Chavez’s Lines #100: “The Sermon on the Cerro”

The Sermon on the Cerro[1]

I

For us, this Christmas has an immeasurable Christian value and human meaning. Rains and their disastrous consequences have made their presence intimately felt in the Christmas manger. In every man, woman and child, we can see the face of Joseph, Mary and Jesus. As the father Numa Molina said, from his Ministry that favors the humble people: “Each shelter is the living representation of the original Christmas manger.”

What were Joseph and Mary looking for that night in Bethlehem but a shelter so the one who would bring his beautiful deeds to the world could be born? Are our shelters today not spaces of solidarity and justice where we are seeing the birth of living hope personified in the people? I want to remember again ─ and these days of National Emergency really make us remember his words ─  Ludovico Silva, when he said: “There is not a worse hell than the lack of hope […] Losing hope is not having a future, because the future is nourished by it.” What better way to bring hope and together with it a good life than by doing justice to those who have never enjoyed it?

This December, overall, seems to pay honor to its role as the closing month of the year. We have truly seen the kindest and most beautiful side of humanity! But we have also seen its most miserable and evil side, represented by some sectors of our society that always find, in our fraternity and solidarity, a propitious occasion to release all their aggressions, not only against our institutions and Bolivarian Government but against our people, who they would like to see immersed in despair and death forever as I have been repeating during every step of the battle.

II

As a radical Christian, I understand and assume the Holy Gospels to be a salvation and the definitive liberation of all men and women of good will. In this regard, I remember John Paul II in his book, “What Have You Done to Your Homeless Brother? The Church and the Housing Problem,” on the Occasion of the International Year of Shelter for the Homeless (1987) which was established by the UN:

“[…] Since responding to the needs of the homeless is within the spirit of the “works of mercy” on the basis of which we will be judged by Christ, the Lord (cf. Mt 25:31-46) […]

How can we Christians ignore or overlook a problem such as this when we know all too well that a home “is a necessary condition for the birth, growth, and development of a person; for a person to work, educate and be educated; for people to be able to constitute that deeper and more fundamental union which we call “a family”? (Insegnamenti, II [1979], 681) […]

The Church, sharing “the joy and hope, the grief and anguish of the men of our time, especially of those who are poor or afflicted in any way” (Gaudium et Spes, n. 1), feels that it has a serious obligation to join with those who are working, without self-interest and with dedication, to find concrete and urgent solutions to the housing problem and to see that the homeless receive the necessary attention and concern on the part of public authorities […]

Speculation on land designated for the purpose of building residences, the abandoned condition of whole neighborhoods or of rural areas that lack decent roads, water and electricity, schools or sufficient public transportation are ─ as is known ─ some of the more evident ills that are closely linked with the broader problem of housing.”

And His Holiness concludes by saying:

“How could we say that an International Year for the Homeless has truly been celebrated if little or nothing has been done; if it were all more or less reduced to some celebrations that did not result in any perceivable benefit for those concerned? […] It brings to mind and makes us reflect on Jesus’s consoling words: “Every time that you did these things to one of them, my smallest brethren, you did it to me” (Mt 25:40). Jesus, in fact, was born in a stable and the loving hands of his Virgin Mother placed him “in a manger” because there was no room for them in the inn (cf. Lk 2:7). In his early infancy, he was a refugee, far from his own land and home.”

Dear compatriot who reads these lines: I have brought this long citation so we could do the deep reflection that these holy days deserve, so you can be the ones who figure out your own conclusions about the rightfulness of our path and the radical decisions that we have been making all along the way. As revolutionaries, we must go to the roots of all the problems and afflictions, of all our miseries and sufferings. Never before has the ecumenical sense been clearer: Populating the earth implies the realization of a man in his dwelling and in his working place as an extension of this realization. It is the dignification of his home and of all the conditions necessary for this to be possible. Thus, we have decided to radically legislate in accordance with the collective happiness we deserve, which necessarily starts with the solution of the housing problem.

III

This week, when we had barely drawn up how we were going to face this crisis, “the dogs started to bark.”[2] Barking, they do not recognize our Constitution and they act against its spirit, saying that we are executing a coup d’état against it. This is an excuse and a prelude of the coup d’état that they are really planning.

It is my duty as Head of State to flatly repudiate this call for the violation of the Constitution and the laws of the Republic coming from that rotten organization linked to the worst pastime, Fedecamaras [3], through the words of its president, disrespecting our Bolivarian Armed Forces once again. Such a call against the Republic cannot go unpunished. Once again, I call on the Public Ministry to act according to the dispositions contemplated and provided for in our laws for such cases.

As they did in 2002, the unpatriotic opposition has wanted to tarnish our Christmas by attacking the spirit that impregnates it, the spirit of peace and fraternal coexistence and solidarity. They have not beaten us yet and they never will! And as we did back then, we will not let go of the spirit of good fortune that inspires those who follow Christ the Redeemer. We are sure that we shall overcome because we are overcoming. Together with the people, we will exorcise all the devils on our path. They will crash and keep crashing over and over, as it happened this week when they tried again to destabilize the country.

We are assuming the Gospel of love and justice to the end, with all its consequences. And we look for and find Jesus everyday in all the excluded people of Venezuela.

It is certain that in this hard and difficult time for the homeland, Christ raises his voice again and we together with Him, in a renewed “Sermon on the Cerro,” these are the good tidings of redemption and liberation that are incarnated today in word and deed by the people of Simón Bolívar.

Blessed are those who populate the Cerro!

Blessed are all the refugees!

Blessed are the soldiers of the People!

Blessed are all the People!

Because the Kingdom of Social Justice, Supreme Love and Eternal Peace shall be for them…

That Kingdom ‒ man, woman, or child ‒ is the authentic Christianity…

It is the socialism!

It is living life in all its fullness!

It is joyful living!

Hugo Rafael Chávez Frías / Sunday, December 26, 2010

Notes

[1] Even though the translation of this word into English is mountain or hill ─ or Mount as it is stated in the Bible in this case─ in Venezuela, this word makes reference to the poor people’s living conditions on the hills that surround Caracas, also called Barrios (Slums).

[2] President Chávez uses this metaphor to point out the attitude of the Venezuelan opposition.

[3] Spanish acronym for the Venezuelan Federation of Chambers of Commerce.

Translated by the Venezuelan Ministry for Communication and Information.