We are in danger! As a society we have, little by little, become used to hearing and seeing distasteful news every day through the media. What's worse, we have also become accustomed to seeing it and feeling it around us without calling forth any response, or at most, a superficial and noncommittal comment. The wound is in the street, in the neighbourhood, in our homes, but like deaf and blind people, we live with the violence that kills, destroys families and neighbourhoods, gives rise to wars and conflicts in so many places, and we look at it as one more video. The suffering of so many peaceful and innocent people has ceased to shock us; disregard for the rights of persons and whole peoples, poverty and misery, the rule of corruption, the drug assassin, forced child prostitution: it all becomes commonplace, and we pay without asking for a receipt, although sooner or later we are going to get the bill.
All of these realities, and many more, are not silent. They cry out to each and every one of us and speak to us of our limitations, our weakness, our sin-- in spite of the fact that we have gotten used to it.
Becoming used to something tells us seductively that there is no sense in trying to change it, that we cannot do anything in the face of it, that it's always been that way, and that, anyway, we'll survive it. We give up our opposition, allowing things 'to be what they are'-- or at least what some have decided they are.
--Pope Francis (Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio), Lenten Gesture of Solidarity, 2010
