PAEDOPHILIA - THE VERY NEGATION OF EDUCATION
Rector Major responds to Italian News Agency on a range of issues.
(Note - the complete interview is quite lengthy; I have given a synopsis of certain responses that may be of less interest to 'austraLasia' readers. Where I've taken a little liberty with the translation I have indicated the Italian word or phrase used by the RM. The Agency is ASCA - FOCUS; I'm sorry but as I write I cannot tell you the meaning of the first acronym. JBF)
ROME: 18th April -- 'Educators capable of sharpening the critical mind of young people in today's world of globalization, free from any temptation to paedophilia and attentive to the social and political context in their choice of peace and justice over violence and the interests of recstrictive social categories' - This is the way Fr. Pascual Chavez Villanueva puts it in his first interview as Rector Major, and interview in which he touches on some of the burning issues such as the Middle East conflict, the crisis in Latin America, paedophilia amongst the clergy, requests (Italy) for financial aid to Catholic schools and oratories and the relationship between educators and politicans. Fr. Chavez is a 54 year old Mexican only just recently elected as the 9th successor of Don Bosco and head of the Salesian Congregation.
There has been an explosion of scandal with regards to paedophilia amongst priests. This scandal also touches religious educators. If so, how should it be confronted?
CHAVEZ: The scandal of paedophilia puts an old problem into the spotlight, one which has also touched Religious. We are dealing here with a very sad experience, and one which the whole church has to endure especially because of its reverberations through the mass media. This scandal draws our attention to something that always has to be present when we are dealing with minors..how to put it? We have to consider that anything which could steal the innocence of those entrusted to our care is always a problem. We have to know how to look after them with a great variety of educative offerings and regard this as an intangible patrimony. The consequences in children and youths who have been victims of paedophilia are always bitter and leave scars which are difficult to heal even by the best of teachers. In the first place I express my solidarity with all victims of paedophilia. But I also feel pity for borhter priests who have fallen into this very serious weakness. There is nothing I would want more than that the Salesian Congregation would be free of this kind of accusation and, above all, of crimes of this kind since the entire educative system of Don Bosco hinges on prevention. In other words, it sees that young people do not fall into negative experiences that can stigmatize their lives, and this especially because of persons in whom they have placed their trust.
How is it then that the Church has only decided to face up to the problem energetically just now when it has become a major media scandal, and did not take transparent, preventive action to wipe out the scourge when it possibly knew all along?
CHAVEZ: I believe that if the problem did exist, it is only now that knowledge of it has widened with regard to its real prevalence (consistenza). But we can't reduce our global image of the Church, of the Salesian Congregation and of Religious Institutes to the question of paedophilia as if it were a generalized practice. I think that in the past there has always been an effort to accompany those known cases where some deficiency in regard to minors has been determined. I think today, intensified particularly by the media, it is the notification of numerous cases of paedophilia that is attracting attention. This will be a stimulus for the church to be ever more responsible and preventive in the future.
[There follows a question on the funding of Catholic schools and oratories in Italy - with regard to the use of public monies. The RM answers that funding would certainly help the organization aspects of educational centres and schools to overcome present difficulties, but that money is not their only problem. There has been a population decrease - numbers of school-age children are down. It's a case of being able to offer quality opportunities to youngsters. All the public money in the world won't attract them into our schools and oratories if we do not do this.]
You promoted and set up 'Frontier Oratories' in Mexico. What are these?
CHAVEZ: Frontier Oratories are an effort to go back to Don Bosco's original notion. Sometimes we get the impression that the oratory is just a model. Now of course it is that in the sense that every Salesian House must be one that welcomes, where young people meet and make friends, must be a school that educates for life and to life, a parish that evangelizes. But this is not just a point of reference for all Salesian works: there is The Oratory itself. That's what I wanted to do: put in place an Oratory just as Don Bosco would have imagined it. So we built 4 oratories along the borders with the US, and these are in the poorest of areas along that border. They are complex setups that have workshops for technical and professional preparation of youngsters, a chapel/church and big courtyards. But above all they have a large number of educators accompanying the youngsters. The difference is that while a 'school' is a formal type of setup, this is non-formal education directed to those who haven't had the chance of normal progress along the lines envisaged by local government programs.
Do you think this kind of oratory is also transferable to more advanced nations? (nei paesi a capitalismo avanzato)
CHAVEZ: Exactly like we have them in Mexico? I'd say no. In economically developed nations the State has to meet lots of needs that Mexico does not have. But the oratory 'per se' continues to have an ongoing validity because in the end, young people need to be made welcome, listened to, and helped to discover life's plan for them. This is the oratory. It's a centre that always has to have a lot of imagination and originality - it can still be a very meaningful proposal for a well-to-do context.
[ The RM is then asked to comment on support for a government which might be ready to assist Catholic schools financially but does not promote social justice! He replies that it precisely through education that changes in attitudes in society are wrought. So it doesn't really make sense if on the one hand a government is funding schools and on the other doesn't promote social justice.]
You Salesians, along with the Franciscans, are pretty much involved in the conflict in the Holy Land. Bethlehem is a furnace feeding the flames of need for scores and scores of people. How can there be peace between Israel and the Palestinians when they are so obdurately opposed?
CHAVEZ: We have to ask for and put into place an intervention at international level. Every effort so far has failed including that by a quality mediator like Colin Powell. We need a determined international effort. We can no longer stand aside with arms folded doing nothing. UNtil there are two sovereign states, secure in themselves there will not be the conditions for peace, gurantees of dignity and rights for two peoples, Isaeli and Palestinian; there will simply be an endless spiral of violence, retaliation and the death of so many innocent ones. We will continue to stand by impotently while the conflicts of the last 50 years since 1947 repeat themselves.
[ The conversation then turns to Argentina, Venezuela - in fact much of Latin America in crisis and where we know the Salesians have such a large presence. Poverty and dependence are serious problems throughout the continent. What does Chavez think of all this? Our RM responds in terms of 'our' nations - quickly reminding the interviewer that he is, after all, a Mexican and part of Latin America therefore. He feels that to this point 'our' nations have not got their economic structures, their management of resources right - they end up being dependent economically and technologically. The problem is not all from outside. Sometimes these governments haven;t created conditions for true democracy. He considers the capacity of each nation to really believe in social promotion, education, and the desire to expend resources so as to guarantee conditions for the human existence of its population. There follows a further question on Chiapas and Chavez support for Bishop Ruiz who fouhgt for the indigenous people. Would he do it again? Yes says the RM. What a shame that the confict is not yet fully resolved.]
How are we to educate in this time of globalization of the economy and communication, without risking being left behind - proposing outmoded values?
CHAVEZ: Like all realities in our world, globalization is ambiguous and ambivalent. I mean, there are values we should welcome but therre are also challenges we have to respond to. Amongst these values we have to pose the possibility of greater unity amongst peoples, the possibilities for greater connection through modern means of communication and information. At the same time, globalization today looks as if it is hostage to the economy. Here we see its most negative face - concentration of riches in the hands of but a few States and persons. That's a negative consequence of wanting to absolutize the economic laws as against considering them as a means of service of political social and cultural development for everyone. How do we educate in this sort of context? On one hand, evidently, by employing the really positive elements of globalization, seeking to co-involve educators and those educated in the globalization of solidarity, peace, human rights. Getting them to take on greater social responsibility and social participation in civil affairs. This would ensure that we do not remain on the margins or even outside of the process that that humanity is carrying forward but that we give it a soul and a human quality.
Educators and politicians - two often non-complementary categories, out of step with one another. Do you think you can work towards a more critical sense in educators towards politics and politicians in particular?
CHAVEZ: I maintain that the educator must be critical above all else. Politics is neither innocuous nor neutral. One needs to consider choices made and see if they really favour the growth and maturation of persons; see if they favour values which consolidate a people in terms of democracy, freedom, social rights - guranteed by a welfare system that is driven by the human person as its central concern, and responds to the needs of persons, especially those most vulnerable. From this perspective, education has to be critical and demanding and unequivocal (senza fare sconti) in the face of politics and concrete political choices.
