1018
15 October 2018 Monthly Year 2
The Seven Pillars of Education according to J. M. Bergoglio
The Bible in Evangelization Today .10 o Jesuit Journals and the First World War: On nationalism and dialogue
Is Stalinism Alive in Russia?
OLUME 2, N 2, OLUME V Kakichi Kadowaki: The inculturation of Christianity in Japanese culture 2018 The Cracks in Secularization
Work and the Dignity of Workers: An interview with Cardinal Peter K. A. Turkson
A Tale of Love and Darkness
CONTENTS 1018
BEATUS POPULUS, CUIUS DOMINUS DEUS EIUS
Copyright, 2018, Union of Catholic Asian Editor-in-chief News ANTONIO SPADARO, SJ
All rights reserved. Except for any fair Editorial Board dealing permitted under the Hong Kong Antonio Spadaro, SJ – Director Copyright Ordinance, no part of this Giancarlo Pani, SJ – Vice-Director publication may be reproduced by any Domenico Ronchitelli, SJ – Senior Editor means without prior permission. Inquiries Giovanni Cucci, SJ, Diego Fares, SJ should be made to the publisher. Francesco Occhetta, SJ, Giovanni Sale, SJ
Title: La Civiltà Cattolica, English Edition Emeritus editors Federico Lombardi, SJ ISSN: 2207-2446 Virgilio Fantuzzi, SJ Giandomenico Mucci, SJ ISBN: GianPaolo Salvini, SJ 978-988-79271-4-3 (paperback) 978-988-79271-5-0 (ebook) Contributing Editor 978-988-79271-6-7 (kindle) Luke Hansen, SJ
Published in Hong Kong by Contributors UCAN Services Ltd. Federico Lombardi, SJ (Italy) George Ruyssen, SJ (Belgium) P.O. Box 80488, Cheung Sha Wan, Fernando De la Iglesia, SJ (Spain) Kowloon, Hong Kong Drew Christiansen, SJ (USA) Phone: +852 2727 2018 Andrea Vicini, SJ (USA) Fax: +852 2772 7656 www.ucanews.com David Neuhaus, SJ (Israel) Camilo Ripamonti, SJ (Italy) Publishers: Michael Kelly, SJ and Vladimir Pachkow, SJ (Russia) Robert Barber Arturo Peraza, SJ (Venezuela) Production Manager: Bert Daelemans, SJ (Belgium) Rangsan Panpairee Thomas Reese, SJ (USA) Grithanai Napasrapiwong Paul Soukup, SJ (USA) Friedhelm Mennekes, SJ (Germany) Marcel Uwineza, SJ (Rwanda) Marc Rastoin, SJ (France) Claudio Zonta, SJ (Italy) CONTENTS 1018
15 October 2018 Monthly Year 2
1 The Seven Pillars of Education according to J. M. Bergoglio Antonio Spadaro, SJ
17 The Bible in Evangelization Today Saverio Corradino, SJ – Giancarlo Pani, SJ
31 Jesuit Journals and the First World War: On nationalism and dialogue Klaus Schatz, SJ
50 Is Stalinism Alive in Russia? Vladimir Pachkov, SJ
63 Kakichi Kadowaki: The inculturation of Christianity in Japanese culture Tomás García-Huidobro, SJ
74 The Cracks in Secularization Giandomenico Mucci, SJ
80 Work and the Dignity of Workers: An interview with Cardinal Peter K. A. Turkson Francesco Occhetta, SJ
93 A Tale of Love and Darkness Giovanni Arledler, SJ ABSTRACTS
ARTICLE 1 THE SEVEN PILLARS OF EDUCATION ACCORDING TO J. M. BERGOGLIO
Antonio Spadaro, SJ
The challenge of education has always been of the greatest concern to the current pope. For him, “to educate is one of the most exciting arts of existence.” This article presents the seven pillars of his educational philosophy as it evolved during his episcopal ministry in Buenos Aires before his election to the papacy. The pillars: education as a common issue that helps build a nation’s future; the need to welcome and integrate diversity as a resource; the farsightedness and courage to face new anthropological challenges, even those we struggle to understand; restlessness as a driving force of education; questioning and research as a method; awareness and acceptance of limits; the familiar and generative dimension of the educational relationship.
ARTICLE 17 THE BIBLE IN EVANGELIZATION TODAY
Saverio Corradino, SJ – Giancarlo Pani, SJ
“The sacred Scriptures are the very source of evangelization” (Evangelii Gaudium, No. 174). The words of Pope Francis emphasize the primary role of the Scriptures in evangelization. Pastoral care must not only place the Bible at the forefront, but must also consider it in relation to the world today, the people we deal with and the wider humanity moving around us. All evangelization is founded on the Word of God that is heard, meditated, celebrated and witnessed. “The Church does not evangelize unless she constantly lets herself be evangelized. It is indispensable that the Word of God be ever more fully at the heart of every ecclesial activity” (ibid.).
ABSTRACTS
ARTICLE 31 JESUIT JOURNALS AND THE FIRST WORLD WAR: ON NATIONALISM AND DIALOGUE
Klaus Schatz, SJ
What were the stances of the three Jesuit magazines Stimmen der Zeit (Germany); Études (France); and La Civiltà Cattolica (Italy) on the First World War? In Stimmen der Zeit and in Études we find a clear identification in the “just cause” of one’s own nation, albeit with different nuances and some reservations about unbridled nationalism. For La Civiltà Cattolica, however, the culprit of war was not a specific nation, but a modernity free of any transcendent connection. Hence, the reception of Pope Benedict XV’s peace initiative, which was grasped wholeheartedly only by La Civiltà Cattolica. Though the other two magazines did not criticize the peace initiative, they accepted it by subjecting it to a national interpretation. The author is professor emeritus of Church History at the Sankt Georgen Graduate School of Philosophy and Theology in Frankfurt.
FOCUS 50 IS STALINISM ALIVE IN RUSSIA?
Vladimir Pachkov, SJ
How can we explain the fact that, although everyone knows who Stalin was and what his system did to the Russian people, he is still one of the most popular personalities in Russia? According to a Levada Center survey, Stalin is considered the most extraordinary personality in Russian history, even more than Pushkin or Putin. What drives the Russians to continue honoring this dictator? But do they really honor him? Or is there something completely different motivating this attitude? Although the overwhelming majority of Russians are opposed to any attempts to reaffirm the positive aspects of the dictator and his regime, we cannot ignore the process of creeping “re-stalinization” that started from below and that is now used by the state for its own purposes. The author teaches at the St. Thomas Theological Institute in Moscow. ABSTRACTS
PROFILE 63 KAKICHI KADOWAKI: THE INCULTURATION OF CHRISTIANITY IN JAPANESE CULTURE Tomás García-Huidobro, SJ
The Jesuit priest Kakichi Kadowaki (1926-2017) lived out the best tradition of the Society of Jesus in its effort to inculturate the Gospel in Japan. He encountered Zen while attending secondary school at the Shizuoka public institute, which is famous for its educative methods. The exemplary death of a brother he admired determined his conversion to Christianity. He entered the Society of Jesus, and the teaching of Jesuit Father Hugo Enomiya-Lassalle gave him the desire to practice Zen as a way to unification with God. He then dedicated himself to creating a hermeneutic perspective according to which the approach to the Bible is based on a meditative-physical reading inspired by his practice of zazen. The author is director of the St. Thomas Institute in Moscow.
NOTES AND COMMENTS 74 THE CRACKS IN SECULARIZATION
Giandomenico Mucci, SJ
Desecularization has recently become a topic of debate. It is a term that aims to describe a fact. Secularization, still the monolith that dominates Western culture, is showing cracks and fissures. It has been the case for some time that within the secular city one recognizes the distrust of some of its premises and results, among which are numbered individualism and indifference to ethics.
ABSTRACTS
INTERVIEW 80 WORK AND THE DIGNITY OF WORKERS: AN INTERVIEW WITH CARDINAL PETER K. A. TURKSON
Francesco Occhetta, SJ
To elaborate further on the theme of work in a universal perspective, we turned to Cardinal Peter Kodwo Appiah Turkson, prefect of the Dicastery for the Promotion of Integral Human Development. From the defense of the worker’s dignity to the relationship between work and justice, from corruption as evil to the positive forms of meritocracy, from the anthropological significance of the fourth industrial revolution to the Church’s trust in young workers: these are some of the issues addressed in this interview, which are the foundation of the Church’s spiritual, anthropological and social proposal for the world of work.
ART, MUSIC AND ENTERTAINMENT 93 A TALE OF LOVE AND DARKNESS
Giovanni Arledler, SJ
Inspired by a news story about Israeli actress Natalie Portman’s refusal of the Genesis Prize, this article talks about her debut film as a director, based on the autobiographical novel, A Tale of Love and Darkness, a masterpiece by Israeli writer Amos Oz. The short film highlights only a part of the writer’s life, but describes very well the society and the atmosphere of Palestine in the years immediately before independence and the founding of the State of Israel. The director evokes very effectively the relationship that Oz had as a child with his parents, and especially with his mother, who dramatically died when he was just becoming an adolescent. LCC 1118:
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For educational and bulk rates, please email [email protected] The Seven Pillars of Education according to J. M. Bergoglio
Antonio Spadaro, SJ
The challenge associated with education has always been close to the heart of the current pontiff. As he himself revealed in our 2016 interview, he was involved in youth pastoral ministry and education when he was a parish priest in San Miguel. On a daily basis he hosted the local children in the very large spaces 1 of the attached college: “I used to say Mass for the children and on Saturdays I taught catechism.”1 Among his activities he also organized shows and games, which he describes in detail in the interview. This is where his spontaneous ability to be with children originates. While a Jesuit student in training, Bergoglio had a scholastic experience that left an indelible mark. His superiors sent him to teach literature at two Jesuit high schools. However, his role did not stop at lectures. On the contrary, he pushed his students toward creative composition – even involving the great Jorge Luis Borges in his activities – and also toward theater and music.2 This educational engagement was linked to artistic and creative experiences, and precisely through this did Bergoglio succeed in bringing out the most profound human and spiritual dimensions. To help understand this approach more concisely, here follows an unpublished example: José Hernán Cibils,
1.Papa Francesco, Nei tuoi occhi è la mia parola. Omelie e discorsi di Buenos Aires 1999-2013, Milan, Rizzoli, 2016, XII. The Bergoglio texts quoted here are taken from this volume. In the notes, after giving the text and its date, we have inserted the initials OP followed by the page number on which the quote is to be found. 2.This experience is described in an interview with one of his students: Cf. A. Spadaro, “J. M. Bergoglio, il ‘maestrillo’ creativo. Intervista all’alunno Jorge Milia,” in Civ. Catt. 2014 I 523-534. ANTONIO SPADARO, SJ
who is today a musician in Germany, was a school student of the 28-year-old Bergoglio. He recalls a comment made to him by his teacher during his studies of the La hora undécima by the Argentine writer, María Esther de Miguel. The pupil believed that the concluding message of the work was that denial of the self and mortification lead to God. Bergoglio commented by praising his student’s work, but proposing a change in the formulation of the final message that seemed too negative. Bergoglio noted: “Dedication is the fruit of love,” not of mortification. In parenthesis, he concluded with a personal message to José: “It is clear that you are going through a period of negativity.” An exposure to the creative experience and its exercise generate a dynamic that involves the person 2 psychologically and spiritually.3 This experience as a Jesuit scholastic and subsequently as a priest contributed to the formation of Bergoglio as a pastor and as bishop in Buenos Aires. Considering this episcopal period and reading the complete collection of his pastoral interventions that were recently collected in a single volume,4 we realize that a third of them – including homilies, letters and messages – are dedicated to educators, teachers, catechists and those involved in extracurricular activities. This topic has not yet been adequately explored, and to really fathom the sources and inspirations that Bergoglio has taken into consideration in developing his approach, additional research is needed.5 Here follows a presentation – not intended to be exhaustive – of the seven sides of this polyhedron that represents education for Francis, as they have matured during his episcopal ministry.
3.Cf. E. Mannin, Tardi ti ho amato, Rome - Milan, La Civiltà Cattolica - Corriere della Sera, 2014, xix. 4.Papa Francesco, Nei tuoi occhi è la mia parola…, quoted above. 5.Prominent among them is the volume L’educazione secondo Papa Francesco, Bologna, EDB, 2018, containing the Acts of the X Pedagogical Day of the Study Center for the Catholic School, Rome, October 14, 2017. Among the sources of Bergoglio’s pedagogical approach, the thought of Romano Guardini is noted; cf. C. M. Fedeli, Guardini educatore, Lecce, Pensa, 2018. Some briefer studies have been published that collect Bergoglio’s texts on education after his election as pontiff. For example: La mia scuola, Brescia, La Scuola, 2014; La bellezza educherà il mondo, Bologna, Emi, 2014; Imparare ad imparare, Venice, Marcianum, 2017. THE SEVEN PILLARS OF EDUCATION ACCORDING TO J. M. BERGOGLIO
Educating is integrating Prior to commencing, it is important to understand that Bergoglio as an archbishop framed education within a broad vision of society as a vital context for meeting and making shared commitments for the construction of a civil community. To educate, therefore, means to build a nation: “Our educational task must awaken the feeling of the world and of society as a home. Education ‘to live.’”6 The nation and the world for Bergoglio are above all “home,” a place to live, a domestic dimension.7 Education does not exclusively involve the individual, but is a public fact. In a meeting with some of his former high school students in 2006, he said, “I hope your lives make history beyond each one’s personal history; that they will be remembered for 3 what they have achieved together, and that they will be an inspiration for other children on the path of creativity.”8 Bergoglio has always considered school as an important means of social and national integration, one of the main pillars for building a sense of community, of living together. We find evidence of this in his 2002 reflection onthe internal migrants in Argentina: “The internal migrants who arrived in the city, and even the foreigner who landed in this country, found in basic education the necessary elements to transcend the particularity of their origin to look for a place
6.J. M. Bergoglio, Messaggio alle comunità educative, Buenos Aires, April 21, 2004 (OP 265). 7.This consideration should not be underestimated in understanding, for example, the connotations with which the pope in Laudato Si’ describes the world as our “common home.” Let us recall at this point what the pope said to the United States Congress during his apostolic journey in 2015: “In recent centuries, millions of people came to this land to pursue their dream of building a future in freedom.” And he continued: “Building a nation calls us to recognize that we must constantly relate to others, rejecting a mindset of hostility in order to adopt one of reciprocal subsidiarity, in a constant effort to do our best. I am confident that we can do this” (Francis, Address to the Joint Session of the United States Congress, Washington, September 24, 2015). Here, then, is the vital context of education: building a future, building a nation. 8.J. M. Bergoglio, “Quarant’anni dopo,” in J. Milia, L’e t à f e l i c e , Rome-Milan, La Civiltà Cattolica - Corriere della Sera, 2014, vii; italics ours. ANTONIO SPADARO, SJ
in the common construction of a project. Even today, in the enriching plurality of educational proposals, we must go back and wager everything on education.”9 The task of education is not only aimed at empowering oneself, but also at helping people to build a future together, a shared history. The persons who migrate and arrive in a new country find in education the instrument and the fundamental context to transcend themselves and their personal history, and insert themselves into their new home. A central element of this social construction is therefore integration. “The State must take on the task of integrating.” wrote Bergoglio in 2001 on the occasion of the Archdiocesan Days of Social Pastoral Care. He has subsequently repeated this 4 many times. “Integrating,” moreover, is one of the important keys for understanding the pontificate of Francis.10
Welcoming and celebrating diversity Another central element for social construction is the acceptance of diversity. Speaking to Catholic teachers, Bergoglio in 2012 stated: “As Christian teachers, I propose to you to open your mind and heart to diversity, which is an increasingly recurring feature of the societies of this new century.”11 What does this mean exactly? Bergoglio explained this to the diocesan educational communities: “Dialogue and love imply that in the recognition of the other as other there is an acceptance of diversity. Only in this way is it possible to
9.Ibid., Messaggio alle comunità educative, Buenos Aires, March 31, 2002 (OP 153 and following). 10.We recall, for example, what he said as pope in his video message to the Center for Student Inmates at the Argentine prison in Ezeiza: “I am aware of all your activities and am filled with great joy by the existence of this space — a space for work, for culture, for progress; it is a sign of humanity” (Francis, Video Message to the Center for Student Inmates at the Prison Complex of Ezeiza [Argentina], August 24, 2017). It is interesting to note that in these sentences the prison loses the typical connotations of a place of constraint to assume those of an educational context, of a school, a space for work, culture, progress. These are words spoken to prisoners whom the pope urges, in spite of everything, toward a new integration. 11.J. M. Bergoglio, Messaggio alle comunità educative, Buenos Aires, April 27, 2006 (OP 443). THE SEVEN PILLARS OF EDUCATION ACCORDING TO J. M. BERGOGLIO establish the value of the community: not claiming that the other submits to my criteria and priorities, not ‘absorbing’ the other, but recognizing as valid what the other is, and celebrating that diversity which enriches everyone. Otherwise it is only a matter of narcissism, of mere imperialism, of foolishness.”12 Differences must be considered as “challenges,” but positive challenges, resources, not problems. And this has as its immediate consequence the fight against all forms of discrimination. “We fight against all forms of discrimination and prejudice in our schools. We learn and teach to give, albeit with the scarce resources of our institutions and our families. And this must manifest itself in every decision, in every word, in every project. So we will begin to put in place a very clear sign – even controversial and conflictual if necessary – of thedifferent society 5 13 we want to create.” Therefore, the educational task is linked to the construction of a society and a future together as a people. And this implies working for integration and for the recognition of diversity as wealth not to be reduced to a sameness or flattened, but to be valued for the good of all.
Facing anthropological change The great backdrop on which the educational task is projected is anthropological change. Bergoglio is constantly aware that men and women are interpreting themselves differently today than how they did in the past, with different categories from those most familiar to them. The anthropology to which the Church has traditionally referred and the language the Church uses to express it are a solid foundation and the fruit of wisdom and secular experience. However, it seems that the men and women the Church seeks to address can no longer understand them as before.
12.Ibid., Messaggio alle comunità educative, Buenos Aires, March 31, 2002 (OP 148); italics ours. Diversity can be a challenge. Bergoglio as pope spoke about it, for example, to the American bishops on September 23, 2015: “Integration must not be understood as cultural, intellectual and spiritual imitation and subordination” (ibid.) 13.Ibid., Messaggio alle comunità educative, Buenos Aires, April 9, 2003 (OP 203); italics ours. ANTONIO SPADARO, SJ
The Church is therefore called upon to confront this enormous anthropological challenge. Paul VI, who is so highly esteemed by Francis, wrote that to evangelize means “bringing the Good News to all the strata of humanity that are transformed”14; otherwise, he continued, evangelization risks turning into a mere decoration, a thin veneer.15 Francis confirmed this approach in his conversation with the superiors general of religious orders, later published in La Civiltà Cattolica.16 At that question and answer session he said that the educator “must question himself about how to announce Jesus Christ to a changing generation.”17 This is the point: “The educational task today is the key, key, key mission!”18 6 To ensure his message was clear, Francis gave examples from his experiences as bishop in Buenos Aires on the preparation required to welcome into educational contexts children and young people who were living in complicated family contexts. In particular, he gave this example: “I remember the case of a very unhappy child who finally confided to her teacher the reason for her sadness: ‘My mother’s girlfriend does not love me.’ The percentage of school-aged students whose parents are separated is very high.”19 The two situations are different: children of divorced parents, and children living in the domestic context of two people of the same sex. But both clearly pose complex challenges.
14.Paul VI, Apostolic Exohortation Evangelii Nuntiandi (December 8, 1975), Nos. 18-20. 15.More recently, in 2009, Benedict XVI during a flight to the Czech Republic, said that the Church “must understand that she is a creative minority who has a heritage of values that are not things of the past, but a very lively and relevant reality” (Benedict XVI, Interview during the flight to the Czech Republic, September 26, 2009). It is precisely this “creative orientation” that humanity needs so as to be helped to live according to the Gospel today. 16.A. Spadaro, “‘Svegliate il mondo!’. Colloquio di Papa Francesco con i Superiori Generali,” in Civ. Catt. 2014 I 3-17 (now collected in Papa Francesco, Adesso fate le vostre domande. Conversazioni sulla Chiesa e sul mondo di domani, Milan, Rizzoli, 2017). 17.A. Spadaro, “‘Svegliate il mondo!’…”, quoted above, 16. 18.Ibid. 19.Ibid., 17. THE SEVEN PILLARS OF EDUCATION ACCORDING TO J. M. BERGOGLIO
Francis knows all too well that the educational challenges today are no longer the same as those of the past. He knows that – here I quote him directly – “the situations we are experiencing today present new challenges, which are sometimes even difficult to understand.”20 We need to announce the Gospel to a generation subject to rapid changes, sometimes too complex and difficult to accept or understand. Here are his questions: “How can we announce Christ to these boys and girls? How can we announce Christ to a changing generation?” And finally, his appeal: “We must be careful not to vaccinate them against faith.”21 Bergoglio affirms something fundamental here: the educational challenge is linked to the anthropological challenge. One cannot behave like an ostrich and pretend the world is different.22 This 7 realistic approach characterizes all of Bergoglio’s pedagogical reflection, which always commences from a concrete fact: from the person he has before him and that person’s story.
Restlessness as a driving force of education A fourth and equally central aspect to Bergoglio’s educational polyhedron is undoubtedly restlessness, understood as a driving force for education. In one of his homilies he challenges his educator interlocutors with a flurry of acutely directed questions. Here follow the questions he posed: “Can the boy recognize the patrimony he has received? ... Or has the child been ‘tamed’ by contingent situations and cannot recognize in this horizon what he has received and so lives as if he had received nothing? On the other hand, what they have received should not be kept preserved in a box, but must be lived and transformed today! Can these kids, these young people transform what they have received today? Do they know how to welcome this heritage? ... Do these young people make plans? Do they have dreams?”23
20.Ibid. 21.Ibid. 22.Cf. J. M. Bergoglio, Messaggio alle comunità educative, Buenos Aires, March 29, 2000 (OP 50). 23.Ibid., Omelia nella Messa per l’educazione, Buenos Aires, April 14, 2010 (OP 769). ANTONIO SPADARO, SJ
Here is a clear rejection of education understood as “domestication.” It is also clear that the inheritance transmitted within education is not a treasure contained within a box, or a handing on of boxes. Quite the contrary. Bergoglio says that the only way to regain the legacy of the fathers is freedom. Ultimately, what I receive is mine only if it passes through my freedom. And there is no freedom if there is no restlessness. Nothing is mine if it does not arrive via my restlessness and touch my heart directly. For Bergoglio, maturity does not coincide with adaptation. “Jesus himself,” he provocatively states, “for many people of his time could have been part of the class of misfits and therefore considered immature.”24 In the same Message 8 he argues: “If maturity were a case of pure and simple adaptation, the purpose of our educational task would be to ‘adapt’ young people, these ‘anarchist creatures,’ to the good norms of society, of whatever kind. But at what cost? At the cost of censorship and subjugation of subjectivity or, even worse, at the cost of deprivation of what is most proper and sacred to the person: freedom.”25 What I have inherited belongs to me, because it has approached my restlessness and has crossed it, mixing with me and propelling me toward a future yet to be built. If this inheritance does not pass through restlessness, it petrifies; it becomes a museum of memories. Mahler said that faithfulness to what has been handed down to us means keeping the fire alive, and not worshiping the ashes. Keeping the fire alight means fueling it, rethinking and recovering life’s forces. Otherwise we stumble into moralism, formalism, and therefore into boredom. Bergoglio loves Augustine’s existential position, and has repeatedly spoken of the “peace of restlessness.” In particular, at an audience with the Jesuits and staff of La Civiltà Cattolica, he asked: “Has your heart preserved the restlessness of research? Only restlessness gives peace to the heart of a Jesuit. Without
24.Ibid., Messaggio alle comunità educative, Buenos Aires, April 6, 2005 (OP 369). 25.Ibid. THE SEVEN PILLARS OF EDUCATION ACCORDING TO J. M. BERGOGLIO restlessness we are sterile.”26 It is the Augustinian and the Ignatian restlessness that makes us productive. What we inherit from our fathers is above all the wisdom of a restlessness that leads us to search, to go beyond ourselves, to live transcendence. “Where there is life there is movement, where there is movement there are changes, research, uncertainties, there is hope, joy and even anguish and desolation.”27 Bergoglio wrote again in a Message to the educators: “A ‘restless’ child ... is a child sensitive to the stimuli of the world and society, one who opens up to the crises that life offers, one who rebels against the limits and, on the other hand, claims them and accepts them (not without pain), if they are right. A child who does not conform to the cultural clichés that secular society offers; a child who wants to learn to discuss.”28 9 Therefore, it is necessary to “read” this restlessness and enhance it, because all the systems which try to “appease” humanity are dangerous: they lead, in one way or another, to existential quietism.29
Pedagogy of questioning A specific form of anarchism and restlessness is what Bergoglio attributes to children. However, this appears significant for the educator, for a child’s vitality is in the first instance a challenge that measures the ability of those they encounter to go beyond an all-too-rigid framework. This way of looking conveys to a young or adolescent heart “the warmth that arises from a heart matured through memory,
26.“Papa Francesco incontra ‘La Civiltà Cattolica’ in occasione della pubblicazione del fascicolo 4000,” in Civ. Catt. 2017 I 442. Cf. also the volume Solo l’inquietudine dà pace. Così Bergoglio rilancia il vivere insieme, Rome, Castelvecchi, 2018. 27.Francis, Opening Address of the Pastoral Conference of the Diocese of Rome, June 19, 2017. 28.J. M. Bergoglio, Messaggio alle comunità educative, Buenos Aires, April 23, 2008 (OP 627). 29.“I ask the young people that they not be sent into retirement by the many proposals devoid of hope and of heroism which confine them to bureaucratic quietism,” wrote the pope in the Letter for the Bicentennial of the Independence of the Republic of Argentina, July 9, 2016. ANTONIO SPADARO, SJ
through struggle, through defects, through grace, through sin.”30 If this gaze is strong and consistent, then young persons will also be able to suffer in life; but in times of crisis they will not lose their wits, they will not permit their minds to misread their compass and lose their orientation. This gaze is also capable of teaching them how “to discover,” “to contemplate” and “to know intuitively” the questions of the youngest children who at times fail to express their needs and their doubts in a complete and clear manner. “We should never respond to questions that nobody asks,” wrote the pope in Evangelii Gaudium (No. 155). This remains a fundamental criterion for education and pastoral care. In this sense, catechesis must never run the risk of turning into bland 10 indoctrination, into a frustrating transmission of moral norms. This led Bergoglio, in the homily of the Mass for Education, on April 18, 2007, to ask questions here given in full, because they help to conduct an important process of verification, almost an “examination of conscience” for the educator: “Are our hearts sufficiently open so as to be surprised every day by the creativity of a child, by the hopes of a child? Am I surprised by the thoughts of a child? Am I surprised by the sincerity of a child? Am I also surprised by a child’s countless acts of mischief by the many loveable rascals who are in our classrooms? Is my heart still open, or have I already closed it, turned it into a kind of museum of acquired knowledge, of established methods, in which everything is perfect and I have to apply this content, but not receive anything in return? Do I have a receptive and humble heart to see a child’s freshness? If I do not have it, a very serious risk may be looming over me; my heart could become stale. And when the heart of a parent, of an educator, becomes stale, the child remains with the five loaves and the two fish, without knowing who to give them to; the child’s hopes remain frustrated, and firmly frustrated.”31
30.J. M. Bergoglio, Celebrazione giubilare degli educatori, September 13, 2000 (OP 82). 31.Ibid., Omelia nella Messa per l’educazione, Buenos Aires, April 18, 2007 (OP 531). THE SEVEN PILLARS OF EDUCATION ACCORDING TO J. M. BERGOGLIO
Hence the appeal to educators to be “brave and creative.”32 Not only to resist, therefore, when confronted with an adverse reality, nor to become merely functionaries, tied to rigid planning. The appeal is to “create,” to “lay the bricks of a new building in the middle of history,” to express the genius and the soul. In fact, creativity is the “characteristic of an active hope,” because it takes charge of what is there, of reality, and finds “the way to manifest something new starting from there.”33 This broad and open approach corresponds to an inclusive concept of “truth.” In a very illuminating speech to educators, Bergoglio states: “We must move toward an idea of truth that is ever more inclusive, less restrictive; at least, if we are thinking of the truth of God and not some human truth, however solid it may appear to us. The truth of God is inexhaustible; it is an 11 ocean of which we can hardly see the shore. It is something that we are beginning to discover in these times: not to make us slaves to an almost paranoid defense of ‘our truth’ (if I ‘have it,’ he does not ‘have it’: if he ‘can have it,’ then it is I who ‘does not have it’). Truth is a gift that is too large for us, and for this reason it magnifies us, amplifies us, elevates us; and it makes us servants of such a gift. This does not involve relativism; the truth instead obliges us to a continuous process of deepening our understanding.”34 We find a concrete application of this pedagogy in a key passage of one of his speeches to Catholic schools, places that must be anything other than schools of “ideology.” Bergoglio declares: “Our schools must not aspire to form a hegemonic army of Christians who will know all the answers, but must be the place where all questions are accepted; where, in the light of the Gospel, personal research is appropriately encouraged and not obstructed by verbal walls, walls that are rather weak and fall irremediably shortly thereafter. The challenge is greater:
32.Ibid., Messaggio alle comunità educative, Buenos Aires, March 29, 2000 (OP 63). 33.Ibid., Messaggio alle comunità educative, Buenos Aires, April 9, 2003 (OP 192). 34.Ibid., Messaggio alle comunità educative, Buenos Aires, April 21, 2004 (OP 270); italics ours. ANTONIO SPADARO, SJ
it requires depth, it requires attention to life, and it requires healing and freeing ourselves from idols.”35 There is in this appeal a full and mature synthesis of Bergoglio’s vision. The path of research and questioning helps to form an adult personality, a personality capable of making discerned choices and adhering to the faith with full maturity.
Do not mistreat the limits Developed during his years in the Argentine episcopate, the sixth pillar of Bergoglio’s educational approach is a clear awareness of limits. The dimension of restlessness and the tension toward what lies beyond must be accompanied by this necessary awareness. Speaking to educators in 2003, 12 Bergoglio affirmed the need to “create from what exists,” and therefore without idealism. “But this entails,” he wrote, “that one is able to recognize the differences, the preexisting know- how, the expectations and even the limits of our children and their families.”36 More directly, a few years later, he underlined that “the accompaniment is resolved in patience, in the hypomoné (perseverance) that accompanies processes without transgressing the limits.”37 This attitude of not transgressing or of respecting the limits is another essential aspect of Bergoglio’s pedagogy. In his apostolic exhortation Amoris Laetitia (AL) – which can and must also be read as a pedagogical text – the pope affirms that tenderness “is expressed in a particular way by exercising loving care in treating the limitations of the other, especially when they are evident” (AL 323). To go beyond limitations implies a process of development in which an infinite trust coexists in the grace that grows by itself and a careful attention to small things. Rather than an attitude of optimism, here we are faced with an attitude of trust
35.Ibid. (OP 269 and following); italics ours. 36.Ibid., Messaggio alle comunità educative, Buenos Aires, April 9, 2003 (OP 207). 37.Ibid., Parole iniziali nel primo Congresso regionale di pastorale urbana, Buenos Aires, August 25, 2011 (OP 881). THE SEVEN PILLARS OF EDUCATION ACCORDING TO J. M. BERGOGLIO focused on the possible process over time rather than on the static nature of the condition. We cannot be educators unless we have a confident openness, capable of “taking care.”
To live a generative and family-based fecundity This lively pedagogy, which draws on restlessness and questioning, has an inclusive conception of truth and a broad- based approach: it is based on the fact that education is not a technique but a generative fecundity. This is a fundamental aspect of Bergoglio’s educational vision. The generative and parental dimension derives from the roots its understanding of the educational task, which must be forged by a family’s way of seeing. The current pope spoke specifically of the way of seeing peculiar to a father and a mother, a brother and a sister. 13 Particularly striking is his expression: “Dialogue means having the ability to leave inheritance.”38 Legacy is the process of passing from hand to hand within a family. Bergoglio specifies: “Through dialogue we recover the memory of our fathers, the received inheritance ... to make it grow with us ... Through dialogue we take courage ... check the courage to propel this legacy committed with the present toward the utopias of the future and to fulfil our duty to increase the inheritance received through fruitful commitments of future utopias.”39 From these words, all the richness of the dialogue of experiences and attitudes toward life emerges. Archbishop Bergoglio’s writings also show how he believes intensely in narratives. Only by means of the story is it possible to pass things from one generation to the next. In this sense, one of the fundamental themes he deals with is the family relationship between young and old, the two “disposables” of our current societies. Young people are the future, the energy. The elderly are wisdom. The son looks like his father, but he is different. A child is not a clone.
38.Ibid., Relazione alla XII Giornata di pastorale sociale, Buenos Aires, September 19, 2009 (OP 723). 39.Ibid. ANTONIO SPADARO, SJ
Education is a familiar process that involves the relationship between generations and the story of an experience. There is a bridge that must be established between generations. And it is this kind of bridge that becomes the context of an education that is understood as transmission of a living heritage. Legacy is always accompanied by a shiver, because it links the past and the future. The pope recently said to a group of high school children: “We must learn to look at life by looking at horizons, always more, always farther, always forward.”40 And this gives us a shiver. Here is the advice then to educators: “So challenge them more than they challenge us. Let us not allow that ‘vertigo’ to reach them from others, those who only put their lives at risk; let us give this to them. 14 But the right vertigo, which satisfies the desire to move, to go ahead.”41 We therefore understand that the legacy that is transmitted from father to son is a legacy of restlessness; and here is the point: for Bergoglio, the fathers, the elderly are those who “dream.” The pope has meditated for a long time on the Book of Joel, which says: “I will pour out my Spirit on all people … your old men will dream dreams, your young men will see visions” (Joel 3:1). The visions of the future that young people are able to elaborate are based on the dreams of those who preceded them. Therefore, it is not the young who are the dreamers, but the elderly! On the other hand, the young have “visions,” they imagine the future, and so build it with hope.42
40.Francis, Address to Student members of the “Knights,” June 2, 2017. 41.Ibid., Opening Address of the Pastoral Conference of the Diocese of Rome, June 19, 2017. 42.At the opening of the Ecclesial Convention of the Diocese of Rome, June 16, 2016, the pope said: “In the dreams of our elders often lies the possibility that our young people may have new visions, may once again have a future…” And he repeated this in the next meeting of the same Convention, June 19 2017, adding in particular: “Parents have to make room for their children to talk to their grandparents. Very often their Grandpa or Grandma are in rest homes and they do not go to visit them... They must talk, even ‘leapfrogging’ parents, taking the roots of the grandparents. Grandparents have this quality of transmitting history, faith and belonging.” THE SEVEN PILLARS OF EDUCATION ACCORDING TO J. M. BERGOGLIO
The lack of fathers who are “able to tell their dreams, does not allow the younger generations to ‘see visions.’ And they are at a standstill. It does not allow them to make plans, since thought of the future creates insecurity, doubt, fear.”43 What helps us to raise our heads? Only the testimony of the fathers, “seeing that it has been possible to fight for something that was worthwhile.” This dynamic does not allow us to structure life as a “workshop for restoration,” as traditionalists would like, nor as a “utopic laboratory,” as those who always try to stay on the crest of a wave would like to see.44 The educational task is therefore a commitment to history. A people is a historical reality, constituted over many generations.45 15 * * *
Here we have succinctly presented the seven pillars of Pope Francis’ educational thought as it was formed up until his election to the papacy. A reflection on each of these pillars can help us to better understand the educational magisterium that the pope has developed in these five years since the day of his election to the throne of Peter. We have identified seven fundamental elements: education as a people’s issue that helps build a nation’s future; the need to welcome and integrate diversity as a resource; the farsightedness and the courage to face the new anthropological challenges, even those we struggle to understand; restlessness as a driving force of education; questioning and research as a method; awareness and acceptance of limits; and the familiar and generative dimension of the educational relationship.
43.Ibid., Address at the opening of the Ecclesial Convention of the Diocese of Rome, June 16, 2016. 44.J. M. Bergoglio, Intervento alla Seduta plenaria della Pontificia Commissione per l’America Latina, Rome, January 18, 2007 (OP 500). 45.Cf. J. L. Narvaja, “People as a Mythical Concept for Pope Francis, Reader of Dostoyevsky,” in Civ. Catt. English Edition, pp. 13 - 26 September 2018. ANTONIO SPADARO, SJ
If we recall the titles of the books in which then-Archbishop Bergoglio collected some of his pedagogical reflections, we find three key words that characterize his approach to education: 46 choice, need and passion. In addition, there is an extremely concise expression that Bergoglio communicated to educators and in the light of which we can revive our action at this point: “Educating is one of the most exciting arts of existence, and it constantly requires that horizons be expanded.”47
16
46.Cf. Ibid., Educar, elegir la vida. Propuestas para tiempos difíciles, Buenos Aires, Editorial Claretiana, 2005; Ibid., Educar: exigencia y pasión. Desafíos para educadores cristianos, ibid., 2006. 47.Ibid., Messaggio alle comunità educative, Buenos Aires, April 23, 2008 (OP 624). The Bible in Evangelization Today
Saverio Corradino, SJ – Giancarlo Pani, SJ
“The sacred Scriptures are the very source of evangelization” is the statement Pope Francis uses in Evangelii Gaudium (EG) to conclude the section dedicated to the proclamation of the Word . 1 It is a page that is simple and at the same time complex. Simple, because there can be no true evangelization without 17 the Scriptures; complex, because it is necessary to explain why the Church has “lost” the Bible during its history. The pope states: “Not only the homily has to be nourished by the Word of God. All evangelization is based on that Word, listened to and celebrated and witnessed to. … Consequently, we need to be constantly trained in hearing the Word. The Church does not evangelize unless she constantly lets herself be evangelized. It is indispensable that the Word of God ‘be ever more fully at the heart of every ecclesial activity.’2 … The study of the sacred Scriptures must be a door opened to every believer. … We do not blindly seek God or wait for him to speak to us first, for ‘God has spoken, he is no longer the great unknown, but has shown himself’3” (EG 174-175).
The pastoral primacy of the Holy Scriptures The primary role of the Bible had already been recommended by Vatican II,4 but the pope’s exhortation leads us to reflect
1.Francis, Apostolic Exhortation Evangelii Gaudium, No. 174, Vatican City, Libr. Ed. Vaticana, 2013. 2.Benedict XVI, Post-Synodal Apostolic Exhortation Verbum Domini (September 30, 2010), No. 1: AAS 102 (2010) 682. 3.Benedict XVI, Meditation during the First General Congregation of the XII General Assembly of the Synod of Bishops (October 8, 2012): AAS 104 (2012) 896. 4.Cf. Second Vatican Council, Dei Verbum, Nos. 21-22. SAVERIO CORRADINO, SJ – GIANCARLO PANI, SJ
with a new spirit. Every pastoral work of evangelization should not only put the Bible to the fore, but must also relate it to the world we are living in, the people with whom we are dealing, and the wider humanity moving around us, enfolding and conditioning us.5 This preference does not come from an inclination that would give less importance than previously to the institutional Church. Instead, it is a matter of the clear and peremptory need to recognize that one meets the Lord and hears his Word in that community of faith which is the Church. There is no tension, therefore, between those two objectives. On the contrary, there is a convergence, an underlying harmony and an expectation to see them occur simultaneously and in their fulness, since there 18 is no reading of the Bible if not through the life of the Church, and there is no ecclesial community without listening together to the Word of God. Believers meet the Lord in the Church because it is there that the Lord dialogues with his people. They can speak honestly with him there, free from the daily risk of misapprehension and misunderstanding.6 This movement of faith does not at all imply a devaluation of the Church. Rather, it spontaneously proposes the interaction of knowing, through the Church, the Word of God in the strict sense of the Bible. This is the Word that God addresses to his people, and by listening to it the people of God is edified, a people that is the Church in its true identity. This is a theme open to many developments. There is a parallelism and complementarity between the Bible and the Church, between the incarnation of God, which is the biblical Word (Word of God and word of humankind), and the extension of the Word incarnate, which is the Church. There is also the place that the Bible occupies in the history of salvation from its first official appearance during the time of Josiah as a text of ecclesial reform.7 There is also the relationship between Word
5.Cf. EG 127; 132, related to culture. 6.Cf. EG 137. Pope Francis affirms this in the context of the Eucharist. Cf. also EG 139-140: the Church as a mother who teaches her children with motherly language. 7.Cf. 2 Kings 22:3-23:30; also Jer 11 alludes to the reform of Josiah. THE BIBLE IN EVANGELIZATION TODAY and event throughout the story of salvation, where the event proves the Word and gives it body, and the Word gives meaning to the event and shows its permanence. The immanent result of this experience is the certainty of finding in the Church the proper place for listening to the biblical Word.8
The relevance of the Bible In our belief about faith, why does the Bible hold the primary place in evangelization? To give an answer to this question, we cannot avoid trying, even though it is difficult, to show the relevance of the Bible for the conscience of people today. This effort must necessarily proceed through examples, even with all the difficulty of preserving the persuasive strength the examples held when they were first shown to us as an unexpected gift. 19 It is clear that the New Testament offers numerous images that are immediately useful. Almost by surprise people today recognize problems that beset them in private and solutions for which they believed the key was lost. For example, at the beginning of the Letter to the Romans (1:18-32), we read that religious perversion is not a consequence of moral laxity, but the opposite is true: the decadence of humanity in wanton sex is a result of religious betrayal. It is a punishment for infidelity toward the inexhaustible goodness of God toward humankind. We are faced with an unusual statement that is completely different from what we have heard in the past, yet is incredibly close to the experience that takes place within and around us. The primacy of the experience of faith, its irreducibility to simply carrying out moral laws so that they appear to be the fruit of faith, and not vice-versa, is a matter that raises strong feelings today. The priority of the experience of faith in moral conscience is already proposed in the stories of Abraham, Jacob and David. These are stories of men who have a deeply rooted bond with God and who, through this fidelity, compensate for their unpreparedness and immaturity in moral convention.
8.Cf. Paul VI, Evangelii Nuntiandi, No. 15; E. Bianchi, Nuovi stili di evange- lizzazione, Cinisello Balsamo, Milan, San Paolo, 2012. SAVERIO CORRADINO, SJ – GIANCARLO PANI, SJ
In fact, the Old Testament, even with its distance over time, is completely readable today and utterly useful. We find here the initiative of an invisible God who is made manifest, and not only with miraculous gestures (limited to the Exodus epic) throughout history. This way of hearing and recognizing the presence of God is very close to our hearts. We find here expressions of weakness, boredom and the illusory enthusiasm of humanity with its readiness to assume irrevocable commitments, only to fail. In addition, we rediscover our history as individuals and human groups. The very story of Israel, with its ups and downs, leaps of faith and betrayals, times of waiting, expiation, joy and delusion, seems to constitute a permanent model that is forever available. 20 Analogies, feedback, interior suggestions, reasons for hope or for exultation and opportunities for comfort can be discovered there. That long intimate history of the Covenant, where God is always faithful and the people of God are always ready to betray, yet are also continuously called to rise again, expresses with vivid, even modern, language the contradictory nature of our relationship with God. There is the mystery of sin, that congenital lability which results in humans failing when really put to the test. There is also the very mystery of God, of his incomprehensible love given to the good as well as to the bad, of his loyalty that surpasses human measure, and that has caused so much anguish for the author of the Book of Job. Furthermore, there is the scandal of a God who seems to reward extensively and visibly the arrogant and wicked, while striking with implacable hardness those who try to return loyalty with loyalty.
A few specific themes: solitude and false security As soon as general subjects come up, other denser and firmer issues soon arise, such as that of the incomprehensibility of God, to which the solitude of the individual is necessarily linked. Contrary to what some of our interlocutors think, the religious person finds neither consolation nor security in an encounter with the Lord. Instead, a source of further solitude is found, a reason to feel disconcerted and contradicted. This is a path leading to total estrangement. THE BIBLE IN EVANGELIZATION TODAY
Abraham, after having been called by God, is separated from his own family, sent off into a foreign country where he wanders without possessing a single piece of land belonging to him. He is deprived of descendants, despite the accompanying promise of countless offspring. He is a man completely alone as a result of his encounter with God. In addition, the more that he deepens his friendship with the Lord, the more his solitude becomes tragic and without remedy. The same happens for Moses, a successful, well-off man who begins his true existence only when he abandons the safety and the solidity of his life as a courtier and goes toward his own brothers, paying for such loyalty with condemnation to death and flight. However, his official mission will only begin later, with a new radical detachment and with abandonment of the 21 family when he will already be old and tired, similar to Abraham during the decisive years when he needed to transmit his legacy to his descendants. Abraham, Jacob and Moses are historical people. Job and Tobias on the other hand are emblematic characters who symbolize a similar level of incomprehension, rejection and isolation. The profile of the Servant of the Lord, the one man who can help with the plan of universal salvation for Israel and for all peoples, only becomes clear after he is reduced to silence, rendered useless and annihilated.9 The Beatitudes say that there is no Christian life without poverty. And solitude is poverty. This is especially true for the solitude that comes from an uprooting, like that of Abraham, Moses and Tobias. It is also true for the solitude of the immigrants who live around us and are often looked at with intolerance. The necessity of being uprooted for Christian life touches upon another theme alive in the spirit of humankind today: the renunciation of false security. In theological terms, this can be found in the Letter to the Romans and in the Letter to the Galatians. For example, there is the false security of the
9.Cf. B. Marconcini, Il libro di Isaia (40-66), Rome, Città Nuova, 1996, 139- 161. SAVERIO CORRADINO, SJ – GIANCARLO PANI, SJ
pagans who feel comfortable with the gods shaped by their hands, familiar to them and made to measure. Another example is the false security of those Jews who translated the interior fidelity requested by God into precise rules of behavior, and then carried them out meticulously and excessively. There is also the false security of the Christians who feel satisfied since they have received absolution and feel confident of eternal life because they have received communion the first Friday of nine consecutive months. Likewise, there is the false security of the priest, the religious and the nun who think that they have done much for the Lord. This is an attitude that has begun to annoy us as much as we are bothered by those who call upon us to be humble in a way 22 that is not always sincere (it is easy to focus only on a specific aspect of our responsibility as human beings, while at the same time finding fault with those who accept responsibility for taking care of all that is needed). However, these people must always be welcomed sincerely, because only by seeing ourselves from the outside, with the eyes of a stranger, do we know what we are really lacking. In the Book of Jonah, this false security is ridiculed with clarity and indulgence – two things we particularly need. It is an enchanting story despite its sarcasm. It is also deeply accurate despite the hyperbolic amplifications. Jonah, the well-known prophet from the Book of Kings, is the authentic proclaimer of the Word of God. All through the story everyone enters into a relationship with God due to his testimony. He is the only one who resists the Word of God from the beginning to the end of the story, with unyielding obstinacy and an almost satanic inconvertibility. Meanwhile, every other creature, the pagan sailors, the Assyrian persecutors of Israel, the animals, even the sea monster that swallows Jonah, the plants – like the castor-oil plant that creates a shadow on the head of the prophet and then dries up in a second – and the stormy sea that suddenly subsides, all promptly obey the Word of God brought to them through Jonah. THE BIBLE IN EVANGELIZATION TODAY
The Book of Origins The first chapters of Genesis, despite the extreme cultural distance that separates them from us, are known to be a classic place for people of today to focus their attention on the Bible. The first creation story (Gen 1:1-2:3) and the second (Gen 2:4- 25) talk about the double dimension of humanity. On one hand, we are called to conquer the world, to make it subordinate to ourselves, to humanize it (Gen 1:22,29-30; 2:8,15). On the other hand, we are also called to worship God, to recognize ourselves as God’s creatures, to represent God in a vicarious function before other creatures (Gen 1:26-27; 2:1-3) and to obey God’s commands (Gen 2:16-17). There is a technical dimension and one of worship: a person is reduced by half when possessing only one of these 23 dimensions. In addition, if we currently glorify technological achievements to the point of leaving aside worship, we celebrate the defeat of humankind, its failure and mutilation, and not its victory.10 The human couple is a real issue both in preaching and in spiritual direction. It is a topic that has left us perplexed and embarrassed in recent decades. It is as if the conscience of faith had nothing to say to people today about a burning issue that, despite all pretenses, leaves everyone feeling our very substance as human beings is at stake. So when Jesus needed to respond to the Pharisees on the subject of divorce (cf. Matt 19:4-6; Mark 10:6-9), he went back directly to the teaching from the Book of Genesis, a teaching whose rich
10.In this regard, it is traditional to find it difficult to reconcile the dependency of faith – which recognizes God as the only possibility for human salvation – with a serious interest for humanity and a positive view of its efforts to grow, which entail a self-affirmation apparently incompatible with the absolute heteronomy of a created consciousness. The two terms can almost agree only through the experience of what the Bible calls “poverty”: only by accepting and living its own radical insufficiency can humankind succeed in becoming what it is being called to be and attaining the fullness that actually belongs to it, according to the words of Jesus: “For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will save it” (Luke 9:24; cf. Matt 16:25; Mark 8:35). Cf. J. B. Metz, Povertà nello spirito, Brescia, Queriniana, 1966. SAVERIO CORRADINO, SJ – GIANCARLO PANI, SJ
experience does not allow it to be easily exhausted even by those who have returned there several times, drawing upon it broadly.11 Another current example is the gigantic failure of industrial society, ridiculed and condemned as an offense to God and as the reason for the tearing apart of humanity, as in the story of the Tower of Babel (cf. Gen 11:1-9). In that brief episode, we can see symbolized humankind’s illusion of constructing its own salvation and settling its differences without any need for God. People resort to the virtually infinite strength of society and to their own ability to plan for an autonomous future where God receives a share (this “tower” was originally a sacred building) but is not the author. 24 The patriarchal story From the first offer God makes to the human couple in Eden up to our experience of the Church, what emerges is that humanity cannot be saved without an initiative coming from God to whom we are called to respond and whose place we cannot take. For puzzling examples, we have those three episodes of the patriarchal story where Abraham twice (Gen 12:10-20; 20:2-18) and then Isaac (Gen 26:7-11) were willing to sacrifice their wives in order to save their own lives. The intention of the triple repetition is certainly not to praise the behavior of the patriarchs. Rather, the aim is to exalt the saving intervention of God, beyond the errors, stupidity or infidelity of humans. In each of the three cases, God intervenes to guarantee the fulfillment of his promise to give the patriarchs a lineage, that is, to provide the heir to whom the immense responsibility for the future, the story of salvation, will be entrusted. An experience of faith that is totally based upon the initiative of God is perceived today as liberating and absolutely indispensable. People are tired of the talking, the expectations and the possessions; they are tired of impotence disguised as
11.For this subject, cf. S. Corradino, Chi è l’uomo?, Palermo, Vittorietti, 2012; J. Daniélou, In principio, Brescia, Morcelliana, 1965. THE BIBLE IN EVANGELIZATION TODAY presumption. Religious reform and its impact on humanity must be sought in the initiative of God, which never fails, rather than elsewhere. In the context of the patriarchal history, the most extensive and complete story in Genesis is that of Joseph. It helps to settle a chronic prejudice born from lack of familiarity with biblical literature: that which makes the religion of the Old Testament a universe closed to feelings of forgiveness and prone to sacralizing revenge and resentment. Joseph is called to save his brothers. In accordance with the paradigm that will be expressly formulated later with the Servant of the Lord, every mission of salvation in biblical literature is a gift of life that becomes available by passing through death. However, for Joseph, death was not only the result of the jealousy and hatred 25 of his brothers or the fear of a resentful gentlewoman. The wall of death that he needed to break through and move beyond was the resentment he felt toward those who wanted his death. This resentment – which is true death – needed to be defeated through complete forgiveness. We add here a separate point of interest: in the patriarchal story, no less than in other passages of the Bible, the modernity of language comes from describing the psychology of people through gestures rather than through introspective allusions.12 It can also be seen through the abolishing of the stages, the transition moments, and directly contrasting sequences that are distant in space and time. The same applies to the repetition of a message, description or narrative which serves to give a measure of time and that, through the variety of perspectives, expresses the fullness of developments and their progressive advances. In contrast to how we are accustomed to doing it, everything is said visually and not through already formulated concepts.13
12.Note, for example, how the decision of Lot in Gen 13:10-11 is visually presented, or the anguish of Abraham and Isaac in Gen 22:3-10. 13.For example, as soon as we have a few keys for the apocalyptic language, it is our habit to transcribe in pure conceptual discourse what the Apocalypse enunciates with vital development of images, almost as if the language of the “vision” were destined precisely for this work of decoding, and that the meaning was exhausted there, while its novelty and effectiveness consist precisely in the tension between visual images and theological concepts. SAVERIO CORRADINO, SJ – GIANCARLO PANI, SJ
The language of the Bible Even if they succeed in persuading listeners that the biblical message has a certain topicality, all the examples that have been given, and many others that could be provided, can also lead to documenting the opposite thesis, that of the weak relevance of the Bible for leading people of today to an encounter with God. In fact, if we want to grasp today’s connection to each of these references, we need to get through a thick and hard shell made of a seemingly foreign substance: not only a different language, but also a mentality and customs that are completely different from ours, incredible analogies and disconcerting occurrences. The intervention that is needed to overcome this range of differences is not reduced solely to the translation. It requires a 26 transformation that is more than just lexical or grammatical. It also needs to be a cultural transfer of the multitude of modern literary genres to the pertinent literary genres in each page of the Bible, bringing a religious atmosphere from one stage of the story of salvation to God’s “today” in which we live, from the first tastes of the Christian experience in the New Testament to the complexity of today’s ecclesial life. It requires a translation that places every biblical page into the perspective of the history of Israel. Above all, it must be reintegrated into its own internal history, bringing it to the text that we have before our eyes, which is the only one to properly bear the name “Word of God.” However, these reasons for biblical language being outdated can be multiplied when we enter into the details. The 10 genealogies included in the Book of Genesis remain incomprehensible to us. To our mind, a genealogy only shows the past and at most constitutes a surrogate for legal documents in a society of nomads. Actually, it demonstrates tension toward the future and not the immobility of an acquired situation. Such a forward thrust is expressed in two directions: that of promoting history – which is common to all genealogies – and that which gives each of them their own tone – celebratory, demonstrative, processional, etc. In the same way, certain accounts seem unacceptable to us – Lot’s daughters, Jacob’s shrewdness, David’s private life and so on. This is due to the habit of reading the Bible (which is a story THE BIBLE IN EVANGELIZATION TODAY of salvation) as a human history rather than as the initiative of God. Equally unacceptable for us are some of the traditions, like that of the levirate (a man being obliged to marry his brother’s widow) or that of go’el (the redeemer, the one who redeems), which also play a decisive role in edifying episodes like those in the story of Ruth. We associate the concept of the Word of God with the idea of finality and, therefore, expect absolute immovability. This makes it difficult to imagine any progressive movement in the typical words of God that come from the oracles. Instead, these are just words in motion, converging for mutual growth and conditioning and toward the eschatological conclusion, namely the coming of Christ and, beyond that, toward the Second Coming. 27 There is no answer to these difficulties. With reflection, meditation, study and prayer we need to face the task and change our resistance into something new that, especially initially, offers us an encounter with God through his biblical Word, which is the authentic inexhaustible Word, and which therefore repays hundredfold the effort it asks of us.
The Bible and protest Something else that makes the Bible out of touch today is the fact that it provides no foothold for debate for the sake of debate. Alas, these days many believers seem persuaded that the effort for their life of faith can be reduced exclusively to this: arguments from the right against adversaries from the left, or arguments from the left against adversaries from the right. It is almost as if the testimony that we are called to give to the world – that is, to the pagans – can take place through an episode from our house, and with an issue specific to our lives, our ghetto. The Bible is a book in which those who are overwhelmed – even by forms of violence within the ecclesiastical sphere – can find comfort and respite. The Word of God is eminently consoling and some of its books are particularly designated for this role. It opens a horizon full of the future that helps the “poor of the Lord” (cf. Isaiah 61:1-2; 57:15; 66:1-2) to SAVERIO CORRADINO, SJ – GIANCARLO PANI, SJ
free themselves from their grudges and to look with hope toward a future that they are called to build. In this sense it would appear that the Bible is reserved to people from the true profession of faith, those who were born of love for a torn communion and from the conviction that only God can overturn the fictitious balance of sin.14 Instead, it is for those who find themselves reduced to silence and for those who are opposed, but not for those who raise their voices and feel so confident that they point their fingers at others in condemnation. The Bible gives no pretext for political diversion. Political commitment is a Christian responsibility. It is not permissible to take refuge in religious obligations so as to avoid political 28 ones, just as escaping into a political context does not justify abandoning religious conversion, accomplishing one in the other. Moreover, the Bible has no political model of its own to propose – no matter what anyone says, since they are speaking from hearsay. It also contains no useful guidelines for scientific progress or for historical or philological methods. The Word of God is not proclaimed to exempt people from the hard work of speaking about what is within their competence, but it prepares them to face their daily struggles with equilibrium and passion.
Why the Bible is “lost” We cannot conclude without a somewhat embarrassing observation that we mentioned at the beginning about why, in the Church, the Bible has been “lost.” The small importance that biblical tradition has had in the life of the Church, at least from the time of the Reformation to the Second Vatican Council, is not by chance. The reason cannot be only psychological, or even religious, in its reaction against the Protestant controversy (a reason that would indicate a very serious reaction toward those with whom they were discussing). There is something
14.It is therefore not surprising that the Protestants, precisely as people of the “Reformation” and of the “protestation of faith,” speak of the Bible as their own. But the Bible is also the book of communion, so that a protest and a reform that break the unity of faith are not representative of it at all. THE BIBLE IN EVANGELIZATION TODAY more, and a renewal of evangelization requires that this be taken into account in a manner that will make it impossible to leave this point in silence. The Word of God is present in humanity in many ways. The Bible is not alone; there is also the teaching of the Church, at all its levels, ranging from the solemn magisterium to other official decisions of the hierarchy, and then to the common doctrine taught in theology, and finally to catechesis and to the practical resolutions for the faithful. This double presence of the Word of God is indispensable. 15 As we know from the famous page of Plato’s Phaedrus, the written word is not enough since it is unable to respond to those who question the difficulties it puts forth, nor isit able to clearly indicate its identity. However, even the spoken 29 word is not enough when it lacks an immutable reference, and therefore a written word which constitutes, to varying degrees, authentic development, updating and clarification. This leads to an inevitable consequence: there is a competition between these two authorities. More precisely, the Christian senses the competition between the Word of God, which is the Bible, and his own word. If this hidden disagreement is not clearly stated, addressed and truly overcome, any discourse on evangelization by means of the Bible remains a diversion.
Some pastoral indications Finally, we offer some pastoral indications for the use of the Bible in evangelization. There is a serious underlying problem when we refer to the Old Testament: in general, our familiarity with the Word of God is modest. This can be seen with the mostly important pages we read in the liturgy of the Word on Sundays. Readings other than the Gospel rarely speak even to the celebrant, despite the guides and commentaries available. It is therefore necessary to proceed in stages and to recapture a preparation that comes not only from studies, but from listening, reflection and above all from prayer.
15.Cf. Plato, Phaedrus, § 275-276; Ibid., Tutti gli scritti, edited by G. Reale, Milan, Bompiani, 2001, 579-581. SAVERIO CORRADINO, SJ – GIANCARLO PANI, SJ
The first step is based on the fact that the preacher himself must listen to the divine Word and conform to it: “The Church does not evangelize unless she constantly lets herself be evangelized.”16 The second step involves personalizing17 the Bible, helping others to read it, to meditate on the Word and to bring it alive in their lives. This is the duty for all the faithful, who are invited to make the Word of God their own, alone or in a group, and to find sustenance for an interior life and the strength to live it in their family, their profession and in the world. Witnessing is the primary path for evangelization.18 Nevertheless, it is above all the task of the entire community of believers when they are gathered in the Sunday liturgy to 30 listen to the Word and to be nourished by the gift of God. This celebration is a true invitation to conversion through the Bible, addressed to the whole Church in the Eucharist, because “the preaching of the living and effective Word prepares for the reception of the sacrament, and in the sacrament that Word attains its maximum efficacy.”19 To conclude, we must be convinced that we are never permitted to stop with what we already know and are already able to communicate to others. We are always obliged to assume again the role of the listener, who restarts from the beginning, converts and experiences the essential for the first time.20
16.Francis, Evangelii Gaudium (EG), No. 174. 17.EG 149-159. The term “personalization” is from Pope Francis. He uses it to describe how priests must prepare for the proclamation of the Word. 18.Cf. Pope Francis’ homily from the pastoral visit to Campobasso, July 5, 2014, on w2.vatican.va. 19.EG 174; cf. 135-139. 20.Cf. EG 166. Jesuit Journals and the First World War: On nationalism and dialogue
Klaus Schatz, SJ
In Lourdes, in July 1914, German and French Catholics, each in their own language, peacefully prayed together. “Two weeks later, the war in Europe broke out, and the pilgrims of Lourdes, having gone home, clashed against one another, under the shadow of their own flags. Those who yesterday 31 greeted each other as brothers and sisters, now were fighting as enemies.”1 For the Catholics on each front, the outbreak of the First World War was not seen as the latest consequence of a decades-old rupture; rather, it was felt as the painful destruction of an international solidarity. And Fr. Jules Lebreton, of the French Jesuit journal, Études, who authored the lines quoted above, asked himself how to confront this experience. According to him, neither desperation about the unity and understanding among peoples nor desertion were valid responses. As for all of the writers of the journal, for him, fighting for France did not mean only defending the homeland, but also defending religion and Christian civilization. His reflection, however, goes beyond the war: how could an eventual reconciliation come about after the traumas of war, without putting justice and injustice on the same level or without, for the sake of convenience, equally dividing responsibility between the parties? One must start with the cross of Christ, which teaches us to look the worst crimes in the eyes, to call injustice what it is without, however, allowing ourselves to be sucked into the vortex of hatred. This also regards treating the enemy with equity. Germany is not just the Germany of Luther and Bismarck. “A wall of
1.J. Lebreton, “Pensées chrétiennes sur la guerre,” in Études 144 (1915) 5. KLAUS SCHATZ, SJ
iron and fire” now divides us; “we cannot make ourselves understood by the Catholics on the other side of the Rhine, and we know that a large part of them do not have any possibility to know the truth about the war, its causes and the way in which it is being fought.”2 But one day, continues Fr. Lebreton, the Catholics in Germany will rediscover their union with those in France and Belgium. On that day, they will appreciate all the more the fact that we have resisted the aggression which came from their country. “Then, as we did last July, we can see each other at Lourdes, at the feet of our common Mother, adoring together the same God, in the communion of the same Eucharist!” This was the dilemma faced by the majority of the authors 32 of both Stimmen der Zeit, on the German side, and of Études, on the French side. On the one hand, an uncritical identification with the “just cause” of their respective fatherlands; on the other hand, they made an effort to be just toward the enemy and the future prospective of a possible reconciliation when the war was over.
The position of Stimmen der Zeit Up until the second half of 1915, the German journal, Stimmen der Zeit, allowed itself to be carried away by the national enthusiasm for the war. For Peter Lippert, this enthusiasm signifies the overcoming of small-minded bourgeois egotism.3 According to him, the war of Germany is “a liturgy, a true holy war,” and for this reason, the fallen would be transformed into martyrs.4 Robert von Rostitz-Rieneck shows himself to be fascinated by the “lifting of the spirit of the people” that brought about the outbreak of war: “In an instant, a silent moment, the mountains of false values disappeared as if they had sunk into the ocean. A silent and undeniable universal judgment had been passed on the
2.Ibid., 29. 3.Cf. P. Lippert, “Zum Beginn des Europäischen Krieges,” in Stimmen der Zeit 87 (1914); cf. ibid., “Weltkrieg und religiöses Bekenntnis,” ibid. 88 (1915) 4-10. 4.Cf. ibid., “Die Gefallenen unseres Volkes,” ibid. 88 (1915) 408 f. JESUIT JOURNALS AND THE FIRST WORLD WAR values of the beyond, blowing them away like chaff.”5 Even if hatred for the enemy was condemned, and chivalry toward them preached, especially for prisoners of war and the wounded, it is done, almost without exception, appealing to the best national sentiment, to the “true, good German,” whose honor, otherwise, would have been stained by the crimes of the war (which, in general, were seen to be committed by the enemy).6 Obviously, the war is a just one, and the German people were constrained to fight it, even if, on the other hand, it was conceded that the enemy soldiers were equally convinced to be in the right. In this way, psychologist Josef Fröbes shows how much even upstanding and well-meaning people can be brought into error by sympathies and even more so by popular opinion. Nevertheless, this does not raise doubts in his mind about the 33 justice of the cause – which is certain – but only about the proper understanding of the enemies and of their motivations.7 It remains to be seen if, between the lines, a critical reader – if he wanted to – could not have inferred something more than what was written. Only Stanislaus von Dunin-Borkowski admits that an objective vision is not yet possible. In that case, the classical “deferral to authority” is valid; the common man can almost never decide if a war is just or unjust; he must abide by the decision of the government.8 Even those actions of war which were clearly condemned in La Civiltà Cattolica, such as the invasion of Belgium at the beginning of the war and, in 1917, the unlimited submarine war against even neutral countries, were justified: both actions would most certainly be contrary to positive international law and yet, were nevertheless legitimated by the superior right of national defense.9
5.R. von Rostitz-Rieneck, “Völkerkrieg und Voksseelenerhebung,” ibid., 320. 6.Cf. P. Lippert, “Zum Beginn des Europäischen Krieges,” 87 (1914) 574; 576; 88 (1915) 8 f; 89 (1915) 5-7. 7.Cf. J. Fröbes, “Wie enstehen Massenüberzeugungen?” ibid. 88 (1915) 421-432. 8.Cf. S. von Dunin-Borkowski, “Warheit und Krieg,” ibid. 89 (1915) 420-427. 9.In regard to the invasion of Belgium: M. Riechamann, ibid. 89 (1915) 90; on the submarine war, cf. S. von Dunin-Borkowski, ibid. 93 (1917) 612 f. KLAUS SCHATZ, SJ
But rarely were the reasons of the fatherland reconciled with those of Christian civilization, as happened in the journal Études. The French book, La Guerre Allemande et le Catholicisme – according to which Germany constituted the quintessence of modernity’s stance against God, and the French cause was identified with that of Catholicism10 – which is slightly critiqued in Études, is decidedly rejected, especially in light of the secular and anti-clerical politics of the French Republic.11 Halfway through 1916, a Spanish article, according to which a victory of the central powers is in the interest of Catholicism, receives a favorable review.12 The article presents the thesis that only if conquered could France undergo a religious revival and 34 Germany would be a bastion of order and authority. In the fight between State and Church (Kulturkampf) the German Catholics had shown, by their own efforts, to know how to prevent a triumph of Protestantism.13 Even Études had to confront an embarrassing situation – the sympathies of the Catholics in the neutral countries were mostly for the central powers, while France was identified with anti-clericalism.14 Similarly, especially in Spain, the conservative right was on Germany’s side while the left, particularly Francophile, admired everything in France the Catholics reproved; this reality gently pushed the more moderate right toward Germany.15 Notwithstanding all of this, over the course of the years the number of voices calling attention to an exaggerated
10.On this point, cf. C. Arnold, “La guerre allemande et le catholicisme (1915) – Katholisch-theologische Kriegsarbeit und die Nachwirkungen der Modernismuskrise,” in D. Burkard-N. Priesching (eds), Katholiken im langen 19. Jahrhundert, Akteure-Kulteren-Mentalitäten, Regensburg, Pustet, 2014, 299-312. 11.Cf. the review by the editorial staff, in Stimmen der Zeit 89 (1915) 384-386. 12.Cf. B. Ibeas, “El catolicismo y la guerra” in España y America, No. 16, August 15, 1915. 13.Cf. M. Riechmann, “Eine neutrale Stimme über Krieg und Katholizis- mus,” in Stimmen der Zeit 90 (1915) 506-512. 14.Cf. Y. de la Brière, “Les catholiques français aux catholiques des Pays neu- tres,” in Études 143 (1915) 266 f. 15.Cf. A. V. Hidalgo, “La guerre et les neutres,” ibid. 142 (1915) 234 f. JESUIT JOURNALS AND THE FIRST WORLD WAR nationalism grew; these voices were also present at the beginning of the conflict. The times of reconciliation and comprehension will come, wrote Lippert, inviting readers to reflect, and already, now, it is time to begin to think about building bridges: “Foreign violence must be defeated, to the point of spreading peace and upholding our rights. We are not interested in the extermination of peoples. They need not be reduced to Helots… Each people has its own mysterious mission and no one has the right to contest, disparage or foil the mission of another people. That would be a presumptuousness beyond limits. Therefore, we must respect even the mission of our enemies.”16 And Matthias Reichmann spoke against a certain Maximilian Harden who, in a conference held in Munich on February 12, 35 1915, sustained the theory that the rules governing nations were different from those for individuals, basing this affirmation on the principal that “our right is founded on our power.” According to Paul Dudon, in Études, this was a conference that had expressed with cynical frankness the thought of the German government – a thought that, nevertheless, had not yet 17 been voiced publicly. Reichmann responded in Stimmen der Zeit that a double morality did not exist; even States are bound by conscience and morality.18 Lippert sees as the principal danger in the war “an imminent laceration of internal communion, of the cohesion of all humanity” rising from exaggerated nationalism.19 He affirms: “We have rightly held as puerile the French demands of having a privileged position in the Church. But we should not allow ourselves to be convinced by those who say ‘the
16.P. Lippert, “Menschenliebe und Völkerhass,” in Stimmen der Zeit 89 (1915) 8 f. 17.Cf. P. Dudon, “Qui a voulu la guerre?” in Études 142 (1915) 32 f. 18.Cf. M. Reichmann, “Ob Macht ein Rect zum Kriege gibt?” in Stimmen der Zeit 89 (1915) 86-90. 19.Cf. P. Lippert, “Die Nationen in der katholischen Kirche,” ibid. 305- 316. Cf. S. von Dunin-Brokowski, “Weltkrieg und Nationalismus,” ibid. 90 (1916) 121-142; C. Pesch, “Das Evangelium und der Friede,” ibid. 91 (1916) 47-65; S. von Dunin-Borkowski, “Die Philosophie des Völkerhasses,” ibid. 93 (1917) 601-613. KLAUS SCHATZ, SJ
entire existence of Germany is woven together by God’ or other similar expressions. … Therefore, one of the most important and difficult tasks of the Catholic Church in the immediate and distant future is that of bringing together the nations who, on two different sides of this conflict, totally hostile to one another, have pummeled each other with an unprecedented violence.”20 The outcome of the conflict and the peace accords do not seem to be able to bring about a true peace. The union of peoples does not mean making them uniform and level, but rather a tolerance of what is foreign and often disconcerting. “A Germanization of the Church would have been as fatal as the oft mentioned, and feared, Romanization.”21 36 The stance of Études Compared to Stimmen der Zeit, in Études the image of the enemy was drawn more clearly.22 Obviously, not only is the legitimacy of its own side affirmed, but the error of the other is more forcefully presented. It must be taken into consideration, however, that the war and its destruction were on French soil, including the bombing of the cathedral of Rheims. In the journal the series of articles titled Impressions de guerre provided a regular, disturbing account. Already in the edition of September 1914, Fr. Léonce de Grandmaison, writing under the pseudonym “Louis de Brandes,” had given a clear answer to the question of whose was the principal responsibility for the war.23 According to the author, this is attributable to the megalomania of the Germans, who were convinced of always being the best and of needing to dominate, first and foremost on the military front, but also in other sectors. The advancements of the Germans in the scientific, technical and commercial fields due to their rigor and Teutonic scrupulosity
20.P. Lippert, “Die Nationen in der katholischen Kirche,” ibid. 89 (1915). 21.Ibid., 313. 22.Already in R. Marlé, “La guerre de 1914 dans les ‘Études’ et dans les ‘Stimmen der Zeit,’” in Études 321 (1964) 203-215. 23.Cf. L. des Brandes, “L’hégémonie allemande et la guerre présente,” ibid. 140 (1914) 472-487. JESUIT JOURNALS AND THE FIRST WORLD WAR must be recognized. Effectively, it cannot be negated that certain peoples in certain times have been champions of Europe and the flag bearers of progress. But it is very important that this role of leader be exercised without provoking hostilities and aversion. This did not happen. In this case, Prussian militarism represents only the most obvious form. The author had no difficulty in recognizing the positive German qualities, seeing in the German people great human resources. But, according to him, the future will be a more federal Germany, a federation of States without Prussian hegemony, while the empire created in 1871 with “iron and fire” represented a permanent threat to peace in Europe. This concept was furthered by other authors; Luther, Fichte, Kant, Hegel, Bismarck and Nietzsche form a continuous line that generates an aggressive 37 and militaristic imperialism, incarnate in the Hohenzollern.24 Certainly, in Germany, there were voices of opposition to this national self-idolatry, but they were dispersed by the public demagogy. “Pan-Germanism” dominated German politics. Germany used the assassination in Sarajevo – which, by the way, is never defended or justified by the Catholic authors – as a fortunate pretext to start a war that the nation had wanted and had planned at least since 1913.25 The German people had been systematically formed in the cult of the brutal violence of the State. But, as Antonin Eymieu affirms, all of Europe is culpable for what happened. It was now paying the price for not coming to France’s aid in 1870. Now it takes for granted yielding before success and violence. In Germany the ideal of progress and modern civilization became an idol. Germany represents the incarnation of the hostility toward God typical of modern civilization. It wanted to dominate all peoples and be worshipped by them.26
24.Cf. L. Roure, “Patriotisme, Impérialisme, Militarisme,” ibid. 142 (1915) 433-453; P. Doudon, “La politique allemande,” ibid. 143 (1915) 41-67; Ibid., “Nation de proie,” ibid. 148 (1916) 5-33; A. Eymieu, “Les causes de la guerre et la Providence,” ibid. 152 (1917) 5-22. 25.Cf. P. Dudon, “Nation de proie,” ibid. 148 (1916) 23 f. 26.Cf. A. Eymieu, “Le causes de la guerre et la Providence”, ibid. 152 (1917) 12-14. KLAUS SCHATZ, SJ
The response of Bénoît Emonet to the exhaustion felt about the war and to the question “Pourquoi se bat-on?” (“Why fight?) becomes clear, then, in the fall of 1918: for France, for her defense, for the fatherland, whose existence is threatened. Certainly, the author says, Catholicism is supranational, but our Catholicism is lived in a French form. Democracy, the community of peoples and humanity are simply vague ideals and hopes on the horizon. “Here and now, before our eyes is only France. The rights which have been offended and must be reestablished are hers… Hers the freedom threatened.”27 In short, France represents all the values worth fighting for. Small criticisms of the apologists for their side are found in the review by Yves de la Brière of the collection titled La 28 38 Guerre Allemande et le Catholicisme, in the May 1915 issue. According to the reviewer, this work should be favorably looked upon because the pro-French propaganda that there had been beforehand, coming from the government or from free thinkers, mostly had the opposite effect among Catholics in neutral countries. The haste in which the work was prepared justified the fact that some things had not been evaluated as thoroughly as possible, as could have been done if the times were more tranquil. In this way, for example, the fact that Bismarck had failed in his Kulturkampf because of the Catholic resistance was not accounted for. “Regardless of legitimate reprimands against the Catholics in Germany, justice demands that we recognize that, thanks to their strength, unity and organization, up until recently, they had pushed back, in almost all points, the Kulturkampf and, until now, have impeded anti-Christian Germanism – “anti-Christian” because it must be defined as such – from 29 bringing the Kulturkampf back to life.” Furthermore, in light of the news of the atrocities committed in Belgium and northern France, particularly against priests and churches, too often was the temptation to generalization given
27.B. Emonet, “Puorqui se bat-on?” ibid. 156 (1918 III) 269. 28.Cf. Y. de la Brière, “Les catholiques français aux catholiques des pays neutres,” ibid. 143 (1915) 266-281. 29.Ibid., 274. JESUIT JOURNALS AND THE FIRST WORLD WAR into and too little was made of the existence, in this case, of real differences between the actions of armed individuals and those of the armed forces, and of the fact that some persons acted absolutely correctly. This does not change the fact that some acts were so obviously barbaric as to not be reducible to single abuses, but call into question the running of the German army, stemming from the influence of pagan, immoral and presumptuous doctrines of modern “Germanism.”30 This criticism was positively cited in Stimmen der Zeit. According to that journal, the reason the criticism was not stronger was due to the fact that “the unnatural situation in which the collaborator and the editorial staff ofÉtudes found themselves, in their thorny position.”31 39
The position of La Civiltà Cattolica If the journals Stimmen der Zeit and Études were, each in its own way, spokesmen for the national Catholicism of their respective countries, the Italian journal La Civiltà Cattolica distinguishes itself in its rigid impartiality and for the consequent distance it takes from all nationalism.32 The correspondent contributions are from the journal’s director (beginning in 1915), Enrico Rosa. After the war, he collected them in a book, including those writings which were redacted by the censorship of the Italian state, which is immediately visible in the articles by the blank spaces in the text and the annotation “Censored.”33
30.Cf. ibid., 277. That this was not absurd is shown by the fact that in the case of the excesses in Belgium, and especially in the fire of the library of Leuven, anti-Catholic prejudices of the Kulturkampf were visible: cf. J. Leonhard, Die Büchse der Pandora. Geschichte des Ersten Weltkriegs, Munich, C.H. Beck, 2014, 171; 173. 31.M. Reichmann, “Französiche Stimmen zu dem Buche: La Guerre Allemande et le Catholicisme,” in Stimmen der Zeit 89 (1915) 490. 32.On this topic, cf. F. Traniello, “Guerra, Stato, Nazione negli scritti di Padre Rosa apparsi sulla ‘Civiltà Cattolica’ (1914-1918)” in G. Rossini (ed.), Benedetto XV, i cattolici e la prima guerra mondiale, Rome, 5 Lune, 1963, 661-677. 33.Cf. E. Rosa, Visione cattolica della guerra, Rome, Rassegna Internazionale, 1920. KLAUS SCHATZ, SJ
The Italian journal remains constant in avoiding all attempts to purify the war and of giving any religious reading to it, efforts which, in the beginning, are not absent in either 34 Stimmen der Zeit or Études. It shows itself to be skeptical also toward the “religious reawakening” that the war would have brought about.35 Instead, it takes the line set out by Benedict XV for whom the war is a useless “slaughter” and the “suicide” of Europe.36 The opinion of the journal regarding the question of the “guilt for the war” is that reducing everything to the question “Who started it?” does not resolve anything or, at best, only touches the surface of the problem. The real guilty party is modern “stateolatry,” making the State absolute and 40 dissolving its every tie to the transcendent and the moral, for which all of the parties in the war, each in its own way, bear responsibility.37 The war, with all its insanity, is the logical fruit of the principles of naturalism, ethical relativism and state positivism, all of which had been condemned in the Syllabus of Pius IX in 1864.38 For the conscience of the individual Christian and for the question of the “legitimacy” or lack thereof of the war, there remained a situation of uncertainty, such that there were good reasons for which the current war could be considered just – or, at least not completely unjust – by Catholics of both sides, even by the most illuminated. This line was struck by Italian censorship.39 For the author, then,
34.On this topic, cf. Y. de la Briére, “La guerre et la doctrine catholique,” in Études 141 (1914) 202-211. 35.Cf. “I cattolici e la confusione dei partiti nella guerra,” in Civ. Catt. 1916 III 645. 36.Cf. “Guerra e Civiltà” ibid., 1915 II 517-529; “Il ‘ripetuto grido di pace’ contro il ‘suicido dell’Europa civile,’” ibid. 1916 I 644-648; “‘Il suicidio dell’Europa civile.’ Sue cagioni e suoi complici,”, ibid. 1916 II 3-16. 37.Cf. “Guerra e Civiltà,” ibid., 1915 II 517-529; 1915 III 646 f; 1915 IV 513- 527; 1916 IV 513 f. 38.Cf. “Dopo un triennio di follia. Pensieri di buon senso,” ibid. 1917 III 289-300. 39.Cf. “Principii cattolici e rivoluzioni di partiti nella guerra,” ibid. 1917 II 5-20; the parts that were erased by censors are visible in E. Rosa, Visione cattolica della guerra, cit., 277 f. JESUIT JOURNALS AND THE FIRST WORLD WAR there is no other option than that of the classic “presumption of authority,”40 until its illegitimate nature is made obvious. It is a reservation advanced by him, but which is also redacted by censorship.41 The position of La Civiltà Cattolica on the world war is closely tied with its special relationship with the pope.42 In fact, the unresolved “Roman question” – which, however, the Italian government considered resolved from the time of the “Law of Guarantees” of 1871 – that is to say, the question of the Holy See as an actor on the international stage comes back into focus thanks to the Great War, especially when Italy enters the war on May 24, 1915. This was due, above all, to the fact that the then ambassadors of the central powers to the Holy See had to leave Rome; the Venetian Palace – 41 which, until that time had been the embassy of the Austro- Hungarian delegation to the Holy See – was expropriated by the Italian state. If the pope, in effect, needed to maintain his neutrality, or to intervene as a mediator for peace, it was necessary that he be recognized not as an Italian citizen but as subject to international law. Nevertheless, recourse to pontifical authority, according to Rosa, is also the only solid moral foundation for arriving at a stable international order of peace: “Therefore, in the pope, and only in the pope, rests the international principle of morality, justice, order and peace, which the world is looking for, and seeks in vain elsewhere than in the pope, to subtract itself from the inhuman horrors of the raging war and threatening atrocities.”43 In this way, the author clearly distances himself not only from traditional liberalism, socialism and the new nationalism, but also from every secular form of pacifism and internationalism.44 It could be said that renouncing the image
40.Cf. Civ. Catt. 1915 III 134; 1916 III 648 f; 1917 II 17. 41.Cf. ibid. 1915 III 134; 1917 II 17: E. Rosa, Visione cattolica della guerra, cit., 25 f; 227 f. 42.Cf. “I moniti della guerra e gli insegnamenti dell’enciclica,” in Civ. Catt. 1915 I 8-24. 43.Ibid., 1915 IV 392; cf. ibid. 1916 IV 520. 44.Cf. “Nazionalismo e amor di patria secondo la dottrina cattolica,” ibid., 1915 I 129-144; “L’armistizio degli eserciti e le rivoluzioni dei popoli,” ibid., 1918 KLAUS SCHATZ, SJ
of national enemies brings about the use of even more caustic images of ideological enemies. In fact, the truly guilty parties are not politicians and warriors, but university professors with their anti-Christian philosophy, the inhuman principles of which are put into practice.45 On the one hand, the lead culprit is not a specific nation but the emancipation of modernity from God; on the other hand, sympathies and antipathies are not equally distributed among the parties in conflict but rather in a transversal manner. In this way, it is certain that if the German invasion of Belgium is a wrong which cannot be justified by any utilitarian consideration,46 the same is true in 1917 for the unlimited German submarine war and the British embargo that bring infinite sufferings upon the 42 civil German population.47 Neither Germany nor Russia is seen in a particularly friendly light; even less so, England, which puts its own egotistical economic interests above all else. The victory of German militarism and British mercantilism are, for Rosa, equally regrettable.48 The author, however, does not spare his criticisms for the motivations of the Italian government, which let itself be led into entering the war alongside the Triple Alliance by the wave of nationalism provoked, above all, by the eccentric poet, Gabriele d’Annunzio. This was also redacted by the censures.49 The sympathies of the author lean toward Catholic Belgium, which before the war had been hated by the Masons,50 while France was accused of blindness because, while it was intent on persecuting the Church, it neglected to arm itself, when the enemy was already at the gate.51
IV 452-468. 45.Cf. ibid. 1917 II 455-457. 46.Cf. ibid. 1914 III 499 f; 1915 II 13; 18. 47.Cf. ibid. 1917 I 515 f. 48.Cf. ibid. 1916 II 528. 49.Cf. ibid. 1915 III 134 (found in E. Rosa, Visione cattolica della guerra, cit., 25). 50.Cf. “Dopo un triennio di ‘follia.’ Pensieri di buon senso,” in Civ. Catt. 1917 III 298. 51.Cf. “La parola del Papa e le voci della stampa,” ibid., 1915 III 646. JESUIT JOURNALS AND THE FIRST WORLD WAR
Pontifical initiative and the peace of Versailles From the beginning of the conflict, Benedict XV, the pope since September 3, 1914, continuously worked to mitigate the war and for a future peace which would be the fruit of accords without conquerors or conquered.52 His efforts were always appreciated and commented upon in a detailed 53 manner in La Civiltà Cattolica. Exactly for this reason, a peace without winners or losers represented, in the eyes of the journal, the only possible way out, given that the war was the result of the separation of all of Europe from the principles of morality and justice, from which no side was exempt.54 The journal appreciated the fact that, in his speech before the Senate on January 22, 1917, on a “peace without victory,” the American president Woodrow Wilson returned 43 to a position that the pope had consistently sustained from the beginning. In the summer of 1917, considering the military stalemate and the exhaustion of the armies on both fronts, the pope believed that the moment had arrived to intervene and propose a concrete peace. In the Pontifical Note of Peace on August 1, 1917 – which quickly became public – the pope outlined the foundations of a lasting peace for the warring parties. Among these, there was a postwar order that included an obligatory arbitration, a regulated bilateral disarmament and free navigation on the seas. Both parties would have renounced reparations of war, except when, in special cases –
52.On this topic, cf. J. Ernesti, Benedikt XV. Papst zwischen den Fronten, Freiburg/Bsg., Herder, 2016. 53.Cf. “I moniti della guerra e gli insegnamenti dell’enciclica,” in Civ. Catt. 1915 I 8-24; “L’opera e la dottrina di pace del S. Padre Benedetto XV,” ibid. 1915 II 257-268; “Note di guerra,” ibid. 1915 III 129-148; “Benedetto XV e il suo nuovo messaggio di pace,” ibid., 385-396; “La parola del papa e le voci della stampa,” ibid. 641-653; “Il ‘ripetuto grido di pace’ contro il ‘suicidio dell’Europa civile,’” ibid. 1916 I 644-648; “‘Il suicidio dell’Europa civile.’ Sue cagioni e suoi complici,” ibid., 1916 II 3-16; “Il papa e il congresso della pace nella stampa liberale” ibid. 513-528; “La parola dei politici e l’opera pacifica del papa,” ibid. 1916 IV 513-527; “La forza del diritto proclamata dal papa contro il diritto della forza,” ibid. 648-653. 54.Cf. “Le note di guerra e i discorsi di pace,” ibid. 1917 I 395. KLAUS SCHATZ, SJ
the pope was possibly thinking of Belgium – some financial reparation was necessary. The territory of Belgium was to be restored and those regions of France occupied by the Germans to be returned, in exchange for the restitution of the German colonies. The controversial questions regarding the borders between Germany and France, on one side, and between Italy and Austria-Hungary on the other, needed to be resolved with a spirit of reconciliation, “keeping in mind, in as much as possible and just … the aspirations of the peoples.” The pope, on this point, is not more precise. Nevertheless, from the context, one can understand that perhaps he was thinking of certain corrections of borders to the benefit of France and Italy, 44 in the spirit of the principle of respect for nationality; but he certainly did not have in mind what happened at the later talks in Paris. Therefore, for example, certain parts of the Lorraine – but certainly not the Alsace – would have gone to France, while Trieste and the Trent region – but not the South Tyrol up to the Brenner passage, that is today, the Alto Adige – to Italy. To this, it is necessary to add, briefly, the same held true from the Balkans, Armenia and Poland. The exploratory attempts at peace made by the Vatican – which had preceded this Note, and had a similar spirit – were unsuccessful. In particular, the nuncio Eugenio Pacelli had believed, perhaps with too much optimism, to have found a positive response in the talks he had in Berlin and Bad Kreuznach with the chancellor Bethmann-Hollweg and the Emperor Wilhelm II. They, however, gave way to the German military led by Hindenburg and Ludendorff, who hoped for a military victory and a large expansion of German territory.55 Italy, acting within the Triple Alliance, in order to not permit a preliminary decision on the “Roman question,” had already prevented a decisive intervention by the Holy See. In fact, in the secret talks in London on April 26, 1915, during which it obliged itself to enter into the war on the side of the Triple Alliance, Italy had imposed Article 15, which
55.Cf. J. Ernesti, Benedikt XV..., cit., 124-139. JESUIT JOURNALS AND THE FIRST WORLD WAR established the exclusion of the pope from future peace talks. After the Russian October Revolution – which, according to the Gregorian calendar, took place in November 1917, this deal, as with all other deals with the Czarist government, were made public by the Bolsheviks when they came to power. For La Civiltà Cattolica, on the one hand, this represented the principle of secularism and the immorality of the State and yet, on the other, it proved that much weight was given to this fact, in as much as the moral authority of the pope was recognized.56 But, what comments did the three Jesuit journals make on the pope’s peace plan? This plan found not only approval but also opposition among Catholics, especially in France. The La Civiltà Cattolica of October 6 held that, unfortunately, even 45 some Catholics had let themselves get carried away by national pride and had rejected the pope’s calls for peace. It is certainly understandable in their regard, the comment continues, nevertheless it showed that current arguments are ineffective against passions, and hoped the passing of time would lead to a calmer reflection.57 Obviously, Fr. Rosa completely agreed with the pontifical Note on peace, while making some additions. Regarding bilateral disarmament, he speaks of a mutual agreement to general abolition of forced conscription, seeing in this the root of the arms race. He places particular emphasis on the fact that the pope speaks of the “legitimate aspirations” of peoples, which must be taken into account, in as much as possible, but not of a rigid and doctrinal “principle of nationality,” which would be impossible to implement or would only lead to incurable conflict. 58 In February 1918, when the Fourteen Points of U.S. President Wilson were announced, Rosa underlined that
56.Cf. “Il pregiudizio anticlericale nella guerra e l’articolo 15 nel parlamento italiano,” in Civ. Catt. 1918, II 3-16. 57.Cf. “L’appello del Papa per la pace e le prime risposte dei governi bellige- ranti,” ibid. 1917 IV 4. 58.On this topic, cf. “Le ‘giuste aspirazioni dei populi,’” ibid. 1918 I 481-492; II 193-201: 490-502. KLAUS SCHATZ, SJ
these, as in the case of the declarations of the British premier, Lloyd George, did not contain anything new that was not already stated in the pope’s appeal for peace, but they did not contain an important element, that is, the mutual renunciation of the reparations for damages caused during the war.59 Nevertheless, in general, there is a substantial agreement: the accusations of both masons and liberals, according to whom the pope would support a “German peace,” were baseless and this should be kept in mind by those Catholics in France and Italy who “had forgotten a bit their Catholicism in favor of nationalism.”60 Both Stimmen der Zeit and Études commented positively on the pope’s peace plan. However, both journals do so according 46 to their own reading thereof, with a slightly nationalistic point of view. The article of Franz Ehrle – later named a cardinal – in Stimmen der Zeit more or less leans toward justifying the actions of Germany.61 The author points out that already, since the end of 1916, the government and the parliament had declared their readiness to a peace that would be the fruit of a mutual compensation. The preventative measures proposed by the pope – such as international arbitration, bilateral disarmament and the free navigation of the seas – are all accepted. Nevertheless, an efficient means to prevent further conflicts and to impose an international arbiter would be constituted through the cooperation of the principal powers – in this case, among the strongest land and naval powers, Germany and Great Britain – which can only be reached after a peace accord with England.62 Therefore, in a certain sense, the author proposes a “divvying up of the world” between the two “super powers” which, together, will control world peace, a “German-Britanic pax” that was not politically
59.Cf. “I discorsi degli statisti alleati e l’appello di pace del Papa,” ibid. 1918 I 193-200; 289-303. 60.Ibid., 303. 61.Cf. F. Ehrle, “Die päpstliche Friedensote an die Häupter der kriegführenden Völker vom 1. August 1917,” in Stimmen der Zeit 94 (1917) 1-28. 62.Cf. ibid., 25. JESUIT JOURNALS AND THE FIRST WORLD WAR realistic, and certainly not the intention of the pope. And, continues Ehrle, if the Holy Father speaks of the “legitimate aspirations” of individual peoples according to a national self- determination, it must be asked “how and why the peoples lost their national autonomy; what hope is there for them to live a self-governed, ordered existence; and if a people has lost its independence because of an injustice.” Now, in any case, the German people have a double duty: “Fight and resist, but also be disposed to peace.”63 In the Catholic world, the strongest resistance to the pope’s peace plan came from France. In the century between Vatican I (1869-1870) and Humanae Vitae (1968), there was, most likely, no stronger protest within the Church against the words of a pope than the homily by the Dominican priest 47 Sertillanges on December 10, 1917, at La Madeleine: “Most Holy Father, we cannot at this moment accept your call for 64 peace.” Études does not go this far; it had already defended the pope against the accusation of taking a unilateral position in favor of the central Empires.65 But, a more “defensive” attitude characterized the article written by Yves de la Brière regarding the pope’s peace plan, which appeared on August 25, not as an editorial, but in the Chronique du movement 66 religiuex section. According to the author, the pope could not be accused of having taken the side of the central powers. In fact, it was from them that he expected a sacrifice of territory that they most certainly would not have made. Graver still is the fact that he considered the Papal peace plan, in the end, to be nothing more than a concession and the renunciation of the clear point of view of law, if it were not possible to push beyond the military stalemate and fully impose law. Brière continues: “Therefore the side that conducts a just war has the right to refuse these conditions as insufficient, especially if it believes – as is currently the conviction in France
63.Ibid., 27. 64.On these protests, cf. J. Ernesti, Benedict XV…, cit., 145. 65.Cf. P. Dudon, “Le pape et la guerre,” in Études 142 (1915) 289-311. 66.Cf. Y. de la Brière, “L’offre de Médiation diplomatique de Benoît XV,” in Études 152 (1917) 641-659. KLAUS SCHATZ, SJ
– to be able, thanks to the help of the Americans, to reach a peace that is more in conformity with the law and is guaranteed for future generations.”67 In this way, the pontifical peace plan is fundamentally drained of any value: rather than being an understanding of peace that allows for a lasting reconciliation, it becomes a “fallback position” in case it is not possible to achieve a better solution, that is, a clear victory by those on the side of the “just cause.” Hindenburg and Ludendorff, on the other hand, argued in the same way. When, in the fall of 1918, they declared themselves ready to accept the peace accord proposed by Wilson, it was too late. An active commitment to the pontifical peace plan was not 48 to be found either in Stimmen der Zeit or Études, but rather only in La Civiltà Cattolica. This corresponded to the position taken on the Treaty of Versailles, which was being delineated; La Civiltà Cattolica had already expressed a negative opinion on February 1, 1919.68 The journal states that the Paris Peace Conference seeks a peace of victors that divvy up between themselves the booty and carries within it the seeds of future wars. Even if the violence of the victors is able to suppress the conquered for years, this, more than a real peace, will be the continuation of war. Rather than restore order, this would create reciprocal distrust and permanent instability. The true victors would be the socialists, who laid bare the internal contradictions of the liberal-bourgeois order, preparing for a worldwide revolution. But for Paul Dudon of Études, the hard conditions of the peace of Versailles were a just punishment for Germany for having maliciously caused the outbreak of war, and the entire nation, with few exceptions, for allowing itself to be contaminated by the feverish desire for world domination. “The extreme punishment and the thirst for power that mark the prince and the military cast spread like a fever across the nation. Patriotic groups of
67.Ibid. 649. 68.Cf. “La conferenza della pace e i timori di nuove guerre,” in Civ.Catt. 1919 I 177-191; “L’ipocrisia della politica e il fallimento del congresso della pace,” ibid. 1919 III 3-15. JESUIT JOURNALS AND THE FIRST WORLD WAR all kinds, animated by the potent winds of the Pan-Germanic League, spread this evil to all levels of society: craftsmen and businessmen, farmers and industrial workers, professors and priests, Protestants and Catholics, deputies and electors, all believed with their whole heart in the German superman. Now, it is time to settle accounts.”69 Already in his Apostolic exhortation of July 28, 1915, one year after the beginning of the First World War, Benedict XV had written words that would be continuously cited in La Civiltà Cattolica throughout the war: “[R]emember that Nations do not die; humbled and oppressed, they chafe under the yoke imposed upon them, preparing a renewal of the combat, and passing down from generation to generation a mournful heritage of hatred and revenge.”70 History proved 49 the pope right.
69.P. Dudon, “L’Allemagne vue par deux Ambassadeurs Americains,” in Études 159 (1919) 580. 70.Benedict XV, Apostolic Exhortation Allorché fummo chiamati, in AAS VII (1915) 367. Is Stalinism Alive in Russia?
Vladimir Pachkov, SJ
Is the Russian secret service the proud heir of the Cheka? On February 25, 1956, in a closed door meeting of the 20th Congress of the Communist Party of the USSR, after much hesitation and argument with the head of the party, Nikita 50 Khrushchev gave his famous speech “on Stalin’s personality cult and its consequences,” thereby initiating the process of de-stalinization in the Soviet Union. This represents one of the greatest political successes of the 20th century if one thinks of the extreme violence, the total lack of rights, and the uncertainty that reigned under Stalin. The speech was supposed to remain secret and be presented only to the members of the Communist Party. It only became public through side channels. More than 60 years later, December 19, 2017, Alexander Bortnikov, director of the Security Service of the Russian Federation (FSB), also gave a speech. It was not secret. On the contrary, the aim was to have it read by the greatest possible number of people. It was an interview that he gave to the editor-in-chief of the official newspaper of the Russian government, Rossiyskaya Gazeta. The occasion was the 100th anniversary of the Security Service of the Russian Federation, founded with the name “Cheka” on December 20, 1917, less than two months after the rise to power of the Bolsheviks. Just as the speech of Khrushchev was a shock for the society of that time, so the speech of the FSB director has also been a shock today, at least for those in Russia who have heard about it or read it. It was the first time since the 20th Congress of the Party that an important representative of the government has tried not only to justify the repression, but in a certain sense to IS STALINISM ALIVE IN RUSSIA? present it as something positive. It has not happened since the time of Khrushchev’s speech. Under Leonid Brezhnev (leader of the USSR from 1964 to 1982), those in power remained completely silent about the repression and generally with regard to the personality of Stalin himself; they erased the deeds of the dictator from all the history books in order to avoid having to criticize him. Now, however, in the new Russia – which in 1991 chose the road of democracy, as it seemed at the time, and after the coup attempt of August 1991 destroyed the monument to Felix Dzerzhinsky, the founder of the Cheka – it has become possible that the killing of millions of innocent citizens of this country, perpetrated by the communist regime with the help of its Secret Services, be presented as something positive, or at least necessary “in the 51 particular circumstances of the time.” As Alexander Golz writes in his article “The heirs of the Cheka,” while Putin condemns every revolution, Bortnikov sings hymns to everything the organ of Bolshevik repression did in the defense of the “young Soviet Republic.” According to the FSB director, with regard to the repression and the murders directly caused by the Cheka in the first years of the Bolshevik regime, it could not have happened otherwise given the “circumstances of the beginning of the civil war and of the intervention, the collapse of the economy, the growth of criminality and terrorism … the strengthening of separatism.” According to Bortnikov, even the repression in the epoch of Stalin was not without reason. And if at times there were excesses, these ended when Lavrentiy Beria assumed the direction of the Secret Services. Bortnikov, however, ignores the purges that eliminated a large number of the officers of the Red Army, purges that took place largely under Beria. But the worst thing about this interview, according to Golz, is not the fact that Bortnikov repeats the same explanations used by criminals of the Soviet era, it is rather the fact that the director of the FSB, the organ that should have the responsibility for defending rights, tries to justify the perversions of justice and crimes as “historical necessities.” It is quite surprising that respect for rights and the law are not priorities in the VLADIMIR PACHKOV, SJ
organization born as the Cheka and now known as the FSB. Bortnikov eulogizes the provisions of the current FSB, not only those directed against terror and crime, but also those which have brought about the closing of more than 120 international and nongovernmental organizations on the grounds they might be instruments of foreign secret service agencies. One cannot exclude the possibility that this interview was thought of as programmatic, and that what has happened in the past may repeat itself in the critical international situation today, for reasons of state. It is interesting, however, that foreign media gave emphasis only to what Bortnikov said about the fight against Islamic terrorism.1 The interview released by the FSB director demonstrated 52 that it is still too early to leave to historians the question of state-sponsored terror against its own citizens. This organization now not only represents the center of the security apparatus in Russia, but also constitutes the nucleus of the political system – and today ever more of the economic system. This is the organization that considers itself heir to the Cheka, which was created 100 years ago to protect the Bolshevik regime. The response to this interview did not take long. Unfortunately, however, it arrived almost exclusively from intellectual circles and not from the people. More than 80 members of the organization “The Free Word” and the members of the Russian Academy of Sciences2 wrote an open letter, affirming that “this interview, in which terrorism against one’s own people is justified or praised, is not just one man’s private opinion, but is a significant step toward the rehabilitation of the activity of the Cheka and an attempt to approve even officially the re-stalinization that is already occurring in society.” The activities of state-sponsored terror, which caused the death of millions of innocent victims, are unacceptable. The consequences of such repression up until now have not been investigated; their judgment before the law is still awaited.
1.Cf. “4,500 Russians joined ‘terrorists’ abroad; security service chief,” in Japan Times, December 20, 2017, in https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2017/12/20/ world/4500-russians-joined-terrorists-abroad-security-service-chief#.W6M- wtZMzZ7M. 2.Cf. https://echo.msk.ru/blog/inliberty/2007878-echo. IS STALINISM ALIVE IN RUSSIA?
The declarations of the FSB director go hand in hand with the strong pressure exercised upon those who preserve the historical memory of the time of the repression and of its victims through organizations like Memorial or Perm-36. Alexander Dmitriev, the historian of Petrozavodsk (capital of the Republic of Karelia, on the border with Finland), has now been in protective custody for a year. A similar case is the attempt to find extremist contents in the book of Yuri Brodsky on the gulags of the Solovetsky Islands. “Bortnikov defines state-sponsored terror as excessive: this is an insult to the memory of all the victims of repression. We invite all those who do not want this to happen again to unite in protest. This must never happen again.” 53 Stalin and the ‘always’ authoritarian state The process of re-stalinization began in the 1990s. At that time, it seemed a folkloric phenomenon with older ladies and gentlemen in t-shirts bearing images of Stalin at demonstrations of the Communist Party. In that period, however, Stalin was celebrated only as the leader of the Soviet Union who had won World War II, but never as the butcher of the 1930s. Honoring Stalin as the victor of the Great Patriotic War is a relatively new phenomenon, and contradicts the way in which World War II and the Great Patriotic War were considered during the period of de-stalinization, begun with Khrushchev. Up until the death of Stalin, there was no celebration of victory; only after his disappearance did this holiday acquire great importance: it became one of the principal holidays, which in the conscience and the sentiments of the people has even obscured the holiday of the October Revolution. Moreover, the positive myth of the victory over Nazi Germany in World War II – “we are all victors” – permitted, in the period of de-stalinization in the 1960s, the achievement of peace between the regime (the executioner) and the people, above all the peasants, the victims of the Great Terror at the time of the revolution, the civil war, and then again of the collectivization. However, this complicated the process of VLADIMIR PACHKOV, SJ
elaboration and clarification of what had happened in the years of terror. This process is made even more difficult in the Soviet Union – and now in Russia – by the fact that a precise borderline did not exist between victims and executioners: both were citizens – or better yet, inhabitants, because the peasants in the epoch of Stalin were not citizens – of the same state and often the executioners then became victims. In the interview cited above, Bortnikov speaks of about 22,000 agents of the Secret Service, the Chekists, killed in the period of the Great Terror, many of whom, however, had previously participated in the terror. On the other hand, one must also say that with the elimination of the members of the Secret Service “the masterminds of the terror” tried to clear themselves “at 54 the expense of the executioners.” The peace between the state and the people, stipulated after the death of the dictator, did signify that the state had renounced recourse to violence in its own interests. Only it no longer meant “revolutionary” violence, but a violence that had to be used for the preservation of the state and the status quo. In this sense, the current situation is not much different from that of those times, at least as regards the attitude of the institutions that protect the state. What the FSB director describes as a necessity – something that justifies state-sponsored terror – is no longer class struggle or the needs of the political party, but the fight against the enemies of state, whoever they are. Everything that threatens the existence and interests of the state can and must be fought, even using extreme violence that is based on necessity and not on any law. This is very significant: what in fact counts is the openness to the use of violence. The causes that may justify it are various: class struggle, but also simply the necessity of preserving political stability. As regards those who initiated the Red Terror, “the communist experiment gave them a justification for the assassination of class enemies and all those who wanted to impede the victory of communism, even if it was not dictated by the communist experiment. The Bolsheviks, at the time of the civil war, and later in the time of Stalin, acted voluntarily IS STALINISM ALIVE IN RUSSIA? and used “necessity” as a justification for actions which should have only been necessary for them to preserve power. Stalin and his comrades no longer spoke of the most beautiful new world when they argued about what to do with presumed enemies of their regime: they spoke instead of techniques of violence. The dream of the communist redemption drowned in the blood of millions of people, because the violence was disassociated from its motivations, and the dictator associated it only with the objective of securing his power. In the end, everything was linked to the recognition of decision-making power, the power of Stalin to be master of life and death. Only in an atmosphere of paranoia and distrust was the despot able to impose his own will on others and to render his own world a world for everyone.”3 55 But one must also recognize that from the beginning of communist dominion – that is the epoch of Lenin and his followers – the situation was not much different: only that then the terror was supposed to consolidate the dictatorship of the entire party, and not of a single individual alone. With all of this, however, one does not wish to affirm that ideology did not also play a role. Violence may not only be justified retrospectively for the sake of an ideology, but also used beforehand as a motivation. The mobilization of the masses happened with the use of ideology, which made intolerance toward “enemies” a virtue. Once again, it does not matter if one speaks of class enemies or enemies of the state; finally, only the incapacity to accept others with their ideas and interests matters. “People are able to live together in diversity if they agree to consider the vision of the world of one another as a world as viable as their own, although different. Where the possibility that the others are in the right is denied, there is no longer balance. The Bolsheviks did not recognize any possibility of seeing the world in a balanced way: for them there was only one interpretation, and this they themselves represented. This
3.J. Baberowski, Verbrannte Erde. Stalins Herrschaft der Gewalt, München, C. H. Beck, 2012. VLADIMIR PACHKOV, SJ
is what created the tyrannical idea of the criminalization and stigmatization of all that did not match up with their project.”4 While under the czar there already was in Russia an authoritarian and repressive state, the Bolsheviks arrived at a level of violence without precedent. The tradition of the state’s repression against its citizens was taken to absurd lengths. Unlike the old czarist police, the newly founded organs of repression did not content themselves with maintaining the status quo and reducing violence to the minimum: on the contrary, violence itself became the principal instrument of politics. “They [the Bolsheviks] had no idea of the destructiveness of their cult of violence, because they did not keep it under 56 control. Rather, they fomented it in their subjects. In the Red Army, the recruits learned above all their principal duty: to kill. The soldier was courageous, with solid and brutal nerves. He knew only two worlds: that of friends and that of enemies. And the training in the army had to help him to recognize enemies and destroy them in a fight to the death. The Bolsheviks did not have the least idea of the traditional role of the armed forces and the secret police in repressing internal and external threats and in containing violence. The Bolshevik cult of killing created a systematic disinhibition of the soldiers. Thus the Bolsheviks became, in the memory of their subjects, the armed men who, when they appeared, brought death and destruction.”5 When therefore the FSB director speaks of the positive role of the Bolshevik secret police in suffocating the “excesses” of the violence of the extreme left, which was on the border of chaos and represented a threat to the Bolshevik state, he forgets that this type of violence was generated and encouraged by the founders of that state. In reality, it would be necessary to distinguish between the many attempts of the state to give a sense to much – if not all – of what happened in the past history of Russia (even when it was part of the Soviet Union)
4.Ibid., Der rote Terror. Die Geschichte des Stalinismus, München, Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, 2003. 5.Ibid., Verbrannte Erde..., cit. IS STALINISM ALIVE IN RUSSIA? and the attempt of the state to purify and re-evaluate some of the occurrences (including terror in the name of the state) with the aim of justifying today’s repressive measures. The interview with the FSB director constitutes a step in this second direction, but it is not the first attempt. We may remind ourselves of a history textbook published 10 years ago. It states that everything that is necessary for the interests of the state must also be supported by society; that the fact that in the 1930s millions of people were arrested and sent to the gulag was also out of necessity, because without the work of these slaves they would not be able to exploit the resources of Northern Russia, something industrialization required. At that time, the attempt to present the needs of state as a justification for the crimes of state met with failure: 57 it was more than the Russian people were able to accept. This history book was immediately taken out of circulation. But, as we can see, some representatives of today’s regime do not want to renounce the ideology of “what is good for the state is also right,” because it gives them the pretext for using the power of the state, even against the current opposition, when it is deemed necessary.
Stalin as a symbol of order and justice This pretense of those in government of having the right to use violence against the population whenever they consider it necessary would be difficult to imagine if signs of re-stalinization and justification of the repression had not also risen from the population and if there were not a certain basic openness to the acceptance of an omnipotent state which, if it is necessary, must pursue order and development with violence and repression. The last wave of clashes between those opposed to Stalinism and its defenders took place in 2013, on the occasion of the 70th anniversary of the siege of Stalingrad. At that moment, the name of Stalin was associated and almost identified with the victories of the people, and the dictator himself was presented as a representative of the people. One ought not to dismiss nostalgia for Stalin and his time as something unnatural and masochistic. During the era of VLADIMIR PACHKOV, SJ
Brezhnev, the entire government elite came to power following the annihilation of the old framework. They were the ones who profited from the terror and maintained the nostalgia for Stalin and his time up until the 1990s. The attempt to re-stalinize, so to speak, “from the bottom up” has a story of its own. The persons who in Russia – and above all in the Republics of the ex-Soviet Union – are more than 40 years old, can still remember what was said of Stalin in the 1970s and 1980s. In fact, one did not think of him at all. One knew his name and that he was the head of the Soviet Union after Lenin, and that in his times collectivization and industrialization took place. Nothing else. Stalin was neither venerated nor hated, perhaps with the exception of the families 58 of those who suffered during the repression. This was the result of the official policy of those times. After the period of de-stalinization following the 20th Congress of the Party, the political leadership at the time of Brezhnev thought it would be better, in a certain sense, to ignore Stalin. They did not want to criticize him, not only to avoid putting in question the entire system, but also because they themselves were those who truly profited from the terror, for whom Stalin had smoothed out the path to the top. At the same time, they did not want to glorify Stalin, at least not publicly. Stalin was not completely erased from history. His name was cited in an entirely neutral way: there had been a politician with that name, and that is all. This policy produced its fruits. The memories of Stalin, at least in the generations that grew up after the war, bit by bit disappeared: he became merely one of many historical figures. Things changed with Gorbachev and Perestroika. Information on the repression, the gulags, and all the rest was widely disseminated; it seemed that this second wave of de-stalinization would have been decisive. The crimes were unveiled, the criminals called by name, without any justification for what had been done. At the same time, however, as a consequence everyone learned the name of Stalin. The problem arose later when in 1992 the people who criticized Stalin rose to power and began to introduce reforms which, to IS STALINISM ALIVE IN RUSSIA? use a euphemism, were “not very popular” and only brought misery to the majority of the population. As a result, the architects of these reforms, who were at the same time the critics of Stalin, did not enjoy the favor of many Russians. For those for whom such reforms brought only difficulties, Stalin became an ever more popular rallying point for opposition. Their argument was: “In the old times, there was order. Now there is chaos; under Stalin this would never have been possible. Before there was social justice, and now the majority of the population lives in conditions of extreme poverty while some steal billions.” People who had not lived under Stalin and who knew him only through books and films began to respect him. Stalin was no longer a person who had really existed. No. He had become 59 a symbol of order and state power, in a period of chaos and humiliation. He was loved as a symbol, for what was projected upon him, and not for what he had really done. Legends about him and his times began to be recounted: under Stalin you lived as if in paradise. These myths are widespread even today. The problem is that the reformers do not want to admit that even they, if only partially, are responsible for this rebirth of Stalinism, because they have left to the Stalinists and to state power terms like “order,” “stability,” “justice.” As long as this happens, the repressive state will find support in a part of the population for the vindication of its right to exercise an excessive violence precisely in the “interests” of the state. In a poll conducted in Russia at the beginning of June 2017 by the Russian Center for Research in Public Opinion together with the Museum of the History of the Gulag and the Foundation Pamjat (which means “memory”), 72 percent of those interviewed declared that one ought to conserve the memory of the gulags and their victims. The opinion of 49 percent was that nothing can justify repression, but in the view of 42 percent Stalin was forced to bring about the repression. While 90 percent of those interviewed knew that at the time of Stalin many innocent people were arrested and executed, 24 percent of young people between the ages of 18 VLADIMIR PACHKOV, SJ
and 24 had never heard of this, a clear sign of how history is taught in the schools and universities. The majority of those interviewed were informed through TV documentaries or newspaper articles; some 48 percent spoke about it in their families and 24 percent declared that their own relatives underwent repression. Very disturbing is the fact that 16 percent of those interviewed think that the decisions taken by the courts in the times of Stalin were just (68 percent were not in agreement); among young people, 22 percent thought so. While 72 percent believe that it is right to speak about this terrible page of history, 22 percent – above all old people and once again, surprisingly, the younger generations – maintain that one ought not to speak about it, 60 because it might damage the reputation of the country.6 The fact that in the consciousness of Russian society Stalin and his epoch are indisputably connected with violence and mass murder demonstrates the acceptance of his personality and actions, and even the acceptance of state violence, which goes hand in hand with disdain for the law. The many who, as we have seen, feel nostalgia for the stability and justice of Stalin’s time are only one part of the larger number of those who try for various reasons to justify and rationalize Stalinism. 7 As Alexander Morozov writes on the site Echo Moskvy, again in the 1990s some authors appeared who inserted Stalin within the historical process: violence is simply inevitable. Stalinism would not be an unacceptable historical phenomenon. From this perspective, mass murder is not justified but rationalized: the authors of such arguments try to explain it with historical reasons. For the communists, the motivation was class struggle; after the disintegration of communism, this motivation was substituted by “reasons of state.” Such a discourse cannot be “patriotic”: violence represents only one function of any state, not just the Russian state. Other representatives of neo-Stalinism base themselves upon an absurd synthesis of orthodoxy and communism,
6.Cf. https://wciom.ru/index.php?id=236&uid=116323. 7.Cf. https://echo.msk.ru/blog/inliberty/2007878-echo. IS STALINISM ALIVE IN RUSSIA? which John Snycev and his followers expressed in the book Holy Russia and the Reign of the Dragon. It is an historical-civic approach to history: civilizations are born, flourish and die. The book holds that the Russian civilization had its period of flourishing with Stalin. The millions of victims are completely forgotten, while one speaks willingly of industrialization, victory in World War II and the role of Russia as one of the two world powers of that time, something that had never happened before. These arguments, even without explicitly citing Stalin, can be sustained by state propaganda, in the sense that a momentary position of strength on the world scene and the greatness of the state may be established at the cost of sacrifices within the country, even if such a price does not 61 necessarily have to be blood. The more classical neo-Stalinism has already been mentioned: Stalin is brought up as a symbol of justice, order and everything positive that is expected from the state. This neo-Stalinism has its followers, above all among the elderly, who have canceled the memory of the horror they and their parents lived through: they stubbornly affirm that with Stalin everything was better, above all the “order” they feel is lacking, at least beginning from the time of Perestroika (“the savage 1990s”). Lately a new perspective has been affirmed. It presents the history of Russia as the history of tragedy and violence that the people have had to undergo because this was their destiny. To accept Russia would mean therefore to accept the inevitability of the suffering of the Russian people: the victims of the regime become (implicitly) martyrs. One might remember also the so-called “neo-Stalinist polemic.” This is utilized only to defeat adversaries in the public debate. This variant of neo-Stalinism does not have its own ideology, but only empty words: “Stalin created Ukraine within its current borders”; “Others were still worse (for example, Truman, who ordered atomic bombs to be dropped on Japan)”. Although not having as its objective the rehabilitation of Stalin and of his policies, this rhetoric contributes undeniably to the acceptance of the dictator among the people. VLADIMIR PACHKOV, SJ
Although the vast majority of Russians are opposed to these attempts to rehabilitate Stalin and his regime, creeping re-stalinization should not be overlooked, a process which began from below and is now used by the state for its own purposes. The danger of this phenomenon should not be underestimated, because the justification of the crimes of the regime committed in the name of reasons of state or in the name of order and social justice makes possible that what happened once may repeat itself. The best thing for combating neo-Stalinism and every other form of nostalgia for totalitarianism is to demonstrate that order, stability and justice may exist even in a liberal state that respects the rights of its citizens and is at their service.8 62
8.On October 30, 2017, speaking at the ceremony for the inauguration of the “Wall of Sorrow,” a new monument in Moscow dedicated to the victims of Soviet repression, President Putin defined the repression of the Soviet epoch “a tragedy for the Russian people” that “cannot in any way be justified, by any so- called ‘good of the people.’” Cf. ria.ru/politics/20171030/150784. Kakichi Kadowaki: The inculturation of Christianity in Japanese culture
Tomás García-Huidobro, SJ The inculturation of Christianity in Japan has not been an easy process. Its history is full of encounters and contrasts, conflicts and compromises. Among the reasons for this difficult history is the complexity and uniqueness of Japanese culture. If Shintoism is Japan’s traditional religion 63 and the one with the most adherents, Buddhism has taken root and developed in several schools that have permeated arts, architecture, literature and culture in general. One of its branches is Zen Buddhism, divided into three schools: Rinzai, Sōtō and Obaku. This is the context the first Christian missionaries found when they arrived in Japan. Their presence provoked a twofold reaction. On the one hand, it aroused admiration due primarily to European technical progress, especially in the art of war. On the other hand, Japanese people flaunted their contempt for a culture they considered barbaric and not high enough. These two reactions explain the attitude the Japanese kept toward the West even into the 20th century. The Jesuit priest Kakichi Kadowaki (1926-2017) demonstrated the finest traditions of the Society of Jesus in its effort to inculturate the Gospel in the complexity of Japanese culture. He was a man of exquisite sensibility, highly intelligent, and aware of the deep contradictions between Japan and Western culture. He was born in Japan in 1926. Although his family was poor his parents did their best to give a good education to their son. And this pushed Kadowaki to particularly value excellence in education. His first contact with the Zen tradition occurred when he was attending public secondary school in Shizuoka, famous for its TOMÁS GARCÍA-HUIDOBRO, SJ
training methods. Many of his teachers were Zen practitioners, and some of them had a deep influence on him, guiding his life. Among them, Fr. Kadowaki remembered especially his teachers Ozaki and Mishi. Teachers used to bring their students to Zen temples where they spent several days dedicated to educational sessions. These experiences deeply affected the young Kadowaki and were decisive for the formation of his personality. However, things began to change thanks to his older brother, whom he considered charming, smart and possessed of a great spirit of initiative and foresight. This explains how the conversion to Catholicism of his older brother had a strong impact on the young Kakichi, who began 64 to ask questions about Christianity though without thinking of abandoning the Zen tradition. However, a dramatic event led him to a crisis point: the death of his brother during World War II due to an infection contracted in his military base on one of the Pacific islands. This crisis of the young Kakichi was provoked by the way his brother died, entrusting himself totally to the Christian God. That example of deep and genuine faith touched his heart and urged him to consider becoming a Christian. His conversion emulated the experience of this brother he deeply admired. Kakichi became Christian at the end of secondary school while preparing to enroll in college. Even if he was not aware of it, the experience of Zen practice at school and the conversion to Catholicism through the example of his brother had already impressed upon him the unbridgeable yearning that would characterize his life: bringing together Christianity and Zen practice. After three years of college, Kadowaki entered the Society of Jesus in 1950. His master of novices was Fr. Pedro Arrupe, who would become the Superior General of the Jesuits from 1965 to 1981, renewing the Society of Jesus in line with modern times and particularly embodying the spirit of the Second Vatican Council. Kadowaki always admired the austerity, discipline and profound spirituality of Fr. Arrupe, who as a doctor treated victims of the Hiroshima atomic bomb. It was a heroism in KAKICHI KADOWAKI front of which the young novice could not remain indifferent. He was proud that this religious man was his master during the novitiate. Paradoxically, as he proceeded in studies in the Society of Jesus, Kakichi was increasingly moving away from that Japanese soul he had very much appreciated. This was not easy for him. He expressed it in these words: “I was worried about the lack of balance between my intellectual knowledge and my religious experience.”1 Aware of this, he repeatedly asked his superiors for permission to practice Zen, but it was not granted at that time. Nevertheless, in the years of formation in Kyoto he used to listen to the stories of Fr. Lassalle on his experience of zazen2 practice. 65 The Jesuit priest Hugo Enomiya-Lassalle was a pioneer of the study and practice of Zen. He studied and practiced Zen under several important masters, obtaining significant awards from them. He was convinced that the practice of zazen one day would prove to be very important for Christian spirituality. In fact, he used to say that it made his Christian prayer much deeper and alive. To hear such a statement only increased in Kakichi the desire to practice Zen as a way to unite with God. It was at that moment that he vowed to himself that, if he found a way to do so, he would be wholeheartedly dedicated to Zen practice. Kadowaki took the first step in this direction at the beginning of his studies of theology when he sought to attend the Heirin temple in Nobidome and to ask the master Keizan Shirozuke to instruct him in Zen. But his superior denied him permission. Therefore, he had to settle for an education on
1.J. K. Kadowaki, Zen and the Bible, New York, Orbis Books, 2002, 36. 2.Zazen is a meditative discipline that changes meaning and method depending on the school, but it can be generally regarded as a means to deepen the nature of existence. In the Japanese Rinzai school, zazen is usually associated with the study of kōan. The kōan is a paradoxical anecdote, or a question that does not find solution. It is used in Zen Buddhism to demonstrate the inadequacy of logical reasoning, and therefore leads to the practice of enlightenment. On the experience of Fr. Lassalle, see also W. Waldenfels, “The Practice of Zen and Christian Meditation,” in Civ. Catt. English October 2017. TOMÁS GARCÍA-HUIDOBRO, SJ
the practice of zazen, which he began to practice every day in his room for an hour. Years later he would recognize: “In Christian meditation reason and imagination are often used, and this seemed odd when I began to use the Zen method. When I prayed, I was used to put myself before God with an attitude of reverence. Therefore, sitting with my legs bent seemed a bit irreverent. However, when I made progress in Zen practice, I found that it fit very well to the Christian prayer.”3 Kadowaki was ordained a priest in Tokyo in 1960. Between 1962 and 1964 he wrote his doctoral thesis in philosophy at the Pontifical Gregorian University on cognitio secundum connaturalitatem in St. Thomas Aquinas. His collaboration with 66 two professors, Joseph de Finance and Bernard Lonergan, was very rewarding. After completing his doctorate he spent almost a year studying psychology at Fordham University in the United States. In 1965 he was appointed professor of philosophical anthropology at Sophia University in Tokyo. In 1966 his article titled “Ways of Knowing: a Buddhist-Thomistic Dialogue” was published in the International Philosophical Quarterly and had a great influence on interfaith dialogue between Christianity and Buddhism. However, from the beginning he was struck by the fact that for his students it was difficult to understand his lessons. At that time, he could not explain this fact. After all, his long intellectual training at several universities allowed him to become a good teacher. We will see that he would later understand the problem. Finally, after the Second Vatican Council, his superiors allowed him to start practicing Zen. His Zen training began in 1969 with Fr. Hugo Enomiya-Lassalle, who had just opened in Akigawa – the western part of the metropolitan Tokyo’s area – a meditation room called “the cave of the divine darkness.” For Fr. Kadowaki this was an intense practical and intellectual education. Hours of exercises provoked in him a change in his way of thinking about theology and spirituality. It was as if he had reconciled with his Japanese roots.
3.J. K. Kadowaki, Zen and the Bible, op. cit., 7. KAKICHI KADOWAKI
Only then, when Zen practice began to affect his way of thinking, did Kadowaki understand why for his students it was so difficult to follow his lectures. He realized that there was a great distance between his Western way of teaching philosophy and the way of thinking of his Japanese students. Therefore, he found himself facing the atavistic problem: is it possible to inculturate Christianity, with all its rational theological categories, in the Japanese soul? This experience led him to further explore Zen. Kadowaki continued his training, practicing zazen and experiencing the different meanings of the various kōan under the supervision of the prestigious roshi (master) Omori Sogen, who was president of Hanazono, Kyoto’s famous Rinzai school. He was eventually recognized as Zen master from his roshi, according 67 to Rinzai tradition. In this biographical reconstruction it should also be mentioned that in 1982 Fr. Kadowaki was instructor of the third year of probation of the Jesuits in Japan.4 He taught philosophy at Sophia University until 1996. For him it was very important to share his experience on Zen and Christianity with his Jesuit brothers. He did so through annual retreats, until he got sick in 2016. He died on July 27, 2017. Kadowaki was truly Japanese; he loved and admired the rich culture of his country. He never repudiated it. In this sense he acknowledged that Zen is inseparable from it. His synthesis between Zen and Christianity was not only the result of an intellectual effort. First of all, it was a practice that brought the reality of Scripture into a new dimension, the Japanese one, which adds to the understanding of Christianity. He was dedicated to creating a hermeneutic perspective according to which the approach to the Bible is based on a meditative-physical reading inspired by his practice of zazen. As we shall see, this was his original contribution to dialogue between Christianity and Japanese-style Zen. It is the biblical insight that underlies the Christian Zen practiced by master Kadowaki.
4.The “third year of probation,” also known as tertianship, is the final stage of the Jesuit formation before professing final vows. TOMÁS GARCÍA-HUIDOBRO, SJ
The first steps to understanding Kadowaki’s practice To understand the way Kadowaki read the Bible we must begin with this verse from the Book of Genesis: “The Lord God formed a man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being” (Gen 2:7). Man is only dust of the ground, which becomes a living creature thanks to the breath of life breathed into him by God. In other words, man is essentially mortal. Therefore, God can tell man after his sin: “For you were made from dust, and to dust you will return” (Gen 3:19). The idea of human mortality and the fragility of life, like a breath, is present throughout the Bible.5 For Kadowaki, all these passages express a concrete human experience: our existence is 68 precarious and depends on God alone. Existence is a dynamic and uncertain breath that reminds us we are mortal, that life and death are in God’s hands. We cannot separate these two aspects, life and death, because they are united as parts of the same creative activity of God. All life and death belong to God and are part of the divine work of creation. In this way of thinking Kadowaki follows one of the greatest Japanese philosophers of 20th century, a man he greatly admired: Kitaro Nishida (1870-1945), the forerunner of what has been called “the philosophical school of Kyoto,”6 who devoted much of his philosophy to interreligious dialogue between Christianity and Buddhism. In fact, most of the reflections and
5.For example, Isaiah says, “All people are like grass, and all their faithfulness is like the flowers of the field. The grass withers and the flowers fall, because the breath of the Lord blows on them. Surely the people are grass” (Isaiah 40:6-7). And the Psalmist says: “When you hide your face, they are terrified; when you take away their breath, they die and return to the dust. When you send your Spirit, they are created, and you renew the face of the ground” (Psalm 104: 29- 30). Among many other examples, Job’s passage is remarkable: “The Spirit of God has made me; the breath of the Almighty gives me life. Answer me then, if you can; stand up and argue your case before me. I am the same as you in God’s sight; I too am a piece of clay” ( Job 33: 4-6). 6.Kitaro Nishida, Pensar desde la nada. Ensayos de filosofía oriental, Salamanca, Sígueme, 2015. His works have been published in Italian: L’io e il tu, Padua, Unipress, 1996; Uno studio sul bene, Turin, Boringhieri, 2007; La logica del luogo e la visione religiosa del mondo, Palermo, L’Epos, 2005; Luogo, Milan - Udine, Mimesi, 2012. KAKICHI KADOWAKI the Zen experience of Fr. Kadowaki are a manifestation of the thought of this illustrious Japanese philosopher, who has deeply influenced hisroshi Omori Sogen. The most famous concept in Nishida’s philosophy is the logic of basho (場所, usually translated as “place”): a non- dualistic, concrete logic, aimed at overcoming the inadequacy of the subject-object distinction – which is essential to Aristotle’s logic of the subject and Kant’s logic of the predicate – through the affirmation of what he calls the “absolutely contradictory self-identity,” a dynamic tension of opposites that, unlike the dialectical logic of Hegel, does not resolve to a synthesis. Rather, it defines its own subject by maintaining the tension between affirmation and negation as opposite poles or perspectives. Nishida wrote: “The authentic religious 69 experience is realized consciously, first of all when the very existence of the self becomes problematic and being itself becomes a question.”7 The question is raised by the fact that although God is the only absolute, we are alive right now. How is it possible to understand this inconsistency? According to Nishida, first we have to deal with the contradiction, and then we realize that the real Absolute must be an identity of absolute contradiction. Then, the paradox lies in the fact that when we speak of God and his creatures, we are saying that God, being an Absolute, contains a contradiction in himself. God is an absolute being who has his own self-denial, which is the true identity of the relative. The Absolute does not destroy the relative. On the contrary, he possesses himself and sees himself in his absolute negation. Nishida acknowledged an analogy between the self- contradictory God and the kenotic movement described by St. Paul in Philippians 2:5-8. This kenotic movement descends from divinity upon the cross, and from there into the darkest areas of the human heart. It means that God is present even in the heart of the most evil person.
7.Ibid., Pensar desde la nada..., op. cit., 42. TOMÁS GARCÍA-HUIDOBRO, SJ
Although one should be careful when making analogies between the thought of Nishida and Christianity, it is possible to see many other analogies of this kenotic movement of God in the Bible8 and in the Christian spiritual tradition. The thought of Nishida is difficult to understand as it requires many years of study and dedication. Kadowaki was proud to have understood an important part of this philosophical system. Ideas like the one that God acts through his absolute self-denial, and creation explained as a succession of death and life, were important insights for his understanding of Zen.
Master Kadowaki’s practice of zazen 70 For Fr. Kadowaki, biblical experiences should be lived physically. The practice of Zen requires that we become aware of the fact that we have a body and consider the unity of body and mind. Posture is crucial to achieve this union during the practice of zazen. The correct posture is the Half Lotus Pose, true entry to Zen practice, and then to what Kadowaki called “the Bible experience according to a physical reading.” Sitting in Half Lotus Pose, we cut the root of awareness and we don’t follow the path of intellectual understanding. This is to welcome the body, regulating breathing and harmonizing the heart.9 Learning through the body is essential to Zen. In his book Zen and the Bible, Fr. Kadowaki quotes the great Zen master Dogen: “It is good to reflect calmly. This life is short, but if we also learn two or three sentences of Buddha and the Patriarchs, they really manifest Buddha and the Patriarchs ... Therefore,
8.For example, we can speak of God’s preference for the least ones. From the beginning God rejects Cain’s eldest son’s rights in favor of younger Abel. The same happens with Ishmael, in favor of younger Isaac, and Esau in favor of younger Jacob. Actually, the very origin of Israel is that they are chosen despite being the last. Among the many examples of the New Testament, in John’s Gospel we see that Jesus washes the disciples’ feet, including those of Judas, as an expression of his love until the end (see John 13:1-20). 9.Cf. J. K. Kadowaki, Hermenéutica Pneumática de la Biblia (personal notes by Fr. Kadowaki, 2010), 34. KAKICHI KADOWAKI if we study those words and sentences with our whole body and mind, the body-mind of Buddha and of the Patriarchs get hold of us.”10 Fr. Kadowaki invites us to breathe deeply and slowly to and from the bottom of our abdomen (hara), so that our minds will calm. The expulsion of all breath from the bottom of the hara causes a whole new breath. By getting your breath to the tandem (the lower part of the abdomen) – and as one improves in it – a deep breathing emerges from the bottom of the hara. It is as if something emerges as a new life from the foundation. Then a new breath (life) is inhaled throughout the body and heart and pervades them completely. Therefore, the focus of our attention is the tandem. From there we inhale and exhale, noticing the contraction and 71 expansion of the tandem. If we continue to breathe in this way (by expelling all air and inhaling from the bottom of the hara) the tension releases, and a deep and quiet breath comes out of the tandem. So, the whole body is not only invigorated by vital energy but is filled with “life,” and all the faculties of the body and heart are enlivened.11 In the words of Kadowaki: “From this we can understand that zazen is an unrivalled method to release the tremendous strength inherently possessed by all men.”12 The entire body therefore takes on new energy and is full of life. It is time to go back to the second chapter of the Book of Genesis: “Then the Lord God formed a man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being” (Gen 2:7). The fact that man (adam) and Earth (adama) have a common etymological root is not accidental. This implies a close connection between man and earth. God created man from the dust and decided he had
10.Ibid., Zen and the Bible, op. cit., 113. To underline the importance of this physical interpretation of religious insights, Kadowaki also quotes the Buddhist teacher Nichiren, who wrote: “When others read the Lotus Sutra they prefer the words, but do not read with the mind. And if they read with the mind, they do not read with the body. Reading with your body and mind is higher” (ibid., 117). 11.Cf. J. K. Kadowaki, Hermenéutica..., op. cit., 35. 12.Ibid., Zen and the Bible, op. cit., 16. TOMÁS GARCÍA-HUIDOBRO, SJ
to go back to earth. “Dust” is a word that symbolically expresses the poor value of human existence. It is our being aware of being nothing. Experiencing in the hara the reality that “I am dust and to dust I will return,” the person totally exhales toward earth the breath of life. Wanting to become one with God’s creative activity, the human being totally exhales his breath. This is the way of the body to accept God’s will, which creates from the dust of the ground. One should not reflect on the fact that a human being is like the dust of the ground, but simply acknowledge this fact with the body. For Kadowaki, we inhale the breath of life according to the Scripture: God “breathed into his nostrils the breath 72 of life, and the man became a living being” (Gen 2:7). This breath of life is an invisible force, invisible to the eye as vital energy and spirit. This inspiration is like an experience of true devotion to God, in whom we recognize life as his fundamental gift. The breath of life is the spiritual power that instills the inhalation and gives life to things. It is God who gives us life in our whole body (beginning with the tandem). The two dimensions – being ground’s dust and being alive thanks to the spirit of life – are two sides of the same coin, and part of God’s creative activity. It is life and death, expression of the self-denial of the Absolute, who gives himself time to time in his creative and gratuitous action.
* * *
Fr. Kadowaki opens his book Zen and the Bible with these words: “Apparently, it sounds strange, but I am not aware of doing anything out of the ordinary. I acted simply based on a deep impulse, which then became a sort of duty. Therefore, when people ask me that question, I don’t know how to answer. I’m hesitating not because I lack a reason, but because there are many and I don’t know which single one would strike closest to the truth.”13
13.Ibid., 3. KAKICHI KADOWAKI
However, this impression that Kadowaki had of his experience did not correspond to reality. Not surprisingly, many great Zen masters of Japan often went to see him to ask him for advice. Kadowaki was a demanding master who took very seriously the practice of zazen. He represented one of the most original and profound ways of inculturation of the Japanese Zen tradition and Christianity.
73 The Cracks in Secularization
Giandomenico Mucci, SJ
One speaks today of two sociological categories, of which the second, desecularization, indicates the overcoming of the first, secularization. The theory of secularization appeared at the beginning of the 1900s on the basis of the thought of Auguste 74 Comte, Émile Durkheim and Max Weber, and has dominated the analysis of religion in the Western world. It is founded on the thesis that the processes of modernization and development of the experimental sciences and technology inevitably bring about the rise of atheistic or religiously neutral societies. Beginning in the 1990s, Peter Ludwig Berger, followed by many other sociologists, philosophers of religion, anthropologists and historians of ideas, began to criticize the validity of the theory of secularization, moved by a greater interest in the various forms of religion and the growing importance of religious issues in the public sector.1 Today, in many countries the debate over religion does not principally concern the rejection or the negation of its rationality or credibility, but rather the return of old irrational, magical or mythical “religious” phenomena now dressed up in new clothing. This does not mean that in the West the processes of desecularization have overcome those of secularization, which remain tenacious even now. It means, instead, that something new and different is developing in secular society.
1.Cf. P. L. Berger, “The Desecularization of the World. A Global Overview,” in Ibid. (ed.), The Desecularization of the World. Resurgent Religion and World Politics, Washington D.C., Ethics and Public Policy Center, 1999, 1-18; V. Karpov, “Desecularization: A Conceptual Framework,” in Journal of Church and State 52/2 (2010) 232-270. THE CRACKS IN SECULARIZATION
The secular person A Bach chorale solemnly affirms that man’s place is next to God,2 an affirmation which is ever true for believers. And for others? At a glance, one would say that a sense of the transcendent, which Christianity attributes to the living God, is not part of the cultural logic, which maintains a sense of the transcendent to be insignificant in the light of reason and human freedom. Recently, commenting on a book by Roberto Colasso, Giorgio Montefoschi wrote: “Contemporary society looks at itself. Not beyond. Ever. And it is satisfied, or rather despairs, thus. With the definitive and insurmountable measuring of its boundaries, beyond which nothing exists, much less the divine; with the crowding and concentration within these boundaries of 75 all the disciplines that serve to establish the useful, to annihilate doubt, and homogenize certitude, to guarantee control; with an encyclopedic knowledge, limitless, accessible by the pressing of a button, which is not knowledge at all, because it excludes the effort of knowing and the dialectic of the mind; finally, with the assurances of progressivism and humanitarianism: the obligation of being, above all, good here and now, sacrosanct and praiseworthy, without thinking of what is beyond, of the future life.”3 When Salvatore Settis criticizes the institutions of the European Union inasmuch as they make the market the only certitude, the only domain able to regulate society in all its facets, it seems to us to highlight a particular case produced by secular society.4 This culture reverberates even in large sections of the ecclesial world, and it could not be otherwise. There it manifests itself as a mentality that, without making too many distinctions, demands the autonomy of subjective judgment, passing off as hypocrisy and prejudice even references to
2.Cf. J. S. Bach, Weihnachtsoratorium, Schluβ – Choral, n. 64 (“Bei Gott hat seine Stelle / Das menschliche Geschlecht”). 3.G. Montefoschi, “Ma riaffiora di continuo la nostalgia del sacro,” in Corriere della Sera, September 27, 2017, 39. 4.Cf. S. Settis, “L’Europa disarcionata,” in Il Sole 24 Ore, May 21, 2017, 23. GIANDOMENICO MUCCI, SJ
transcendence and the norms and values proposed in the name of the Gospel. There exists even in the Church the temptation of believing only in the “ethics of the subject,” as Danièle Hervieu-Léger5 has defined it. These are the ethics that teach that pre-constituted values do not exist. The only values that exist are those that the subject and the society it lives in choose and assume in their responsible autonomy.6
Lost and maladjusted The culture and the society shaped by the secular mentality have created in many people, even Catholics, quite persistent phenomena of disorientation and maladjustment. The Second Vatican Council clearly predicted this when it spoke of a “new 76 period of history” and of “such an acceleration as to be only with difficulty kept up with by individuals.”7 The quality of being maladjusted, with the psychological, moral and religious difficulties it brings to light, produces various reactions, of which three are most easily recognizable. There are those who deny modern historical development and hide because of fear behind prepackaged phrases and simplistic ideas: for example, “these are superficial changes”; “the young have always been rebels”; “the more things change the more they stay the same”; and similar sayings. There are those who stay closed in their own professional bubble, with the excuse of staying updated in their specialty, and so they close themselves off to all the rest, yet they are convinced that they are in touch with the times. Then there are those who live obsessively focused on the past and, waiting for its impossible or unlikely return, speak out bitterly, deploring the wickedness of the present age.8 To this last category, which encompasses many ecclesiastical and lay intellectuals, a worthy journalist many years ago referred in the following terms: “Culture, erudition are certainly gifts,
5.Cf. D. Hervieu-Léger, Catholicisme, la fin d’un monde, Paris, Bayard, 2003. 6.Cf. G. Pecora, “Alla conquista del relativismo etico,” in Il Sole 24 Ore, January 28, 2018, 25. 7.Second Vatican Ecumenical Council, Gaudium et Spes, Nos. 4-5. 8.Cf. E. Baragli, “Lo choc del futuro,” in Civ. Catt. 1977 IV 360-362. THE CRACKS IN SECULARIZATION but they may also constitute a limitation in comprehending the times, when culture and erudition remain anchored to historical premises now overcome: there is no more rigid conservatism than that which is based on reasonable premises, if those premises are part of an entire historical structure upon which the sun has set. Every new epoch demands new intellectual tools.”9
Having second thoughts? As we were saying, the processes of secularization are not extinct. Among them, the most fearful are individualism and indifference. And the pope never ceases to put us on guard against the “globalization of indifference.” The greatest danger is constituted by the evolving of secularization into secularism, or indeed into a global form of a makeshift religion which 77 alone would give sense to human life and its endeavors: which would itself have the values promoted by modernity (liberty, emancipation, progress, etc.) if they should be radicalized, daring not to recognize their own limits. It is significant that from within modernity itself, voices are multiplying which speak of anxiety and insecurity over the much-feared next steps of culture. Cardinal Jozef De Kesel, archbishop of Mechelen-Brussels, quotes Jürgen Habermas, who is an atheist philosopher but who speaks of “post-secular modernity,” a formula which expresses the hope that in the contemporary public debate reasoning deriving from religious experience be included and those “storehouses of values” which exist in civil society also through the efforts of the churches be re-evaluated.10 Also significant is the position of another non-believing thinker, Günther Anders-Stern (1902-1992), known for having denounced the “pretensions for dominion of a progress whose materialistic consequences have led to a collapse of the human before the imminent ungovernability of technology.” As one expert writes, in his philosophy one finds a “religiosity without religion,” with which “he tries in the first place to determine the
9.A. Scurani, “Cattolicesimo in decomposizione,” in Letture 24 (1969) 713. 10.Cf. J. De Kesel, “Un nuovo ruolo per le religioni nella società post- secolare,” in Vita e Pensiero 100 (2017) 15-22. GIANDOMENICO MUCCI, SJ
mutations which the world and humanity have undergone as a result of ‘becoming hypertechnological’ – changes so radical as to be grasped only by means of ‘theological concepts’ – and then to attribute to such processes as the obsolescence of humanity and the deterioration of the relationship with nature that solemn seriousness which they merit for their final character. This seriousness, however, is not recognized as such by the indolence of contemporary people, whose emotional, moral, and cognitive capacities are not up to the changes which they contribute to bringing about.”11 In short, in the secular city, the monolithic block by which it is represented and still exists, becomes cracked and appears to crumble, which gives justification to those observers who speak 78 of “desecularization.” By analogy, while we are well aware that it relates to different fields, there comes to mind a debate stirred up in Italy by an article of Ernesto Galli della Loggia that was published 30 years ago in a well-known daily paper.12 According to this essayist, after the defeat of communism, the renewed dynamism of Catholicism, and the general rebirth in a big way of religious ideals, “the whole of the secular values of a liberal-progressivist bent has been undergoing a strong attack ever since their substantial hegemony was established throughout the West. The impression, however, is that they are unable to change their defensive stance, that they do not know how to react unless by quietly re-proposing themselves hic et nunc, with a certain irritable self-sufficiency, which tends almost to suggest that the question of values, which has for some time has been stirring up our society, is itself no longer legitimate.” This question is “connatural to human nature,” and therefore “the secular liberal-progressive thought should recognize that, for reasons which to a certain degree are bound to the theoretical foundations of society themselves, once transferred to the level of the historical praxis of society at large, tend too easily to
11.D. Colombo, “La teologia atomica di Günther Anders,” 25. 12.Cf. E. Galli della Loggia, “Mea culpa di un laico,” in La Stampa, September 28, 1988, 1f. THE CRACKS IN SECULARIZATION become and to be felt as a simple ideology of total tolerance and ethical indifferentism. Those of a secular bent have up until now occupied themselves too little with this danger.” He continues: “No society can live and hold itself together only aiming at the growth of its income or occupying itself only with its optimal distribution. But in this way it easily exposes itself to the accusation, on the one hand, of being the bearer of an intimately ‘materialist’ vision of the world and, on the other hand, of being objectively responsible for a social- political reductio of the perspectives and problems of the lives of individuals: that is, of tending to impose, always and in every way in society and the state, the future not only of every expression, but also of every personal Bildung [the German tradition of self- cultivation]”. And part of the emerging question about values is 79 “the need for final certainties, of values stamped with the mark of the eternal,” which democratic-progressivist secularism “is unable, moreover, to satisfy.” Desecularization is a concept that entered into the cultural debate not long ago but, as the article cited shows, albeit from a mostly social and political point of view, it has been the case for some time that within the secular city one recognizes the distrust of some of its premises and results, among which are numbered individualism and indifference to ethics. There are doubts, questions and cracks that permit us a lot of hope. “If Providence wishes to aid us one more time, it will only do so by raising up among us people gifted with a lucidity adapted to the circumstances and a courage equal to their farsightedness.”13
13.L. Bouyer, Cattolicesimo in decomposizione, Brescia, Morcelliana, 1969, 20. Work and the Dignity of Workers: An interview with Cardinal Peter K. A. Turkson
Francesco Occhetta, SJ
Work is a central theme in the pontificate of Francis. In Evangelii Gaudium (EG), he uses four words to describe it: “free, creative, participatory and mutually supportive” (EG 192).1 This is a foundational, programmatic statement that Bergoglio had 80 already made in Buenos Aires in June 2003, commenting on the encyclical on work by St. John Paul II, Laborem Exercens (September 14, 1981). To explore the theme of work in a universal perspective we spoke to Cardinal Peter Kodwo Appiah Turkson, prefect of the Dicastery for the Promotion of Integral Human Development. His experience and his role within the Church are a testament to his authority: born in Wassaw-Nsuta on October 11, 1948, he is the first native Ghanaian cardinal; ordained metropolitan archbishop of Cape Coast in 1993, he was president of the Ghana Catholic Bishops’ Conference (1997-2004), relator for the Synod of Bishops for Africa (2009), and president of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace (2009-2016).
Your Eminence, according to Scripture, work is the participation of humans in the “creative act” of God. How do you define the dignity of work and of the worker within the social doctrine of the Church? The Old Testament presents God as omnipotent Creator, who makes humankind in his own image, and tasks them with working the land and taking care of the Garden of Eden, where they have been placed. God invites them to cultivate and cherish what he has created, and what they have
1.On the topics of this interview, cf. also F. Occhetta, Il lavoro promesso. Libero, creativo, partecipativo e solidale, Milano – Roma, Àncora – La Civiltà Cattolica, 2017. WORK AND THE DIGNITY OF WORKERS received as a precious gift, for which the Creator has made them responsible. Work is part of the original condition of humanity, preceding the fall; therefore, it is neither a curse nor a punishment. It becomes an effort and a source of suffering due to the sin of Adam and Eve, who break their trusting and harmonious relationship with God. Work, therefore, is part of God’s design for humanity since Creation, and is an integral part of human dignity. When we talk about the dignity of work, we must take a step back and consider the dignity of the worker, who is the architect of the work itself. The social doctrine of the Church recognizes an objective component to work, defined as the labor that is brought into being, and a subjective component, constituted by the worker as a human person. The subjective 81 dimension of work must take precedence over the objective, because it is the person who brings work into being. The subject of labor is the human person – created in God’s image and likeness, in unity of body and spirit, singular and unique. Depending on whether the dignity of the working person is respected in the context of employment, we talk of work that is decent and human or, on the contrary, indecent and inhuman. In Caritas in Veritate (CV), Benedict XVI defined decent employment as “work that expresses the essential dignity of every man and woman in the context of their particular society: work that is freely chosen, effectively associating workers, both men and women, with the development of their community” (CV 63).
Today, according to the Church, what are the social and political obstacles that prevent employment from being decent? As Pope Francis recalled in his video message for the 48th Italian Catholic Social Week,2 “not all employment is decent.” There are jobs that humiliate people’s dignity: those that feed wars by producing weapons, that undercut the value of the human body by trafficking in prostitution, that exploit children
a 2.Cf. Ibid., “La 48 Settimana sociale dei cattolici italiani,” in Civ. Catt. 2017 IV 370-377. FRANCESCO OCCHETTA SJ
and young people. The dignity of work is also offended by illegal employment, employment managed by gangs, or employment that discriminates against women and excludes people with disabilities. Recently, in Taiwan, I took part in the 14th World Congress of the Apostleship of the Sea, where it emerged that many people work on ships in conditions that resemble slavery: they work on board for extended periods of time without being able to disembark; they are paid inadequately and live in precarious conditions of health. This is why we have invited governments to carry out more stringent checks on ships arriving in their ports, to ensure that workers are genuinely guaranteed decent conditions.
82 The social doctrine of the Church has been part of the Magisterium since the encyclical Rerum Novarum (1891) by Leo XIII, who denounced the exploitation of workers, low salaries and child labor. What direction should we focus on, in the wake of the recent economic crisis that has compromised the lives of many workers? The view of humanity that dominated the economic vision of the past few decades – the one that culminated in the financial and economic crisis of 2007-2008, from which we are recovering slowly and with great effort – inverted the balance between the objective and subjective dimensions of work. Of paramount importance in the world of finance was the achievement of efficiency, result, profit in the shortest time possible; of secondary importance were the working hours, the pressures, the responsibilities – up to and including criminal liability – that weighed heavily upon financial actors and workers. The worker was considered a tool, a means of achieving the ultimate goal of making a profit. The financial crisis we have been through is therefore rooted in a profound anthropological crisis: the negation of the primacy of the human person, as Pope Francis reminded us in Evangelii Gaudium (55). This major economic and financial crisis has heavily impacted the world of work, with a general increase in the rate of unemployment among young people and those over 50. This is true particularly in Italy. Faced with this situation, WORK AND THE DIGNITY OF WORKERS which could be described as an occupational emergency, we should focus our policy choices on returning the dignity of the human person to the center of employment, on fostering innovation in business – especially for young people – as well as professional training within the education system, investments in infrastructure, and a financial system designed to support the real economy, rather than undertake risky, self- serving financial operations. To boost economic growth and consumption, we must implement appropriate policies to support employment.
How can we promote decent employment as a Church and within the Church, to maintain coherence between the principles that we profess and the witness that we give? 83 Certainly, the Church has an important role to play in promoting decent employment, and can do this at various levels. First, by disseminating the understanding of employment expounded by its own social doctrine, which views work as an actus personae, an essential expression of our being human. In other words, through work the human person, who in the Christian conception is open to the transcendent, participates in the creative process of God. What gives work its dignity is the act of creation and the contribution that the worker can offer to the creative process. God created trees, but not furniture: this is a job for people with their ingenuity. Primo Levi told the story of the Italian builder – a man who saved his life in Auschwitz – who, despite being imprisoned and living in slavery, when he had to build a wall would make it straight and strong, not out of obedience, but out of a sense of professional dignity. The need to do our job well is part of human nature and our vocation for work; it is the work itself that must be done well, because through work we build ourselves, our identity and our social dignity. In 1981, in Laborem Exercens (LE), John Paul II said that “through work we not only transform nature, adapting it to our own needs, but also achieve fulfillment as human beings and indeed, in a sense, become ‘more human’” (LE 9). People, FRANCESCO OCCHETTA SJ
therefore, cannot live without work, because work is what allows us to realize the fullness of our human dignity. Hence why, in the social magisterium of the popes, work is treated as an integral part of the dignity of the person. Second, the Church must denounce the contexts where conditions of employment cannot be described as decent; it must denounce anything that humiliates work and denies its essence; it must denounce, in the words of Pope Francis, the throwaway culture. The Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church (CSDC) affirms that our social doctrine includes an obligation to denounce. This means we must judge and defend those rights that are ignored or trampled – particularly the rights of the poorest, the smallest, the weakest 84 (cf. CSDC 81). At the same time, the Church must promote good practice in this area. Any initiatives undertaken by the Italian Church at national, diocesan or parochial level to foster youth employment and support innovation are worthy of note. Finally, dignified employment must be promoted within the Church, which is a major employer in Italy and the rest of the world (in Australia, for example, the Catholic Church is the second largest employer after the state). Therefore, it is important to ensure just remuneration for all those who work within dioceses, congregations and, more generally, within the institutions of the Catholic Church. Since January 1, 2017, I have been leading a new Dicastery of the Roman Curia that brings together four former Pontifical Councils, with all their employees. The process of restructuring and reorganization has turned out to be particularly slow and complex, precisely because we want to give priority to the people who work within the new organization, assigning to each person the responsibilities most suited to them and trying to avoid any offense to the dignity of our workers.
What is the relationship between work and justice? Some jobs are underpaid. And how can we combat the corruption that pollutes the world of employment? Remuneration is certainly an important tool to ensure justice within working relationships: a just salary is the WORK AND THE DIGNITY OF WORKERS instrument that allows workers and their families to live dignified lives, to access material, social, cultural and spiritual wealth. All workers should be remunerated in a way that, as well as ensuring their survival, also allows them to invest in their own integral human development. Furthermore, where a worker is a father or mother, a fair salary must give them the financial means to promote the integral development of their children, particularly by guaranteeing they have the means to study and develop as people and as workers. In Caritas in Veritate, Benedict XVI provides the following description of decent employment: “work that leaves enough room for rediscovering one’s roots at a personal, familial and spiritual level; work that guarantees those who have retired a decent standard of living.” 85 Undoubtedly, there are many perplexities and moral questions surrounding the inflated salaries paid to managers, football players, television personalities and others, particularly when these are compared to the low salaries of manual laborers and, generally, less-skilled workers.
How can we define meritocracy? Is it enough, as an antidote to corruption in the world of employment, to set clear criteria for professional growth and equal opportunities for access, particularly for women? In my opinion, corruption in the world of employment can be combated with meritocracy, placing greater emphasis, in the context of professional development, on the merits and qualities of the work undertaken by employees. However, we must not overemphasize meritocracy. This is what happens, for example, in Japan, where the search for merit sometimes leads people to take their own lives, because they do not feel capable of reaching the standards required by society and the world of education and employment. In this case, merit becomes a negative thing in people’s lives. Furthermore, to fight corruption in the world of employment it may be useful to establish clear criteria for professional and career development – length of employment, responsibilities of the employee, capacity to take the initiative, capacity to work as part of a team or to train and guide other employees, and so forth. FRANCESCO OCCHETTA SJ
Some studies, including one by the World Bank, claim that the presence of women in the workplace ensures lower levels of corruption. It therefore seems that ensuring women have equal rights and opportunities in accessing employment is also desirable because it can reduce levels of corruption. Certainly, a more balanced working environment as far as the presence of men and women is concerned can, in my opinion, lower levels of competition, as well as the propensity for corruption. Furthermore, women’s access to the world of employment can turn out, as it did in Italy, to be an important factor in combating demographic decline. During the Third National Conference on the Family, which took place in Rome’s Campidoglio at the end of September 2017, it was noted that the active participation of 86 women in the world of employment – together with appropriate maternity and paternity policies and family support – creates a vital element of security that opens up young couples to the possibility of new life.
Has the world of economy and finance been responsive to the ideas of the Church on the topic of employment? What has been learned? In the encyclical Laudato Si’ (LS), Pope Francis exhorts the world of finance and economy to look beyond economic gain and profit, and to create forms of orientation toward the common good. As prefect of a Dicastery of the Roman Curia, I strongly perceive a progressive increase in initiatives within the world of enterprise and finance aiming to promote social and environmental development – an increasing openness to forms of economic activity characterized by a measure of gratuity and communion, as desired by Benedict XVI in Caritas in Veritate. The financial and later economic crisis that started in 2008 raised our awareness of the need for greater social responsibility within corporations: “there is nevertheless a growing conviction that business management cannot concern itself only with the interests of the proprietors, but must also assume responsibility for all the other stakeholders who contribute to the life of the business: the workers, the clients, the suppliers of various elements of production, the community of reference” (CV 40). WORK AND THE DIGNITY OF WORKERS
At the same time, the crisis accelerated a rethinking of the models of market development in favor of new forms of entrepreneurship, private-public partnerships and social enterprises that do not exclude profit, but view it as a tool for the realization of human and social objectives including, for example, training people who are disadvantaged in the job market. The former Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace has in the past, during two international conferences, reflected on impact investing or so-called social finance, which invests in enterprises with a strong social impact, albeit at the cost of a lower profit margin.
In Laudato Si’ work becomes an environmental issue. Any form of employment presupposes an idea of the 87 relationship that humans can or must establish with what lies beyond them. Employment must, therefore, give due consideration to interaction with our surrounding society and environment. For example, companies and workers often fail to consider the environment as something to be protected and perfected, and view it instead as something to be exploited, destroying resources at great cost to the weakest and most in need. In the encyclical Laudato Si’, Pope Francis affirms that work itself is the paramount expression of action, which should always be motivated by the principle of care, and never by the principle of exploitation. We must take care of the environment within which we locate our productive activities. There should be, in some sense, a relationship of reciprocal exchange between humans and the environment: the earth takes care of our needs, and we must take care of the well-being of creation and the earth. The aim is for us to preserve the Garden just as the Lord gave it to us, and not to turn it into a desert. Any new enterprise project must be preceded by a study of its environmental impact, and give due consideration to working conditions and to its possible effects on the physical and mental health of people, on the local economy, on the environment, on security and so forth. “The protection of the environment is in fact an integral part of the development process and cannot be considered in isolation from it” (LS 141). FRANCESCO OCCHETTA SJ
Industry 4.0 is changing the anthropological paradigm of work, which is increasingly delocalized and interconnected from one end of the globe to the other. In the era of machines and robots, what meaning will work take on in our lives? In the context of the fourth industrial revolution, the one described as Industry 4.0 – concerning the development of artificial intelligence, nanotechnologies, biotechnologies and the digital, and their applications in the world of employment – we must return our focus to the Christian anthropological vision, within which humans are called to remain the subject of technology, and not its object.3 Technological devices are and will remain the fruit of human intelligence. As Paul VI affirmed in Populorum Progressio (PP), “economics and technology are 88 meaningless if they do not benefit man, for it is he they are to serve” (PP 34). Technology in and of itself is neither good nor bad: it all depends on the way we use it. Everything depends on whether we use technology in service of integral human development, of development for men, women and for humanity as a whole. Otherwise, as Benedict XVI reminded us in Caritas in Veritate, technology risks becoming an instrument of human destruction. Hence the need to prioritize ethics over technology, to give people precedence over things, to affirm the superiority of spirit over substance. When using machines, robots and new technologies, it becomes vital to distinguish between good and evil, to understand whether the use of these devices does or does not benefit people and their integral human development. If it does, a virtuous circle is established between humans and technologies: if technological innovation supports human and economic development, increasing the productivity of workers and the efficiency of service providers and small businesses, human development, in turn, becomes an important tool for the development of technology, which is an expression of human potential and creativity.
3.Cf. Ibid., “Il lavoro 4.0,” in Civ. Catt. 2017 I 481-491. WORK AND THE DIGNITY OF WORKERS
The role of the Church is certainly to help the human community in its effort of discernment, warning against possible distortions of the technological paradigm such as, particularly, the enslavement of people to technology and the use of new technologies in a way that harms them. Studies on the impact of new digital technologies and intelligent machines on the world of work and employment are often contrasting: alongside the “catastrophic” predictions of the World Economic Forum (the loss of some 7 million jobs due to new technologies, versus 2 million jobs created), we have more optimistic predictions from OCSE and UNCTAD. In any case, we are faced with the problem of a likely increase in inequality, both in terms of income and generally in work- related trends. In fact, employment seems to be taking on the 89 shape of an hourglass: the middle classes are shrinking due to the decrease in typical office jobs that can now be done by machines; we are left with the creative professionals above, capable of innovating and dominating technologies, and a series of low-skilled jobs below. In this situation, we need to take action on various fronts: on one hand, we need financial policies to tax new wealth (increasingly the preserve of those who own the technology) at an international level, and governance of technological innovation through appropriate bodies and institutions; on the other hand, we require a cultural shift to respond to the need for transforming and replacing old forms of employment more rapidly than ever. Hence the need to encourage the capacity for adaptation to change and to create, where possible, an alliance with technology, treating it as what it really is: a support, and not a substitute, for man. In the future, we will probably have to learn to coexist with robots, assigning to these new machines those activities that require high speed and mechanical ability, and leaving to humans the activities that require reason, discernment and intellect, characteristics of humankind. FRANCESCO OCCHETTA SJ
The West is living in fear, thinking that migration flows will steal work from its nation’s citizens or that work will be paid less and less. What would you say on this matter? These statements must be put into perspective. We cannot simply say that immigrants are stealing jobs from European citizens. It is more correct to say that they are taking on jobs that many European citizens are no longer willing to do. The fact is that the entry of immigrants willing to accept lower salaries into the world of employment has led to a devaluation of work and therefore to the fact that some work is, in effect, paid less. Even before the migration crisis of the past few years, businesses were going out in search of low- paid workers in poorer countries to maximize their profits, 90 and shifting some or all of their operations there to exploit the comparative advantage of a less expensive workforce, with obvious repercussions on employment in European countries, particularly for lower-skilled workers. The solution to the devaluation of the cost of work – and this is also a moral imperative – is to improve the living conditions of the forgotten, of the low-salaried workers in developing countries and immigrants in our countries, with more appropriate remuneration, with fair salaries. This is the only way to ensure for all workers an employment that respects human dignity.
What words of hope can you offer, especially to young people who cannot find work? I wish to express my closeness to all unemployed young people, to those who are not studying or seeking employment because they have lost hope in the possibility of finding it. To these young people, I say: do not give up, continue to strive, to study, to make sacrifices, to stimulate your spirit of initiative and collaboration, to develop new ideas and projects. In my opinion, a lack of faith, a lack of hope should not be a mark of the younger generations, characterized by the energy, vitality and imagination typical of their age. A lack of faith and a lack of hope are feelings that adult generations, having encountered obstacles and disappointments in the world of WORK AND THE DIGNITY OF WORKERS employment, may have transmitted to them. Instead, what we should transmit to younger generations is a value that is still underappreciated: the value of resilience, the capacity to face adversity without losing hope – in other words, the cardinal virtue of fortitude. So, young people: be strong and persevering in looking for work, and do not let yourselves be discouraged! Second, we must focus on the fact that, although work is a fundamental human right, it is also a duty. People must work both because the Creator has ordered us to do so, and to respond to the sustenance and development needs of all humanity. Work is a moral obligation to our neighbors – first and foremost to our family, but also to the society to which we belong, to the nations of which we are sons and daughters, 91 to the entire human family of which we are part. Perhaps we should focus on transmitting to young people – starting from their infancy, from their education at home and at school – the value of work, teaching them that it is certainly a right, but also a duty. I think education around the duties of the worker is vital, and must be part of young people’s broader education as citizens. We must strengthen in young people a sense of belonging to their communities, their societies, their nations. This feeling of belonging has been weakened in young people by globalization and by technological tools – such as smartphones, tablets, computers – which isolate them from their surrounding reality, and connect them to a virtual world that exists only online. We must not leave young people alone to face the challenge of entering the world of employment: they must be accompanied by their families, their schools, their parishes and their societies. They must be taught to discern their vocation for work, to discover the spiritual dimension of work and see work as a mission, a personal mission in life. At the same time, however, it is the responsibility of adults to direct young people, compatibly with their aspirations and skills, toward the professions for which there is a higher demand in the job market. Hence the importance of integrating education and training, so that school may genuinely be an investment in FRANCESCO OCCHETTA SJ
the world of employment and a launching pad for joining it. Young people must also be accompanied at the moment of transition to high school: after middle school, they must be oriented in their choice of subsequent training options and directed according to their potential. In fact, the high level of youth unemployment in Italy also calls into question the country’s education system. To address the employment emergency, we should also reform the education system, and render it more responsive to employment demands in Italy and the rest of the world.
92 A Tale of Love and Darkness
Giovanni Arledler, SJ
Between April 20 and 22, 2018, the news broke that the Genesis, a sort of Israeli Nobel Prize, was being awarded to the actress Natalie Portman. Her swift response came through an official spokesperson: she felt it was necessary to refuse the prize since “the recent events in Israel have been extremely distressing 93 to her,” an unmistakable reference to the violent and bloody episodes in the Gaza Strip. There were no other developments and it all finished there. To those who follow more attentively political and cultural matters in the state of Israel, this minor incident nevertheless brought to mind two factors that were important for different reasons: Natalie Portman’s debut film as a director, and the Amos Oz novel, A Tale of Love and Darkness, which is the basis of the film’s screenplay.1
A worthwhile film In the United States – the adopted country of Natalie Portman who was born in Jerusalem on June 9, 1981, and whose real surname is Hershlag – A Tale of Love and Darkness was released in 2015, and was even presented at Cannes. In Italy it appeared after two years through the courage of a small distribution company, Cesare Fragnelli’s Altre Storie. The Italian DVD did not have much success, despite it being accompanied by a new edition of the novel in Feltrinelli’s Universale Economia series. Not even the image of Portman on the posters and the cover of the DVD aroused much interest: this is the fate of many films that are not designed to attract a ready-made
1.Cf. Amos. Oz, A Tale of Love and Darkness, Mariner Books, 2005. GIOVANNI ARLEDLER, SJ
audience. Moreover, religious issues in films have never been among the most popular, and A Tale of Love and Darkness, was thought only to concern the Jewish people. There have been so many dramas recently with a similar focus, exploring themes beyond the atrocities perpetrated by the Nazis during the Second World War. Portman’s film focuses on the months around the time of the proclamation of the State of Israel in 1948. The family of Amos Oz, who was born in Jerusalem in 1939 and whose real name is Klausner, is composed of the father, Ariyeh, and the mother, Fania, a woman inclined to depression and to shutting herself off from the world, yet capable of great tenderness toward her only child. 94 The subdued colors of the cinematography render the era well, including a sort of poetry that insinuates itself into the events, even the most dramatic passages. One perceives a forced sense of fragmentation, otherwise understandable because of the crowd of relatives, friends and acquaintances who enrich the days of the Klausner family, together with the erudite studies of the father and the demanding Hebrew school of Amos. Even the suicide of the mother of Amos is portrayed with restraint. The epilogue shows us only a few scenes of the life in a kibbutz that the 14-year-old Amos, after having changed his surname to Oz, joined with a courage that we thought impossible in the child we saw before. The story was filmed in modern Hebrew, which is the language being learned by Amos as a child, and in the places where the events actually took place. In Israel, the critics disapproved of Portman’s editing of the novel, notwithstanding the fact that Oz himself supervised the work.
The novel by Oz Of course, the film is more appreciated if one has been to Jerusalem and, above all, if one has read the novel by Amos Oz, which helps one to understand the transitions from one episode to another, the names of many relatives and friends of the family, the quotations of poetry and passages of prose, A TALE OF LOVE AND DARKNESS anecdotes and traditional folktales. In the latest Italian edition of 2016, the novel consists of 627 pages. It is at the same time a personal story and a tale of the author’s family, which contains a certain number of famous people; it is the story of many Jews who return to their ancient homeland from Germany, Poland, Russia or other countries. This novel is the story of Israel beginning from the 1940s. It is a passionate working out of the motto that precedes, in bold letters, the summary of the novel and the notices on the dust jacket: “Let us learn to respect other peoples; every person is made in the divine image, even if they forget so readily.” Giving an account of his own limits and weaknesses, Oz gradually reveals his thoughts, even being confronted by prominent figures. An example is when during his period of 95 military service, with blind courage, he confronted Ben Gurion to discuss what he had written in the newspaper of the kibbutz of Hulda, which was not exactly in harmony with what the majority of the population of Israel was thinking. Among the things that was most striking in the reflections of Amos Oz, beyond the reference to the use of measured force employed only with a view to defense and his preference for the two autonomous states solution in Israel, is the profound conviction, generated by some essays – Jesus of Nazareth and From Jesus to Paul – of his illustrious uncle, Jospeh Klausner, that the Messiah of the Christians is a perfect Jew, one of the people who may be considered at the same time as righteous, a master and superior to many others. One understands how, because of these wide-reaching views, Oz moves at ease in the vast panorama of modern culture and how he has justly merited many illustrious awards (like the “Principe delle Asturie” and the “Primo Levi”), in particular in the field of literature.
A Tale of Love and Darkness A Tale of Love and Darkness appeared in Israel in 2001. One may read it as an essay on the craft of the writer, not only for the minute and abundant details of his reading and apprenticeship from the time of his youth, but for the structure itself of the narrative, which in part follows the flow of his GIOVANNI ARLEDLER, SJ
memories, and in part is motivated by the need to make sense of the inexplicable event, the suicide of his mother. The episodes of love and darkness seem also to touch upon many attitudes and occurrences, above all negative ones, which many Jewish families have experienced in the past in Europe. The negative element reappears with particular violence in the long months of the war of independence from December 1947 to the beginning of 1949. Oz seems almost not to want to describe the nature of the enemy but, at the same time, he does not refrain from mentioning all the most important facts and, above all, he insists on naming one by one the prominent victims lost in combat and terrorist attacks. The most salient artifice in the narrative consists in his 96 ability to put off until the last chapter – the 63rd – the explicit affirmation of the choice of his mother to take her own life in the house of her sister. At the same time, for the reader, it is hard to establish if the incomprehension or even the guilt felt for the unexpected loss has been fully digested by Amos Oz in the course of the years. Even if he does not speak explicitly of his new family, which we imagine to be numerous because of the suggestion of his mother not to limit himself to bringing into the world an only child, the introduction and progressive presentation of Nilli, the girl from the kibbutz who will become his wife, is impressive. As a first impression, she is a special person, good at everything, surrounded by legions of admirers who relegate Amos to the last place on a long waiting list. After a few pages, the presence of Nilli releases in the imagination of the writer every type of light show and firework, which testifies not only to his skill, but also to the profound happiness of a man deeply in love.