"Recovering ‘what is evident’ is already the first step in overcoming the indifference that weakens our feelings"

The Cristianisme i Justicia Center for Studies publishes today its End of Year reflection that carries the title of “Faced with the Pain of Others, let us Stop Everything!” Published in the collection Papeles CJ, the Center recovers the figure of the Good Samaritan, who does not pass by the pain of the man who was mistreated, for the case of the massacre of the Palestinian people.

“How do we react when facing the pain of others?” Responding to the causes of a social indifference that leads us to continue living as if nothing of what we see on television and the social networks were really happening, the Center claims to recoveragain “what is evident” when faced with the “blindfold of complexity” that is created by the innumerable geopolitical analyses concerning the situation between Israel and Palestine. They insist that what is evident is "the death of thousands of innocent civilians beneath the bombs of a State that in the name of a supposedly legitimate defense is acting against international humanitarian law".

Stop, go out of your way, bend down

Faced with the pain of others, the first thing to do is to stop. This attitude is countercultural in a world where indifference “has been converted into an attitude which passes for normality”, the fruit of a system that anesthetizes us based on the compulsive consumption of experiences, of objects, of a series on Netflix. For Cristianisme i Justicia, the one who incarnates the attitude of stopping is the Good Samaritan who sees in that “mistreated sack” a person who needs help. It is his condition as a person that makes him sacred, independently of “his origin, his religion or the color of his skin”.

Transcend the indifference

“Fill yourself with reality, carry it, and fill us with it”, totally embraces the action of the Good Samaritan. In this End of the Year Reflection, Cristianisme i Justicia takes up this triad proposed by Ignacio Ellacuría and transfers it to the case of Palestine. In order to transcend indifference, it is necessary to have a personal conversion to face the “interiorized individualism that has inoculated us from the time of the Enlightenment to our day, but more forcefully, if that is possible, in the last 50 years of ferocious neoliberalism”.

An End of the Year Reflection framed in a wider context

In the last few weeks, Cristianisme i Justicia has published two videos around the first of the actions gathered from the triad of Ellacuría. “We fill ourselves with reality”, that is, we see things as they really are without pretense or make-up, which involves stopping in order to act later. This is being done by three people coming from different fields, who in one video explain what is implied for them by this phrase of the Basque Jesuit. In addition, in another video María del Carmen de la Fuente, the director of the Fundació Migra Studium, expounds on the context in which Ignacio Ellacuría uttered this phrase.

With more than 40 years of operation and 234 Cuadernos CJ distributed gratuitously throughout the world, Cristianisme i Justicia wants to continue offering a reflection with a Christian perspective that might contribute to doing away with the injustices of this world. The Center has published in 2023, three Booklets, two Papers CJ, and two GUIDES.

Download its End of Year reflection:

• Davant el dolor dels altres: aturem-ho tot! [catalan]
• Ante el dolor de los demás: ¡parémoslo todo! [spanish]
• In the Face of Other People’s Pain, Let Us Stop Everything! [english]