouraging psalms in the Bible, Psalm 103: “The Lord is rich in mercy. He is not always accusing, nor does he hold a grudge forever. The higher the heavens are above the earth, the more his mercy prevails. As a father has compassion on his sons and daughters, so the Lord has compassion on those who love him, because he knows our nature and what we are dust (9-14).

One of the characteristics of the biblical God is his mercy, because he knows that we are fragile and fleeting “like the flowers of the field; the breath of the wind is enough for us to be no more” (103:15). Even so, he never ceases to love us as beloved sons and daughters, and to pity our moral weaknesses.

One of the fundamental qualities of the image of God that the Master communicated to us was precisely his unlimited mercy.  For him it is not enough to be good. He has to be merciful.

The parable of the prodigal son illustrates this with rare human tenderness. The son had left home, squandered all his inheritance in a dissolute life, and suddenly, nostalgic, decided to return home. The father stayed a long time, waiting for him, looking at the corner of the road to see if he would show up. Behold, “while he was still a long way off”, as the text says, “the father saw his son and, moved with pity, ran to him and kissed him on the neck” (15:20). It is enough to be back in the father’s house. And he prepared for him, full of joy, a great feast.

This merciful father represents the heavenly Father who loves the ungrateful and the wicked. He welcomed with infinite mercy the son who had lost his way in life. The only son who is criticized is the good son. He served his father in everything, worked, kept all the commandments. He was good, very good. But for Jesus it was not enough to be good. He had to be merciful. And he was not. That is why he is the only one to receive a rebuke for not understanding his brother who returned.

But it is important to emphasize a point that shows the uniqueness of the message of the Nazarene. He wants to go beyond simply loving our neighbor as we love ourselves. Who is the neighbor for Jesus? It is not my friend, nor the one who is next to me. A neighbor for Jesus is anyone I approach, regardless of his or her origin or moral condition. It is enough to be a human being.

The parable of the Good Samaritan is emblematic (Lk 10:30-37). A nobody is lying by the roadside, “half-dead”, the victim of a robbery. A priest passes by, perhaps late in his service in the temple; a Levite also passes by, hurrying to prepare the altar. They both saw him and “passed by”. A Samaritan passes by, a heretic to the Jews; “he took care of him and showed mercy to him,” healing his wounds and taking him to an inn, and also leaving everything paid for and more that was needed. “Who of the three was next?” asks the Master. It was the heretic who approached the robbers’ victim. Love does not discriminate, every human being is worthy of love and mercy. Surely the priest and the Levite were good people, but they lacked the main thing: mercy, a heart that is moved by the pain of others.

In short, when Jesus tells us to love our neighbor, he means to love those who are unknown and discriminated against; he implies loving the invisible ones, the social zeros, those who nobody looks at and pass by, to love those who, at the supreme moment of history, when everything will be wiped out, he calls them “my little brothers”. “When you loved one of these, you did it to me” (Mt 25:40). Saint Francis was the one who best understood this unique “more” of Jesus’ message. That is why in his prayer he asks: “that I seek to console more than to be consoled, to understand more than to be understood, and to love more than to be loved.

Covid-19 is showing, especially in the peripheries, among the criticized members of the Landless and Homeless Movement and others, that the message of merciful love, lived by the Son of God is not extinguished and is still alive and burning.

Leonardo Boff is a theologian and wrote Jesus Christ Liberator, Orbis Books 1972, various editions.