Lluc Statement. Facing our Fears and Re-connecting the World

Inspired by the recently celebrated 75th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, we have gathered for the annual conference of the Spanish Commission for Justice and Peace in the "Santuari de Lluc". This is an emblematic place where beauty, silence and contemplation come together. We are aware of the need to build a world where fear and misery are out. During two days of intense work, fifty persons, exercising our civil, social and ecclesiastical responsibility, have considered and discussed the need to "overcome fears and reconnect the world" and to build hope with our actions and commitments.

We feel deeply Church and, as walking believers, we want the Church to be an ever-credible inspiration for human rights. We find very necessary to take more significant steps to achieve equality between women and men within the Church and the need to embrace all specificities found in it, without missing sexual diversity. Consequently, we exercise synodality and collegiality that Pope Francis asks us to do.

We are concerned about the wild development of AI, the product of a capitalism causing inequality, oppressing and excluding the most vulnerable people and alienating citizenship. If people's centrality, and dignity are forgotten, the privacy, freedom of expression, and equity will be violated by this technology. We need a strict regulation to ensure AI is developed and used ethically and responsibly. We appreciate its positive effects, and we put faith in critical and informed citizen training who knows how to identify risks due to their incorrect use and how to correct them.

One of the worst lacks in our social and democratic rule of law is the great difficulty for new generations to find access to housing. We are outraged because this right, recognised in the Spanish Constitution, is not inspiring enough to make political actors, judges, and court act. It is necessary that housing stops just being a market good and becomes a basic human right. We appeal to administrations to ensure its effective development and to the Christian community, religious congregations, and episcopate to put their properties to service of this right.

Europe as a space full of respect, citizenship and dignity is dissipating. The founding fathers' dream of the European Union is more threatened than ever of vanishing due to populism, lack of solidarity and the spectre of war. Europe returning to its roots, putting faith again in dignity for its citizenship and for the people who are looking for a place to reconstruct their life project in the European territory is indispensable. We cannot forget our past mistakes. Europe will be viable only if it puts faith in peace, justice, and human rights. However, the steps taken are not in the right way. The drift which the migration politic is being taken is especially worrying.

From Justice and Peace, we condemn the different wars that our world is being ravaged cruelly and heartless today, the rise in the weapon industry thar causes damage to public and social policies, just like the natural and cultural environment. We require all wars and genocides to cease, and we stand for peace decisively based on justice.

At the moment, when conflicts are being resolved through confrontation and polarization, instead of aiming for dialogue and mutual respect, in Majorca we have focussed on the desire to face fears in front of the improper usage of technologies, the lack of guarantees for fundamental rights, such as housing, Europe's migration policies, and war instrumentalization. We want to reconnect the world with a Church more solidary, synodal and committed with human rights.

Spanish Commission for Justice and Peace
Majorca, 20 October 2024