A 2021 MADE “NEW” BY ALL

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Un mensaje de aliento, de cercanía a la comunidad chilena residente en los Estados Unidos.

 

Jesus of Nazareth For All

 

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Gratitude in the time of pandemic

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New York State COVID-19 Vaccination Program

 

New York State has just issued its COVID-19 Vaccination Program, a comprehensive plan of action to go into effect once a proven vaccine becomes available for mass distribution. Credit goes to Gov. Cuomo for his continued leadership role during the pandemic and spearheading this effort, which aspires, writes the governor in a foreword, to become “the best vaccination program” in the country.

This document, notes the executive summary,” describes the steps that are being taken and protocols that are being put in place to ensure the safe and efficient distribution and administration of the vaccine to New York residents.” Given many “unknowns,” the Program is “designed to be flexible.” The Program was produced at the request of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. “It is expected that vaccine distribution and administration approaches will be informed by the federal government upon release of the vaccine to states,” says the executive summary.

An essential function of the Program is to enhance the public’s trust in the process—in September, just over 50 percent of Americans said they would get a vaccine if it were available, compared to 72 percent last May.

It is critically important that the population served by SOMOS, poor Hispanic, and Chinese American communities, have access to the vaccine once available. This population is at greater risk of infection than the general population due to restricted and crowded living conditions and other environmental factors, as well as a higher incidence of pre-existing conditions.

Therefore, it is heartening that one of the “guiding principles” of the Program is “equitable & clinically driven distribution.” Specifically, that means: “New York State’s COVID-19 vaccine distribution approach will be based solely on clinical and equitable standards that prioritize access to persons at higher risk of exposure, illness and/or poor outcome, regardless of other unrelated factors, such as wealth or social status, that might confer unwarranted preferential treatment.”

Another “guiding principle” of the Program is tailor-made for a significant role for the SOMOS network of community doctors and the SOMOS neighborhood publicity apparatus, once the vaccine is available: “partnership, coordination & public outreach.” This reads: “New York State recognizes that coordination with local organizations and community providers is essential to the safe and successful distribution and administration of COVID-19 vaccines. The state’s outreach efforts will especially focus on reaching underserved, hard to reach, vulnerable, less accessible and vaccine-hesitant populations, as well as those at highest risk for COVID-19 infection and poor outcomes.” The Program’s outreach focus is on patient populations like our own!

Regarding that outreach, the Program reads: “All public education and community engagement efforts will include dedicated efforts to connect with underserved, hard to reach, vulnerable, and vaccine-hesitant populations, as well as focused outreach approaches to communities at highest risk of COVID-19. New York State will work closely with partners statewide who can assist in ensuring that all public communication is done in a way to ensure that those with health inequities are represented and ensure that access to the vaccine is not a barrier for underserved communities.”

Plus, the Program will feature “close coordination with stakeholders, community leaders, and local organizations to disseminate information on the distribution and administration of the vaccine in NYS. This will include dedicated stakeholder engagement with community-based organizations representatives from community organizations serving underserved, hard-to-reach, vulnerable, and vaccine-hesitant populations to advise on outreach, communication, and engagement strategies.”

There is no doubt that SOMOS can play a significant role in the New York State COVID-19 Program by promoting and offering the vaccine to New York City’s most vulnerable residents. Let us hope a vaccine will be available soon.

‘A Devotion to Holy Scripture”: Love what St. Jerome loved

 

Published October 30, 2020 on Aleteia.com 

7 things to understand about Pope Francis’ Apostolic Letter on the importance of sacred Scripture.

On September 30, 2020, from the Basilica of St. John Lateran in Rome, in liturgical memory of the priest and Doctor of the Church St. Jerome, and on the occasion commemorating the 1,600th anniversary of his death in Bethlehem, Pope Francis promulgated the Apostolic Letter SCRIPTURAE SACRAE AFFECTUS (A Devotion to Sacred Scripture). With this letter, the pope not only pays tribute to the life and work of this great human being and Christian, but he also reaffirms the doctrine of the Catholic Church on Sacred Scripture, the primary source for the faith and religion of all believers in Christ, Catholics, and, furthermore, for the experience and human endeavor of every man and woman of goodwill.

The life and work of St. Jerome, the pope says, includes “his tireless activity as a scholar, translator and exegete. Jerome’s profound knowledge of the Scriptures, his zeal for making their teaching known, his skill as an interpreter of texts, his ardent and at times impetuous defence of Christian truth, his asceticism and harsh eremitical discipline, his expertise as a generous and sensitive spiritual guide—all these make him, 16 centuries after his death, a figure of enduring relevance for us, the Christians of the 21st century.” That is why St. Jerome has bequeathed to us as a legacy “a devotion to sacred Scripture, a living and tender love” for the written word of God.

 

Read more:

How St. Jerome dealt with his excessive anger

To highlight the excellence opportunity and necessity of this pontifical document, I will underscore—at once—seven essential ideas that correspond to the seven sections into which this Apostolic Letter is divided.

First, observing and analyzing the portraits that important painters have made of St. Jerome, the pope finds in them the repetition of two features that define the saint’s profile as a man, primarily, absolutely consecrated to God (monk and penitent) and, secondly, as a scholar, absolutely and rigorously dedicated to the understanding of the Holy Scriptures.

 

Read more:

A prayer by St. Jerome, to invoke God’s mercy

Second, Francis highlights Jerome’s deep love for Sacred Scripture which, according to the pope’s understanding, is a passionate love similar to that experienced, lived and conveyed by the great prophets of the best Old Testament tradition for the Word of God.

Regarding the study and understanding of Sacred Scripture, and encouraging us all to do the same, the pope says of Jerome that, “In an integrated and skillful way he employed all the methodological resources available in his day – competence in the languages in which the word of God was handed down, careful analysis and examination of manuscripts, detailed archaeological research, as well as knowledge of the history of interpretation – in order to point to a correct understanding of the inspired Scriptures.”

BROTHERS AND SISTERS ALL: LET’S BUILD HOPE!

 

On October 3, 2020, on the eve of the feast of Saint Francis of Assisi and in the eighth year of his Pontificate, Pope Francis presented, to the Catholic faithful of the entire world and all men and women of good will, his third Encyclical Letter on FRATERNITY AND SOCIAL FRIENDSHIP, with the title “FRATELLI TUTTI” (Brothers and Sisters All), words so often spoken by the "Poverello" of Assisi.

With these two words, the title of the encyclical, Pope Francis, like Francis of Assisi, calls for a “fraternal openness that allows us to acknowledge, appreciate and love each person, regardless of physical proximity, regardless of where he or she was born or lives.” (1)

Although this document logically draws from the Gospel of Jesus Christ and has as its primary audience the faithful of the Catholic Church, which is guided by it, it gains its importance, in the first place, from the worldly authority of this spiritual leader who is recognized by all and in all areas of humanity and, furthermore, from the universal coverage of all the issues that Pope Francis encounters and addresses. 

On that matter, he himself says: “Although I have written it from the Christian convictions that inspire and sustain me, I have sought to make this reflection an invitation to dialogue among all people of good will.” (6). And not forgetting the historical and global context of the pandemic through which we are suffering, Francis tells us that “As I was writing this letter, the Covid-19 pandemic unexpectedly erupted, exposing our false securities. Aside from the different ways that various countries responded to the crisis, their inability to work together became quite evident. For all our hyper-connectivity, we witnessed a fragmentation that made it more difficult to resolve problems that affect us all….” (7)  

On the other hand, it is an Encyclical through which Francis makes his social thought and worldview completely clear and defined: a world—in which, according to the Good News that is Jesus Christ, we live in universal brotherhood, with signs of brotherly love, concrete and committed, to the very end, like the Good Samaritan of the Gospel, who is Jesus himself.

This Pontifical Document has engendered such interest that it is already beginning to be equated with Encyclical Letters as important to the concert of the Nations as the Rerum Novarum of Leo XIII or the Populorum Progressio of Paul VI. It is beginning to be ranked among the most important papal documents through which the Church—as Mother and teacher with her social doctrine and always inspired by the deeds and words of the Nazarene—looks to serve and enlighten our entire coexistence as humans, our social institutions, and our development as peoples and nations.

Regarding the purpose of the Encyclical, Francis himself says that its pages “do not claim to offer a complete teaching on fraternal love, but rather to consider its universal scope, its openness to every man and woman” (6). Because, the Pope says: “It is my desire that, in this our time, by acknowledging the dignity of each human person, we can contribute to the rebirth of a universal aspiration to fraternity. Fraternity between all men and women. ‘Here we have a splendid secret that shows us how to dream and to turn our life into a wonderful adventure. No one can face life in isolation… We need a community that supports and helps us, in which we can help one another to keep looking ahead. How important it is to dream together… By ourselves, we risk seeing mirages, things that are not there. Dreams, on the other hand, are built together.’” 

And, for this purpose, through eight chapters and 287 paragraphs, Francis questions us on the reality of every human being and on the local and worldwide reality that we experience today, living in the “DARK CLOUDS OVER A CLOSED WORLD” (Chapter One). That is, he analyzes “certain trends in our world that hinder the development of universal fraternity” (9), such as the dreams of progress and humanity that have been “shattered,” conflicts—especially bellicose conflicts—fears and pessimism about the future, the lack of “historical consciousness” and of a universal plan for everyone, the “throwaway world” that manifests itself especially in the impoverishment of large majorities, human rights violations, globalization and social progress that neither reach nor benefit all equally, pandemics and other great scourges, the tragedy of the migratory movements of great masses of people, the problems of telecommunications that dehumanize, isolate, and create loneliness, a lack of dialogue and personal connection to the truth and the “shameless aggression” of consumerism, etc. 

But, perhaps Francis’ most profound criticism in this Letter is made against the economic-political-social system of Neoliberal Capitalism and its market system about which he says: “The marketplace, by itself, cannot resolve every problem … Whatever the challenge, this impoverished and repetitive school of thought always offers the same recipes. Neoliberalism simply reproduces itself by resorting to the magic theories of “spillover” or “trickle”—without using the name—as the only solution to societal problems. There is little appreciation of the fact that the alleged “spillover” does not resolve the inequality that gives rise to new forms of violence threatening the fabric of society.” 

But, the Pope says, that despite these dense shadows that should not be ignored, he wants to “take up and discuss many new paths of hope. For God continues to sow abundant seeds of goodness in our human family. The recent pandemic enabled us to recognize and appreciate once more all those around us who, in the midst of fear, responded by putting their lives on the line. We began to realize that our lives are interwoven with and sustained by ordinary people…” (54)

These are shadows that the Pope illuminates with the evangelical Parable of the “Good Samaritan,” which is about “A STRANGER ON THE ROAD” (Chapter Two). It is a parable that asks us to “THINK AND MANAGE AN OPEN WORLD” (Chapter Three), with “A HEART OPEN TO THE WHOLE WORLD” (Chapter Four) in which the work of “A BETTER KIND OF POLITICS” (Chapter Five), through the “DIALOGUE AND FRIENDSHIP IN SOCIETY” (Chapter Six), leads us through “PATHS OF RENEWED ENCOUNTER” (Chapter Seven), in which “RELIGIONS (put themselves) AT THE SERVICE OF FRATERNITY IN OUR WORLD.” (Chapter Eight).

And in the beautiful interweaving of the Encyclical, other recurring issues appear here and there in the Magisterium of Francis, such as: the gospel and its universal dynamism of love, which calls for the commitment of every man and woman of good will, the relationship between the local and the universal, the need for a “culture of encounter,” the common destiny of goods and human promotion through work, etc.

The Pope indeed paints a grim and dispiriting portrait of the historical and social experience of human beings in today’s world. In the end, however, we have hope. The greatest challenge facing humanity today is—according to the Pope and the teachings of the gospel of the carpenter of Nazareth—the construction of a fraternal world, one in which we move away from the individualism in our society that we see the highest political circles to the way we use social networks. It is an individualism that isolates, leaves millions alone, and forgets “the poor, the abandoned, the infirm and the outcast, the least” (2). We need to move toward the construction of an “us” in universal love, recognizing that we are brothers and sisters with a common destiny, where we share the same house and table and where we can truly call each other: “Fratelli tutti” (Brothers and Sisters, All).

Fratelli Tutti is, then and above all, an invitation to the commitment of all, individuals, peoples, governments and nations, to building the hope that “speaks to us of something deeply rooted in every human heart, independently of our circumstances and historical conditioning. Hope speaks to us of a thirst, an aspiration, a longing for a life of fulfillment, a desire to achieve great things, things that fill our heart and lift our spirit to lofty realities like truth, goodness and beauty, justice and love… Hope is bold; it can look beyond personal convenience, the petty securities and compensations which limit our horizon, and it can open us up to grand ideals that make life more beautiful and worthwhile”.[52] Let us continue, then, to advance along the paths of hope.”

We welcome this Encyclical that is destined to become the roadmap of our times, of the entire family of nations and that calls for the commitment of all, if we want—as we yearn for it—a better world today and in the future, for the generations who will come after us. It is the Pope himself who invites us to dream: “Let us dream, then, as a single human family, as fellow travelers sharing the same flesh, as children of the same earth which is our common home, each of us bringing the richness of his or her beliefs and convictions, each of us with his or her own voice, brothers and sisters all.” (8). 

“We need to develop the awareness that nowadays we are either all saved together or no one is saved. Poverty, decadence and suffering in one part of the earth are a silent breeding ground for problems that will end up affecting the entire planet.” (137).

2020 Presidential Election - Your Vote is Your Voice

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Hoping for Better Times / Con Esperanza en Tiempos Mejores

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Praying for Prayer

 

In the sum of the dimensions that we are as human beings, there is one, the most important: that which elevates us above everyday life, which frees us from tangible, perishable and postmodern consumerist materiality, which makes us fly, which allows us to create ideals and goals, dream of utopias and no longer resign ourselves to the narrowness, precariousness, and limitations of our existence; this is the transcendent dimension of the life of every human being.

This human dimension brings man to divinity, yearning for fulfillment, perfection, infinity, and eternity, and it also explains why all human beings establish relationships with the Transcendent in our daily lives or during the special occasions of our existence.

We do this by attempting communication with the one which each of us believes and confesses as our God, our Transcendent being, our Creator. ... And, in general, this communication attempt is called—in most of humanity's religious systems—prayer.

To pray and try to enter into a dialogue with the divine, human beings use rites, devotions, recite hymns, chants, etc. In general, we use traditional formulas, socially and culturally learned, which—in Spanish and Catholic theology—we call REZAR (PRAYING), that is to say: reciting… And we dedicate the time and space of our existence to prayer.

But, PRAYING (reciting formulas, conversing with the Transcendent through rites, devotions, etc.) is an instrument that we have to open us up and push us to PRAYER, that is, to live life in harmony, in accordance and in coherence with our confessions of faith or religion, with what we believe and profess.

Thus, it is possible to pray a lot and live lives totally divorced from what we believe in and from the most fundamental human values ​​(such as love, peace, justice, truth, freedom, life) in the same way that it is possible to have little time and space to pray and, nevertheless, be protagonists and builders of better human relationships and societies that are more fraternal.

Prayers, therefore, are an instrument and accompaniment for a life of PRAYER. And while praying is a conscientious and momentary matter in daily life, prayer involves the religious believer's whole life.

Praying opens us to a life of prayer, to the deep will of God in man: to love and to serve. Praying is not, then, an instrument of myth and magic, a fetish, an act of magic to force the will of the divine so that everything happens according to our convenience, as we want it and according to our whims and interests, almost always petty.

Praying is at the service of prayer. In other words, ritual practices and religious devotions must be at the service of lives lived deeply and honestly in a human and humanizing way.

When we do not see prayers as instruments and manifestations of a whole life lived in prayer and prayer is not understood as a life that needs and manifests in moments of praying, individually or collectively, a scandalous divorce occurs between faith and life, between religious practices and our daily practices, between what we believe and what we live, between what we profess and what we practice.

The painful and challenging situation of the time in which humanity lives today undoubtedly urges us all to establish more and better relationships with the Transcendent, to seek more and better moments of prayer and worship. And, because of these same religious practices, may we feel more called upon to live a life of prayer, doing the will of God who—in all religions—asks us to love and serve one another to a greater extent.

The construction of a better world is delegated by God to the intelligence and freedom of man. It is false, a religious experience in which the human being, through rites and devotions, is not responsible for building a better world. A religious experience in which man asks God to do what is purely the responsibility of the human race is false and cynical.

May our religious life push us to build a better world as God's will in man. May we pray to live in prayer, to love one another and, living in prayer, loving and serving each other, we pray for each other, for all our best intentions and most profound needs and those of all humanity.

Vatican body calls for an ethical, moral transformation in the battle against COVID-19

FUNDAMENTALLY, every document produced by the Vatican is addressed to all of humanity, but in matters of faith, of course, Catholics are the prime audience.  A new set of reflections on the coronavirus, however, published by the Pontifical Academy for Life, targets explicitly all members of the global human family, the humana communitas.

In “Humana communitas in the age of pandemic: untimely meditations on life’s rebirth,” the Academy, which is dedicated to promoting the Catholic Church's consistent life ethic, calls for a radical reorientation in the fight against the pandemic. It calls attention to “our common responsibility for the human family,” a renewed appreciation of the gift of life, and an awareness of and concrete response to the fact that the most vulnerable members of society—specifically the elderly and the poor around the world, as well as “prisoners [and] the abandoned destined to oblivion in refugee camps from hell”—suffer the brunt of the pain inflicted by the pandemic.

Arguing for the fundamental dignity of every human being, the reflections are labeled “untimely,” explained Archbishop Vincenzo Paglia, president of the Academy, “to indicate the urgency of finding a conception of community, which, apparently, is no longer fashionable.” The document calls on government leaders, social elites, and ordinary individuals in the wealthy developed world to not let selfishness and economic self-interest outweigh the care and concern due to those without means to protect themselves from the impact of the pandemic and other “diseases despite the availability of cures too expensive to afford.”

Hence the vaccine for the virus, once it comes on the market, should not be treated as merchandise promising profit, the document suggests, but, in solidarity with the poor and most vulnerable, be distributed to all who need it and those most at risk. It should not only be in wealthy nations, “where people can afford the requirements of safety.” 

In the end, moreover, says the document, “frail is what we all are, radically marked by the experience of finitude at the core of our existence,” even though the Western world manages to obscure its vulnerability by economic prowess. In wealthy nations, governments and individuals alike are driven by “an ethic of calculative rationality bent toward a distorted image of self-fulfillment, impervious to the responsibility of the common good on a global, and not only national scale.” 

“Human interdependence” as well as “common vulnerability,” the meditations continue, “calls for international cooperation as well, and the realization that a pandemic cannot be withstood without adequate medical infrastructure, accessible to everyone at the global level.” This requires the “sharing of information, the provision of help, the allocation of scarce resources, which all have to be addressed in a synergy of efforts.” Plus, for example, the US assisting Mexico in fighting the pandemic obviously benefits both nations.

The document calls for “a renewed appreciation of the existential reality of risk: all of us may succumb to the wounds of disease, the killing of wars, the overwhelming threats of disasters. In light of this, there emerge particular ethical and political responsibilities toward the vulnerability of individuals who are at greater risk for their health, their life, their dignity.” It’s a question of ethics: “To focus on the natural genesis of the pandemic, without heed to the economic, social, and political inequalities among countries in the world, is to miss the point about the conditions that make its spread faster and more difficult to address.”

That embrace of an “ethics of risk,” declares the document, means “we need to flesh out a concept of solidarity that extends beyond generic commitment to helping those who are suffering. A pandemic urge all of us to address and reshape structural dimensions of our global community that are oppressive and unjust, those that a faith understanding refers to as ‘structures of sin.’” In the end, “access to quality health care and essential medicines must be effectively recognized as a universal human right.”

“Ultimately, the moral, and not just strategic, meaning of solidarity is the real issue in the current predicament faced by the human family. Solidarity entails responsibility toward the other in need, itself grounded in the recognition that, as a human subject endowed with dignity, every person is an end in itself, not a mean. The articulation of solidarity as a principle of social ethics rests on the concrete reality of a personal presence in need, crying for recognition. Thus, the response required of us is not just a reaction based on sentimental notions of sympathy; it is the only adequate response to the dignity of the other summoning our attention, an ethical disposition premised on the rational apprehension of the intrinsic value of every human being.” Selfishness in all our affairs must make way for genuine altruism.

“If there is no awakening of consciousness,” said Archbishop Paglia, “we will just fix a few organizational problems, but everything will be like it used to be. Instead, we need to rethink our models of development and coexistence, so that they are increasingly worthy of the human community. And therefore, they must be appropriate for the vulnerable people, not beyond their limits, as if they did not exist; within those limits, in fact, there are men, women, and children who deserve better care. All of them, not just ours.”

The archbishop ended his remarks on an optimistic note: “from the ‘dry run’ of this pandemic, we expect a burst of pride from the humana communitas. It can make it if it wants to.”

To read the full text of the meditations, please click here.

A Single Race

These days, the people of the United States continue their march amidst the headlines, the tension, and the protests surrounding the murder by asphyxiation —as determined by the autopsy— of George Floyd, an African-American man, at the hands of four police officers led by Derek Chauvin. This tragedy has even overshadowed news of the COVID-19 pandemic, which has already infected and killed thousands of people across this nation.

The life of one human being is invaluable, and the lives of many human beings, even more so. Therefore, why, suddenly, on the national scene, has the death of one person become more critical and more newsworthy than the death of thousands? It is because the passing of George Floyd painfully revives, in the hearts of the people of the United States, the atrocious ghost of racism: a plague and terrible pandemic that has accompanied— from its origins—the history of this country.

Yes. Sadly, painfully, throughout the trajectory of our national events, we have had to live with the social and moral plague of discrimination and racial inequality. It is true that the US Constitution abolished slavery. It is also true that, during the presidency of Lyndon B. Johnson in 1964, the so-called Civil Rights Act was signed and enacted, and that there are many gains and achievements that citizens of so-called minority groups have accomplished in this nation. And yet, living side by side with legal and constitutional formalities, it is no less true that George Floyd's death reveals to us our shortcomings, our hypocrisies, and the flaws in our social fabric. It also calls attention to the work we all have left to do in building and achieving a truly democratic society, that is, one that is truly equitable, just, compassionate, and humane.

We abolished slavery, but racism—its worst byproduct—lays simmering. Nearly six decades after Martin Luther King's famous speech in Washington, George Floyd's death reveals the hypocritical coexistence of two nations within one: the billionaires and those with nothing, those living in luxury and those in the ghettos, those who have everything and every opportunity; and the many who lack even minimal political and social opportunities to live with dignity.

The vast majority of African-Americans, like the vast majority of other people from "minority" groups, live in this nation lacking the quality and dignity of elements that are essential to human life. These include education, housing, employment, and health. They also live subjected to permanent legal and police abuses, amid the injustice and inequality in the application of rights and opportunities, an injustice and inequality that segregates, discriminates, marginalizes, discards, tramples, crushes, that fills prisons and eventually kills.

This moral and social plague of racism is, to our misfortune, an almost institutional, systemic, systematic, and endemic structural issue in our lives in the United States. That is to say: it is a matter rooted and injected into the core of this nation. Racism works and manifests itself, sometimes subtly, other times shamelessly and savagely, in our mental structures, in our daily interrelationships, in our educational system, in the configuration and landscape of our urban planning, in our legislation, etc.

In this most recent case, four police officers, who should represent government protection for citizens, became a vile and brutal instrument against the life of an African-American man, until he was assassinated; thus becoming a page in the bloody and shameful history of racism in this country.

Consequently, the United States has lived for two weeks through public protests—occurring throughout the entire country and legitimately protected by the Constitution—objecting the murder of George Floyd. And, shamefully, President Trump's role, in this difficult and dangerous situation, as has been repeatedly pointed out in this and other occasions, has not been to unite the people, but has instead divided them and tried to play down the just claims of these public protests, labeling the protesters—among other words—as terrorists.

All this is more serious, given that these events are happening in the country that represents an example of political, economic, and social achievement, and that serves as a model for democracy for the world community of nations on this earth.

There were those who, hidden and camouflaged within, and infiltrating these legitimate protests, veered from their primary purpose, to object the death of George Floyd and racism. These people dedicated themselves to all sorts of outrageous acts committed against private property and businesses in the cities where the demonstrations occurred. These acts have two main implications and consequences: the abuse of a minority and vulnerable population, e.g., the majority of those protesting, which resulted, in a matter of hours, in the loss of property and businesses of many poor men and women which took many years of work, effort, and sacrifices to build. And, on the other hand, with these abusive behaviors, the miscreants are validating and justifying the discourse of racists in our society.

George Floyd's murder reminds us that we have failed, and we are failing as a society and that despite our accomplishments as a nation, we need to strive for something much bigger. At the same time, it shows us that we all must move forward together to create a country that is truly egalitarian, free, diverse, plural, just, united, reconciled, equitable, and democratic. Racial equality cannot be reduced to a "dream," to a paragraph in the Constitution, or to frustration or rage that sporadically manifests itself publicly. Racial equality must be a daily goal for everyone and must manifest itself in all our behaviors, attitudes, and relationships.

At the same time, it is encouraging that it is the young population that overwhelmingly took to the streets to protest. We can expect a better future from those who are taking charge of our national destiny. The resolution of all the demands given voice in the recent protests surrounding the death of Mr. Gregory Floyd will very much impact on the nation's immediate future, its progress, its inner well-being, and its role as the political leader of humanity.

Enough! Let Mr. Floyd's death not be in vain.  I invite you to continue dreaming with Martin Luther King that days will arrive when "the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit together at the table of brotherhood" and live in a country where no one is judged "by the color of their skin but by the content of their character" and that henceforth and forever, we only talk about a single race: the human race!

THE FIRST STEP… Beyond the Pandemic

Timidly, humans begin to look out toward the streets. The most terrible days of the fear, tribulation, anguish, and mourning wrought by the COVID-19 pandemic caused by the coronavirus appear to be behind us. As I write this article, the "official" global figures count almost 3.5 million people infected—suffering in the most absolute solitude, a million more who have recovered, and 250,000 who died alone, anonymous, without mourners or the rites of funerals.

All humanity has lived through an unusual and unprecedented situation of closing ourselves in, compulsory seclusion, confinement on a global level, quarantine, and social isolation—the most effective remedy to prevent contagion, to preserve and care for the invaluable gifts of health and life.

This is, without a doubt, the largest health crisis of our time, which overturned all our daily routines and "normality" and tore down all our certainties, security, and traditions. This crisis created a suspicion among us, shook our ideas of solidarity and brotherhood, and of being together, close to each other, and produced a still incalculable global economic slowdown, which is manifesting—first and foremost—in the terrifying number of unemployed people.

No one doubts that this pandemic is a milestone in the history of humanity and a turning point for our way of life, of being and living on this earth. During these days, we all wonder how to get back to what is being called the “new normal.” And although humanity has experienced earlier plagues and pandemics, this pandemic is the one during which we happen to be living. It is about this pandemic that I share here some brief reflections that, being realistic, positive, and hopeful, I hope to mitigate the exaggerated optimism that says that—following the pandemic—the world will be “new,” “distinct,” and radically “different” from what we have known, as if by some magic, the virus will turn us into better human beings and cast away the fatalistic pessimism of those proclaiming disaster, chaos, catastrophe, and death.

First of all, let me summarize—in addition to what I already mentioned above—other realizations and lessons that the pandemic leaves us. Suddenly, we are discovering the uselessness of the thousands of things that we had considered important and the usefulness of those that count: a life with meaning, with direction, with values… because the pandemic makes us confront the reality that nothing else matters when we do not have health or life.

Likewise, the pandemic teaches us that there is no economy or any other area of life in society if we do not have health and life, fundamental values of human existence. For the same reason, too, the pandemic suddenly and crudely revealed to us who is who in society. Who is socially useful and who is useless: because today a hospital’s stretcher-bearer or a restaurant’s delivery driver is more important to society than a soccer player, movie star, or a shoddy, chattering politician to whom we give such worship and platitudes. … Suddenly, health personnel and science professionals—to whom we give so little and no social recognition—were on the front lines of society in the fight against the pandemic.

We also learned about the planetary and ecumenical condition of human beings: that we are deeply and universally together in good and in evil. Quite literally, when someone sneezes in China, there is a fever at the other end of the earth. And, for the same reason, nothing that interests one human being can be alien to the rest of humanity or leave them indifferent. As Pope Francis has continually said, during these days, “no one is saved alone.” We all share the same “common house.”

We learned that although goodness and altruism have not disappeared and have manifested themselves these days in a thousand initiatives of solidarity with the most vulnerable in society, they coexist with the forms of unconsciousness, selfishness, corruption, and evil manifested these days, especially in the lack of cooperation and carelessness in not protecting others against infection, and in the theft of government aid meant for the poorest among us.

Politically speaking, if there was anything that exposed this health crisis, it was the insufficiency and shortcomings of the much-publicized "globalization" and of governmental institutions to face it. Society has tried to solve a global problem with local measures. Large cracks and structural flaws have been discovered within societies, exposing failures through which thousands of forms of structural inequity and injustice cannot go on.

We are also aware of a total absence of world leadership. The United States lost the opportunity to exercise it and those of us who dreamed of a new multilateral world order suddenly woke up, literally “distraught,” without a north, aimless, disoriented. ...

All this gives rise to the danger that—under the pretext of the pandemic— abusers in certain regimes and governments will, in turn, take advantage of collective fears to trample and violate human rights, and civil and individual liberties, by implementing—for example—emergency rule, curfews, states of emergency to legislate, greater police and military intervention to contain the population on the streets, etc. This is a danger that would, unfortunately, lead to new forms of autocracies, authoritarianism, populism, totalitarianism, dictatorships, protectionism, isolationism, nationalism, and xenophobia, which would revert achievements and successes we have already attained in societal life and our democracy.

Curiously and painfully too, society experienced this pandemic largely without the spiritual company of religious institutions. In societies already openly atheistic in relationships and social structures, each human being has had to solve alone—in personal and intimate confinement—the most distressing and fundamental questions about the meaning of life and the proximity of death and what lies beyond.

But this is not the end of human life on earth, nor can it be the end of trust, solidarity, and hope. This crisis must give us all a new and different attitude towards life and others. This crisis may represent an opportunity for the governments of the world to apply new paradigms in all fields of societal life: family, health, education, work, housing, public services, etc. ... This immeasurable crisis is a unique opportunity to adjust human and social values, to right the road. ... Now is not just for beating the virus, but also for overcoming our vain and arrogant failures—both human and global—that have been laid bare by the pandemic.

This crisis urges us all toward new forms of international cooperation and less harmful and healthier forms of globalized solidarity for all so that we can deal with present and future crises such as hunger, wars, climate change, etc. … all themes that involve the entire human family.

From the pandemic, we learn that the health-economy tradeoff is false. That, from now on, the public good requires that the economy be placed at the service of our collective health. ... How we solve and manage the lessons that this pandemic leaves us will depend—in large part—on the near-term future of humanity. The virus will not end economic inequality, nor will it end the animosity between leaders and the led. The virus will not miraculously work a mutation into the human spirit. Yes, from now on, fraternal solidarity, equal opportunities, honest work, and trust—without fear or anguish—in ourselves, in others, and in our institutions will save us.

May we have a vaccine soon! May the joy of life return! May the next pandemic be that of solidarity and fraternal love! “Light is the task where many share the toil,” said Homer. And “a journey of a thousand miles begins with the first step,” said Lao-Tse. Well ... Let's take the first step!

SOMOS INNOVATION—the post-DSRIP future

As our city, our state, our nation and our world are struggling with the coronavirus pandemic, I first of all want to express my gratitude and admiration for your work on the frontlines of caring for coronavirus victims and protecting New Yorkers across the board. May you and your staff stay safe—and know you have the support of the entire SOMOS organization.

As you know, the DSRIP program formally concluded on March 31, 2020. It is a great disappointment that federal and state authorities opted not to renew the program’s mandate despite DSRIP’s many achievements. However, SOMOS will continue it groundbreaking work on behalf of the city’s poorest patients through SOMOS INNOVATE. It’s with an eye on that new chapter that I have drafted these notes.

The following draws on the recommendations and observations found in a report produced by the Helgerson Solutions Group (HSG), which earlier this year completed a strategic audit of SOMOS, precisely to map out its post-DSRIP future. HSG’s founder and principal is Jason Helgerson, the former New York State Department of Health Medicaid director and visionary behind DSRIP. He and this team know the health-care landscape intimately. It is a landscape being radically transformed by the Value-Based Payment (VBP) model and SOMOS INNOVATE will be our doctors’ guide and advocate.

As such, the HSG report proclaims that SOMOS INNOVATE is “about more than just being a VBP innovator. … SOMOS has the potential to revolutionize health and social care … and being a light in the wilderness for physicians and physician groups around the country.” As pioneered by DSRIP, the VBP model, a move away from the traditional Medicaid  fee-for-service payment formula, allows networks of independent physicians to bypass hospital systems and “contract directly with insurers (or the government) and take control of the total health care dollar and the flexibility those payment models offer to revolutionize care.”  With SOMOS INNOVATE at their side, our doctors can continue “to rise up and take control of their own destiny.”

SOMOS INNOVATE will continue the transformation of health care for New York City’s most vulnerable patients by continuing to “institutionalize cultural competence, empower patients and address the true root causes of bad health and social outcomes.” The fact that so many of our doctors share the same cultural background as the people they serve makes for “an exceptional closeness to their patient base, something that is very hard to achieve and harder to replicate by other organizations.”

To strengthen its clout and grow our network of providers, SOMOS INNOVATE will aim to engage other IPAs. It will also put a premium on partnerships with Community-Based Organizations to address Social Determinants of Health, a critical component in providing patients with comprehensive, wholistic care. Such care has the power to improve “community happiness” by “fully embrac[ing] the health, social and economic needs of the community.” It’s a model of care that revolves around the neighborhood-based primary care physician as trusted community leader.

To stave off competition, SOMOS INNOVATE will consider establishing “creative partnerships” with hospitals which might otherwise make access to specialty care more difficult. It will also pursue VBP contracts with Managed Care Organizations that would welcome SOMOS INNOVATION as a hospital competitor.

SOMOS INNOVATION has been operational for some time and continues to implement a rapid development strategy. The SOMOS Board of Directors appointed 20-year health-care industry veteran Dan McCarthy as CEO of SOMOS INNOVATION. An expert in value-based care, Dan has spent the bulk of the past year building up the organization and putting in place his management team.

The time is now, says the HSG report: “SOMOS is on the right side of health-care history. After years of delay, the health-care world is finally starting up really embrace value. New York State and Medicare are continuing their push to get virtually all providers into the VBP arrangement.” The goal is to position SOMOS INNOVATION on the forefront of publicly funded health-care innovation, state-wide and even nationally.

Achieving that objective will be critical if SOMOS INNOVATION is to succeed in enabling its doctors to remain competitive in a time of rapid change and in the face of the potential challenge of the Big Four—Apple, Google, Amazon and Microsoft—entering the arena of “technological innovation that will revolutionize the provision of many health-care services over the next decade,” stresses HSG.

In the form of robotics and Artificial Intelligence, “technology may replace as much as 80 percent of what doctors currently do and SOMOS will need to stay ahead of that curve on their physicians’ behalf.” A premium must be put on building “productive partnerships between doctors and machines.” Increasingly sophisticated technology will free up doctors from “routine tasks so that they can re-focus their time and attention to supporting their patients psychologically and helping them understand—as well as act upon—their medical condition.” Surely, this increasingly intimate attention paid to patients will be essential for delivering optimal value-based care.

Among the technological tools of the future will be smartphone apps that allow for 24/7 monitoring of patients. There will be sharp growth in the kinds of “wearable technology, biometric sensors as well as apps,” all working in sync to create an “Internet of the body.” “Doctors in the future will prescribe apps” allowing for patients’ self-diagnosis. Overall, technology will drive a “long-term shift from managing sickness to preventing it.”

The report says that in future, doctors may well be “dispensing their advice through chatbots, instant messaging and video calls instead of sitting in an office with a line of patients to see them.” Noting that SOMOS doctors “already excel at some of the inter-relational aspects of the job by virtue of being in, and of, the community in which they serve,” they will need training in acquiring a “new basket of skills” “to make the pivot to a more interpretative and context-providing role on its own.”

HSG notes that telemedicine, remote patient care, will have a $130B market share by 2025; and “the healthcare artificial intelligence market is projected to reach $19B by 2026.” All that innovation means that “the future of medicine will be more precise, personalized, participatory and preventive. These attributes align perfectly with SOMOS’ existing values.”

Indeed, helping and training our doctors “plan and prepare for the technological disrup4tions of the future” will be a hallmark of SOMOS INNOVATION. It is part and parcel of its overall commitment to empower our providers to offer the best possible care to New York City’s most vulnerable patients, and to bring about lasting reform of publicly funded health-care delivery.

The Pandemic and Easter

We live our human existence, amid experiences both good and evil, on personal, family, social, national, and international levels. Today, all of humanity faces an experience of evil: the pandemic caused by the exponential contagion of the Covid-19 coronavirus, which causes us to change and call into question everything: our way of life, our ways of interacting at the family and social levels, our institutions, and social structures. This experience of evil reveals all our weaknesses and frailties, in addition to the deficiencies of our social organizations, especially those in the health sector. Therefore, we live through these hours of confusion, anxiety, anguish, suffering, pain, and mourning across the globe.

To prevent and stop, as much as possible, the advance of this pandemic, human communities around the world have agreed on days and weeks of confinement, social isolation, and quarantine that has confined everyone in our homes.

The newscasts are saturated, every minute, with the counts of the infected and the dead, with the dire consequences we face in every area—especially the economic and labor areas—of our social coexistence that emerge wherever the pandemic goes, with headlines about initiatives that appear here and there to mitigate the suffering of so many, and with calls to all of us to save what we have built as a society.

For those of us who are alive here and now, at this moment in human history, this is an unprecedented situation—as novel as this heretofore unknown virus is in the world of medicine. All of us—each in his or her respective environment and lifestyle—are learning, as each hour passes, how to face this common enemy and how to survive….

But, in these hours that are difficult for everyone, not everything is bad, nor is everything negative, nor is everything lost. There are lessons to be learned from this evil experience on a global scale.

In the first place, this unusual experience of evil, which touches the most intimate and profound part of our being because it affects our health and, with it, our possibility of continuing to live or die, is an opportunity to recognize, on one hand, our utter weakness, our lack of self-sufficiency and, in religious terms, our “creatureness” and total dependence on a higher being we call God and Creator. But also, this is an opportunity to recognize our interdependence on all other human beings and how strong, essential, and extraordinarily solidary we are in good times, but also in evil times. In a word, we are beings who are "dependent" on God and on one another.

Secondly, social isolation, already declared in most countries, is a precious opportunity to enter into ourselves, to find ourselves again, to travel to the depths of our inner selves, and discover the truth on which we base our personal stories and the values ​​or anti-values ​​that support the fabric of our lives. This confinement to our homes is a unique opportunity—away from outward appearances, visual impressions, ostentation, and the daily bustle—to return to silence, to reflection, to meditation, to prayer. The obligatory quarantine that we are all living is, also, a unique opportunity to return to ourselves and to come together with our loved ones, with our close friends, with our family.

The enormous ease and speed with which the virus is transmitted and infects, also teaches us the shared responsibility that we all have in the construction or destruction of our life on earth. And if the common good, the general consensus, the best interests for everyone calls for surviving this pandemic, then we will all have to banish from each one of ourselves selfishness and all the negativity that it entails and bring forth the best of ourselves and the best of our human values to rebuild the world and our human coexistence with interactions, spaces, social methods, and institutional forms that are more just, more solidary, more equitable, more fraternal, more compassionate, and more merciful. In other words, this experience of evil that touches and affects us all so deeply, is an opportunity for hope that, from now on, we will all be different and build a different and better world.

During these days, Christians will celebrate Easter, the greatest religious celebration of our liturgical year while Jews will celebrate Passover. While Passover, in the Jewish theological system, recalls and commemorates the "passage" of the Old Testament people from slavery to freedom by crossing the Red Sea, Easter, in the Christian theological system, recalls and commemorates the "passage" from death to life through the triumph of the life’s work of Jesus of Nazareth—after his death on the cross—when he was confessed as Living and Resurrected in the community by the first Christians and by all his disciples up through today.

Everything that happens to us can be lived as a curse or as a blessing. I invite you to live this experience of evil, this pandemic, this social isolation, this suffering for loved ones who are sick or deceased as a moment of blessing, as an "Easter," as an experience of "passage" from death to life in our shared search for a more humane, more caring, more fraternal world. 

Happy Easter 2020!

Pope Francis and Postmodernity

On March 13, we will celebrate the seventh anniversary of Pope Francis' Pontificate, seven years of service to the Church and the world from the See of Peter in Rome. We will look back to 2013, when, during the fifth vote of a conclave that lasted two days, Argentine Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio was elected as the first Argentine and Latin American Pope. We will recall that, for his Pontificate, he chose the name of Francis, as a symbol and in honor of the poor saint from Assisi.

From the moment of his election as the new Pope, Francis showed the world a new style, his own style of a man, his genuine Christian, Jesuit, and Latin American style while guiding Peter's Boat. It was a style that was prominently demonstrated and summarized in Pope Francis’ first speeches during his first week, starting from his election and going through the Inaugural Mass of his Pontificate, celebrated on March 19, 2013, at the feast of Saint Joseph.

Then, on March 14, the day after his election, in his first Mass in the Sistine Chapel, he issued a call “to proclaim the message of Jesus Christ in order to avoid being dismissed simply as a “charitable NGO”. In addition, he stressed “the Church’s need to move away from the secular by building on the Gospel and the cornerstone of Christ.” On March 15, in audience with all the Cardinals of the world, he invited them to "try to respond with faith in bringing Jesus Christ to humanity and to attract mankind to return to Christ and the Church."   

On Saturday the 16th, in the Paul VI Audience Hall and in audience with journalists from around the world who covered the Conclave that elected the Pope, he told them: “Since many of you are not members of the Catholic Church, and others are not believers, I cordially give this blessing silently, to each of you, respecting the conscience of each one of you, but in the knowledge that each of you is a child of God. May God bless you!” On Sunday, March 17, he presided over the Angelus Prayer, at which he spoke of “God's mercy that never castigates.” That same day, he wrote his first tweet: “Dear friends, I thank you from my heart and I ask you to continue to pray for me.” It was a petition that had already been made at the moment of his election when he appeared on the balcony of the Apostolic Palace for his first greeting and first blessing to the world. And on March 19, in the inaugural homily of his Pontificate, speaking of the power that Christ granted to Peter, Pope Francis recalled: “Let us never forget that authentic power is service,” considering the figure of the Pope as someone who “must enter ever more fully into that service” and “open his arms to protect all of God’s people and embrace with tender affection the whole of humanity, especially the poorest, the weakest, the least important” (1).   

Gospel, humanity, respect, mercy, service, welcome, the poor, and others are all recurring daily themes in the Petrine ministry of Francis. These are themes and emphases through which he shows us, wholly, as a man, a Christian, and a conscious and knowledgeable Pope that we are not only in an era of change, but also in a change of epoch (Doc. Aparecida 44) that involves and affects all areas and dimensions of the human being and, therefore, of all humanity. Francis is a Pope who possesses knowledge and awareness that few have of the challenges that these changes in this change of era presents to the evangelizing work of the Catholic Church in the world.

This change of era in which we live in this space-time in the history of humanity and in which we pilgrimage with our Christian faith in the world has been called the “transition from modernity to postmodernity,” “culture light,” or “liquid modernity” (Z. Bauman). These are terms with which we try to designate a set of changes and characteristics that are happening and define the human being in this new way of being, of thinking, of doing, and of behaving in the world and, within it, in all the communities of humanity at this historical juncture.

Roughly speaking, these changes mean a loss of the meaning of life, a “liquid” and poor (not solid) story of a history without a future, without hope (after world wars and the unsatisfied ideals of our modern ancestors) and, with this, a loss of work and effort and an unbridled and hedonistic search for the enjoyment of one's own self, which forgets the importance of everything collective, institutional, hierarchical, and for the common good. With the search for immediate pleasure, there comes a loss of the transcendent meaning of life and everything valuable is what comes by easy and fast, ephemeral, disposable and in passing, all without commitment and effortlessness.

The supreme “moral value” of light or postmodern man is pleasure and, to achieve this, “the means do not matter. ...” In the midst of the abundance of information and self-centered evaluation of the person, the truth is diluted in a subjectivism and moral relativism in which nothing is worth anything or everything is worth the same and each one manages “on-demand” the truths with which he tries to achieve the pleasure of living in the middle of this immense “cemetery of hopes.” For pleasure, you have to have and consume, so that materialism, luxury, money, consumerism, and comfort are imposed as a very important means in the pursuit of happiness. Here, aesthetics replaces ethics, sentiments instead of reasoning  and, in the large market for consumption that is any society, religion is one more item—eclectic and on-demand—in the game of supply and demand.

This new axiology, this new “moral” criteria, this new way of being, thinking, and acting for today’s human being challenges each of us and the very identity of the life and work of the Church in the world because it defies the very essence of the Gospel of Jesus of Nazareth. The “liquid” and gaseous values of postmodernism challenge the solidity of the facts, words, criteria, and attitudes lived and taught by Jesus to his disciples of all times, if that is true, with them and only with them we can build our lives like those who build on rock (Mt 7:21ss).

That is to say, and with more concrete examples: What does Christian hope have to say about postmodern despair? What place does the cross of the Gospel have against today’s hedonism? What value does the search for love and evangelical brotherhood have in an egocentric and selfish world? How do we attain a transcendent vision for life in the midst of the materialist and consumerist immanentism of “light” men? And so on.

Pope Francis knows, feels, and suffers deeply every day these challenges and emergencies in which we have to set ourselves to the evangelizing work of the disciples of the Church if we want to be “the light and salt of the earth” (Mt 5:13 ff). For this reason, Catholics are constantly invited to build our Christian life as a “Church in exit:” A church that “leaves the convents, the ecclesiastical bureaucracies, and clerical structures to meet the people, especially those suffering, the poor, those abandoned as scrap or waste in a society that gets used to discarding, to technological obsolescence (Morandé Court, Pedro: Modernidad “líquida” y anuncio de Cristo).

May the years of the Pontificate of Francis be many more so that his evangelical Petrine service continues to be a beacon that will guide us all—amid daily, serious, threatening, and multiple current storms—to a safe harbor.

_____________

(     (1)     (quotations are taken from: (http://www.vatican.va/content/francesco/en.html) and the  

           boldfacing is mine.)

NB: The following page was also referenced in writing the original Spanish version of this post: https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anexo:Cronolog%C3%ADa_del_pontificado_de_Francisco