Faith and Struggle on Smokey Mountain
Hope for a Planet in Peril
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£19.99
Shortlisted for the 2016 Michael Ramsey Prize
Smokey Mountain, the vast garbage dump in Manila has served for many years as an emblem of third world squalor - a metaphor for a planet slowly choking on garbage and waste. But for Fr Beltran, who served for three decades as a chaplain to the scavengers who survive off this reeking heap, it is also a metaphor of hope ? an emblem of the will to survive, the ability to create joy and find meaning even in the midst of abject poverty.
Faith and Struggle on Smokey Mountain describes the spiritual resilience of the scavengers of Smokey Mountain, and how they taught Beltran to read the Gospel with new eyes. The lessons he learned bear a message for all who struggle for a better world.
'Ours is an age of cynicism, consumerism, and atheist rage against God. Benigno Beltran tells a story of people betrayed and abandoned by modern society, of a wondrous planet being destroyed by greed and excess, and of a God of mystery and 'consuming fire' who is discovered amidst the desolation. This is an urgent call to justice and to hope.' -- Tina Beattie, Professor of Catholic Studies, University of Roehampton, London.