Porto Alegre: "Lula is preaching the gospel" says Federico Pagura

"President Lula is preaching the gospel when he says that his aim is that, by the end of his term, not a single child will go to bed hungry," Bishop Federico Pagura of the Evangelical Methodist Church of Argentina told the third World Social Forum in Porto Alegre.

Speaking at a Forum event on 27 January as a Christian committed to the cause of the people, the WCC president cited Luis Pérez Aguirre, a Uruguayan priest, who argues that the focus of preaching the Gospel in Latin America today is "an approximately eight-metres-long tube called the digestive system".

In another expression of his deep commitment to his people, the Argentinean bishop, who will be 80 in March, said that his forebears were Italian with a bit of Indian blood. "The European and Indian sides of me are fighting a battle that has not yet ended, but I think the Indian is going to win," he remarked.

Addressing a packed crowd, the man whom WCC director of Programmes Geneviève Jacques described as "one of Latin America's prophetic voices" told his audience that he comes from Rosario, "the home of that Latin American patriot, doctor and revolutionary known as Ernesto Che Guevara".

Pagura made no secret of his sympathy for Brazil. "I have followed with interest the march of the Landless Workers Movement, the Workers' Party, and the long journey of the Brazilian ecumenical movement, one of the liveliest and most dynamic."

The World Social Forum, "which has begun to overshadow the World Economic Forum in Davos", is "a powerful symbol of what we are fighting for," said Pagura. "Another world is possible," he proclaimed, echoing the Forum slogan. In the north, Davos and Washington are proposing new forms of exploitation and an insane war whereas in the South, countries like Argentina, Brazil, Ecuador and Cuba demonstrate, as Uruguayan writer Eduardo Galeano says about Cuba, that "people might lack everything else, but they have human dignity to spare".

Speaking of his own country Argentina, Pagura criticized the economic "gurus" who promised that their "magic" recipes would lift the country into the "First World", but who turned out to be complete frauds. "Visit my country," said Pagura, "and you will see things that make you want to weep. "

People like Martin Luther King and Oscar Arnulfo Romero "preached a message of life and hope and inspired people. They did not forget the need to transform people's living conditions." Thinking about King and Romero renewed the hope and faith that sustained him in the most difficult moments of his life. "Both showed the churches the direction they should follow in order to remain faithful to their mission," Pagura said.

Photos of the WCC delegation in Porto Alegre are at

www.photooikoumene.org/events/socialforum/index.html

The WCC delegation is participating at the World Social Forum within the framework of an Ecumenical Caucus set up by the WCC, the Lutheran World Federation, the Ecumenical Advocacy Alliance, the Latin American Council of Churches and an ecumenical coalition of Brazilian churches and related organizations.

Delegation members are leading a series of workshops showing links between Christian spirituality and examples of resistance against the unjust world order by churches and social and ecumenical organizations.

Further details of how the WCC is participating in the World Social Forum, including descriptions of the workshops and the text of the presentations, can be found at:

Porto Alegre: "Lula is preaching the gospel" says Federico Pagura

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