During Celebration of the Word with Peasants in Panama (5 March 1983)

On Saturday, 5 March 1983, the Holy Father addressed peasants, “campesinos,” in Revolution Stadium, Penonomé, Panama City. The Pope recognized the difficulties of their humble station while warning them that “in the search for greater justice and your elevation, you cannot allow yourselves to be drawn into the temptation of violence, armed guerrilla warfare or selfish class struggle.”

Dear peasant brothers

1. From these Panamanian lands of Penonomé I raise my gaze to you and to all your fellow workers; those from Panama and all of Central America, Belisa and Haiti, to greet you with great esteem and affection. To tell you that the Pope comes to visit you with great joy and is happy to be among the peasants, simple, honorable people, in whom a deep religiosity shines.

Allow me, first of all, to extend my cordial greeting and remembrance to your wives and your children; to all the peasant families that you represent. This greeting is also intended to be my deep gratitude for your warm welcome, at the same time that I urge you to live more and more faithfully your condition as Christians.

2. The first reflection I want to share with you is your dignity as men and as field workers. A dignity that, as I already indicated in my encyclical Laborem exercans (n. 21), is no less than that of those who work in industry or in other sectors of social and economic life.

Work, in fact, finds its dignity in the design of God the Creator. God created man and made him his son and image. He created you so that, with your intelligence and physical work, in the city or in the countryside, you can improve, fulfill yourself and honestly find your personal livelihood and that of your family. And so that at the same time he contributes with his work for the good of his brothers and for the development of society. This divine plan and the dignity it entails apply perfectly to agricultural work and to the situation of man who, like you, cultivates the land; given that you offer society the necessary goods, the basic products for daily nutrition.

Therefore, no feeling of inferiority should weigh on you when it comes to the dignity of your persons and your way of life. With this conviction, seek your own elevation, knowing well the value and respect that your task deserves, carried out with a spirit of service to the whole person (cf. Gaudium et Spes , 64). Remember that Christ himself wanted to experience physical fatigue, working with his hands as a simple craftsman (cf. Mt 13:55).

3. The Church understands and recognizes this value of your condition as peasants. And she wants to be close to you with the light of faith, with the encouragement of moral values, with her voice in defense of your dignity and your rights.

In his social teaching, he never stopped recommending that people and institutions, states and international organizations ensure the necessary development of agricultural activity, in order to grow harmoniously and eliminate the wounds that affect rural people.

The Pope's presence among you today — which extends that of my Predecessor Paul VI in Bogotá and mine in Cuilapán (Mexico) and Recife (Brazil) — wants to be a new proof of this desire to be close to you, your concerns and aspirations .

I do not come with technical or material solutions that are not in the power of the Church. I bring the closeness, the sympathy, the voice of this Church that is in solidarity with the just and noble cause of your human dignity and as children of God.

I know the conditions of your precarious existence: conditions of misery for many of you, often inferior to the basic requirements of human life.

I know that economic and social development has been uneven in Central America and in this country; I know that the peasant population has often been abandoned to an ignoble standard of living and has often been harshly treated and exploited.

I know that you are aware of the inferiority of your social conditions and that you are impatient to obtain a fairer distribution of goods and a better recognition of the importance you deserve and the place that belongs to you in a new, more participatory society (cf. Speech by Paul VI to the peasants of Colombia , August 23, 1968).

4. It is true that, as I indicated in Laborem exercans , "The conditions of the rural world and of agricultural work are not the same everywhere and the social situations of agricultural workers are different in different countries. And this does not depend only on the degree of development of agricultural technique, but also, and perhaps even more, the recognition of the fair rights of agricultural workers and, finally, the level of awareness of what concerns the entire work ethic" (n. 21).

The current percentages can give you an idea of ​​this serious problem. If in most developed or industrialized countries the agricultural sector, modernized and mechanized, includes less than 10 percent of the active population, in many Third World Countries, the same sector represents 80 percent of the total population, with a traditional system of agriculture of mere subsistence.

On the other hand, the distribution of land and its exploitation methods that bring together owners, farmers and salaried farmers vary from one country to another, depending on the socio-political system. Sometimes private property, community cooperatives and state companies coexist.

5. The situation of many peasants worries the Church. That's why I myself called for action in Mexico, "to make up for lost time, which is often a time of prolonged suffering and unsatisfied hopes" ( Speech in Cuilapán , January 29, 1979).

How can we stop feeling moved by tragic situations—unfortunately all too real—like the one described in my Encyclical on human work?: "In certain developing countries, there are millions of men who find themselves forced to cultivate other people's land and who are exploited by landowners, with no hope of ever being able to come into possession of even a minimal piece of land 'as their property'. There are no forms of legal protection for the person of the agricultural worker and for his family, in the case of old age, illness or lack of work. Long days of hard physical work are paid for miserably. Cultivatable land is left abandoned by owners; legal titles for the possession of a small piece of land, cultivated on one's own account for years, are passed over or left defenseless in the face of the 'hunger of the earth' by more powerful individuals or groups" ( Laborem exercans , 21).

I do not doubt the efforts made by many politicians and leaders in this country and others to seriously improve your poverty situation. When it becomes necessary, they have the duty to "act promptly and thoroughly. Development requires bold, profoundly innovative transformations. Urgent reforms must be undertaken without delay" ( Populorum progressio , 32).

However, it is up to not only the authorities, but also you and society as a whole, to act, making a joint effort, an effective harmonization of all the country's living forces, to create the structures of true development; to provide the countryside with new instruments and means that alleviate the peasant's fatigue, that make his daily encounter with the land a more humane and happier situation, to fuel productivity and repay the effort of his hands with fair wages.

In this way, many peasants today threatened by loneliness, poverty and indifference in which they find themselves, will stop looking at the city, thinking they will find in it what the countryside denied them. And we will avoid seeing the ranks of unemployment in large cities increase, with new evils of social decomposition.

6. In the search for greater justice and your elevation, you cannot allow yourselves to be drawn into the temptation of violence, armed guerrilla warfare or selfish class struggle; because this is not the way of Jesus Christ, nor of the Church nor of your Christian faith. There are those who are interested in you abandoning your work, to take up the weapons of hatred and struggle against your other brothers. You should not follow these.

What does this path of violence lead to? Without a doubt, hatred and distances between social groups will increase, the social crisis of your people will become deeper, tensions and conflicts will increase, until it reaches unacceptable bloodshed, as in fact has already happened. With these methods, completely contrary to the love of God, the teachings of the Gospel and the Church, you will make it impossible to achieve your noble aspirations. New evils of moral and social decomposition will be provoked, with the loss of the most precious Christian values.

Your righteous commitment to justice, to material and spiritual development, to effective participation in social and political life, must follow the guidelines outlined by the social teaching of the Church, if you want to build the new society, the society of justice and peace. Different methods and paths will provoke new forms of injustice, where you will never find the peace that you so rightly desire.

7. Like the disciples of Emmaus, happy to have encountered the Resurrected Lord and to have recognized him in the "breaking of bread" (cf. Lk . 24, 35), you, beloved peasants, must experience the joy of sharing bread with the your brothers. I know that you are capable of sharing bread, in actions of disinterested help that so distinguish and honor you.

It is also about sharing your solidarity and capacity for mutual assistance, overcoming selfishness and pettiness, strengthening and sharing your faith and religiosity.

The bread that the peasant takes from the depths of the earth is the bread that feeds humanity. It is the bread of the Eucharist that the Church consecrates daily and gives to all her children who want to share it as brothers in the same faith. It is the bread that unites us in the Church, that makes us feel like brothers and children of the same Father. It is the bread that feeds our faith while we are pilgrims and is a pledge of hope for the happy eternity towards which we are heading.

This constant reference to God must inspire your commitment to justice, love for man, the effective search for a new society, which opens up the hope of closing the dramatic gap that separates those who have a lot from those who have nothing.

You can be sure that the Church will not abandon you. Your dignity is sacred to her and to the Pope. She will continue to demand the elimination of injustice, inequality and authoritarian abuse. She will continue to support and collaborate in initiatives and programs aimed at your promotion and development.

May the Virgin Mary, your loving Mother, always accompany you, protect you, guard your families, listen to your prayers and intercede for you with God the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, in whose name I bless you, dear peasants, with immense affection . Amen.

Copyright © Dicastero per la Comunicazione - Libreria Editrice Vaticana