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A year has passed since the Social Committee of the
Catholic Bishops' Conference made a special appeal. The Committee, stressing
the need to confront the situation of the unemployed and the high number of
suicides, issued an urgent call to the Japanese Church to further cooperation
with other organizations assisting the poor and to take action in order to
meet new needs. Despite this public appeal, action taken by Japanese
Catholics has not come up to expectations. St Ignatius Church is no exception
and, although there are some pioneer action groups, the general attitude is
one of hesitation, often fearing the risks involved in getting committed.
Some will complain: "If homeless people start gathering here, won't sanitary
problems arise? Won't some parishioners criticize such activities? Homeless
people will start lying and cheating us. Once they get their food, won't they
loiter around the Church and behave improperly? Isn't providing them with
food merely a way to encourage laziness?" Through the initiative of the pastor of the parish a
special group called "Appeal Committee" was established to answer
the official appeal of the Bishops and to search for ways to answer the needs
of poor people. This initiative became a unique move, determined to look for
new ways of approaching people in disadvantaged situations, and not merely to
worry about the possible risks involved in taking action. Special efforts
were required not only to address parishioners who were already doing things
for the poor, but also to urge participation by the apathetic as well as by
the foreign communities attending Mass in the parish. |
The 35th General Congregation of the Society of Jesus
chose "working together" as one of its main themes. In fact, Jesuit
members of the parish Appeal Committee had the opportunity to learn many
things from non-Jesuit participants. In less than a year the Committee took up the following
tasks: (1) Campaigning to raise funds for activities
with the poor. (2) Directing
activities for the poor, like helping with the distribution of food already
provided at the church, a Christmas party with poor people, establishing a
consultation office for them, haircut services and collecting rice to supply
food for them. (3) Initiating
educational programs to deal with issues concerning the poor and the trend to
suicide. The Appeal Committee, aware that nowadays offices
assisting poor people are filled with people seeking advice, decided to
establish a consultation office at the church and recommended coordinating
and supporting such work. I was sent last April to St Ignatius Church to help
staff the new consultation office because of my training in social welfare.
In fact, the steering committee of the church has been very sympathetic to
the establishment of such a new office. |
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The new office started operating in September last year.
Its official name is "St Ignatius Public Assistance Office." This
name brings to mind St Ignatius, himself a pilgrim, who became deeply
involved with those who in his days were discriminated against by society.
The staff consists of six volunteers, three of whom have degrees in mental
health and human services as well as in social welfare. In this way our
specialization in social welfare is guaranteed. Formerly the Office concentrated on supporting
applications for public social security. But we soon realized that public
welfare offices, all too intentionally, did not provide suitable information
to help fill out the application forms properly and at other times made
things very difficult in order to discourage people from applying for public
welfare. One day I accompanied a homeless person to a public
welfare office and the official in charge strongly advised the homeless to go
immediately to the government office near his residence to apply for the
fixed amount of monetary relief that was due to expire that same day. It was
all a mere lie, but cheating the powerless with dreams of easy money is quite
common. In order to protect the rights of poor people, it is
very important to accompany them to public offices. The officials change
their attitude when they face knowledgeable persons that support powerless
people.
To tell the truth, we never thought that the new office
established at the church would be such a popular spot for consultation.
Nevertheless, to our surprise and in spite of the few people who came at the
beginning, the number of people looking for advice increased so notably that
in 3 months we had more than 50 persons calling on us. |
About
70% of them belonged to the group coming to the church on Mondays for their
weekly supply of food. The rest were people with some connection with the
church or those who visited the parish's main office convinced that they
would be welcomed there. In addition, there were also people who learned
about us through the Web.
As a result of the consultations, our staff immediately
realized that people cannot recover their human dignity merely by applying
for public assistance. I previously worked as a volunteer in another
organization and somehow experienced the same thing there, but this time it
beggared my understanding. First of all, the social system continually rejects
powerless people. Sick and disabled persons, foreigners, and those without
much education fall into situations of poverty in ways difficult to
understand. It was clear to me that unskilled people, unable to sell any
talents, confront inhuman situations of survival. Many among the homeless are cheated or have to bear
debts incurred by other people. Sick or disabled persons or those who have
experienced rejection tend to become overly dependent and sensitive towards
others. They then display very weak attitudes and refer to imaginary debts in
order to attract pity. Many suffering from mental illness become poor and,
concomitantly, their situation of poverty makes their mental illness
practically incurable. Mental problems often occasion discouragement in people
and when such a situation continues, they start assaulting themselves to the
point of trying to commit suicide. Their view of life remains narrow, as if
everything is against them and there is no possible salvation. The result is
that they despair and lose the courage to react positively. Many remain in
that state, and it becomes impossible to open them up to any future. Yuasa Makoto, of the organization "Moyai,"
uses the concept "Tame" to symbolize that situation. Poverty is not
only economic deprivation. It implies a situation where people have been
deprived of their latent abilities. Yuasa explains that, besides being
deprived of education as well as of industrial, family and public welfare
services, they have been socially marginalized in such a way that they are no
longer able to protect their own dignity or even to realize how important
that loss is to them. |
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It can
surely be said that they are heavily influenced by their social exclusion.
There is practically no meaning in criticizing a person's lack of eagerness
to do anything when that person is subjected to such exclusion. We tend to connect mental problems with job loss,
suicide, frustration, too much talkativeness, etc., but persons manifesting
these symptoms often blame themselves, believing it is all
their own fault. Normally, people who find themselves in such situations
tend to solve their problems by talking to friends or family members, and
when they are not able to find immediate solutions, they at least try to cope
with their problems by laughing them off. But poor people are often totally
isolated. They have, maybe at most, one or two persons they can talk to, but
usually there is no one around who can be trusted and they cannot overcome
their mental worries. Miyamoto Taro of Hokkaido University affirms in his
book Life Security (Iwanami Shinsho, 2009) that modern poverty is the result
of losing places for survival. His view is that people receive recognition
and consideration from those living around them and that,
by trying to imitate others they find meaning in their ordinary life.
Nevertheless, job fluidity, family and community have lost the important role
they should play in people's lives, and all social relationships become
closed off to them. Society has become individualistic. As a result, there is
greater freedom, but when people cannot earn any income because they are
rejected from job opportunities, they can only survive by clinging to
something and thus lose their autonomy. Here human relationships, not
patriotism, Miyamoto explains, are essential for preserving human dignity. I feel that individual welfare assistance is not
enough. Public welfare personnel instruct people with mental problems to go
look for jobs in public offices, without any knowledge of their concrete
situations, and they fail to realize that these people are in difficulty
because of their disabilities. The result is that they do not get any
assistance and in many instances are robbed of opportunities to receive help.
One often hears abusive language and fantastic stories in public welfare
offices. The officials make deceptive monetary offers, as explained above,
and when we accompany poor people to these offices, we ourselves sometimes
encounter sarcastic remarks, like "Bringing the homeless here may make
you feel good, but you’re disturbing our work." In fact, this is a sign
of their own lack of confidence in their job. This is not meant to accuse welfare offices or their
personnel of laziness. It is rather meant to point to the stark realities
faced by the staff, such as their lack of technical training or their lack of
sufficient personnel to assist with such consultations. I feel it is
important to come up with suitable forms of cooperation in order to build up
a healthier society. |
At our
consultation bureau we are convinced that, besides welfare assistance,
spiritual support is also needed. At present we are doing our best either to
pay home visits to the persons consulting us or to meet with them at the
church in order to know their situation. Mr.
Miyamoto stresses that, although knowing the place where people live plays a
very important role in giving them recognition and consideration, many poor
people lack such a place. His analysis has given direction to our work. In
the future we shall have to set up a meeting place where those who do not
have anything to do and those who suffer from despair can come to us and
receive help for their worries. In fact, the friendly atmosphere of our
office serves as an oasis for those who come with their worries as well as
for our staff.
One homeless person told a volunteer at our Christmas
Party with the homeless: "I liked very much the present and the food,
but it meant more to me to be allowed to enter that big church
building." Since the volunteer had been more interested in knowing how
satisfied the homeless were with the Christmas presents and the delicious
food, she felt some disappointment. Most probably that homeless person,
realizing he was welcome in the church building which he had thought he was
off limits to him, felt he was considered important. This attitude symbolizes
an expression I consider very important, "the preservation of human
dignity." Our
societies, by enforcing divisions to make work more efficient, make it easy
to accomplish certain tasks, and by lifting up some kinds of people from the
lowest social strata are able to protect them, but, as a result, other people
are rejected. Globalization has accelerated this trend. The 35th General
Congregation noticed that the Jesuit tradition is to build bridges at the
front lines. St Ignatius and his companions made special efforts for
reconciling enemies. Food
distribution in our parish neither raised sanitary problems, as some people
had feared, nor resulted in making some parishioners leave the church. These
claims simply arose from a distrust of the homeless. Though we feel our own
limitations in confronting the suffering of persons living difficult lives,
we do our best to help them participate as full members in the society that
has rejected them and to provide hopeful opportunities to stand together with
other people of different backgrounds. This issue will continue to confront
us. "God
has created a world with diverse inhabitants, and this is good. Creation
expresses the rich beauty of this lovable world: people working, laughing,
and thriving together are signs that God is alive among us." (35th
General Congregation of the Society of Jesus, Decree 2, no. 22) |
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