In memoriam by Jos van Gennip

As on 1 March 2000 Socires The idea has already matured for two to three years. Was a separate think tank or dialogue platform not a duplication of the existing Scientific Institute for the CDA? And that was not reflected in personal unions, from the chairman to the board members Trudy Blokdijk and Henk Vroom. Objective and administrative composition seemed to create an unnecessary duplication. Or perhaps even worse: was there a competition from the W.I. for the CDA, which Ruud Lubbers was so involved in and of which he held the presidency between 1995 and 1999?

Already in that incubation period, Lubbers actively supported the creation of our institute which was so opposed to appearances. With ideas, with words to the outside and with a surprising personal commitment.

Lubbers followed the reasoning of the directors and other initiators that there was indeed a basis for an independent think tank based on Christian-social thinking and that it could develop its own long-term agenda apart from the new questions faced by the W.I., namely the recovery and reorientation of Christian democracy. He shared the perception that within and outside Christian democracy there was a great need for reflection and discussion about the contemporary translation of Christian-social thinking into solutions to the major societal challenges. More and more clearly, people outside the party and also outside the Christian tradition grew curiosity about the potential of that alternative thinking. And at the same time, it could not be denied that within the Christian-democracy forces that in the reflection on them saw no good and even wanted to distance themselves from it, and that distance from the traditional concept of "sustaining" was seen as a lifeline for a party that was otherwise doomed to drown in the wave of secularization. Ruud realized that that countersound was needed together with the preservation of the sources of inspiration. For the CDA, therefore, an attempt was also made by his encouragement to arrive at "New Ways, Fixed Values," but "for all people of good will" found that his reflection in the concept of "responsible society," so Societas et Responsibilitas. That idea, local, national, European and international, was dear to Ruud. It had already been in the 1980s its answer to the cynicism of Margaret Thatcher in her statement: "there hindered no such thing as society." That noise was even more needed, even in its own circle, when after 1989 citizens, politicians, businesses and even public opinion accepted the reduction of society to the three-stroke individual market "a little" government. Where was that fourth factor, that of society, which could make a society truly humane. Far from it, sometimes also in its own circle, where privatisation and settlement seemed to be the last reference point and social services from care to education were also reduced to product and client.

The use of Socires received support on all fronts, from the assistance to the Christian-Social Congress and its members, to the programmes of Binding and Social Renewal, and the commitment related to "humanisation of globalisation."

And in recent years very special in our programme regarding Finance and the Common Good, about finances and ethics in that right-to-recover relationship, and especially about Laudato Si, the Encyclical who was presented to him as a balm during that difficult period of 2016. His commitment to Socires More and more coincided with the World Connector program he co-founded, with the Earth Charter and at the end also our commitment to give Schaepmandag a new interpretation and new function. On 9 April 2016, it was actually his last public performance there. With improvised testimony for a full room In Tubbergen, where he confessed to what actually drove him. That indelible triangle of faith science social commitment. The room felt that without it being pronounced a will, his will was issued. It stayed quiet for a while when he was spoken. And then he went home to not appear anywhere, no matter how painful, for example when Cardinal Turkish came to the 125th anniversary of the Christian-Social Congress. He would have liked to be there, also because that CSC with which he had grown a piece, put the theme "The Power of Connectivity" at the centre, a theme that he gave a new explanation by also connecting to creation and the environment. This deeper dimension of his personality, which has been neglected under qualifications such as "no nonsense" and pragmatism, has been translated into an exceptional way into his involvement,

Ruud has us and Socires in the line of Augustine the message and the agenda given to make of the times what is asked of us, for "we are the times." In this sense, an era of turning to reverence, determination, justice and peace and to bow to it in gratitude.

Lubbers has gone, with the conviction as laid down in a book by Schillebeeckx that he goes to "Him who beckons at the end." That ender has now been achieved in a life here that has been marked by that three-stroke faith, science, social commitment, and for which Socires Thank him very much.

Mr. Jos van Gennip is the founder of Socires and advisor.