15 October 2020 Monthly Year 4
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1020 15 October 2020 Monthly Year 4 Poetry is a Planet of Living Trees: An interview with Ana Varela Tafur South Sudan: From civil war to a government of national unity The Centenary of Max Weber’s Death .10 O Hagia Sophia: From museum to mosque People of Israel, Land of Israel, State of Israel OLUME 4, N 4, OLUME V Fraternity and Social Friendship 2020 2020 Bishop Mario Grech: An interview with the new secretary of the Synod of Bishops Media Ecology, Church and Pandemic Ritual or Ritualism: The spirit of Confucianism BEATUS POPULUS, CUIUS DOMINUS DEUS EIUS Copyright, 2020, 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. Giovanni Sale, SJ, Claudio Zonta, SJ Federico Lombardi, SJ Title: La Civiltà Cattolica, English Edition Emeritus editors ISSN: 2207-2446 Virgilio Fantuzzi, SJ Giandomenico Mucci, SJ ISBN: GianPaolo Salvini, SJ 978-988-79271-8-1 (ebook) 978-988-79271-9-8 (kindle) Contributors Published in Hong Kong by George Ruyssen, SJ (Belgium) UCAN Services Ltd. Fernando de la Iglesia Viguiristi, SJ (Spain) Drew Christiansen, SJ (USA) P.O. Box 69626, Kwun Tong, Andrea Vicini, SJ (USA) Hong Kong David Neuhaus, SJ (Israel) Phone: +852 2727 2018 Camillo Ripamonti, SJ (Italy) Fax: +852 2772 7656 www.ucanews.com Vladimir Pachkow, SJ (Russia) Arturo Peraza, SJ (Venezuela) Publishers: Michael Kelly, SJ and Bert Daelemans, SJ (Belgium) Robert Barber Thomas Reese, SJ (USA) Production Manager: Paul Soukup, SJ (USA) Grithanai Napasrapiwong Friedhelm Mennekes, SJ (Germany) Marcel Uwineza, SJ (Rwanda) Marc Rastoin, SJ (France) You Guo Jiang, SJ (China) Luke Hansen, SJ (USA) CONTENTS 1020 15 October 2020 Monthly Year 4 1 Poetry is a Planet of Living Trees: An interview with Ana Varela Tafur Diego Fares, SJ 17 South Sudan: From civil war to a government of national unity Hermann-Habib Kibangou, SJ 29 The Centenary of Max Weber’s Death Giovanni Cucci, SJ 40 Hagia Sophia: From museum to mosque Giancarlo Pani, SJ 50 People of Israel, Land of Israel, State of Israel David M. Neuhaus, SJ 62 Fraternity and Social Friendship Antonio Spadaro, SJ 78 Bishop Mario Grech An interview with the new secretary of the Synod of Bishops Antonio Spadaro, SJ - Simone Sereni 89 Media Ecology, Church and Pandemic Paul A. Soukup, SJ 99 Ritual or Ritualism The spirit of Confucianism Benoît Vermander, SJ LCC 1120: NOVEMBER NOVEMBER TITLES • Rebuilding the Global Education Compact • Tajikistan, the Country on the INDIVIDUAL SUBSCRIPTION Border $49.95 FOR 12 MONTHS • Everything is Grace: Saint ● Ideal for Church leaders, theologians, Francis in the depth of history scholars, seminarians etc • The Keeper of Species: ● Monthly editions available both in ePub and Genesis 1:28 in the time of Mobi Covid-19 ● Subscriber gets unlimited online access • San Girolamo Sixteen Centuries After his Death ● Access to Perspectives Series - Six Thematic Issues of the Journal • Ennio Morricone GROUP SUBSCRIPTION $250 FOR TWELVE MONTHS ● Ideal for Catholic universities, libraries, institutes, congregations etc. ● Multi-user, unlimited access for one year. ● Subscribers access unlimited logins in different devices within the same IP address ● Monthly editions available both in ePub and Mobi ● Access to Perspectives Series - Six Thematic Issues of the Journal For educational and bulk rates, please email [email protected] SUBSCRIBE TODAY AT laciviltacattolica.com Poetry is a Planet of Living Trees: An interview with Ana Varela Tafur Diego Fares, SJ “The pope’s document gives much to reflect on. It is beautiful, illuminating and full of hope in humanity. Beloved Amazon, so loved and suffering” (Ana Varela Tafur) It was the custom for popes not to mention contemporary authors in their official documents. Francis has done so since 1 the beginning of his pontificate. In the apostolic exhortation Querida Amazonia (QA) he draws on 16 Latin American poets, women and men. “Francis’ decision to include the poetic and symbolic logos as an integral part of his magisterial text is stronger than may appear.”1 Francis does not quote poets to give examples, but he listens to them and enters into resonance with what poetry gives. The “four dreams” he shares about the Amazon are enriched by being nourished by the cultures of its peoples and attest that “only poetry, with its humble voice, will be able to save this world”2 (QA 46). In “The Prophecy of Contemplation” (QA 53-57) the Holy Father proposes an itinerary that reverses the path followed by the extractive paradigm and enters into the heart of the Amazon. He invites us to adopt courageous attitudes in order not to leave this portion of our planet at the mercy of those who have already La Civiltà Cattolica, En. Ed. Vol. 4, no. 10 art. 1, 1020: 10.32009/22072446.1020.1 1.Cf. A. Spadaro, “Querida Amazonia: Commentary on Pope Francis’ Apostolic Exhortation”, in Civ. Catt. En., February, 2020, https://www. laciviltacattolica.com/querida-amazonia-commentary-on-pope-francis- apostolic-exhortation/ 2.V. de Moraes, Para vivir un gran amor, Buenos Aires, Ediciones de la Flor, 2013, 166. DIEGO FARES, SJ made contrary attitudes their own: “From the original peoples, we can learn to contemplate the Amazon region and not simply analyze it, and thus appreciate this precious mystery that transcends us. We can love it, not simply use it, with the result that love can awaken a deep and sincere interest. Even more, we can feel intimately a part of it and not only defend it; then the Amazon region will once more become like a mother to us” (QA 55). The image of the Amazon River – on which “streams alight like birds”3 (QA 44) – is the image of an apostolic exhortation in which poems cited are like tributaries that can be explored. This article-interview on Ana Varela Tafur and her poetry tries to follow Francis’ suggestion to let ourselves be guided4 so that Querida Amazonia becomes for us “like a mother” within our great Mother Earth. For “we do not look at the world from 2 without but from within, conscious of the bonds with which the Father has linked us to all beings” (QA 55). Resonances: it is time to speak out Together with Ana Varela Tafur we read the pope’s text: “Popular poets, enamored of its immense beauty, have tried to express the feelings this river evokes and the life that it bestows as it passes amid a dance of dolphins, anacondas, trees and canoes. Yet they also lament the dangers that menace it. Those poets, contemplatives and prophets, help free us from the technocratic and consumerist paradigm that destroys nature and robs us of a truly dignified existence” (QA 46). I ask how these words resonate with her. Ana Varela answers: “The men and women poets who write about or for the Amazon not only have a personal poetic voice, but are lending themselves, offering and creating verse for the silent voice of all those who live and suffer the dramatic and rapid changes that are taking place. The gaze stops being exotic or totally focused on nature and its unquestionable beauty. We poets cannot limit ourselves to this. Today we talk about the 3.P. Neruda, “Amazonas”, in Id., Canto general (1938), I, IV. 4.“They (the original peoples) are our principal dialogue partners, from whom we have the most to learn [...] What is their idea of ‘good living’ for themselves and for those who will come after them?” (QA 26). POETRY IS A PLANET OF LIVING TREES suffering of people, animals, plants, rivers, fields, the mothers of trees, the most vulnerable and least protected beings. We know that mining activities are not recent. They date back more than a century, to the time of the extraction of ‘caucho,’ rubber, when terror dominated as a weapon to subjugate the original populations and coastal regions. There were human rights violations, and thousands of trees were also cut down, people were mutilated, debt was used to impose an unsustainable system of perpetual credit. The benefits of the newborn extractivist capitalism went to a local bourgeoisie (Iquitos, Manaus, Belém do Pará, etc.) and to the vast American and European economies. Consequently, the consumerist paradigm favored a social class that lived off rubber wealth. Then this consumerist and predator-extractivist model fell into decline. However, 3 the model has survived until today, with rubber replaced by other materials, while indigenous people continue to die of abandonment, exclusion, abuse, and with them as their territory is disappearing, so is their knowledge, and their pain is great. Now the word, the collective voice, stops contemplating and the time has come to speak out, to prophesy a greater holocaust, that of environmental destruction.” Ana Varela Tafur is a writer to whom one can well apply the term “social poet,” a term coined by the pope.5 She was born in Iquitos (Peru) in 1963. She graduated in Literature from the University of California, Davis. She currently lives in Berkeley, California. “Her literary production is thematic, but important,” says Paco Bardales, a scholar who has studied her poetry.6 Her 7 book Lo que no veo en visiones (What I cannot see in visions; 1992) won first prize at theV Bienal de Poesía Copé, and we should be aware how important it is for her fellow citizens that a person from Iquitos, and moreover a woman, won an award in Lima.