Charism and Economy are intimately related as two lovers who sometimes bring out the best and sometimes the worst of each other. Their perfect tandem mainly depends on our style of management. Ideally, our Charism, ‘Save Africa with Africa’, should inform each one our economic decisions, that is, where we use our economic resources (understood as finance, personnel, material and spiritual assets) and especially how we use them. Likewise, our resources should equip us to materialize our charismatic choices, which need to be based on reality: what are the economic resources I can actually count on? Practically, we tend to manage our activities, projects and circumscriptions estranging Charism from Economy. Yet, when these two are at odds, everyone suffers.
The key to the lack of understanding of the relationship between Charism and Economy is our paradigm of Mission. ‘Save Africa with Africa’ entails engaging in dialogue with the people who live in the ‘peripheries’. Dialogue implies regarding the Other as an individual, not a miskin, object of our well-meaning ‘charity’. Mission is not anymore unidirectional. Postcolonial movements keep reminding us that the peripheries are spaces where knowledge is created. However, at times, we unknowingly risk perpetuating colonial dynamics in our style of running our activities; a style I dare define as the evil perversity of goodness.
Nonetheless, today’s demography comes to save us from ourselves. Resources are limited. Our sharp decline in numbers pairs with an increment in our geographical diversity. Moreover, the paradigm of humanitarian aid is also changing. Traditional donors who were sustaining Western missionaries are equally in decline in favour of charity agencies, which are not associated with particular sisters but rather with projects. Charity agencies are more demanding in terms of transparency and accountability. They also pursue the growth of the project and therefore of the beneficiaries. We are constantly challenged to find ways to increase the participation of the local community so that in the long term the project might become self-reliant, “He must increase, but I must decrease” (Jn 3:30).
Furthermore, the scarcity of resources calls for the virtue of austerity. Life in the peripheries requires simplicity of means. Austerity means capacity of discernment to distinguish what is essential to our projects. At times, we seem to impose our own needs of development on others. For instance, a school or a clinic is not a feeding programme. It is important to underline that austerity does not mean lack of quality or professionalism. On the contrary, austerity implies investing more on the charismatic values which can have an impact: dialogue, peace, reconciliation, healing, justice, etc.
Ultimately, I would recommend looking into the role of circumscription bursars. Since they hold in theirs hands the life of the circumscription and know it inside out, I argue that their greater involvement in the decision-making process of the circumscription would foster a more charismatic management, where Charism and Economy would gracefully embrace…After all it takes two to tango.
Laura Diaz Barco, cms
Missionary in Italy