The Seven Marks of the New People

The New People is born of New Women
and New Men 
1. Critical Clarity
* Deciphers events and structures, by the light of faith and
with the use of social, political and economic theories.
* Studies, evaluates, and is dialectical.
* Is not deceived by appearances, promises or charity.
* Can interpret the local, continental and world situation
and gets to the foundations of the structures of domination and
alienation.
* Walks with its feed on the ground of the real world, with
ears keyed to the cry of the poor and the sophisms of the rich,
with eyes open to the processes of history and the horizon of
Utopia.
* Is clearsighted and spreads clarity.

2. Contemplation on the March
* Is constantly open to the mystery of God that is life and
love
—in God's Trinity, the perfect community,
—in history, which is also God's Reign,
—and in the universe, which is also God's dwelling place.
* "Bumps into God in the poor," professes God in the
practice of justice and charity and celebrates God in individual,
family and community prayer.
* Goes on its way entranced by nature, its bride, accompanies all who journey in intercultural exchange and with the
tenderness of grace, and loves its people, its land and its time
with a heart ecumenically young.
* Dreams, laughs, sings, dances, lives.
* Dresses in symbols and rituals, old and new, preserves
subversive memory and engages in alternative creativity.
* Cultivates ethnic-cultural identity, social sensitivity and a
political sense of history.
* Instead of a television screen has the eyes of conscience,
the wisdom of life and the revelation of the Bible.
3. The Freedom of the Poor
* Stripped of privileges and accumulated wealth, and throwing
in its lot with the poor of the earth, it promotes the
civilization of humanizing poverty against the civilization of
inhuman wealth.
* Is poor in order to be free, and is free in order to spread
freedom.
* Shares poverty accepted out of solidarity and fights
poverty imposed by injustice.
* Makes freedom its spirit and song, and makes liberation its
battle and its victory.
* Is biased like the God of the poor, radical like the
 Jesus of
the beatitudes, and free like the Spirit of Pentecost.
4. Fraternal Solidarity
* Makes solidarity the new name of peace, the new way of
putting love into practice, and the new force of politics.
* Welcomes, shares and serves.
* Suffers, becomes enraged, campaigns, celebrates in common.
* Does not discriminate by sex or race or creed or age.
* Because it knows itself to be a child of God, tries to be
brother and sister to all.
* Fights to make the different worlds one human world.
* Promotes organization at all levels, but without fanaticism,
dogmatism or proselytism.

5. The Cross of Conflict
* Knows that to exist is to be an activist, and that the Reign
is taken by violence and that the cross contains life.
* Embraces the saving cross of Christ, but destroys all
oppressive crosses.
* Never flees from self-denial for the Reign, or forgets selfcontrol,
or shirks companionship, work or liberation.
* Adopts great causes without fear of conflict, despite
persecution and even to the point of accepting martyrdom.
6. The Gospel Insurrection
* Fired by the Good News of the gospel and tireless in the
building of the Reign, rebels against the mechanisms of profit
and weapons, consumerism and cultural domination, fatalism
and complicity.
* Is decision, activism, prophecy.
* Fights against all social and religious idols in rebellious
fidelity to God and humanity.
* Rises in revolt constantly, out of personal conversion, in
a communal and ecumenical renewal of the church, and for the
sake of a democratic revolution of society.
7. The Stubborn Easter Hope
* Hopes "against all hope," among disappointments, in the
monotony of every day, despite failures and in the face of all
the evidence of the triumph of evil.
* Maintains the consistency of the faithful witnesses, spreads
the "perfect joy" of the Utopians, and organizes the hope of the
poor.
* In pleasure and pain, at work and play, in life and death,
it keeps being Easter within Easter.
* Advances in the conquest of the promised land, along the
roads of the Great Motherland, toward the Greater Motherland

THE SPIRITUALITY
OF
LIBERATION
With a Foreword by
ERNESTO CARDENAL
and an Epilogue by
GUSTAVO GUTIERREZ
Translated from the Spanish by
Paul Burns and Francis McDonagh
Great Britain 1994 by
BURNS & OATES,