The fundamental secret behind Anthony’s appeal was not so much his power as a wonder-worker, but his deep awareness that he had embraced the cause of the poor and downtrodden; that he had chosen to promote what we today call “human rights”.
He was there with the people; he suffered and toiled with them, and fought against injustice, violence and those social structures which humiliate people and thwart their development.
From the earliest biographies we learn of two very symbolic episodes which well portray his untiring efforts to promote human rights.
The first incident occurred on March 17, 1231, during his Lent preaching. Anthony presented himself to the local civic authorities with a proposal to reform the section of the Penal Code concerning insolvent debtors. The practice up until then had been to leave debtors languishing in dreadful prisons, where they were treated more like animals than human beings. Anthony managed to convince the authorities to change the prison sentence into the seizure of the debtor’s possessions, and banishment from the city of Padua. The public legislator who drew up the resulting legal document stated quite clearly in the preface: “Following the request of the Venerable Friar Anthony of the Order of the Friars Minor, we have decided to change a paragraph of our Penal Code”.
The second episode took place approximately two months later – a few weeks before Anthony’s death. Despite being terribly exhausted and close to death, he nevertheless accepted the request to go to Verona and ask Ezzelino III of Romano to free some political prisoners.
Ezzelino belonged to the political party known as the Ghibellines. Both they and their opponents, the Guelphs, were famous for their conniving and bloodthirstiness, and Ezzelino was considered by all to be a master in the art of treachery.
Ezzelino was holding certain Paduan Guelphs as prisoners, threatening to execute them. Anthony courageously stood before him and called him to conversion. The tyrant repented his ways, only to lapse after the Saint left. This heartfelt, though unsuccessful, attempt before this sinister despot shows how important the defence of human rights was for Anthony, and the responsibility he felt for people crushed by violence.
Human rights is on everyone’s lips these days, yet few seem to be aware that this year marks the 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, a document adopted in Paris by the General Assembly of the United Nations on December 10, 1948.
Speaking in front of representatives from 192 nations at the UN, Pope Benedict XVI recalled the anniversary, “Human rights are increasingly being presented as the common language and the ethical substratum of international relations.” And added, “The promotion of human rights remains the most effective strategy for eliminating inequalities between countries and social groups, and for increasing security.”
Unfortunately, many believe that the mandate to promote and protect human rights concerns only a small number of people: heads-of-state, politicians or UN representatives. They do not realise that the promotion of human rights is to be shouldered by all of us. Human rights are, in fact, as the Holy Father emphasised, based on the dignity of the human person, “the high-point of God’s creative design for the world and for history.”
Saint Anthony knew this well, and whenever he took up the cause of the poor, he did not do so out of sentimentality or out of some ideology. His solidarity was the result of his deep religious feelings and convictions.
Through baptism we are all brothers and sisters in Christ, and therefore, as Saint Paul declared, in Christ there should be no divisions of class, race, sex, etc. It was this conviction that gave Anthony the strength to oppose those who, through their selfishness, introduced into the Christian community any form of injustice and discrimination leading to the marginalisation of the poor.
His opposition was, however, always respectful of the people he reproached. As a true follower of Saint Francis, Anthony gently approached sinners, and won them over through the holiness of his life and the evidence of Scripture. From his Sermons we can see how he tried with all his strength to unmask the most widespread sins; those sins which were the same yesterday as today: greed, lechery, and craving for power. What a luminous example Anthony has left us!
Updated on October 06 2016