“But the meek will inherit the land and enjoy peace and prosperity.”
Psalms 37:11
This is one of God’s dreams for humanity, revealed through the voice of the psalmist. This dream nourished a group of people committed to a prophetic and liberating faith, when they came together, 50 years ago, to found CESE. In those years of military dictatorship, it was a bold national and international coalition of resistance to political authoritarianism, to denounce crimes against Human Rights and for the prophetic announcement of a free, democratic, economically and socially just society, one that enabled an organization to emerge that took on the task of diaconal service for the churches within an exclusionary society.
At that time, CESE was born conjugating the verb to hope.
It was conjugating hope that fed the dream to strengthen small initiatives in their struggles for rights and that created the Small Projects Fund to support seed projects for grassroots groups and movements. We already knew that strength, answers and solutions lie in resistance and in the organization of a people who insist on having faith in life.
We hoped when we saw the possibility of greater resistance if, in addition to the groups, we also supported networks that link up and work together, increasing the reach of struggles for the defence of rights. We have helped many such networks, throughout the country, to emerge and get stronger, and provided visibility to a range of experiences.
We also hoped when we discovered that supporting grassroots groups and movements requires investment in training, dialogue and networking, in dialogic practice to learn and work together.
Throughout all these years, CESE has understood that, to maintain this dream, to nourish utopia and to continue conjugating the verb ‘to hope’ we must not forget the prophecies that nourished past generations and must continue participating in ecumenical and inter-religious dialogue in our activities for the defence, promotion, guarantee and implementation of Human Rights. No less important is loving and attentive listening to original peoples and traditional populations, learning from them to confront religious, political and economic fundamentalism.
Conjugating the verb ‘to hope’ is what we have done most and why we have survived a military dictatorship, a coup that overthrew a legitimately elected president and four years of misgovernment, persecution and deaths.
Along this journey through so many territories and in meeting bodies from which such diversified life experiences spring, we have broadened our view, adjusted our steps and embraced new agendas. Lessons and challenges are constant. Which is why we continue to call on the churches to come with us, increasing our prophetic boldness so that the new Human Rights agendas, which have emerged in the 21st century, can resound between us. We thank and invite all those who have supported us to carry on believing in our work, because we still have a lot to hope for.
We celebrate our 50 years thanking the prophets and prophetesses who came before us. And to celebrate our history, we assert our commitment to a democratic society with rights. At 50 years we continue to hope, because we believe we still have a lot to contribute for the construction of the democracy we desire.
May we not lack the prophetic faith, the boldness of the fighters of the people, or the necessary and attentive criticism of those who accompany us. We commit ourselves to continue walking and hoping together in a collective effort for the Kingdom of God, realized in peace as the fruit of justice and ending in love.