Abstract

Starting by the distinction made by Henrique Cláudio de Lima Vaz between the democratic ideal and real democracy, and to assume that we will only be able to build a true democratic community if we act within that same community as authentic persons, we defend in this article that being a person is constituted as a call to hope. We will divide the article into three parts. In the first part, we will explain in what sense the personalism is constituted as an option for hope. Then we indicate what it means to be a person for Lima Vaz. Finally, we show how we can become a person and what are the difficulties to this accomplishment. Only when we exist as authentical people we will be able to establish the right relationship between the democratic ideal and real democracy.