“Par­tic­i­pa­tion” is a key so­cial jus­tice prin­ci­ple. Let’s com­mit to ac­tive par­tic­i­pa­tion in our com­mu­ni­ty/coun­try/world this year. The Catholic Church teach­es that each per­son has a right to par­tic­i­pate in the eco­nom­ic, po­lit­i­cal, so­cial and cul­tur­al life of so­ci­ety and that it is un­just to ex­clude an in­di­vid­ual or group un­fair­ly. This in­cludes those on the mar­gins of our so­ci­ety/world; and those who cry out for their ba­sic needs to be met.

On Jan­u­ary 12, el­i­gi­ble peo­ple are en­cour­aged to ex­er­cise their fran­chise and vote in the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly Elec­tions. Par­tic­i­pa­tion is a fun­da­men­tal right that gives cit­i­zens a voice in shap­ing poli­cies and de­ci­sions that af­fect their dai­ly lives. Vot­ing is a key as­pect of the prin­ci­ple of par­tic­i­pa­tion, as it en­sures that rep­re­sen­ta­tives have a man­date from the peo­ple. How­ev­er, “par­tic­i­pa­tion” ex­tends be­yond vot­ing. It is an on­go­ing process. John Dick­in­son, for­mer pres­i­dent of the State of Delaware, and of the Com­mon­wealth of Penn­syl­va­nia, right­ly said: “What con­cerns all, should be con­sid­ered by all; and in­di­vid­u­als may in­jure a whole so­ci­ety, by not de­clar­ing their sen­ti­ments. It is there­fore not on­ly their right, but their du­ty, to de­clare them.”

We can build an ac­count­able de­mo­c­ra­t­ic so­ci­ety through ac­tive civic en­gage­ment/par­tic­i­pa­tion. In­deed, such en­gage­ment is cru­cial for the pro­tec­tion of in­di­vid­ual rights. The Cat­e­chism of the Catholic Church re­minds us: “It is nec­es­sary that all par­tic­i­pate, each ac­cord­ing to his po­si­tion and role, in pro­mot­ing the com­mon good. This oblig­a­tion is in­her­ent in the dig­ni­ty of the hu­man per­son.”

There are many NPOs and oth­er or­gan­i­sa­tions in T&T that fos­ter par­tic­i­pa­tion in so­ci­ety. Find one or two and join them. Many of these or­gan­i­sa­tions work dili­gent­ly to in­form mem­bers and the pub­lic about their roles, rights and re­spon­si­bil­i­ties, as well as about lo­cal, na­tion­al, re­gion­al and in­ter­na­tion­al is­sues that con­cern us all. An in­formed cit­i­zen­ry is an em­pow­ered cit­i­zen­ry. We des­per­ate­ly need to de­vel­op a na­tion of crit­i­cal thinkers “who can analyse in­for­ma­tion, eval­u­ate in­flu­ences, and form in­de­pen­dent judge­ments.”

While it is im­por­tant to ac­knowl­edge the pow­er of ONE, group mem­ber­ship in or­gan­i­sa­tions can fos­ter the de­vel­op­ment of one’s knowl­edge, skills and con­fi­dence to de­fend the rule of law and take ac­tion to strength­en our democ­ra­cy, by know­ing how to work for change.

At the end of the day, our goal is to build the com­mon good. Each of us has a du­ty to use our God-giv­en tal­ents to build the com­mon good—the good of each per­son, of every per­son, and of every di­men­sion of the per­son – and, in do­ing so, to re­mem­ber those who will come af­ter us – fu­ture gen­er­a­tions.

In Faith­ful Cit­i­zen­ship, the US bish­ops state that par­tic­i­pa­tion in pub­lic life is both a moral and eth­i­cal oblig­a­tion. Ef­fec­tive par­tic­i­pa­tion pro­motes sus­tain­able de­vel­op­ment.

The World Syn­od of Catholic Bish­ops doc­u­ment: Jus­tice in the World, (1971 #38), states that Chris­tians “should act as a leav­en in the world, in their fam­i­ly, pro­fes­sion­al, so­cial, cul­tur­al and po­lit­i­cal life. In a glob­al cul­ture dri­ven by ex­ces­sive in­di­vid­u­al­ism,” our Church teach­es us that: “The hu­man per­son is both sa­cred and so­cial. We re­alise our dig­ni­ty and rights in re­la­tion­ship with oth­ers, in com­mu­ni­ty. Hu­man be­ings grow and achieve ful­fil­ment in com­mu­ni­ty. Hu­man dig­ni­ty can on­ly be re­alised and pro­tect­ed in the con­text of re­la­tion­ships with the wider so­ci­ety...

“How we or­gan­ise our so­ci­ety—in eco­nom­ics and pol­i­tics, in law and pol­i­cy —di­rect­ly af­fects hu­man dig­ni­ty and the ca­pac­i­ty of in­di­vid­u­als to grow in com­mu­ni­ty.”

While 2026 brings us chal­lenges as well as op­por­tu­ni­ties, let us re­mem­ber that the role of gov­ern­ment and oth­er in­sti­tu­tions is to pro­tect hu­man life and hu­man dig­ni­ty and to pro­mote the com­mon good. St Pope John XXI­II said in his en­cycli­cal, Pacem in Ter­ris, 1963 #54, “… the whole rea­son for the ex­is­tence of civ­il au­thor­i­ties is the re­al­i­sa­tion of the com­mon good.”

The Com­pendi­um of the So­cial Doc­trine of the Church re­minds us that: “To en­sure the com­mon good, the gov­ern­ment of each coun­try has the spe­cif­ic du­ty to har­monise the dif­fer­ent sec­toral in­ter­ests with the re­quire­ments of jus­tice (169).”

Build­ing the com­mon good al­so re­quires us to con­sid­er whether or not we are good stew­ards of God’s cre­ation. We have much work to do to pro­mote eco­log­i­cal jus­tice/in­te­gral ecol­o­gy, which is in­ex­tri­ca­bly linked to in­te­gral hu­man de­vel­op­ment. Read Pope Fran­cis’ en­cycli­cal: Lauda­to Si, on care for our com­mon home (see 156-158).

And let’s en­cour­age oth­ers to par­tic­i­pate al­so.