The heads of state and government of the seven leading industrial countries (G7) met in Germany last week to discuss the most pressing global challenges. In the light of this meeting, I feel that some reflections by Pope Francis were appropriate to this topic. He writes:
“Today no one in our world feels responsible; we have lost a sense of responsibility for our brothers and sisters. We have fallen into the hypocrisy of the priest and the Levite whom Jesus described in the parable of the Good Samaritan: we see our brother half-dead on the side of the road, and perhaps we say to ourselves “Poor soul…!”, and then we go on our way. It’s not our responsibility, and with that we feel reassured, assuaged.
The culture of comfort, which makes us think only of ourselves, makes us insensitive to the cries of other people, makes us live in soap bubbles which, however lovely, are insubstantial; they offer a fleeting and empty illusion which results in indifference to others; indeed it even leads to the globalization of indifference. In this globalized world, we have fallen into globalized indifference. We have become used to the suffering of others: it doesn’t affect me; it doesn’t concern me; it’s none of my business!
We are a society which has forgotten how to weep, how to experience compassion- “suffering with” others: the globalization of indifference has taken away the ability to weep! Let us ask the Lord for the grace to weep over our indifference, to weep over the cruelty of our world, of our own hearts, and of all those who in anonymity make social and economic decisions which open the door to tragic situations like this. “Has anyone wept?” Today, has anyone wept in our world?”