In a sermon delivered by Cardinal Keith O’Brien at St Thomas’s Mount National Shrine in Chennai, India (formerly Madras) yesterday (28 January 2007) the Cardinal restated his call to the British government "to abandon its plans to replace the Trident missile and to work rapidly towards the eradication of its entire nuclear arsenal."

Cardinal O'Brien is on a 10 day SCIAF (Scottish Catholic International Aid Fund) trip to India, his visit to Chennai includes a trip to a Post Tsunami rehabilitation programme assisted by SCIAF

The full text of the Cardinal's homily is shown below.

ENDS

Peter Kearney
Director
Catholic Media Office
5 St. Vincent Place
Glasgow
G1 2DH
0141 221 1168
pk@scmo.org
www.scmo.org

Homily, St Thomas Mount, Chennai, India - 28 January 2007

I am delighted to be with you here today in this Church of St Thomas on this my first visit to India and to this great city of Chennai. And so I say to you in your own Tamil language: Wannakam. (Hands together)

“Everyone was astonished at the words that came from the mouth of God!” (Luke….)
“Development is the new name for peace.” (Paul VI, Populorum Progressio, 1967)

Introduction
I am here not only as a Cardinal, but also as Chairman of SCIAF, the Scottish Catholic International Aid Fund, the official aid and development agency of the Catholic Church in Scotland. I am accompanied on my visit by Mr Paul Chitnis, the Chief Executive of SCIAF. SCIAF is the sister agency of your own Caritas India.
In these last few days, I have had an opportunity to visit Delhi and to meet there some of your Bishops as well as the Holy See’s representative to India, Archbishop Quintana. I have traveled to Bangalore where I visited the slums in which SCIAF’s partner organization in India, the Association for the Physically Disabled, has been working to educate and train some of the poorest and most marginalized people in India. We also spent two days in Kolar district near Bangalore visiting rural communities struggling to survive because of the drought which affects their area. Our Indian partner there, Prakruthi, has been providing extensive assistance so that people are able to collect rainwater and use it to water their crops. As a result, mothers are able to feed their children and to send them to school. We met with many of the Dalit women with whom Prakruthi has been working and were deeply impressed by their energy and commitment to their communities. Truly these women, like Mary the Mother of Jesus, are playing a vital role not only in bringing up the future generation but also in influencing and changing their communities.

Tomorrow we look forward to meeting with our friends in the Women’s Collective and the Centre for Development and Women Studies here in Chennai. Their Director, Mrs Mirunalini is a great friend of SCIAF having visited Scotland last year for our 40th anniversary celebrations. I am delighted to be able to return her visit by coming personally to India.

In my four years as a Cardinal, I have traveled to many other parts of the world: to Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, to Ethiopia and to Sudan last year. When in Sudan, I visited the deeply troubled region of Darfur becoming the first Cardinal to do so.
Why are these trips so important to me?
Firstly, because they allow me to spread the Word of God by word and action, as St Luke’s gospel urges us to do. I hope that my visits are a sign of the Church’s commitment to the poorest and most excluded people on earth.

And that is the second reason for my coming, to respond to the teaching of the Church especially since the Second Vatican Council. This year marks the 40th anniversary of Pope Paul VI’s Encyclical “Populorum Progressio” in which he called all Christians and people of good will to act with urgency to end the scandal of poverty which afflicts so many people in our world.

“The hungry nations of the world cry out to the peoples blessed with abundance. And the Church, cut to the quick by this cry, asks each and every person to hear his sister and brother's plea and answer it lovingly.” (Para 3)
How tragic it is today that, forty years on, we still live in a world in which 1.2 billion people live on less than $1 a day; that 800 million people will go to bed tonight hungry. Pope Paul said that “development is the new name for peace”. He recognized that peace is not merely the absence of war but also the existence of justice between nations and people.

This year also marks the anniversary of the Enclyical of Pope John Paul II, “Solicitudo Rei Socialis”. In it, Pope John Paul spoke about the true nature of development:

“True development cannot consist in the simple accumulation of wealth and in the greater availability of goods and services, if this is gained at the expense of the development of the masses, and without due consideration for the social, cultural and spiritual dimensions of the human being.” (para 9)

He also urged all people to be in greater solidarity with the poor saying:

“…Interdependence…is not a feeling of vague compassion or shallow distress at the misfortunes of so many people, both near and far. On the contrary, it is a firm and persevering determination to commit oneself to the common good; that is to say to the good of all and of each individual, because we are all really responsible for all.” (para 38)
How then do we demonstrate this solidarity?

I have already described the work I have seen in India supported by SCIAF. Of course, I cannot fail to recall the dreadful tsunami which affected this part of the world two years ago. In the next few days we will have the opportunity to meet people affected by this tragedy and to hear from them about how they are rebuilding their lives. As well as responding to the tsunami, SCIAF has also expressed its solidarity with people in other parts of India following the super cyclone in Orissa and the earthquake in Kashmir.

Our ultimate aim is a world in which the terrible inequalities and injustices which exist are removed. Our vision is of a world in which people of all faiths, all cultures and all castes live in peace. This is the Good News to the poor of which Isaiah speaks and which Jesus proclaims as his mission in St Luke’s gospel this evening. “I have come to bring Good News to the poor…And they were astonished at the words which came from the mouth of God.”

Have we achieved this vision?
No, not yet. But we are all working towards it.

You who live here in Chennai must be aware of how inequalities are being reduced in your country. You must be aware of the development work which is taking place throughout India especially for those people most in need.

Pope Paul spoke of development being the new name for peace. But I cannot ignore the continuing build-up of arms in different parts of the world not least in my own country. Peace is not built on the accumulation of weapons of mass destruction. The threat to destroy our planet in a nuclear explosion cannot be justified and therefore neither can the ownership of nuclear weapons. I renew my call today to the British government to abandon its plans to replace the Trident missile and to work rapidly towards the eradication of its entire nuclear arsenal.

Pope John Paul spoke twenty years ago of the build-up of nuclear weapons. He said:

“If … we add the tremendous and universally acknowledged danger represented by atomic weapons stockpiled on an incredible scale, the logical conclusion seems to be this: in today's world, including the world of economics, the prevailing picture is one destined to lead us more quickly towards death rather than one of concern for true development which would lead all towards a "more human" life…(SRS, para 24)

My dear people, I want to remind you that the true power of Jesus’ teaching lies in its ability to heal not wound, to build not to destroy, to share and not to exclude. Let us all ask ourselves during this time of prayer: ” what would be good news for the poor for me?” And let us prepare to be astonished when we discover that each and everyone of us has a part to play in bringing to reality the vision that is God’s Kingdom.

Thank you.