The noticeboard in this photo says “The Cordobans are restoring our own cathedral”. That makes me so happy. Not so much because the cathedral is undergoing a facelift (although it surely needs one), but because of the pride and conciousness behind the words. It makes me happy for the same reasons that I am an avid buyer of street newspapers; “The Big Issue” in the UK, and “La Luciernaga” in Cordoba. It is the difference between the learned helplessness of “I tell you my problem and I wait with my hands open”, and the empowerment in “I have owned my problem and now I am owning my solution”. We have been told that the roots of learned helplessness stem directly from the teaching and behaviour of the Catholic church, which I have no reason to doubt the
historical accuracy of this, but today the phenomenon is far more widespread than just the Catholic church. And now we see the Catholic church modeling something completely different. I wonder if it will catch on?