0221
15 February 2021 Monthly Year 5
‘Crisis’ The key word for the reform of the Church
Ethiopia and the Conflict in Tigray
Toward a Synodal Church
The Complete Works of Karl Rahner .02 o The McCarrick Report: Seeking the truth in order to convert
‘The Great Wave’, The struggle between humans and nature
‘Enola Holmes’, Mystery sleuthing in the #MeToo era OLUME 5, N 5, OLUME V Fragile: A new imagery of progress
2021 ‘From Generation to Generation’: History in perspective from the Bible to Pope Francis
The Strength of Being Authentic: Reflections on culture and faith
The Musical Journey of Jordi Savall
‘Letter to You’ by Bruce Springsteen: Between loneliness and company
Even Walls Break
The Spiritual Memoirs of Peter Faber, SJ
BEATUS POPULUS, CUIUS DOMINUS DEUS EIUS
Copyright, 2021, 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 978-988-74903-4-0 (ebook) 978-988-74903-5-7 (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 0221
15 February 2021 Monthly Year 5
1 ‘Crisis’ The key word for the reform of the Church Antonio Spadaro, SJ
5 Ethiopia and the Conflict in Tigray Giovanni Sale, SJ
17 Toward a Synodal Church Cardinal Michael Czerny, SJ
31 The Complete Works of Karl Rahner Andreas R. Batlogg, SJ
40 The McCarrick Report Seeking the truth in order to convert Federico Lombardi, SJ
52 ‘The Great Wave’, The struggle between humans and nature Claudio Zonta, SJ
54 ‘Enola Holmes’, Mystery sleuthing in the #MeToo era Marco Piaia, SJ
56 Fragile: A new imagery of progress Giovanni Cucci, SJ
66 ‘From Generation to Generation’ History in perspective from the Bible to Pope Francis Jean-Pierre Sonnet, SJ
82 The Strength of Being Authentic Reflections on culture and faith Eugenio Rivas, SJ 95 The Musical Journey of Jordi Savall Luigi Territo, SJ
97 ‘Letter to You’ by Bruce Springsteen Between loneliness and company Claudio Zonta, SJ
102 Even Walls Break Claudio Zonta, SJ
104 The Spiritual Memoirs of Peter Faber, SJ Miguel Ángel Fiorito, SJ - Jaime Heraclio Amadeo, SJ LCC 0321: MARCH
MARCH TITLES
• Agenda 2030 for Sustainable Development Goals
• Auschwitz: The Contingent INDIVIDUAL SUBSCRIPTION Trauma $49.95 FOR 12 MONTHS
• Luther's Excommunication 500 ● Ideal for Church leaders, theologians, years on scholars, seminarians etc
• Chechnya: Conservative Islam ● Monthly editions available both in ePub and as an alternative to Radical Islam? Mobi
• The United States from ● Subscriber gets unlimited online access Insurgency to Inauguration ● Access to Perspectives Series - Six Thematic Issues of the Journal • The European Union - China Agreement
• Television and Contemporary GROUP SUBSCRIPTION Lives $250 FOR TWELVE MONTHS
● • Hope for Nigeria Ideal for Catholic universities, libraries, institutes, congregations etc.
• Christians in the Caliphal ● Multi-user, unlimited access for one year. Empires ● 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 ‘Crisis’ The key word for the reform of the Church
Antonio Spadaro, SJ
If there is one word that sums up in a nutshell what the world is experiencing, it is “crisis.” In his Christmas greetings speech to the Roman Curia, Pope Francis employed it no fewer than 46 times. “This Christmas,” he said, “is the Christmas of 1 the pandemic, of the health, social, economic and even ecclesial crisis that has indiscriminately stricken the whole world. The crisis is no longer a commonplace of conversations and of the intellectual establishment; it has become a reality shared by all.” Until recently, “crisis” seemed to be the key word of those who have articulated a cultured critique of the current condition. The elite considered the crisis in terms of accentuating its “existential” specification, which, instead of making it concrete, projected it into indefinite abstraction. In 2020 this crisis lost all of its abstract character, and took on the face of the lockdown, of the death count, of the plunging global economy. On March 27, in the midst of the pandemic, the pontiff prayed in a deserted St. Peter’s Square and thus symbolically focused the crisis of the whole world, putting it on display in a place that is a symbol of presence and unity.
The crisis as an engine for action In his address to the Curia, Francis wanted to highlight the meaning and importance of being in crisis. He first recognized that “the crisis is a phenomenon that affects everyone and everything. It is present everywhere and in every age of history, involving ideologies, politics, the economy, technology, ecology
La Civiltà Cattolica, En. Ed. Vol. 5, no. 2 art. 1, 1020: 10.32009/22072446.0221.1 ‘CRISIS’ THE KEY WORD FOR THE REFORM OF THE CHURCH and religion.” Therefore, it is a fundamental human experience and “a necessary moment in the history of individuals and of society.” It cannot be avoided, and its effects are always “a sense of trepidation, anguish, upset and uncertainty in the face of decisions to be made.” We can already understand how crisis is an engine for action and choices, because it destabilizes and prepares new equilibriums. It requires – as recalled by the etymological root of the Greek verb krinō, from which ‘crisis’ derives – that typical work of sifting that clears the grain of wheat from the chaff after the harvest. The crisis in this sense fulfills history, which takes shape through times of crisis. Francis recalled how the Bible is populated by “characters in crisis,” who, precisely through crises, 2 accomplish the history of salvation: Abraham, Moses, Elijah, John the Baptist, Paul of Tarsus and Jesus himself, particularly during the temptations and then in the “indescribable crisis in Gethsemane: loneliness, fear, anguish, the betrayal by Judas and the abandonment by the Apostles,” up to the “extreme crisis on the cross.” Francis has an evangelically dialectical vision of history: it is as if he were saying that if there is no crisis, there is no life. In this sense, crisis evokes hope. Hence his message: in times of crisis it is necessary to be a realist, and “a reading of reality without hope cannot be called realistic. Hope gives to our assessments an aspect that in our myopia we are often incapable of seeing.” Why is this? Because “God continues to make the seeds of his Kingdom grow among us.” So those who look at the crisis without doing so in the light of the Gospel “simply perform an autopsy on a cadaver.” The time of crisis is a time of the Spirit, and the Gospel itself puts us in crisis. Therefore, “whenever we are faced with the experience of darkness, weakness, fragility, contradiction, and loss,” it is easy to understand “that things are about to take on a new shape, emerging exclusively from the experience of a grace hidden in the darkness.” ANTONIO SPADARO, SJ
Distinguishing crisis from conflict Francis makes a clear distinction between crisis and destructive conflict. This is a strong theme of the pontiff’s vision. Conflict, in fact, “always creates discord and competition, an apparently irreconcilable antagonism that separates others into friends to love and enemies to fight. In such a situation, only one side can win.” The logic of conflict always seeks a fracture between opposing parties. For example, the Church, if read with the categories of conflict, generates divisions between Right and Left, progressives and traditionalists. In this way it fragments and polarizes. Conflict stiffens and eventually leads to the imposition of “a uniformity far removed from the richness and plurality that the Spirit has bestowed on his Church.” 3 Francis defines the Church as a “body in continual crisis,” where newness “sprouts from the old and makes it continually fruitful” without opposing it. In a very important passage of his discourse, the pope hopes for a positive attitude to crisis: “By shielding ourselves from crisis, we hinder the work of God’s grace, which would manifest itself in us and through us. If a certain realism leads us to see our recent history only as a series of mishaps, scandals and failings, sins and contradictions, short-circuits and setbacks in our witness, we should not fear. Nor should we deny everything in ourselves and in our communities that is evidently tainted by death and calls for conversion. Everything evil, wrong, weak and unhealthy that comes to light serves as a forceful reminder of our need to die to a way of living, thinking and acting that does not reflect the Gospel. Only by dying to a certain mentality will we be able to make room for the newness that the Spirit constantly awakens in the heart of the Church.”
The crisis as a time of grace The reform, therefore, does not respond to the logic of conflict but to that of crisis, which implies an overcoming, a step forward: “We need to stop seeing the reform of the Church as putting a patch on an old garment, or simply drafting a new Apostolic Constitution. The reform of the Church is something different,” and it is the fruit of grace. The crisis is ‘CRISIS’ THE KEY WORD FOR THE REFORM OF THE CHURCH not solved by putting new patches on old clothes. Therefore, we must live the crisis as a time of grace: it involves movement, and it is part of a journey. Conflict, on the other hand, is a wandering without purpose: it is remaining in the labyrinth, wasting energy. The pontiff, speaking of himself, concluded his address to the Curia this way: “Please, always pray for me so that I may have the courage to remain in crisis.” Will crisis be the key word to understand the life and reform of the Church that awaits us in 2021? We must spiritually welcome crisis, without fear or attempts at camouflage, in order to give the Church – universal and local – the right impetus to be ever more evangelical.
4 Ethiopia and the Conflict in Tigray
Giovanni Sale, SJ
The government in Addis Ababa sees as a simple police operation what took place in November 2020 in its rebel province of Tigray, in the north of the country on the disputed border with Eritrea and Sudan. In reality, the clash between 5 the Ethiopian Army and the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) was a real civil war. Fighter planes, armored vehicles and thousands of soldiers were deployed. Both sides fought with determination. It seems that the conflict caused more than 1,000 deaths, including those of several hundred civilians; approximately 50,000 fled across the border to Sudan to escape reprisals.1 The war in Tigray threatens to cause the “fragile giant of Africa” to implode. Ethiopia, in fact, is a federal state created in 1991 and composed of 10 regions, divided along ethnic lines. The dominant religion, according to the last census in 2007, is Orthodox Christianity (the ancient Coptic Orthodox Church of Alexandria in Egypt), practiced by 43.5 percent of the population,
La Civiltà Cattolica, En. Ed. Vol. 5, no. 2 art. 2, 1020: 10.32009/22072446.0221.2
1.One of the most serious episodes occurred on November 9 in Mai Karda, a rural town in Tigray, on the border with Sudan. The Economist reports: “First, the police and militia shut the roads out of Mai Karda, a farming town in Ethiopia’s northern province of Tigray. Then they went from door to door, checking ID cards and singling out non-Tigrayans.” After confiscating their cell phones, the militiamen barbarously slaughtered them. About 600 of Amhara ethnicity, who were temporarily in that region for work were killed. See “The world needs to stop war crimes in Ethiopia,” in The Economist, November 26, 2020. ETHIOPIA AND THE CONFLICT IN TIGRAY followed by Islam (33.9 percent), consisting mainly of Sunnis of Sufi spirituality. There is also a large community of Protestant Christians (18.6 percent) and a small community of Jews.2 After Nigeria, Ethiopia is the most populous country on the continent. With 109 million inhabitants, 40 percent of whom are young people under the age of 15, it is a true human investment in the future. Even though it is poor in raw materials, particularly hydrocarbons and does not have access to the strategic Red Sea, it is a reference country for East Africa, essential for maintaining the ethnic-religious balance of the entire region, and a model of democratic values. Ethiopia is at the center of important migratory flows, mainly from Somalia, South Sudan and Eritrea. There are more than 900,000 refugees present in reception camps scattered throughout its territory 6 – many of which are in the Tigray region – constituting a humanitarian emergency. In addition, this country, which hosts the headquarters of the African Union, should, according to some scholars, be one of the “engines of the longed-for renaissance of the African continent,” if only because of its territorial extension and demographic weight, which is destined to increase.3 Through diplomacy and economic aid the international community and Africa need to avoid the “balkanization” of a country that is so ethnically, socially and religiously diverse. In other words, they should do everything possible to put an end to a conflict that for the moment seems to have come to an end, but in reality is still smoldering under the ashes and waiting for the most opportune moment to explode again.
2.There are about half a million Catholics in Ethiopia, of Latin and Eastern rites. It is a numerically small Church, but very active on the pastoral level and very present in the social sphere. As soon as the conflict broke out, the Ethiopian Catholic bishops made an appeal, which was shared by the Ethiopian Orthodox Church, Protestant communities and Muslims. It was addressed to the warring parties: “For there to be peace this problem must be solved through dialogue, because armed conflict brings only destruction. With war we are all defeated.” See https://www.vaticannews.va/it/mondo/news/2020-11/il- conflitto-nel-tigray.html 3.P. Haski, “La guerra del Tigray è una tragedia per tutto l’Africa”, at www. internazionale.it/opinione/pierre-haski/2020/11/23/tigrai-guerra-etiopia GIOVANNI SALE, SJ
The government of Addis Ababa and the besieged of Tigray With the rise to power in 2018 of the young Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, from the Oromo people, the largest ethnic group in the country, a rivalry was created between the central power, now firmly in the hands of a new political class, and the TPLF and its Tigrayan leaders, who had led the country for 17 years, marginalizing the most important ethnic groups, namely, the Oromo and the Amhara. The Tigrayan ethnic group, famous for their important role in the nation’s glorious history, represents only 6 percent of the population. Supported by a large measure of public opinion, the new government immediately sought to limit the power of the TPLF leaders who had seized the levers of power, removing them 7 from important civil and military posts. Numerous supporters of the Tigrayan party ended up in front of the judiciary. Many investigations concerned the misuse of public funds or other alleged irregularities committed in the management of the Metec group, the largest military and industrial conglomerate in Ethiopia. In recent years, many of these former public and military leaders left Addis Ababa and retreated to the Tigrayan capital, Mekele, which has become a stronghold of resistance against the new government. In launching the military operation at the beginning of November 2020, Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed had specified that this intervention was an appropriate response to the threat of a “disintegration” of Ethiopia. The protests against the central government, in fact, came from many fronts, not only from Tigray, where the most militarily organized and politically motivated opposition were to be found, but also from other regions of the country, including Oromo, Abiy Ahmed’s home province. In modern Ethiopian history there have been two opposing conceptions of the state: on the one hand, that of a strong central state, on the European model, adopted by the country’s communist regimes, guarantor of unity and national identity; on the other hand, that of a political structure that brings together very different identities. In recent decades the first concept prevailed, although in 1991, ETHIOPIA AND THE CONFLICT IN TIGRAY after the fall of the Mengitsu’s communist regime, the new rulers adopted a kind of “ethnic federalism.” Today, however, that model is in crisis. On November 4, 2020, Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, on live TV, announced the military attack against the “rebels” in the state of Tigray. He believes that the political and military leaders of TPLF have now crossed the red line. He declared without hesitation: “We will punish you and we will be implacable.”4 Governments around the world were caught by surprise both because of the nature of the attack (lightning- fast and determined), and for the warlike language pronounced by a man who the year before (2019) had been awarded the Nobel Prize for Peace, because of the peace agreement with neighboring Eritrea. 8 In fact, the entire region of Tigray in a few weeks was invaded by soldiers and armored vehicles, and the capital Mekele was repeatedly bombed by the air force. Immediately, the entire region was isolated, telephone lines were cut and the internet blocked; the press were prevented from accessing the territories under attack. Federal soldiers fought for control of the territory; there were deaths – perhaps thousands – on both sides. Many civilians fled to Sudan; the majority being children.5 During the military operation, the government maintained an inflexible position with respect to any attempt at mediation. Addis Ababa rejected all invitations to dialogue, such as those made by neighboring countries or by the current president of the African Union, Cyril Ramaphosa. Diplomats are still welcomed, as is common practice, by the Ethiopian government, but they cannot visit the Tigray region, nor meet representatives of the TPLF, which is considered an “association of bandits.”6
4.Since coming to power, Abiy Ahmed has always said he wanted to make Ethiopia more united and democratic, but ended up unleashing a civil war with unpredictable consequences: see D. Pilling - A. Schipani, “Addis Ababa use legerity control i rubella del Tigray”, in Internazionale, November 13, 2020, 30. 5.Cf. D. Quirico, “La guerra del Nobel. L’Etiopia sprofonda nel conflitto tra etnie”, in La Stampa, November 13, 2020. 6.P. Haski, “La guerra del Tigrai è una tragedia per tutta l’Africa”, in www. internazionale.it/opinione/pierre-haski/2020/11/23/tigrai-guerra-etiopia GIOVANNI SALE, SJ
On November 28, Abiy Ahmed announced that the operation “to restore public order” had been completed and that the Tigrayan city of half a million inhabitants was now under the control of federal soldiers. In addition, the conditions set by the Prime Minister – a former military man – for the surrender were very harsh, such as the delivery of all weapons to Federal government forces and the mass arrest of all TPLF leaders and activists: conditions completely unacceptable to the Tigrayan fighters. Debretsion Gebremichael, president of the TPLF, had warned before the conflict that his men were ready to die to defend their territory. But he had not specified that they would face the enemy in Mekele. His words hinted that the war, in which federal forces in three weeks took control of the main Tigrayan towns, could “change nature and terrain, turning into 9 guerrilla warfare.”7 In order to understand the real reasons for this civil war, it is appropriate to investigate some historical events of the last decades that laid the foundations of the federal Ethiopian Republic. Today, many are looking again at these events that have fueled discontent in the whole region.
Ethiopia from Marxist State to Federal Republic In 1974, the rise to power of Colonel Haile Mariàm, who deposed Emperor Haile Selassie, turned Ethiopia into a socialist state, making it an important outpost of the Soviet Union in Africa. The colonel gave birth in those years to a communist state based on the Albanian model, strongly centralized, authoritarian and illiberal. At the end of the 1980s, the regime was strongly opposed by various movements, in particular by the Eritrean People’s Liberation Front (EPLF), the movement for the liberation of Eritrea (a country that had been part of the Empire of Ethiopia and that provided access to the sea). It was joined by another political-military movement, formed on an ethnic basis, which claimed autonomy for the region of Tigray, the TPLF.
7.J.-P. Rémy, “En Ethiopie, le spectre de la dislocation”, in Le Monde, November 27, 2020. ETHIOPIA AND THE CONFLICT IN TIGRAY
In May 1991, this coalition of forces took power, and the new transitional government was entrusted to a former TPLF fighter, Meles Zenawi. He undertook the restructuring of the country and made Ethiopia a federal state, providing autonomy for each ethnic group. In this context, Eritrea de facto seceded in 1991, which was formally ratified by a referendum in 1993.8 Thus Ethiopia became an entirely landlocked state, without direct access to the Red Sea which provided its only cargo port. A liability for the country, as the Red Sea is one of the most strategically important areas on the planet: in fact, all major powers have military or commercial bases in that crucial area, through which one third of world trade in hydrocarbons passes.9 In 1994, a new Constitution was adopted in Ethiopia. In 10 1995, political elections were won by the governing party, and Meles Zenawi became the new Prime Minister. He controlled the country with a strong hand, so much so that in those years there was talk of an authoritarian state within a formally democratic system. The most important economic and military posts were assigned to men who belonged to the Tigray tribe. In those years, the “men of the North,” as they were called, took over the state, while representatives of other important tribes or ethnic groups, such as the Amhara and Oromo, were openly discriminated against in the management of the nation. This created discontent and led to the emergence in various regions of important protest movements, which demanded from
8.Since the late 1990s, relations between Ethiopia and Eritrea have been characterized by open conflict. Between 1998 and 2000, the two states fought a bloody war, which formally broke out over a territorial dispute concerning sovereignty over the Badme border area. The conflict between the Ethiopian giant and the small Eritrean state in reality hid motivations deeper than the defense of a tiny, stony and inhospitable border territory: in fact, the dispute concerned access to the Red Sea and the control of trade. An international commission of the UN was called to arbitrate the delicate dispute between the two countries. In the end, it recognized the claims of Eritrea, but Ethiopia did not like and did not want to accept the ruling of the International Organization. See Atlante Geopolitico 2020, “Etiopia”, Rome, Treccani, 2020, 221. 9.Cf. L. Puddu, “L’Etiopia è in guerra contro il Tigrai e contro il tempo”, in www.limesonline.com/etiopia-tigrai-guerra/121121 GIOVANNI SALE, SJ
the central power – monopolized by the Tigrayans – greater pluralism in the management of public affairs or a political autonomy that was not only formal, but also substantial. Zenawi died in 2012 and left a power vacuum that was difficult to fill. His successor, Haile Mariàm Desalegn, resigned as prime minister in February 2018 at the request of opposition movements. This position then was assigned to Abiy Ahmed, president of the Oromo Democratic Party. For the first time in Ethiopia’s history, a member of the Oromo ethnic group assumed the leadership of the country. The young president, in his investiture speech, outlined a very advanced, liberal and progressive program of government for the future of Ethiopia. He assured his commitment to improving the living conditions of the population, to develop 11 the country’s economy and to democratize the political system, making it more participatory and pluralistic. He also gave assurances that he would limit the power of the military and respect human rights. Finally, he promised to work to end hostilities with neighboring Eritrea.10 The release of political prisoners – including many journalists and opposition leaders – was one of his first actions. Some political movements were removed from the list of banned terrorist organizations. In addition, several “senior Tigrayan leaders,” both in finance and economics and in the army, who had been running the affairs of the state up to that point, were removed from their posts. They left Addis Ababa and returned to their home region to organize – even
10.On June 5, 2018, Abiy Ahmed announced his government’s willingness to accept the UN pronouncement on the territorial dispute with Eritrea and end the military conflict that had been ongoing for years. In July of the same year, the Ethiopian Prime Minister and Eritrean President Isaiac Afewerki met in Eritrea, announcing the formal reopening of the borders between the two countries, the restoration of diplomatic relations and the end of the war. On September 16, 2018, the two governments of Ethiopia and Eritrea signed a peace agreement in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. This won Abiy Ahmed the favor of the international community, and he was awarded the prestigious Nobel Peace Prize the following year. But, for reasons that are not entirely clear, the border between the two countries has been closed, on the Eritrean side, as of 2019. See Geopolitical Atlas 2020, “Etiopia”, op. cit., 221. ETHIOPIA AND THE CONFLICT IN TIGRAY militarily – the opposition against the new government, which they considered an enemy of the ancient Tigrayan culture and traditions.
The war of the Nobel Peace Prize Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed’s decision to launch a military attack on the Tigray Region – even completely isolating it from the rest of the world – in November 2020, in order to hunt down the “rebels,” supposed enemies of the federal state, surprised governments and international public opinion. A Nobel Peace Prize winner making war? “Is it possible,” many wondered, “that this is the same man who freed political prisoners and forgave exiles, who now gives the green light to tanks inside the borders of his own state?”11 12 Moreover, there is a lack of clear and precise explanation of the reasons that led the government to postpone twice – first in May, then in August – the general elections, citing unconvincing reasons, such as the coronavirus emergency and, above all, not recognizing the elections that had taken place in Tigray. These decisions give rise to the suspicion that in fact “Addis Ababa wants to take over control of the region, decapitate the TPLF and thus redistribute the power – and economic resources – that the Tigrayans administered.”12 In fact, the local elections held in September 2020 in Tigray represented a point of no return in the struggle between the central government and the rebel region in the North.13 They were not recognized by Addis Ababa, but gave TPLF leaders the opportunity to declare the central government deprived of power, because its mandate would have already expired.14
11.G. Cadalanu, “Resa dei conti in Etiopia. Le truppe dei Abiy Ahmed assediano Macallè”, in la Repubblica, November 27, 2020. 12.Ibid. 13.The central government has gone to great lengths to boycott these elections, blocking the internet and making all forms of communication difficult. See “Ethiopia’s democratic transition is in peril”, in The Economist, September 19, 2020, 28. 14.Cf. J.-P. Rémy, “Rischio di dissoluzione”, in Internazionale, December 4, 2020, 54. GIOVANNI SALE, SJ
Regarding the conflict, according to Abiy Ahmed, the November military operation is now definitively over to Addis Ababa’s full satisfaction. Federal troops have freed thousands of Tigrayan soldiers who had been forced to fight against the government. The Prime Minister then specified that the police are looking for the leaders of the TPLF, i.e. “the criminal clique,” in order to put them on trial. The war operations, reported Ethiopian Chief of Staff Lieutenant General Berhanu Jula, “were carried out with precision and care, preventing civilians from being affected.” There was not, he said, a “house-to-house battle,” as is often the case in these circumstances, so the death toll was contained. If it were all over, “Ethiopia and the whole world could breathe a sigh of relief.”15 However, the situation seems 13 more complicated and, above all, unpredictable. In fact, it is simplistic to think that the Ethiopian crisis is over and that the Tigray region has been definitively subjected, in such a short time, to the will of the central government. There are still too many unanswered questions. Many journalists in recent weeks have wondered why there are no photos or videos on the internet of “rebels” captured or taken prisoner, as happens in every conflict, considering the fact that the TPLF guerrillas are many and well armed. Nor are there images of crowds cheering the liberators or of the defeated handing over their weapons. In the era of ubiquitous smartphones, this absence raises serious questions.16 To find an answer to these questions it is necessary to investigate the recent history of the conflicts in Ethiopia. In order to overthrow the communist dictatorship of Mengistu, the Tigrayan guerrillas of the TPLF fought as an armed resistance from 1975 to 1991, that is, for 16 years, until their final victory. Today, a comparison with that situation is necessary, especially since the most experienced Tigrayan leaders are the same
15. Cf. G. Cadalanu, “‘Tigrini sconfitti nelle vie di Macallè’. Ora caccia ai leader”, in la Repubblica, November 29, 2020. 16.Cf. J.-P. Rémy, “Rischio di dissoluzione”, in Internazionale, December 4, 2020, 54; A. Pozzi, “I tormenti dell’Africa”, in Corriere della Sera, “Letture”, December 6, 2020. ETHIOPIA AND THE CONFLICT IN TIGRAY ones who fought that battle, starting with the president of the Popular Liberation Front, Debretsion Gebremichael. Therefore, it is “legitimate to suspect that the TPLF’s strategic decision was precisely that of guerrilla warfare: facing a superior military force in any case, with the prospect of destruction for its capital and massive human losses.”17 As military strategists repeat, it is easy to conquer a country when you are militarily superior, but it is more difficult to maintain control of the territory. The war in Tigray brings with it other unknowns. In fact, if this insurgency were to continue, it could “reactivate the subnational impulses of the country’s ethnic federalism, frustrating the steps taken so far by the federal government to liberalize the political arena.”18 The choice made by Abiy Ahmed to rely on the military units of the Amhara Regional 14 State to support the offensive in Tigray, although necessary from a tactical point of view, risks weakening Addis Ababa’s position on the western border. In any case, the securing of the border with Sudan is crucial to prevent the supply of men and weapons to the Tigray guerrillas. However, it should not be underestimated that the Sudanese government is certainly closer to the leadership of the TPLF than to the new rulers and, in particular, to the leaders of the Amhara ethnic group, who, in the past, had opposed any agreement or compromise with the government in Khartoum. It should also be remembered that Eritrea’s political support for the operation was of fundamental importance for its success. The Eritrean President Afewerki went to Addis Ababa in the days before the beginning of the military offensive, guaranteeing support to his ally in order to contain the Sudanese front. It seems that some Eritrean military airports were used by Ethiopian war planes, in order to encircle Tigray from the north. In any case, Eritrea has a keen interest, from a political and economic point of view, in keeping “subdued” the region of Tigray, which is considered by the government of Asmara as an overly strong neighbor, and therefore dangerous. It seems that drones were
17.G. Cadalanu, “Tigrini sconfitti nelle vie di Macallè...”, op. cit. 18.L. Puddu, “L’Etiopia è in guerra contro il Tigrai e contro il tempo”, at www.limesonline.com/etiopia-tigrai-guerra/121121 GIOVANNI SALE, SJ
also used in the operation, supplied by the United Arab Emirates. This would indicate that the conflict could also expand beyond the “borders of the plateau,” and this would greatly complicate the situation.19 The launching of some missiles from Mekele toward the capital of Eritrea, at a time when Tigray was being occupied by the federal army, had a more symbolic than strategic value. In part, it was a sort of warning launched against the allies of Addis Ababa, which sounded like a threat: “This is not over. We will come back.” Also, it responded to the need to internationalize the conflict. In fact, the goal of the TPLF was to increase pressure from the African Union and the international community on the Ethiopian central government for a ceasefire, in order to legitimize its position diplomatically and maintain a territorial 15 base in the region.20 The calls for a ceasefire by the UN Secretary General and the African Union, however, fell on deaf ears, largely because the Ethiopian prime minister stated that the operation in Tigray was a purely internal matter for Ethiopia. In reality, the major powers have in some way “tolerated” the military intervention of the central government, aware that a “shattering” – on an ethnic-regional basis – of the “Ethiopian giant” would have greatly damaged the pacification of the African continent and harmed the economic interests of many countries.21
19.Ethiopia is in dispute with Egypt and Sudan over the management of the waters of the Blue Nile following the construction of a large dam – known as the “Renaissance dam” – which will significantly reduce the flow of water to other countries. The risk is that the conflict will turn into a “low-intensity war,” with repercussions also on the internal level, poisoning relations between the Ethiopian government and the countries traversed by the Nile. 20.L. Puddu, “L’Etiopia è in guerra contro il Tigrai...”, op. cit. 21.On several occasions Pope Francis has invited the faithful to pray for Ethiopia. He has appealed to the parties involved “so that violence may cease, lives, particularly of civilians, may be safeguarded, and populations may find peace” (https://www.vaticannews.va/it/papa/news/2020-11/etiopia-tigray-guerra- civili-chiesa-papa.html). Meeting with the Ethiopian College community on January 10, 2020, the pope spoke of the “fratricidal war” that has bloodied Ethiopia and Eritrea in recent months. He recalled that this fact must be a warning to the two African states, so that “we no longer fall into divisions between ethnic groups and between countries with common roots.” Cf. G. Cardinale, “L’incontro. Il ETHIOPIA AND THE CONFLICT IN TIGRAY
In addition to the civil war and Covid-19 (which has caused more than 15,000 deaths), a third plague has been afflicting the poor, overpopulated and often drought-prone country of Ethiopia in recent months: a locust invasion.22 The fierce fighting in Tigray in November took place in the midst of this crisis, putting the entire region at risk. There are swarms of locusts in Kenya, Djibouti, Sudan and Somalia, but no country has been hit as hard as Ethiopia. Now, to stop the infestation – which threatens to spread to the entire Horn of Africa – it is necessary for the central government to take action with a serious healthcare project. The state of war and tension of recent times has paralyzed any intervention, which must be timely if it is to achieve effective results. Nature, as we are experiencing in these pandemic times, is often stronger and more resolute than 16 our irrationality.23
Papa: ‘In Etiopia ed Eritrea la Chiesa abbia libertà’”, in www.avvenire.it/papa/ pagine/chiesa-eritrea-ed-etiopia/. Fr. Teshome Fikre, Secretary General of the Bishops’ Conference of Ethiopia, commenting on the situation the country is experiencing today, said, “We are living in a period of extreme fragility in the country for many reasons. Recurrent floods have destroyed crops and livelihoods and led the population to experience food insecurity. For some time we have suffered an invasion of locusts, which have created problems especially in Tigray, an area where clashes have been taking place for over a month. In addition, here too we have had to deal with the pandemic for months: indeed, this conflict is a hard blow for everyone” (www.agensir.it/quotidiano/2020/12/5/etiopia- vescovi-momento-drammatico-per-il-paese). 22.Cf. T. Burgis, La macchina del saccheggio, Milan, Brioschi, 2020, 94f. 23.The fighting in Tigray has compromised an already serious humanitarian situation. According to the FAO, the locust crisis is such that more than a million people throughout Ethiopia are dependent on humanitarian aid; the situation is even more serious in the “occupied” regions of Tigray. See T. Gardner, “La Guerra ostacola la lotta alle locuste”, in Internazionale, November 27, 2020, 24. Toward a Synodal Church
Cardinal Michael Czerny, SJ
When we apply the term “synodality” to the Church, we do not intend to designate a more collaborative decision-making process that merely leads to choosing an option, deliberating on a measure, or issuing an instruction. Rather, it is something that 17 makes clear a fundamental aspect of ecclesial identity: its primary communal dimension, its essential evangelizing mission under the guidance of the Holy Spirit. As an event of communion that originates in the mystery of the one and triune God, the Church manifests and realizes herself in gathering as the “people of God” that walk together. We could say that synodality is the form in which her original vocation and her intrinsic mission are historicized: to call together all the people of the earth, of every time and age, to make them sharers in the salvation and joy of Christ. On many occasions Pope Francis has stressed how synodality grounds, models and strengthens both the life of the Church and the witness and service it is called to render to the human family: “Walking together is the constitutive way of the Church; the figure that allows us to interpret reality with the eyes and heart of God; the condition for following the Lord Jesus and being servants of life in this wounded time. Breath and synodal process reveal what we are and the dynamism of communion that animates our decisions.”1
La Civiltà Cattolica, En. Ed. Vol. 5, no. 2 art. 3, 1020: 10.32009/22072446.0221.3
1.Francis, Introductory speech at the opening of the work of the 70th General Assembly of the Italian Bishops’ Conference, May 22, 2017, in http:// www.vatican.va/content/francesco/it/speeches/2017/may/documents/papa- francesco_20170522_70assemblea-cei.html TOWARD A SYNODAL CHURCH
Synodality – “way,” “figure,” “condition,” “breath” to experience of belief – is the modus vivendi et operandi by which the Church disposes all its members to co-responsibility, enhances their charisms and ministries, and intensifies the bonds of fraternal love. For the pope, the reform of the Church takes place “from within,” that is, by virtue of a spiritual process that changes forms and renews structures. Drawing on the legacy of Ignatian mysticism, Francis emphasizes the intimate connection between inner experience, language of faith and reform of structures.2 Initiating conversion processes is, therefore, a practice of radical governance. It is the only real guarantee that the institutional structure of the Church can undertake and successfully pursue the communal path of following Jesus, that is, synodality. The 18 insight is this: not only does the Spirit want us to make good decisions, but, through the process of synodality, he also assures us of his assistance in achieving that goal. In the documents of the Second Vatican Council we find no trace of the term “synodality” and, although the word itself is a neologism and is the fruit of subsequent theological reflection, it nevertheless translates and synthesizes the ecclesiology of communion expressed by the Council. The Church of the first centuries, in fact, faced critical issues with which it was engaged as a community listening with the Spirit. Recovering first of all the instances of the conciliar teaching on the Church will be useful to show how synodality represents a ressourcement, a return to the sources, that is, to the mode of government present in the Church from its origins.
The ecclesiology of Lumen Gentium, presupposition of synodality In Lumen Gentium (LG) it is possible to discern the theological presuppositions underlying the post-conciliar conceptualization of synodality. The universal Church is presented there as “sacrament” (LG 1) and “people of God”
2.Cf. A. Spadaro, “The Government of Francis. What is the driving force of his pontificate?”, in Civ. Catt. English edition, October 2020, https://www. laciviltacattolica.com/francis-government-what-is-the-driving-force-of-his- pontificate/ CARDINAL MICHAEL CZERNY, SJ
(LG 4), and this return to biblical and patristic categories has certainly contributed to overcoming the ecclesiological societal model (Church as societas perfecta). In this sense, one of the most innovative aspects of the document is given by the recovery of the doctrine of the “common priesthood of the faithful” (LG 10), which includes the importance of the laity in the life of the Church. It affirms that by virtue of baptism all members of the Church are invested with the “dignity of children of God” and that their active participation in the mission of the Church is to be considered indispensable and necessary. With these affirmations the Council put a definitive end to the centuries- old custom that had led to a distinction between a teaching hierarchy and a listening laity.3 Many lay people felt encouraged to reflect on their vocation in a completely new way. 19 Endowed with the dignity of sonship and the gift and responsibility of proclaiming the Gospel to all, the laity are called to participate in the government of the Church according to their own tasks, roles and ways. The Spirit, in fact, dispenses special charisms and graces upon them, “He makes them fit and ready to undertake the various tasks and offices which contribute toward the renewal and building up of the Church” (LG 12). It is also specified that “by reason of the knowledge, competence or outstanding ability which they may enjoy, permitted and sometimes even obliged to express their opinion on those things which concern the good of the Church” (LG 37). If the Holy Spirit is the principle of unity, which concentrates in a single dynamic subject all the members of the Church, different by ministry, vocation and mission, the Eucharist is the “source and summit” of the believing community (cf. LG 11; Sacrosanctum Concilium [SC], No. 10), in which the many grains of wheat become one bread. Vatican II thus points to the action of the Spirit who enlivens the Church through
3.This intention of the Council Fathers can also be deduced from the order in which the treatise was subdivided: the chapter dedicated to “The People of God” (Ch. 2) precedes the chapter on “The Hierarchical Constitution of the Church” (Ch. 3), so as to clarify how the ecclesiastical hierarchy plays a role of service to the totality of the Church and is aimed at it. The whole is superior to the part. TOWARD A SYNODAL CHURCH sacramental grace, and in a particular way at the moment of the Eucharistic celebration, as the original reality from which the ecclesial “we” springs. Two further clarifications make it possible to grasp the revolutionary significance ofLumen Gentium for the subsequent understanding of synodality as an ecclesial “style,” that is, one that is consonant with the Church of Jesus Christ. The first concerns thesensus fideiof the people of God (cf. LG 12), that is, that supernatural instinct4 with regard to the truth which is manifested in the totality of the faithful and which allows them to judge spontaneously the authenticity of a doctrine of faith and to converge in adherence to it or to an element of Christian praxis.5 Since this convergence ( ) constitutes an indispensable criterion of consensus fidelium 20 discernment for the life of the Church, it is a valid resource for her evangelizing mission. The second clarification concerns the sacramentality of the episcopate (cf. LG 21). The Council teaches that with episcopal consecration the fullness of the sacrament of Orders is conferred and the offices of sanctifying, teaching and governing are also conferred (unity of the potestas sacra). These offices, however, by their nature cannot be exercised except in hierarchical communion with the Head and with the members of the College. Because of the properly collegial character of the episcopal order, the unity of the bishops constitutes a universal reality that precedes the diakonia to the individual particular Churches, that is, the fact that one is constituted pastor of an individual diocese.6
4.The sensus fidei is compared to an instinct, because it is not primarily the result of rational deliberation, but rather takes the form of a spontaneous and natural knowledge, a kind of perception (aisthēsis). 5.“The totality of the faithful, having the anointing that comes from the Holy One (cf. 1 Jn 2:20, 27), cannot err in believing, and it manifests this property by the supernatural sense of faith of the whole people, when from the bishops down to the last of the lay faithful it shows its universal assent in matters of faith and morals” (LG 12). 6.The Council specifies that the College of Bishops has authority only if it is conceived as united to the Roman Pontiff as the subject of supreme authority in the Church (cf. LG 22). The affirmation that episcopal ordination primarily CARDINAL MICHAEL CZERNY, SJ
Moreover, supreme collegial power over the whole Church can be exercised by the bishops, together with the pope, either in the solemn form of an ecumenical council or in contextual and dislocated activities in various parts of the world.
Synodality and collegiality in the Church: the inverted pyramid Renewed ecclesial awareness with respect to the sacramentality of the episcopate and collegiality represents a fundamental theological premise for an adequate theological hermeneutic of synodality. In fact, it allows us to establish how the concept of “synodality” is broader than that of “collegiality”: while synodality implies the participation and involvement of the whole people of God in the life and mission of the Church, collegiality refers to the specific form in which it is defined through the exercise of the 21 ministry of the bishops cum et sub Petro. The episcopal ministry combines the particular dimension, relating to the portion of the people gathered in a local Church, with the universal dimension, relating to the exercise of the ministry in communion with the other bishops and with the pope. Therefore, every effective manifestation of synodality requires the exercise of the collegial ministry of the bishops. Developing the implications of the analogical relationship between the mystery of the immanent Trinity and the forma ecclesiae, envisaged in the prologue of Lumen Gentium (cf. LG 2-4), post-conciliar theology has highlighted how the agapic- trinitarian reality governs the life of the Church: the circumincessio of the Trinitarian persons reflects on the Church, structures it, and disposes it to make explicit its communalal essence through the “perichoretic processuality” that takes the name of “synodality.” Francis uses the terms “synod” and “synodality” in a broad sense, that is, with the intention of translating theological orthodoxy into pastoral orthopraxis: “synod” does not express exclusively
entails a reference to the universal Church also remains in the 1983 Code of Canon Law (cc. 330-341). According to some scholars, the Council did not make it sufficiently clear on this point how the relationship between the collegium episcoporum and the communio ecclesiarum is articulated. Cf. H. Legrand, “Les Évêques, les Églises locales et l’Église entière”, in Revue des Sciences Philosophiques et Théologiques 85 (2001) 210f. TOWARD A SYNODAL CHURCH that ecclesial structure headed by collegial government, but is the visible form of communion, the path of ecclesial fraternity, in which all the baptized participate and contribute personally. A Church that, in its striving for universality, intends to safeguard the diversity of cultural identities, considering them an inalienable richness, cannot but assume synodality as the trait d’union between the unity of the body and the plurality of its members. Assuming the ecclesiological perspective of Vatican II and in accordance with the teaching of Lumen Gentium, Pope Francis affirms that “the path of synodality is the path that God expects from the Church of the third millennium.”7 He emphasizes that synodality “offers us the most adequate interpretive framework for understanding the hierarchical ministry itself” and sketches the image of a Church that – like “an inverted pyramid,” in 22 which the summit is below the base – harmonizes all the subjects involved in it: the people of God, the College of Bishops, the Successor of Peter.8 In Evangelii Gaudium (EG), Francis gave renewed impetus to the doctrine of the sensus fidei fidelium(cf. EG 119), arguing that the path of synodality is an indispensable prerequisite for giving the Church a renewed missionary impetus: all members of the Church are active subjects of evangelization and “missionary disciples” (EG 120). The laity represent the vast majority of the People of God, and there is much to be learned from their participation in the various expressions of the ecclesial community: popular piety, commitment to ordinary pastoral care, competence in the area of culture and social coexistence (cf. EG 126). And if the status and experience of clerical life sometimes give rise to a series of unconscious prejudices, we should hope for the presence of a devout laity who, like attentive and loving observers, see the need to become more aware of who they are. We should also remember the words with which St. John Henry Newman responded to those who questioned him about the role of the laity: “The Church would seem foolish without them.”9
7.Francis, Address on the occasion of the Commemoration of the 50th anniversary of the establishment of the Synod of Bishops, October 17, 2015: AAS 107 (2015) 1140. 8.Cf. Ibid. 9.J. H. Newman, On the Consultation of the Faithful in Matters of Doctrine. CARDINAL MICHAEL CZERNY, SJ
It is therefore necessary to overcome the obstacles represented by the lack of formation, the deleterious effects of a clerical mentality that risks relegating the lay faithful to a subordinate role, in order to increase the spaces in which they can express themselves and share the richness of their experience as disciples of the Lord (cf. EG 102). The co-responsibility of the entire People of God in the mission of the Church requires the initiation of consultative processes that make the presence and voice of the laity more participatory. It is not a question of establishing a sort of “lay parliamentarianism” – since the authority of the College of Bishops does not depend on a delegation expressed by the faithful through an electoral process, but rather presents itself as a precise charism with which the Spirit has endowed the 23 ecclesial body – but of making full use of the resources and structures already available to the Church. With this in mind, on September 18, 2018, with Episcopalis 10 Communio (EC), the Holy Father translated into norms all the passages that distinguish the path of a “constitutively synodal Church.” The apostolic constitution marks a step forward with respect to Vatican II: if we must give the Council credit for having recovered the ecclesial subjects and their ministerial nature, this document attempts to translate the theoretical arguments into ecclesial practice. The keystone is listening: every synodal praxis “begins by listening to the people of God,” “continues by listening to the pastors” and culminates in listening to the Bishop of Rome, called to declare himself “Pastor and Doctor of all Christians.”11 Since collegiality is at the service of synodality, the pope affirms that “the Synod of Bishops must increasingly become a privileged instrument for listening to the People of God.” And “although structurally it is essentially configured as an episcopal body,” it does not “exist separately from the rest of the faithful”; “on the contrary, it is a suitable instrument to give voice to the
10.Francis, Apostolic Constitution “Episcopalis Communio” on the Synod of Bishops, in www.vatican.va 11.Id., Discourse on the occasion of the Commemoration of the 50th anniversary of the institution of the Synod of Bishops, op. cit. TOWARD A SYNODAL CHURCH entire People of God.” For this reason “in the preparation of Synodal Assemblies, it is very important that consultation of all the particular Churches be given special attention” (EC 7). This consultation of the faithful must be followed by “discernment on the part of pastors”: attentive to the sensus fidei of the People of God, they must know how to distinguish the promptings of the Spirit “from the often changing currents of public opinion” (Ibid.). This must be the way of “communal discernment,” a practice so dear to Pope Francis, to which he often refers, drawing on his Ignatian spirituality. To discern communally is to pay attention to the will of God in history, in the life not of a specific person, but of the entire people of God. Although this takes place in the sphere of the heart, of interiority, its raw material is always the echo that reality causes 24 to reverberate in inner space. It is an interior attitude that urges us to be open to dialogue, to encounter, to find God wherever he allows himself to be found, and not only in predetermined, well-defined and fenced-in environments (cf. EG 231-233). Episcopalis Communio divides synodal praxis into three phases: preparation, discussion and implementation, and each Synod celebrated during the current pontificate – on the family (2014, 2015), on young people (2018), on the Amazon (2019) – has sought to implement these phases to an increasing extent. As the Holy Father himself has observed, “the changes introduced so far go in the direction of making the Synods held every two or three years in Rome freer and more dynamic, giving more time for sincere discussion and listening.”12
The preferential option for the poor The preferential option for the poor goes back to the prophets and Matthew 25, and is expressed in similar words 13 in the opening of Gaudium et Spes (GS). It became a focal point in the reflection that took place during the 1971 Synod
12.Id., Ritorniamo a sorridere. La strada verso un futuro migliore, Milan, Piemme, 2020, 96. 13.“The joys and hopes, the sorrows and anxieties of the people of today, of the poor above all and of all who suffer, are also the joys and hopes, the sorrows and anxieties of Christ’s disciples” (GS 1; italics ours). CARDINAL MICHAEL CZERNY, SJ
“Justice in the World,” and later St. John Paul II and Benedict XVI integrated it into the Church’s social teaching. The fact that it represents a distinctive feature of the current pontificate should not be attributed to novelty, but to the vigor with which Francis has embraced its implications for the proclamation of the Gospel. At this point, it will be useful to take a look at how the ecclesiology of communion, collegiality and synodality play an essential role in its implementation. For Francis, the preferential option for the poor (cf. EG 48) follows the confronting logic of the incarnation of the Word. It derives from what the Word, Jesus Christ, has taught us, in word and deed, about the poor. Consequently, the Church must recognize in this predisposition the fundamental pre- eminence of the service of charity. The pope points out 25 that this is not a preference of a sociological nature, but of a properly theological kind, because it leads back to God’s saving action: “Without the preferential option for the poor, the proclamation of the Gospel, which is itself the prime form of charity, risks being misunderstood or submerged by the ocean of words which daily engulfs us in today’s society of mass communications” (EG 199). Moreover, it is not the expression of a naive “goodness” (EG 179), which is expressed in some activity, or in a sort of propensity, without in fact constituting an essential characteristic of the Church’s life; rather, it should be recognized as an integral part not only of the Gospels, but also of the process of ecclesial transformation desired and initiated by Vatican II. The Council Fathers, in fact, seeing in the situation of the least and the derelict a “sign of the times,” argued that the Church was called to move from a charitable practice of a welfare type, in which the poor are reduced to a mere “object” of care, to their recognition as “members” of the people of God and “subjects” of their own liberation. In the encyclical Fratelli Tutti (FT), among all the situations of fragility that characterize today’s social fabric and to which it is urgent to give a response, the pope emphasizes the emergency involving refugees, migrants and internally displaced persons, otherwise defined as the emergency of the “limit of the frontiers” (FT 129-132). Everyone in the Church and in society is called TOWARD A SYNODAL CHURCH to “welcome, protect, promote and integrate” those who, for various reasons, are forced to leave their land, renouncing the “right not to migrate” (FT 38; 129). This means moving from a conception of society in which the foreigner is discriminated against to an understanding of social coexistence in which full citizenship is guaranteed to all. Rather than “implementing welfare programs from the top” (FT 129), it is a matter of offering possibilities for integration that are practical and concrete: granting visas, humanitarian corridors, accessibility to essential services and education, religious freedom (FT 130). Francis’ words, therefore, do nothing but bring us back to that awareness which Vatican II grasped, in the need to give preference to the poor, a call of the Holy Spirit to conversion both of intra- ecclesial structures and of the very way of relating to the Gospel 26 (cf. LG 8; GS 1). Giving the poor a privileged place among the members of the People of God (cf. EG 187-196) does not only mean recognizing them as privileged recipients of evangelization, but considering them as its subjects, as its active agents. Evangelii Gaudium, in fact, encourages all the baptized to consider the encounter with the poor as a favorable opportunity to let themselves be evangelized by Christ (cf. EG 121; 178). Thus the contours of the distinction between evangelizers and evangelized are blurred: “We must all let others constantly evangelize us” (EG 121; 174). Even the poor are evangelizers because, as members of the people of God, they have much to give and much to teach (cf. EG 48). This is why Francis, addressing the poor members of Popular Movements, did not hesitate to say, “to me you are social poets because, from the forgotten peripheries where you live, you create admirable solutions for the most pressing problems afflicting the marginalized.”14 The encouragement addressed to believers with which the pope invited them to start again “from the peripheries” – not only geographical, but also existential15 – thus takes on different forms and expressions: it means paying attention to
14.Francis, Letter to Popular Movements, April 12, 2020, at www.vatican.va 15.Referring to the teaching of St. John Paul II, Francis describes poverty not only in material terms as indigence, but also by referring to every form of impoverishment of the person, as a limitation or injury to the dignity and CARDINAL MICHAEL CZERNY, SJ
the social injustices and personal sufferings of those in desperate conditions (pain, poverty and misery); it means interiorizing what is indicated in Matthew 25 and in the rich tradition of the Works of Mercy; it means appropriating the complex richness of the theme played out at the Synod for Amazonia, “New Paths for the Church and for an Integral Ecology,” with its two intrinsically interdependent and related elements. From the vocation of the Church expressed in Lumen Gentium and its synodal journey spring evangelization, human promotion in all its forms and care for our common home. And when this new way of addressing the problems of the human family (cf. EG 30) is taken up with determination, as an essential and necessary issue, then the Church is helped to decentralize and is pushed toward the peripheries. The Church must walk 27 as united, carrying the burden of the human, listening to the cries of the poor, reforming herself and her actions, listening first of all to the voice of the humble, theanawim of the Hebrew Scriptures, who were at the center of Jesus’ public ministry. We can look at all this as a hermeneutical key that informs and redefines synodal praxis. Therefore, it becomes necessary to “put all things in a missionary key” (EG 34) and to adopt a multidimensional model of ecclesial and social unity (cf. EG 234-237) capable of reflecting a renewed intra-ecclesial and ecumenical sensitivity. The reform that Francis invites us to carry out works if it is “emptied” of all worldly logic, that is, both of the “ideology of change” and that of “fixism.” The world appreciates the ability to achieve goals or make changes to institutions, anytime and anywhere. The reform encourages everyone to discern times and opportunities for “emptying out” so that mission can better let Christ shine. And when Francis addresses to “every Christian” (EG 3) and “every person” (LS 3), regardless of where they were born or live (cf. FT 1), his call to responsibility16 that is summed up in “concern for
fundamental rights of the human being. Cf. John Paul II, Sollicitudo Rei Socialis, No. 15. 16.The intention to address everyone is in continuity with the choice of the Second Vatican Council, which “no longer hesitates to address its word solely to TOWARD A SYNODAL CHURCH the vulnerable” (EG 209-216), he does not turn his attention only to “poor” people, but also to the “poor” earth. Becoming sensitive to the “cry of the poor” puts us in a position to listen to the cry of “sister earth” (LS 1). Francis insists on the relationship between caring for the environment and caring for the poor (cf. LS 49), and he returns to it again and more insistently in the post-synodal exhortation Querida Amazonia (QA 52), as well as in the catechesis “Healing the World” of August and September 2020. The connection between the poor and the environment makes it possible to highlight how the future of all humanity is intimately linked to that of the environment, so that protecting the interests of the weakest coincides with safeguarding creation. As Laudato Si’ proclaims, “everything is connected” (LS 16; 91; 117; 138; 240). 28 Listening to the people of God, hearing in them the cry of the derelict poor and the mistreated earth, enables the Church to avoid the danger of projecting a preconceived scheme onto reality. This error occurs when the Church, in its intent to reform, pursues an ideal project that stems from desires, even good ones, but which are an expression of self-referentiality. If this were to be the case, one would end up obeying another ideology, the merely “worldly” ideology of change. On the other hand, when the Church accompanies the poor in their liberation, they in turn help her to free herself from those pitfalls that her institutional component can always encounter.
How can we make synodality grow in the Church? The fundamental challenge that the synodal process poses to the life of the Church refers to a renewed understanding of “communion,” understood in terms of “inclusiveness”: to involve all the components of the People of God, especially the poor, under the authority of those whom the Holy Spirit prepares as pastors of the Church, so that all may feel co-responsible for the life and mission of the Church.
the children of the Church and to all who invoke the name of Christ, but to all men” (GS 2). CARDINAL MICHAEL CZERNY, SJ
But how can synodality grow in the Church? We need to initiate processes of conversion, that is, of “discernment, purification and reform” (EG 30), so that all may acquire and internalize the principles of a spirituality that is open to “inclusive” communion, rather than a spirituality that is limited to seeking individual perfection. Without a real conversion in the way of thinking, praying and acting, without an effective metanoia that implies a constant training in mutual acceptance, the external instruments of communion – the ecclesial synodal structures that have arisen from the conciliar event – could prove insufficient to achieve the end for which they were created. The pope does not have pre-packaged ideas to apply to reality, nor an ideological plan of ready-made reforms, but advances on the basis of a spiritual and prayerful experience that he shares as 29 he goes along in dialogue, consultation, and concrete response to situations of vulnerability, suffering, and injustice. This is, as St. Ignatius would say, his “way forward.” Francis creates the structural conditions for real and open dialogue. He pursues neither pre-packaged institutional optimizations, nor strategies designed at the theoretical level and aimed at obtaining better statistical results. Perhaps there is still a long way to go to understand this profound reform of our institutional existence as disciples of Christ gathered in the Church. Even more so, there is a need to understand the Church, semper reformanda, in relation to the times – including the current pandemic – in which we are living, trying to bring together and enhance the local, national, regional and continental Church; not to mention how to imagine the future of Christianity with hope. Evangelii Gaudium is addressed “to all the members of the Church with the aim of encouraging ongoing missionary renewal” (LS 3). This reform consists in the never- completed synodal and missionary conversion of each member of the People of God and of the People of God as a whole. In her synodal life, the Church deliberately offers herself in terms of a diakonia aimed at promoting an economic, social, political and cultural life marked by fraternity and social friendship. The priority commitment and criterion of all social action of the People of God is to listen to the cry of TOWARD A SYNODAL CHURCH the poor and that of the earth (cf. LS 49), urgently recalling, in the determination of the choices and projects of society, the fundamental principles of the Church’s social doctrine: inalienable human dignity, the universal access to goods, the primacy of solidarity, dialogue aimed at peace, care for the common home. Francis’ encouragement for “the Synod of Bishops to become more and more a privileged instrument for listening to the people of God” is both a prayer and an invocation: “For the Synod Fathers we ask the Holy Spirit first of all for the gift of listening: to listen to God, that with him we may hear the cry of the people; to listen to the people until breathing in the will to which God calls us.”17 Let us pray, then, for those who have responsibilities in 30 the Church, for those engaged in religious life, in Catholic education and in other services, that they will receive the same graces: listening, walking, and serving.
17.Francis, Prayer Vigil in Preparation for the Synod on the Family (October 4, 2014). The Complete Works of Karl Rahner
Andreas R. Batlogg, SJ
“Rahner is dead, and soon his thought will also be buried.”1 The first part of the sentence we quote is an observation, the second an error. This drastic judgment was expressed in a letter by Hans Urs von Balthasar to the editor of a magazine on the 31 occasion of the death of the Jesuit theologian Karl Rahner (1904-84). Von Balthasar was a friend of Rahner, and he too had been a Jesuit from 1929 to 1950, but the paths of these two great thinkers had then separated. They returned to using conciliatory tones only in the last years of Rahner’s life, but a certain distance remained between them, as the opening sentence shows. A totally different judgment on Rahner was given in 1996 by Johann Baptist Metz in a lexicon of 20th century theologians: “In many respects the Rahner who was criticized and looked upon with suspicion even in the ecclesiastical field has today become the ‘accepted Rahner.’ His bold theological statements, often superficially simplified and one-sidedly misrepresented, are on the lips of many. This should not make us forget that the name of Rahner is linked with the most significant part of the development – the ‘turn’ – of present-day Catholic theology. First of all, there is the ‘turn’ away from the world of rigid and arid formulas, typical of the neo-scholastic way of thinking and speaking, to the decisive confrontation of the best and the most lively elements of the scholastic tradition with the questions posed by recent philosophy, transcendental and existential.
La Civiltà Cattolica, En. Ed. Vol. 5, no. 2 art. 4, 1020: 10.32009/22072446.0221.4
1.Quoted by M. Lochbrunner, Hans Urs von Balthasar und seine Theologenkollegen. Sechs Beziehungsgeschichten, Würzburg, Echter, 2009, 535. THE COMPLETE WORKS OF KARL RAHNER
Then the ‘turn’ in the direct parallel between systematic theology and historical-exegetical theology, thanks to a theological hermeneutics of biblical statements and the history of theology (developed in an exemplary way, at least in some perspectives). Then the ‘turn’ in overcoming the fracture between theology and kerygma, as Rahner himself announced in the form of a program: ‘The most solid and the truest theology, the one that is passionately attached only to its object, that always sets itself anew to research and that proves to be the most scientific, in the long run is also the most kerygmatic.’ Then the ‘turn’ in the professional faith of the theologian in favor of a fraternal faith: with the help of a theology of faith that knows how faith is in constant search of itself and always in danger; a theology therefore that understands itself as , as fraternal theologia viatorum 32 service to the hope of all. Finally, there was a ‘turn’ in the conception of the world, away from ghettos in favor of dialogue with a world accepted in its spiritual and social pluralism (up to the talks on Marxism of the Paulus-Gesellschaft): and all this well before the word ‘dialogue’ became a fashionable term, often emptied of meaning.”2 Thus, while von Balthasar gladly saw Rahner’s thought buried and forgotten in the graveyard of the history of theology and the Church, Metz – who had also completely distanced himself from his teacher and friend – never tired of recalling throughout his life Rahner’s often unrecognized “enigmatic presence in the theology of today.”3 “If in fact Catholic theology today already has something else in view and is capable of having a broader vision than Rahner himself, this is not least because with his ‘anthropological turn’ of the discourse on God, Rahner has brought theology up to the level of current issues, thus enabling it to have a critical and fruitful encounter with the modern world, in a way that hardly has any precedents. And if at times I call him a ‘classic’
2.J. B. Metz, “Karl Rahner”, in P. Vanzan - H. J. Schulz (eds), Lessico dei teologi del secolo XX, Brescia, Queriniana, 1978, 532. 3.J. B. Metz, “Wer steht für die unschuldigen Opfer ein? (2008)”, in Id., Gesammelte Schriften. Vol. 8: Gespräche, Interviews, Antworten. Eine Auswahl, Freiburg, Herder, 2017, 240. ANDREAS R. BATLOGG, SJ
of modern Catholic theology, I do so not to relegate him to past history, but to emphasize that he is also a theologian from whom one can and must learn, when one has already begun to ask questions and make objections.”4
A great publishing enterprise One can ask questions and make objections, but one must also allow Rahner to be our teacher again and again. In fact, in the spring of 2018, 34 years after his death, a gigantic editorial project was completed. With the publication of volume 32/2 (devoted to indexes), the edition of the Complete Works (Sämtliche Werke = SW) of the German theologian was happily concluded. The Karl-Rahner-Stiftung (“Karl Rahner Foundation”) had decided to undertake this publication in 1989.5 In the second 33 half of 1995, the first volume (SW 19: Selbstvollzug der Kirche) of the 32-volume edition was released. This numbering has been adhered to, but there are actually 40 volumes. In fact, volumes 5, 6, 17, 21, 22, 24, and 32 each appeared divided into two parts, and volume 21 into three. The Complete Works comprises 27,200 pages. Thus it is now possible to read all of Rahner’s published works in one edition.6
4.Id., “Karl Rahner,” op. cit., 352. 5.Cf. A. R. Batlogg - A. Zahlauer, “Rahner in 32 Bänden. Anmerkungen zum Start der Karl-Rahner-Gesamtausgabe”, in Zeitschrift für Katholische Theologie 118 (1996) 379-386. 6.In the editorial project, the volumes were arranged in four phases: 1) Grundlegung (“Foundation”) (1922-49), comprising SW 1: Frühe spirituelle Texte und Studien (“Early Spiritual Texts and Studies”); SW 2: Geist in Welt (“Spirit in the World”); SW 3: Spiritualität und Theologie der Kirchenväter (“Spirituality and Theology of the Church Fathers”); SW 4: Hörer des Wortes (“Hearers of the Word”); SW 5: De gratia Christi; SW 6: De paenitentia; SW 7: Der betende Christ (“Christ in Prayer”); SW 8: Der Mensch in der Schöpfung (“Man in Creation”); 2) Aufbau (“Structure”) (1949-64), which includes SW 9: Maria, Mutter des Herrn (“Mary, Mother of the Lord”); SW 10: Kirche in der Herausforderungen der Zeit (“The Church in the Challenges of Time”); SW 11: Mensch und Sünde (“Man and Sin”); SW 12: Menschsein und Menschwerdung Gottes (“Humanity and the Incarnation of God”); SW 13: Ignatianischer Geist (“The Ignatian Spirit”); SW 14: Geistliches Leben (“The Spiritual Life”); SW 15: Verantwortung der Theologie (“The Responsibility of Theology”); SW 16: Kirchliche Erneuerung (“Church Renewal”); SW 17: Enzyklopädische Theologie (“Encyclopedic Theology”); 3) Entfaltung (“Development”) (1964-76), comprising SW 18: Leiblichkeit der THE COMPLETE WORKS OF KARL RAHNER
His work consists not only of the few monographs, but also of hundreds of articles, entries (almost 1,000!) in lexicons and occasional writings and, seen from the outside, it could appear disordered, because it is extremely fragmented, with over 4,000 bibliographic entries (after removing the duplicates, as many as 1,900 titles still remain). This is why it constitutes a “giant mountain” (Riesengebirge) that is difficult to evaluate, as Karl Lehmann explains. We note that those who know how to read the indexes and wisely exploit them will obtain new information, sometimes even surprising, which will indirectly sweep away old clichés. One will notice, for example, how much Rahner’s thought was biblically based. It will emerge how much the German theologian drew competently from tradition, which he did not limit himself to citing, but elaborated in a creative way. 34 And it will be possible to see how much Rahner was an expert in literature, both traditional and modern. From the beginning, the thorny question arose as to whether the edition should be arranged chronologically or whether more attention should be paid to the different strands of interest in the author’s four phases of work. It is a question that could not be resolved in a strict manner. Compromises had to be made, and Rahner experts will no doubt recognize this basic conflict. Ulrich Ruh – for many years editor-in-chief of the journal Herder Korrespondenz, and from 1974 to 1979 Lehmann’s assistant – edited SW 24 (Das Konzil in der Ortskirche, 2011), and in an original contribution for the internet portal katholisch.de,
Gnade (“The Bodilyness of Grace”); SW 19: Selbstvollzug der Kirche (“The Self- Realization of the Church”); SW 20: Priesterliche Existenz (“Priestly Existence”); SW 21: Das Zweite Vatikanum (“Vatican II”); SW 22: Dogmatik nach dem Konzil (“Dogmatics after the Council”); SW 23: Glaube im Alltag (“Faith in Everyday Life”); SW 24: Das Konzil in der Ortskirche (“The Council in the Local Church”); SW 25: Erneuerung des Ordenslebens (“The Renewal of Religious Life”); SW 26: Grundkurs des Glaubens (“Fundamental Course on Faith”); 4) Sammlung (“Collection”) (1976-84), comprising SW 27: Einheit in Vielfalt (“Unity in Multiplicity”); SW 28: Christentum in Gesellschaft (“Christianity in Society”); SW 29: Geistliche Schriften (“Spiritual Writings”); SW 30: Anstöße dogmatischer Theologie (“Stimuli of Dogmatic Theology”); SW 31: Im Gespräch über Kirche und Gesellschaft (“In Dialogue about Church and Society”); SW 32: Ergänzungen/ Register (“Integrations/Indexes”). The volume containing the indexes (SW 32/2) constitutes a kind of key that facilitates access to the texts of the entire edition. ANDREAS R. BATLOGG, SJ
explained why we should definitely read Rahner. He summarizes his thought as follows: “In many respects it certainly would not hurt the Church and theology today to return with a fresh perspective to the school of the great ‘Church Fathers’ of the 20th century – not least Rahner – precisely because of the widespread extravagance, fervor or shortness of breath marking the current debates on issues of faith and religion that we are witnessing.”7 On April 19, 2018, a ceremony was held in Munich to celebrate the conclusion of the project.8 On that occasion, Cardinal Reinhard Marx, president of the German Bishops’ Conference, delivered a brief speech of greeting. Raffelt, the main coordinator of the editorial commission,9 summarized the significance of the event as follows: “For these [volumes] not 35 to remain fruitless capital, it is very important that they be read and studied in depth in today’s theological world.”10 This edition was intended to provide a basis for achieving this goal. However, universities and educational institutions also need people capable of disseminating Rahner’s theology and testifying convincingly that reading his writings is a fruitful undertaking. The complete edition of the theologian’s works is interesting not only because almost every volume contains some still unpublished texts, but also because it compares the different textual editions, or presents in parallel the first and second editions of monographs – for example, Spirit in the World (1939/1957) and Hearers of the Word (1941/1963) – edited by
7.Quoted from http://www.katolische.de/de/ 8.The program can be found on the Karl-Rahner-Archiv website; the ceremony itself with all speeches at www.karl-rahner-archiv.de/rahner-lecture- am-19-april-2018 9.Cf. A. Raffelt, “Was will die Karl-Rahner-Gesamtausgabe?”, in Zeitschrift für Katholische Theologie 121 (1999) 413-430; Id., “Die Karl Rahner- Gesamtausgabe. Zum Stand vor dem hundertsten Geburtstag des modernen ‘Kirchenvaters’. Gesamtausgaben von Theologen”, in Kirchliches Buch und Bibliothekswesen. Jahrbuch, No. 3 (2002), Rottenburg am Neckar, 2003, 11-27; Id., “Karl Rahner – medial und multimedial”, in Stimmen der Zeit Spezial, No. 1, 2004, 75-80. 10.A. Raffelt, “Karl Rahner Sämtliche Werke. Ein Editionsbericht”, in H. Schöndorf – A. Raffelt (eds), Rahner Lecture 2018, 37 (cf. https://freidok.uni- freiburg.de/data/9853). THE COMPLETE WORKS OF KARL RAHNER
Metz on behalf of Rahner himself. Only a chronologically ordered juxtaposition of the editions makes it possible to correct the interpretations that have become established over time, if not to complete them substantially, not to mention that the chronicles of the edition contain valuable information that had hitherto been unavailable. Many continue to wonder if there was really a need for the Complete Works, since the 16 volumes of the Schriften zur Theologie already existed, but not everyone knows – or is not fully aware – that those volumes, published between 1954 and 1984, constitute only a third of all Rahner’s works.
The Rahner Lectures At the beginning of 2008, the founded Karl-Rahner-Archiv, 36 in 1985 in Innsbruck – the final place where the German theologian worked11 – was transferred to Munich. In January 2009, the Karl-Rahner-Archiv’s own website was inaugurated. Twenty-five years after Rahner’s death (2009) the Rahner Lectures were resumed with the collaboration of the Hochschule 12 für Philosophie, the Jesuit Faculty of Philosophy in Munich. Until 2014 they were published annually, and then biennially.
Learning from Rahner? In the light of a famous witticism uttered in 1932 by Kurt Tucholsky – “Tell me what you need and I will find you a quotation from Nietzsche” – even with regard to the reception and use of Rahner’s writings it can be said that they have not been spared simplifications, omissions and misinterpretations. Rahner’s literary production has often been used – and abused – as a mine to be exploited. The Complete Works oppose a decontextualized and arbitrary use of his work, because they keep it present in the most integral and reliable way possible, or at least make it accessible again, since many items had been dispersed, or had long since become unavailable.
11.Karl Rahner’s remains rest in a tomb in the crypt of the Jesuit church in Innsbruck. 12.Cf. A. R. Batlogg, Einleitung: Warum Rahner-Lectures?, in A. R. Batlogg - A. Raffelt (eds), Rahner Lecture 2009, 9-14; cf. https://freidok.uni-freiburg.de/data/6501 ANDREAS R. BATLOGG, SJ
Whoever takes into consideration the connections and contexts of Rahner’s works, cannot simply use him for personal interests, or as a passe-partout for issues unknown to him, or to find in him cues that give a clear credibility to one’s own argument. Those who contextualize a text often come to very different, and often much less spectacular, conclusions. In 1994 Lehmann declared that there is not “a misleading cult of Rahner that is interested in his person rather than his work, since many eyewitnesses can still shed light on the life and work of this religious, who worked generously and in a quite hidden way.”13 Perhaps Rahner’s former assistant and co-editor of his Complete Works can be accused of being biased, but on that occasion he was speaking as president of the German Bishops’ Conference. This statement of his is interesting: “Karl Rahner 37 has not even become a mummy that can now be observed only from a historical distance and that is comprehensively dissected. Rahner can also enthuse to his cause today’s younger generations, who have barely been able to know him in his personal work. But to do this one cannot avoid the effort of reasoning and profound reflection.”14 From “Rahnerian jargon” we must now move on to “Rahner himself.” It is not important to learn him by rote, to have one of his sayings ready for every theological problem and to use it as a resolving device, however much this may make the discourse stimulating. Perhaps we should recognize as prophetic Lehmann’s judgment that Rahner is “a man of the day after tomorrow,”15 his thinking goes beyond mere tomorrows. Only those who do not really know the texts of the German theologian can doubt his focus on the Church. Anecdotes, legends and stories – Rahner’s “sayings” – cannot replace demanding study of the author. Is it possible to speak and write about Rahner without an apologetic intent?16 An impartial observer, the Freiburg
13.K. Lehmann, “Karl Rahner zum Gedächtnis. Neunzigster Geburtstag – Zehnter Todestag”, in Stimmen der Zeit 212 (1994) 148. 14.Ibid. 15.Ibid., 149. 16.Cf. A. R. Batlogg, “Was heißt heute: Karl Rahner erfahren”, in Batlogg – Michalski, Begegnungen mit Karl Rahner. Weggefährten erinnern sich, Freiburg, THE COMPLETE WORKS OF KARL RAHNER fundamental theologian Magnus Striet, in a review of the 2004 Rahner Year, said that he did not want “only to honor him, but to take his side.”17 He also explained the motive behind his position: “to stand up for a theologian for whom thinking was an exercise of faith and who therefore, being deeply convinced of the power of this faith in the service of life, with extraordinary energy wanted to involve others in this exercise.”18 Although the biographical research on Rahner is practically complete and from the analysis of the rich correspondence preserved in the Karl-Rahner-Archiv one should not expect sensational news, but only interesting details, recent dissertations and studies on Rahner show that in the meantime the Complete Works have become indispensable. A year after his death, the in Innsbruck established the Karl-Rahner-Stiftung Karl Rahner 38 Preis für theologische Forschung (“Rahner Prize for Theological Research”), which is planned every year, but which could not always be awarded: not because there is a lack of good dissertations or doctoral theses, but because the standards set are very high. Winning works are then published in the Innsbrucker theologischen Studien, which are highly regarded by scholars of German theology. The mere fact that young researchers apply for this award shows that with the Rahner brand great results can be achieved. This is precisely the purpose of the Karl- Rahner-Archiv. A “constructive deepening of reflection”19 on Rahner must become an activity of every generation of theologians, who should be humble enough to recognize that they are building on the achievements of previous generations. The appeal of Rahner, his timeless relevance, may depend, as Metz has pointed out, also on the awareness that “the language of prayer is much broader than the language of faith.”20
Herder, 2006, 359-377. 17.M. Striet, “Ein bleibendes Vermächtnis. Was die Theologie heute von Karl Rahner lernen kann”, in Herder Korrespondenz 58 (2004) 559. 18.Ibid. 19.Ibid., 560. 20.J. B. Metz, “Karl Rahners Ringen um die theologische Ehre des Menschen”, in Stimmen der Zeit 119 (1994) 389. ANDREAS R. BATLOGG, SJ
“As is rarely the case with other theologians, Karl Rahner was aware that any discourse about God can have an authentic linguistic foundation only to the extent that it is rooted in a discourse addressed to God, and that therefore the language of prayer constitutes the linguistic environment of theology, which is not theoretically deducible.”21 Rahner’s admirers and critics alike can be convinced of this by reading each volume of the Complete Works.
39
21.Ibid., 388f. The McCarrick Report Seeking the truth in order to convert
Federico Lombardi, SJ
On November 10, 2020, the “Report on the Holy See’s Institutional Knowledge and Decision-Making Related to Former Cardinal Theodore Edgar McCarrick” was made public in both Italian and English.1 It had been compiled over the course of two years by the Secretariat of State at the behest of 40 the Holy Father Pope Francis. Many have wondered if it was necessary to make public via internet such a voluminous and detailed document (449 pages, with 1,410 notes). It makes for painful reading and is heavy going due to the frequent returns to the same events. Parts of it are unsuitable for people who could be traumatized.
Why the Report? There were compelling reasons for its publication because of the two main questions that arose when the gravity of the charges against the former cardinal emerged, which the Report sets out to answer with courageous truth. In the Church in general, and in the United States in particular, episodes of sexual abuse have provoked strong reactions, not only because of the horror of the crimes involved, but also because of mismanagement and concealment by the ecclesiastical authorities, even at a high level, to the point of people speaking of a “cover up culture.” The McCarrick case,
La Civiltà Cattolica, En. Ed. Vol. 5, no. 2 art. 5, 1020: 10.32009/22072446.0221.5
1.www.vatican.va/resources/resources_rapporto-card- mccarrick_20201110_en.pdf (full text). A summary in A. Tornielli, “McCarrick Report, a sorrowful page the Church is learning from”, in Vati can Ne ws, November 10, 2020. FEDERICO LOMBARDI, SJ
because of its extreme gravity and given the man’s importance, has raised this problem again not only within the Church of the United States, but also in relation to the Holy See, due to McCarrick’s appointments to various episcopal sees and his elevation to the cardinalate. What was known about his behavior during the various stages of the nomination process, and in Rome when those decisions were made? That was the first question. In addition, on August 26, 2018 – when McCarrick had already been dismissed from the College of Cardinals, but not yet from the clerical state – some statements by the former Nuncio to the United States, Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò, caused a great stir. Among other things, they called into question Pope Francis’ response to the issue in an accusatory tone, and they 41 also involved his predecessor, Benedict XVI, and the line taken by them toward McCarrick in light of the accusations that were emerging about his sexual conduct. So what did the last two popes know, and how did they deal with the situation? This was the second question. The two questions were obviously very serious for the credibility of the Church’s government in such an important area as the choice and appointment of its pastors. Moreover, they concerned the very sensitive field of sexual abuse, in which, as is well known, the Church is engaged in a difficult process of renewal and conversion, where truth and transparency are crucial aspects. It was therefore necessary to devote a great deal of effort to properly understand what had happened and how it had been possible for a person who had finally been publicly acknowledged as seriously guilty to have reached the highest levels of the ecclesiastical hierarchy. The Report, therefore, is the result of very thorough research, carried out specifically “on the institutional knowledge and decision-making process of the Holy See.” The research was not only documentary (especially in the various archives most directly concerned: the Secretariat of State and various Roman Congregations, the Nunciature in the United States and dioceses where McCarrick lived and worked: New York, Metuchen, Newark, and Washington), THE MCCARRICK REPORT: SEEKING THE TRUTH IN ORDER TO CONVERT but also supplemented by about ninety interviews. The results are presented strictly following the chronological order of the various stages of McCarrick’s life, from his promotion to the episcopate in 1977 to the accusation presented to the Diocese of New York in 2017 of his having sexually abused a minor in the early 1990s. This accusation – the first one with specific details involving a minor – was promptly examined and recognized as credible. Hence there followed McCarrick’s resignation from the College of Cardinals in July 2018 and the canonical process conducted by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, in which other serious testimonies emerged, and which concluded in early 2019 with the decree of dismissal of McCarrick from the clerical state, because he was “guilty of solicitation during the Sacrament of 42 Confession and of sins against the Sixth Commandment with minors and adults, with the aggravating circumstance of abuse of power” (p. 437). But, as explained, the proceedings of this last trial are not the subject of the Report, which instead focuses on the entire previous period.
Results of the Report In summary, it may be useful to highlight the following points, with more extensive information available in the text of the Report itself. On the occasion of the appointment of McCarrick as Auxiliary Bishop of New York by Paul VI in 1977, during the information-gathering process prior to each episcopal appointment none of the respondents “reported having witnessed or heard of McCarrick engaging in any improper behavior, either with adults or with minors” (p. 5). At his subsequent appointments as Bishop of Metuchen (1981) and Archbishop of Newark (1986), McCarrick was highly praised “and no credible information emerged suggesting that he had engaged in any misconduct” (p. 5). By contrast, his appointment as Archbishop of Washington, decided by John Paul II in 2000, was a far more laborious process. In the meantime, rumors had surfaced of seriously imprudent behavior with young adult men and seminarians, FEDERICO LOMBARDI, SJ
an allegation of homosexual activity with two priests, and anonymous letters had arrived with accusations of pedophilia. There had thus been doubts about the appropriateness of Pope John Paul II’s visit to Newark during a trip to the United States in 1995, but these were overcome. Later, the archbishop of New York, Cardinal O’Connor, while not being able to pronounce with certainty on the substance of the accusations about which doubts remained, gave a negative opinion as to whether McCarrick should be promoted to the see of Chicago or New York whose archbishops were traditionally appointed cardinals. This negative opinion at first was shared by the Congregation of Bishops and the pope. An investigation carried out by the Nuncio in Washington with four U.S. bishops considered well-informed confirmed 43 the charge of imprudent conduct, but did not give definitive results (the Report expressly states that, according to what is now known, “three of the four respondents provided the Holy See with inaccurate and, moreover, incomplete information”). McCarrick, informed of the accusations, wrote a letter to Pope John Paul II’s private secretary, Msgr. Dziwisz, in which he proclaimed his innocence with great force. Supported by other authoritative opinions, John Paul II, who knew and respected McCarrick, finally decided in favor of his appointment as Archbishop of Washington, and shortly afterward of his admission to the College of Cardinals. Under the pontificate of Benedict XVI there was initially nothing new, so much so that on his 75th birthday, in 2005, McCarrick’s term of office as archbishop was extended for two years; but at the end of the same year new details came to light regarding one of the previously known accusations concerning an adult, so that in 2006 McCarrick was invited to resign. Concern about the possible re-emergence of the accusations was the object of study and reflection, but, since the accusations were not clearly proven, concerned events long past, and did not involve minors, and since the Cardinal had already resigned from his pastoral duties, Pope Benedict did not consider it appropriate to initiate a canonical process, but decided to appeal to McCarrick’s sense of responsibility, THE MCCARRICK REPORT: SEEKING THE TRUTH IN ORDER TO CONVERT recommending him through the Prefect of the Congregation of Bishops, Cardinal Re, to keep a lower profile and lead a more withdrawn life, although not imposing this.2 This actually did not happen. McCarrick continued intense activity, involving travel, multiple contacts and public interventions, of which the Nuncios and the Roman authorities were aware. Moreover, the late Nuncio Sambi clearly admitted that McCarrick was “incapable” of leading a more withdrawn life. This, then, was the situation even during the tenure in Washington of Nuncio Viganò and in the early years of the pontificate of Pope Francis, who did not change the approach of his predecessor until, the emergence of the accusation concerning a minor, which has been discussed and which was the reason for the pope’s decisive and timely intervention. 44
How was this possible? One aspect that cannot be overlooked is that McCarrick was indeed a person of exceptional human qualities: sharp intelligence, formidable capacity for work, talent for organization, government and diplomacy, a gift for cordial and pleasant relations with people of all social levels, even the highest, a multiplicity and wide variety of fields of interest and commitment, an excellent knowledge of various languages and great communication skills, an untiring traveler. From the ecclesiastical point of view, one can add a solid doctrinal formation, a real pastoral commitment, an attentive attitude to orthodoxy and a good relationship with Rome. In short, most of the people who knew him were never surprised by his success, the tasks entrusted to him and the vast appreciation that surrounded him. The Report does not fail to report highly praiseworthy opinions that come from very authoritative sources and that are certainly sincere. McCarrick was a member of a large number of committees of the United States
2.In the sections devoted to this period, the Report presents precise and extensive documentation regarding the activities and positions of Msgr. Viganò, first in the Secretariat of State and then as Nuncio in Washington, in response to his well-known public statements of August 2018, which are repeatedly challenged. FEDERICO LOMBARDI, SJ
Conference of Catholic Bishops; he was involved in discussions at the highest level in the field of ecumenism, in dialogue with Judaism and with other religions. The number of his trips to different parts of the world, detailed in the Report, is incredible. He often went to places where there were humanitarian or Church needs, where there was no lack of risk or hardship, and where few other high-ranking American members of the clergy were willing to go. Many of these trips, even if not accompanied by a formal diplomatic mandate, were opportunities for contacts and gleaning useful information for the Church, which he communicated to the Roman authorities and even to the popes, involving extensive correspondence. His ability to raise funds and redistribute them for the service of the Church or 45 for humanitarian purposes was considerable and wide-ranging (one may recall his role in the creation and management of The Papal Foundation), which naturally attracted contacts and played an influential role, forming bonds with many grateful for his support. However, the Report specifies that there is no reason to think that this activity was carried out primarily for purposes of personal interest. In fact, McCarrick never asked for a salary from the dioceses he governed, nor for a pension after his resignation as archbishop; thus, attachment to material goods does not seem to have been a weak side of his personality. All this should be remembered because it would not be right to deny the good he did, but also – and in this context above all – because it can help us understand the difficulty of understanding and adequately evaluating the dramatically negative side of his personality and behavior. For many it was easier to believe that the accusations came from envy and opposition caused by his intense activity, rather than from his serious failings. In particular with regard to John Paul II, in addition to the serious incompleteness of the information, the Report presents testimonies according to which the personal experience lived by the then Archbishop Wojtyła in Poland, where the regime made wide use of false accusations to discredit priests and prelates, can help to understand the pope’s decision to appoint him to Washington. THE MCCARRICK REPORT: SEEKING THE TRUTH IN ORDER TO CONVERT
Moreover, as the Report notes, even the independent press – which in 2002 had exhaustively investigated the diocese of Boston and Cardinal Bernard Law for cases of sexual abuse of minors and their concealment – despite rumors and indiscretions concerning Cardinal McCarrick, were unable to gather reliable and sure testimony to base accusations against him, since none of the people interviewed by journalists wanted to expose their identities by precise statements, and so they dropped the matter. The well-known Vatican journalist John L. Allen suggests that McCarrick’s authority and his good relations with the press as a source of important and interesting news may have played a prejudicial role in his favor (see pp. 223f). At the same time, we feel it is appropriate to point out one piece of information from the Report that mostly seems to have 46 remained in the shadows so far: it concerns ambition. The Report states, at the time of McCarrick’s appointment to Metuchen (1981), informants gave very positive opinions, “The sole concern 3 referenced in the terna was McCarrick’s ‘obvious ambition to be promoted in the ecclesiastical hierarchy.’ The terna noted that the issue of McCarrick’s ambition had arisen ever since McCarrick’s first candidacy in 1968, but that ‘the informants who brought up this defect in him did not withdraw their vote from the candidate: one wrote to the Apostolic Delegate at the time that it would have been wrong to disqualify him only for this flaw’” (pp. 27f). Let us note that the issue does not seem so marginal. Is it not the case that the letter in which McCarrick solemnly professes his innocence on the occasion of the opposition to his appointment to Washington (or other cardinal’s see) – a truly disconcerting factor in the entire affair – the fruit of his uncontrolled desire to reach the top of the ecclesiastical hierarchy? And later, is it not the case that his blatant inability to adapt to the recommendations of a more withdrawn life after resigning as archbishop the fruit of his evident need, now beyond correction, to be continually the object of attention and not to be “forgotten”?
3.In the course of episcopal nominations, a “terna” of candidates is prepared, based on information generally gathered by the nuncio. The terna and the relevant information is presented to the competent Congregation – in this case, the Congregation for Bishops – and ultimately to the pope. FEDERICO LOMBARDI, SJ
It can also be observed that, with his undoubted abilities and commitment, McCarrick had become part, as he wished, of “the circle of people who matter,” within which one can develop a sense of belonging that comes to prevent one from seeing situations with the freedom and objectivity that are necessary to respond to difficult, unwelcome, and embarrassing problems. It seems that not only did McCarrick remain a prisoner of this, but also that those who were in some type of relationship with him were to some extent caught up in it, if not blatantly deceived. In the delicate procedure for appointments to positions of high authority – to the episcopate, but also in other cases – it seems wise, therefore, to pay great attention not only to signs of dangerous or ambiguous behavior pertaining to the sexual sphere, but also to those that show fragility with regard to 47 ambition. Ambition can in fact corrupt other aspects of moral conduct and the proper use of authority.
Some lessons Clearly, at the heart of the issue and of the Report is the information on McCarrick’s sexual behavior, which unfortunately for a very long time remained mostly anonymous, lacking in details or incomplete or – so it seemed – of uncertain credibility. In several cases, however, they were evidently underestimated or even simply withheld, so as not to reach the highest levels of the decision-making processes. The anonymity of some accusations that would turn out to be well-founded – such as the first, back in the 1980s, by a mother worried about her children4 – is an aspect on which we need to reflect carefully. Although it is right to demand that accusations should always be made with clear responsibility, it cannot be denied that sometimes it is extremely difficult, if not impossible, to have the courage to make serious accusations against persons of authority and power far superior to those of
4.No documentation of this accusation by anonymous letter, which dates back to the mid-1980s, has been found in any archives, but the author, a mother, spoke about it in detail at the trial and her testimony is very enlightening about McCarrick’s abusive behavior, how it was so insidious and difficult to report (see pp. 37-47). THE MCCARRICK REPORT: SEEKING THE TRUTH IN ORDER TO CONVERT the accuser, who has a well-founded fear of not being believed or of being the object of retaliation. This was evidently the case with McCarrick. For this reason, the long-awaited new Vademecum for the treatment of cases of sexual abuse, published by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, in its first version of July 16, 2020, rightly invites us not to automatically trash anonymous complaints, but to see if they contain any credible elements.5 Other problems were greatly underestimated, such as McCarrick’s known imprudent behavior with seminarians or young adults.6 The fact that for the most part there were no explicit sexual acts and that no minors were involved is in no way sufficient to justify the prolonged tolerance, perhaps favored at the time by a very ambiguous cultural climate regarding 48 relations between the sexes in general, and homosexual relations in particular. Also in this regard, the archbishop’s authority over seminarians and young priests made these facts more grievous and at the same time harder to denounce. It was very likely that there was an abuse of power. It should also be added that it was totally naive to think that was no cause for concern about such frequent meetings, that they would always be conducted appropriately, without crossing boundaries and committing sexual abuse, as well as the age of the persons involved. Therefore, the norms contained in the recent motu proprio Vos estis lux mundi, of May 2019, insist on the obligation of denunciation by all clergy and religious, even with regard to hierarchical superiors and even when it is a matter of sexual
5.Cf. Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Vademecum on Certain Points of Procedure in Dealing with Cases of Sexual Abuse of Minors Committed by Clerics, No. 11. Full text at www.vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/cfaith/ documents/rc_con_cfaith_doc_20200716_vademecum-casi-abuso_en.html/ This Vademecum is an important aid prepared by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, not as a new normative document, but as a “manual” so that bishops, other Church leaders and legal practitioners know how to deal with situations of sexual abuse of minors by clerics. It had been announced at the “International Meeting on Abuse” convoked by Pope Francis in February 2019. It is a document that will need to be continually updated in light of experience and new norms that will be issued on this topic. 6.This included sharing the same bed when staying in a vacation home or traveling or on other occasions. FEDERICO LOMBARDI, SJ
abuse against adult persons, as well as on the organization in all dioceses of offices at which everyone (not only clergy) can present their complaints in secure conditions.7 Fear of scandal exerts strong negative pressure on those who should and must inform, or on those who must make decisions to act. This, too, is understandable. Often people prefer to excuse, out of prudence or misunderstood benevolence toward the accused, to keep quiet, or wait in the hope that the problem will not arise again. This was also the case with McCarrick. The Report describes the obvious discomfort of those who, despite having high responsibilities, did not know how to handle the situation in the face of emerging allegations, and even for this reason invited people to drop them, or provided incomplete or inaccurate information when requested by higher levels. 49 But the consequences of such behavior and omissions, as we know, were very serious, so much so that today, in light of the experience and awareness gained, we have learned to consider them inexcusable and to be condemned. For this reason, the recent Vademecum is a necessary tool to help all bishops and other responsible persons to know clearly how to deal with cases of abuse, and for this reason the recent laws oblige us to denounce not only the abuses committed, but also their cover-ups and unwillingness to act on the part of Church leaders, which are also to be considered extremely serious failings.8 As McCarrick’s ecclesiastical career progressed to higher and higher levels, the risk of scandal became greater and the application of remedies more difficult as time went on. In the end, it was only the courage of a victim to speak out with a detailed complaint that made it possible to confront the issue in all its gravity – with other weighty testimonies gathered as well – to understand the dimensions that had continued to remain
7.Cf. F. Lombardi, “Protection of Minors and the Pope’s steps forward after the February 2019 Meeting,” in Civ. Catt. En, https://www.laciviltacattolica. com/protection-of-minors-and-the-popes-steps-forward-after-the-february- 2019-meeting/ 8.See in this regard both the “Motu proprio” Vos estis lux mundi, already cited, and the previous Like a loving mother, of 2016. THE MCCARRICK REPORT: SEEKING THE TRUTH IN ORDER TO CONVERT hidden and that, in addition to sexual abuse and abuse of power, also included abuse of conscience in the very serious form of abuse of the sacrament of confession.
Concluding reflections We must acknowledge that the courage of the victims played a decisive role. This must be accompanied by the courage of the Church’s authorities, bearing in mind, as Pope Francis has repeatedly pointed out, that they must feel supported by the solidarity and responsibility of the ecclesial community in the difficult task of combating abuse of all kinds. In the now long ecclesial journey of awareness and purification in the face of the crime of sexual abuse andthe suffering it causes, the McCarrick Report is an important new 50 step. It involves a journey that broadens and deepens in its perspectives, considering not only minors, but also vulnerable persons, not only sexual abuse, but also its connections with the abuse of conscience and power. This Report is ultimately in itself an act of courage and humility. It shows that the examination of conscience in the Church today reaches its highest levels, is committed to not being afraid of the truth, and does not merely speak of accountability, but actually seeks to understand and explain the errors that have occurred and their causes, even if this is difficult and painful. At the same time, as has been explained, it contributes to making people more careful and improving standards, as is necessary so that it becomes increasingly difficult for scandals and crimes of this gravity to occur. It is more difficult, but not impossible, because on this earth we must always come to terms with evil and sin. Already a thousand years ago, in 1051, St. Peter Damian, in his Liber Gomorrhianus, strongly attacked the scourge of immoral behavior among the pastors of the Church, condemned in particular widespread homosexuality, and the guilty tolerance of superiors toward unworthy ecclesiastics, calling for more drastic interventions.9 The dramatic scandals that have come to
9.Cf. Patrologia Latina (Migne, CXLV, coll. 159-190). One of McCarrick’s accusers, quoted in the Report, evoked this impressive work by the medieval reformer saint. FEDERICO LOMBARDI, SJ
light in recent years regarding sexual abuse, the most sensational of which are those of Marcial Maciel, Fernando Karadima and Theodore McCarrick, but which unfortunately involve many others, make us more aware that the fight against insidious evil is terribly difficult. Reality continually goes beyond the bounds of our imagination. There is a “mystery of iniquity” we must reckon with, holding on to an unrelenting moral and spiritual commitment, without becoming discouraged, and placing our trust in God, in his grace and mercy. In conclusion, as we meditate on the puzzling figure of McCarrick with his contradictions, let us be allowed to recall some lines, quoted in the Report, of a letter he wrote in 2016 to Cardinal Parolin, in which he speaks to him about his upcoming trip to engage in dialogue with Muslims: “The Shiites have 51 kindly indicated that they would like me to be present at these meetings. I’m not sure if it’s because they think I’m wise or because they think I simply love to go to meetings. I fear that it might be the second rather than the first and so I want to make it clear that, at any point in time, Your Eminence feels that I should retire to a holy place and pray for the salvation of my soul instead of wandering around the world I will, of course, be faithful to your instructions” (p. 429). Now that McCarrick has effectively finished going out into the world, let us not only learn the hard lessons of his scandalous life, but pray with him for the salvation of our souls. ‘The Great Wave’, The struggle between humans and nature
Claudio Zonta, SJ
The Great Wave of Kanagawa, by Katsushika Hokusai, is one of the most famous Japanese works of art. It served as inspiration for Van Gogh’s Starry Night and Debussy’s orchestral work La Mer. It is a woodcut from 1830, belonging to a larger series, as evidenced by the title in Japanese, Thirty- 52 six views of Mount Fuji / off Kanagawa / under a wave. The work was printed in multiple copies, which are in the Library of Congress of the United States of America, the Museum of Oriental Art in Turin, and the British Museum in London. When the elderly artist created this image, he was living through economically difficult times, a situation symbolized precisely by the imposing wave in the foreground which is sweeping away some Japanese fishing boats. The intensity and depth of the sea are achieved using “Prussian Blue,” a shade that was accidentally discovered by the German Johann Jacob Diesbach. Picasso often used it in his works. This color communicates to the viewer the fascinating impetus of the stormy sea bearing down on the boats. Also reinforcing the feeling of dismay is the pyramidal shape of the wave, bordered by a white foam, which ends with curls that look like claws ready to strike the fishermen. In a not dissimilar way, through poetry, Homer had sung about the monster Scylla as she crashed down on Odysseus’ ship: She has twelve feet, all misshapen, six necks, exceeding long, on each one an awful head, and therein three rows of teeth, thick and close, and full of black death (Odyssey, XII, 89-93).
La Civiltà Cattolica, En. Ed. Vol. 5, no. 2 art. 6, 1020: 10.32009/22072446.0221.6 CLAUDIO ZONTA, SJ
The boats, with their elongated shape, make their way through the raging waves, carrying the fishermen who are returning home. As the writer Jorge Amado also recounts in Sea of Death, speaking of the fishermen of Bahia: “Each one [of them] has something at the bottom of the sea: a son, a brother, an arm, a saveiro that has been shipwrecked, a sail that the wind of the storm has taken away.” In the background, Mount Fuji, awe- inspiring in its height and whiteness, seems to be an immobile spectator with respect to the alternating human events. But the wave has not yet closed, making “the stern rise up,” as Dante said: the clash between nature and humans is sealed in that prior moment, where anything can yet occur.
53 ‘Enola Holmes’, Mystery sleuthing in the #MeToo era
Marco Piaia, SJ
Enola Holmes is a contemporary take on the detective universe created by Conan Doyle. Based on a series of novels by Nancy Springer, it combines a British setting with plot and characters imbued with the spirit of the United States. Amidst Victorian teapots and clothes, there are invitations to personal 54 independence and to build one’s own dreams beyond ordinary expectations. Clearly conceived to focus on the dynamics of youth, the film is interesting in that it deals with a theme that in recent years has become particularly dear to Hollywood productions, influenced by the #MeToo movement: not only is the protagonist a young girl, but the other main characters in the plot are also female. The fact that the events take place in the Victorian era toward the end of which the suffragette movement was born is a confirmation of these references. The film reveals a secret society of women: educated girls who learn to defend themselves and who do not easily accept the role of wives and mothers imposed on them by 19th-century society, who “do not bow” even in front of the aristocracy.. The entire plot is permeated by this pattern of denunciation and affirmation, which transforms the film’s narrative – which is primarily a detective story, full of mysteries with clues to be interpreted – a propitious opportunity for adolescents and for all of us to reflect and make sure that all this does not remain just fiction. As mentioned, Enola Holmes is a film for young people that recounts the journey of growing up with a certain dreamy and typically American spirit: “Our future depends on us,”
La Civiltà Cattolica, En. Ed. Vol. 5, no. 2 art. 7, 1020: 10.32009/22072446.0221.7 MARCO PIAIA, SJ
“my life is mine alone,” “don’t look for someone, look after yourself” are among the most revealing expressions in the film. However, it is also a film that recounts an era of transition, which has resulted in the society of which we are part today. The crisis generated by the pandemic reminds us that we, too, live in a time of great change: What are we offering our young people? And they, what are they fighting for? We can ask ourselves this, as we try to solve slightly less important mysteries, such as those confronting detectives.
55 Fragile: A new imagery of progress
Giovanni Cucci, SJ
Imagination, the engine of history Imagination is a theme that, in the course of recent decades, has become more and more the object of discussion, not only in literary and artistic terms, but also in historiographic, scientific and interpretative ones, since it is considered as the true driving 56 force of the journey of humanity. This is the theme addressed in a powerful new book by Francesco Monico.1 The author picks up on Jonathan Gottschall’s research on storytelling, in which the human being is conceived of as homo fictus, constructed by imagination, a mode of thought quite different from programming and computation: “Human beings are the only animals that create stories about themselves and their surroundings, and believe them” (p. 227). It is precisely to imagination that we owe the idea of progress, understood as universal growth to be imposed on the whole of humanity, without considering its historically situated origin: “As Leo Tolstoy wisely wrote: ‘We have noticed the law of progress in the duchy of Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen, with its three thousand inhabitants’” (p.62). This imaginative mode prescinds from the earth, from the fragile truth that constitutes us as living beings and that ends up turning against the project itself, with catastrophic consequences.
La Civiltà Cattolica, En. Ed. Vol. 5, no. 2 art. 8, 1020: 10.32009/22072446.0221.8
1.Cf. F. Monico, Fragile. Un nuovo immaginario del progresso, Milan, Meltemi, 2020. In our article, the numbers in brackets refer to the pages of the book. GIOVANNI CUCCI, SJ
Consistent with the style of homo fictus, the book presents this ambitious project through a story, Goethe’s The Sorcerer’s Apprentice, in which the attempt to subjugate nature leads to the conjuring up of forces that mere mortals are unable to control. This literary reference shows how the idea of progress is in fact a taken-for-granted grand narrative that gives direction to our greatest efforts, but that has also led humanity to alarming situations. The separation from the earth leads to a life that is more and more artificial, which causes thought to atrophy, reducing it to mere calculation: “Humanity produces technology far beyond its ability to fully assess the consequences: for millennia we imagined more than we could make; today we make more than we can imagine” (p. 86). 57 This vision of understanding has thus come into conflict with imagination itself (considered to be unreal and contrary to scientific development), which has gradually lost its creative, dream-like impetus, which was at the root of the most beautiful and lasting achievements of Western culture. The ideals of the imagination have in fact given way to technology, conceived as having no limits and no possibility of critical rethinking (cf. p. 61).
A modern idea The idea of progress, understood as linear development, in continuous growth, proceeding from good to better, is an invention of modernity. It is found for the first time in Francis Bacon, as a desirable increase in knowledge, therefore, especially to be found in a cognitive key. Later, the Enlightenment and Positivism applied this notion to all aspects of human life, envisaging the future as a synonym for increasing and improving the quality of life.2 This is a unidirectional vision, not only because of the predilection for the future, but also because there are no crises, catastrophes, setbacks, or possibilities to question one’s own assumptions. There is a providential understanding of history
2.“Truth lies in the future, while the past is riddled with error and superstition [...], an imagery only ameliorative” (pp. 247-249). FRAGILE: A NEW IMAGERY OF PROGRESS directed by an “invisible hand” (to take up a famous image of Adam Smith), capable of leading to constant improvement. It is significant that this perspective is shared by philosophies that deny the spiritual and religious dimension, such as positivism, empiricism and Marxism (cf. pp. 177f). However, they draw extensively on mythology to expound that vision. Marx presents his analysis of capitalist society as scientific and materialistic, but his undeniable presupposition is faith in its happy ending: the communist state will assure people happiness and salvation, two things that are difficult to justify on the basis of the analysis of production processes. Similar to the thought of Hegel, his dialectical philosophy is in fact a secular theology. Our author, Monico, uses three key terms to summarize 58 the imagery underlying this understanding. The first one is “the apparatus,” that which is at the base of technology and implements it, a term that goes back to Martin Heidegger’s reflections. The apparatus makes thought aggressive, manipulates everything, including humans: “Technical action is the realization of the Western project of domination over nature and its exploitation, it is a way of perceiving the world and it is the Western way” (p. 73). The second term is “the medium,” popularized by Marshall McLuhan, particularly in the famous aphorism, “the medium is the message.” The medium, like the apparatus, “produces relations of power and relations of knowledge that constantly intersect and hybridize, a mode of assembly” (pp. 74-76). The third term is “the device,” the characteristic of Michel Foucault’s biopolitics, understood as a way of coercively designing and shaping the life of a community, without it necessarily being aware of it, establishing what it is permissible not only to say, but also to think.3
3.Cf. M. Heidegger, Saggi e discorsi, Milan, Mursia, 1985, 5-27; M. McLuhan - E. McLuhan, Laws of the Media. The New Science, University of Toronto Press, 1988; M. Foucault, Dits et Écrits (1954-1988), t. III: 1976-1979, Paris, Gallimard, 1994, 298-329. GIOVANNI CUCCI, SJ
The consequences Progress, thus conceived, distances itself from much traditional knowledge and leads to serious divisions, first of all, between technique and technology. As we know from the Greeks, the term technē encompassed a wide range of meanings, including in particular the varied expressions of the arts. Modern technology, on the other hand, understands knowledge in a dominative- manipulative sense, involving a “geometrization of physical space and the mathematization of the laws of nature [...]. In the 18th century faith in thought and human knowledge began to coincide with faith in technology” (pp. 97f). A turning point is made evident by the “fourth revolution” – after the Copernican, evolutionary and psychoanalytic ones – which is marked by 59 the advent of information technology, the internet and artificial intelligence, with the possibility of creating a superintelligence capable of collecting a quantity of information impossible for the human mind to manage (that we named “Big Data”), a superintelligence capable of controlling the same activities and choices of humanity. In this way “the world finds itself to be communicated, manipulated and managed by unknowable processes, whose magnitude we cannot even imagine” (p. 193). Hence the second serious separation, involving nature (including human nature), increasingly understood as an object to be manipulated at will, not taking into account the fact that the Earth’s environment presents an enormous and largely unknown complex and, without a prudent approach, its mismanagement can lead to immense disasters. This opens a process whose development no one can predict, much less control, just as in the narrative of the sorcerer’s apprentice. It is the new era of the Anthropocene, where for the first time the action of a species is the main cause of geological changes: the accelerated extinction of living species – “the number of species that became extinct in the last century should have taken between eight hundred and ten thousand years to disappear” (p. 186) – and the abnormal growth of others for food purposes – “Today the hen is the most numerous higher living being on the globe, the number is calculated at 25 billion. Along with a billion cattle, a billion pigs and a billion sheep” (p. 146) FRAGILE: A NEW IMAGERY OF PROGRESS
– and climate change, progressive pollution and exponential accumulation of toxic waste – “in 2050 the sea will contain more garbage than fish. Almost all seabirds have plastic in their stomachs” (p. 188) – which will lead to resource depletion and new diseases. All this can certainly not be passed off as an increase in the quality of life, but, on the contrary, as an increase in the discomfort of living. The effects of technological planning historically fall on the same human beings through some distinctive phenomena of modernity, such as totalitarianism and genocide, which are also the result of a perverse narrative: “Nazism was the dress rehearsal of the age of the accomplishment of technology” (p. 58). The mythological narrative of progress has as its outcome the sixth mass extinction: an extinction, unlike the others, 60 planned by living beings (see pp. 191-198). This unprecedented scenario is today heralded not only by the phenomena mentioned above, but also by some demons that have realized the “superman” hypothesized by Nietzsche: the cyborg (the artificial device that surpasses the human and subjugates him), the myth of Pan (symbol of an undifferentiated humanity), the Golem (a term that in ancient Hebrew indicated a formless mass, and in modern Hebrew the robot), the Zombie (the living dead), the X-men (halfway between man and god; cf. pp. 367-394). These new categories bring into play the “crisis of individuation” and, as in the sorcerer’s apprentice, show that nature and artifact rebel against humans. They give rise to something that mere technological planning was unable to foresee, because it was too reductive and entirely bent on mere quantitative planning.
The need to develop counter-imaginaries. At the economic level Imagination, like any human activity, knows healthy and sick modes. That of progress as growth at all costs has been a sick mode, especially because it has been imposed on every culture in a massive and uncritical way, but it can be corrected by presenting appropriate counter-imaginaries, present in Western modernity itself. They are less well known, but not for this reason irrelevant. GIOVANNI CUCCI, SJ
A first counter-imaginary can be found in the “degrowth theory” proposed by economist Serge Latouche. According to him it is necessary to reverse the production-consumption mechanism, which has led to an increase in the production of unnecessary goods, penalizing developing countries, which are forced to sell basic necessities to rich people. Taking up Jacques Ellul’s reflection, Latouche believes it is necessary to counter the tendency toward cultural uniformity, which is in fact a way of suppressing it: “Technology is global, but cultures are local; this causes a discrepancy between the tendencies of the technical apparatus and the relationship between human subjects and their territory” (p. 233). “Degrowth” requires above all a different vision of society, at an institutional and social level – as attention to the poorest – and 61 at an ecological level, an awareness of the relationship with the environment (considered not as a mere resource to be exploited). “Degrowth” can be marked by what the French economist calls the “8 R’s” (Revalue; Reconceptualize; Restructure; Redistribute; Relocate; Reduce; Reuse; Recycle), where the first two have to do with imagination and therefore with a design of the world. For this reason, degrowth is an activity that significantly involves the imaginary, understood as the engine of possible change, valuing the contribution of various cultures: “Decolonizing the imaginary from progressive economism means reconstituting a World that is subject to the West, to globalism, to progress” (p. 335).4
On a philosophical level The second counter-image is the work of an Italian philosopher, Giambattista Vico. In the midst of the Enlightenment, he contested the linear and unilateral idea of progress, as well as the combination of history and scientific research. In his main work (The New Science), a central theme is the identification of the imaginary, of schemes of thought, as a faculty capable of giving meaning to the world in which we live, making it representable.
4.Cfr S. Latouche, “La décroissance comme projet politique de gauche”, in Revue du MAUSS 34 (2009/2) 38-45. FRAGILE: A NEW IMAGERY OF PROGRESS
In other words, Vico thematized what in most thinkers had only been assumed, that progress is the result of imagination, and that the latter is not opposed to reason, but is reason’s way of being: “Logic comes from logos, which first and properly meant fable, or story.”5 Logos is the narrated word. It is the fable and the ability to narrate that can represent the world and make it habitable or ghostly. Vico adds that in the course of history the two faculties have been separated: the aim has been to educate rationality while remaining illiterate in imagination, with serious consequences for historical planning. The discourse goes back to what we observed about Foucault and the devices, a mode of colonization of thought and behavior. This totalitarian drift of the imaginary is present today in “political correctness”: by taking away people’s imaginative 62 capacity, it is easier to control them and suggest what they really need (as the algorithms of large computer search engines do to orient the tastes and preferences of users). The topicality of Vico’s analysis is revealed above all in his refusal to plan the course of history in an increasing and linear way; there is a reference to the “earth,” with which one is called to reckon and which emerges surprisingly in what he calls “the heterogenies of the ends.” Human planning aims at pursuing precise objectives, yet it happens that, once reached, they reveal paths and situations that are very different from what was imagined.6 The following period involves an unexpected leap in quality, a surplus that goes beyond planning, which forces us to come to terms with complexity.
At the community level The third example of counter-imagination is the community experience of the Amish. The number of pages devoted to this group is striking (pp. 431-477). The author sees in them a way of dialoguing with progress in a free and
5.G. B. Vico, “Principi di scienza nuova d’intorno alla comune natura delle nazioni”, in Id., Opere, Milan, Mondadori, 1990, vol. I, 595; cf. F. Monico, Fragile..., op. cit., 266-270. 6.Cf. Id., “Principi di scienza nuova...”, op. cit., 968f. Cf. Id., De antiquissima italorum sapientia, Florence, Sansoni, 1971, 115-117. GIOVANNI CUCCI, SJ
conscious manner, without being enslaved by it. Their lifestyle became noteworthy after the energy crisis of the 1970s, which forced a revision of the production-consumption axiom, until then undisputed. In the Amish way of life, the author finds the implementation of Latouche’s economic theories, especially under the ecological and social aspect. There is in them a “praise of slowness,” together with the attention to maintain their essential values which protects them from the “disease of wealth,” which is at the origin of a frenzied and anxious style of living and most of today’s psychological problems: “The intuition of degrowth wants a decrease of the GDP in favor of an increase of attention to being: a good living that takes into account intangible aspects that are mostly forgotten: free time and human relations” (p. 433). 63 It is not, therefore, a question of returning to a sort of uncontaminated golden age, or of rediscovering the myth of the noble savage, but of guaranteeing certain indispensable goods for the quality of life. The Amish have given rise to a different imagery of existence; they have truly been able to “re-enchant the world.” Technology is not forbidden to them, but it is not an object of personal possession: rather, it is put at the service of the community and its rhythms. Above all, it is not an alternative to the spiritual life, which is marked by precise daily timetables and by their own schools, which have the purpose of keeping their own traditions and culture alive, also through moments of listening and silence, two practices that are increasingly rare in the frenetic rhythm of today’s life. Their lifestyle translates into a significant increase in population, showing even in this a countertrend to the rest of the Western world. The Amish have the highest birth rate in the world: from 1992 to 2013 they grew by 120%, compared to the 23% of the U.S. population. As we know from history, the great crises of civilization are first and foremost demographic crises, the result of misguided policies or a slow, general malaise.7
7.Cf. G. Cucci, “Rebuilding the Global Educational Pact,” in Civ. Catt. En., Dec. 2020, https://www.laciviltacattolica.com/rebuild-the-global-educational- pact/ FRAGILE: A NEW IMAGERY OF PROGRESS
And, perhaps not coincidentally, the quality of their lives is also noteworthy. To give an example, the Amish community, located a few miles from Philadelphia, has a depression rate 10 times lower than the inhabitants of that city. The Amish breathe the same air, drink the same water; the atmospheric climate is the same, but not the internal one. The reasons for this absence are mainly related to social cooperation, the strength of emotional relationships and the sharing of spiritual experience: all this constitutes a strong protection in the face of life’s difficulties.8 This model does not have to be taken literally: it is not a question of hoping for a “return to the past,” but of making explicit the social imaginary present in them: an imaginary somehow similar to “social capital,” the basis of human – 64 and therefore also economic and social – wealth of a nation.9 While using technology, the Amish remain tied to the local dimension, so dear to Jacques Ellul as a distinctive characteristic of every culture. The American writer Ralph Waldo Emerson, comparing different cultures and traditions, recognized the error of the Western vision of progress about the alleged superiority of European man over other peoples: “Indians, Saxons and other ‘primitive’ peoples were immune from this affliction in spite of lower levels of ‘external prosperity’ and ‘general welfare.’ Yet we are sad and they were not... Why?”10
In light of what has taken place The book, the result of five years of research, certainly does not intend to deny the value of the discoveries made in the scientific and especially the medical field during modern times: they have been of great help in many ways (health, food, cultural
8.Cf. J. Egeland - A. Hostetter, “Amish Study. I: Affective disorders among the Amish 1976-1980”, in American Journal of Psychiatry, vol. 140, 1983/1, 56-61. 9.Cf. G. Cucci, “Social Capital. An indispensable resource for the quality of life”, in Civ. Catt. En., May 2019 https://www.laciviltacattolica.com/social- capital-an-indispensable-resource-for-quality-of-life/ 10.R. W. Emerson, in A. Delbanco, The Real American Dream. A Meditation on Hope, Cambridge Mass., Harvard University Press, 2000, 51. GIOVANNI CUCCI, SJ
and social aspects). The object of the study is that particular idea of progress elaborated and summarized by the ballad of the Sorcerer’s Apprentice. The scenario of the past 12 months, dominated by the Covid-19 epidemic, has radically challenged this idea of progress, along with many priorities and roadmaps hitherto considered untouchable. It has also reminded us of the importance of dialogue with nature: without a more respectful attention to the environment and the (still largely unknown) ecosystem, the consequences could be catastrophic. But above all, it shows that the idea of the supposedly irresistible rise of progress and the consideration of the future as a better prospect than the present (or the past) is “a fragile myth” (to take up the title of the book), which does not stand up to the complexity of reality. 65 The modern person, who is used to doubting everything, has never doubted this until now. On the contrary, this vision (individualistic and colonizing) must be questioned in order to accord with a culture that is more attentive to complexity, solidarity and appreciation of different cultures. It is also necessary to exercise greater caution in implementing novelties without assessing their possible consequences. As the philosopher Kwame Anthony Appiah has pointed out, what really matters is not winning the game, but understanding what game is being played, knowing the rules and what is at stake. This was Martin Heidegger’s warning to technology: “What is really disturbing is not that the world will turn into a complete dominion of technology. Far more disturbing is that humanity is not at all prepared for this radical change in the world. Far more disturbing is that we are not yet able to achieve, through meditative thought, an adequate confrontation with what is really emerging in our age.”11
11.M. Heidegger, L’abbandono, Genoa, Il Melangolo, 1959, 36; cf. K. A. Appiah, Cosmopolitanism. L’etica in un mondo di estranei, Rome - Bari, Laterza, 2007. ‘From Generation to Generation’ History in perspective from the Bible to Pope Francis
Jean-Pierre Sonnet, SJ
Sit with me at one table / The same for ancestor and grandson / The future is being accomplished now [….] And even now, in these coming times / I stand up in the stirrups like a child. (Arseny Tarkovsky, “Life Life”) 66 Biblical faith is based on experience of God in history, although biblical Hebrew, paradoxically, does not have a word to designate “history,” the course of events that is progressively studied and written down. The language of the Bible has two words that allow its readers to think of history from its innermost dynamism: tôledôt, “generations,” and dôr, “generation.” The following pages1 will show how these two categories overlap in the Bible; however, they will do so after a digression through the humanities. With regard to the phenomena of generations and generation, in their recent developments, sociology, history and psychology have taken paths that the Bible had already set out. Here, for those who still doubt it, is confirmation of the perspicacity of the Bible in anthropological matters. The double biblical category is also a vehicle for a particularly far-sighted theology of history, whose relevance has yet to be rediscovered. It underlies, in fact, the thought and teaching of Pope Francis, who is attentive to the generational dynamism that runs through history. For him, as for Arseny Tarkovsky in the poem cited, the table of the family and society brings
La Civiltà Cattolica, En. Ed. Vol. 5, no. 2 art. 9, 1020: 10.32009/22072446.0221.9
1.These pages simultaneously abbreviate and develop a section of our essay “Generare, perché? Una prospettiva biblica” in Anthropotes 36 (2020) 139-190. JEAN-PIERRE SONNET, SJ
together generations, all those that coexist at any given time; for him, the youngest are called to be visionaries, like the child in the poem, standing upright in the stirrups.
Generation and generation First, it is important to consider the anthropological phenomenon associated with the word “generation.” A particularly suggestive essay by Astrid Erll, whose research is related to the phenomena of “cultural memory,” will guide this exploration.2 The essay opens with the following words, “The concept of generation is like the air that we breathe: essential and largely unnoticed. It is constitutive of our understanding of family and society, of biological and historical processes; at the same time, it tends to remain invisible, a cluster of tacit 67 assumptions underlying a ubiquitous formula.”3 To untangle the mesh, Erll explains, we need to take note of a fundamental distinction. The term “generation,” in fact, has a twofold semantic character: sometimes it refers to a diachronic axis (generation across time), sometimes to a synchronic axis (the generational group at one point in time). In their ancient and modern evolutions, cultures and humanities have in fact privileged the first of these axes, but recently they have also opened up to the importance of the second.
Diachronic generation In a first sense, the word “generation” refers to human generation across time. In this diachronic – and “vertical” – sense, the word relates to any family group that is extended through the birth of children. This meaning, Erll adds, is age-old; it is as old as humanity. Such a discourse on (genealogical) origin can be read, for example, in the dialogue between Telemachus and Athena in the Odyssey. To the goddess Athena, who urges him to search for his father, Telemachus replies, “My mother says that I am his child; but I know not, for never yet did any man of
2.Cf. A. Erll, “Generation in Literary History: Three Constellations of Generationality, Genealogy, and Memory”, in New Literary History 45 (2014) 385-409. 3.Ibid., 385. ‘FROM GENERATION TO GENERATION’
himself know his own parentage (gonos)” (Odyssey, I, 215-216). In her reply, Athena observes, not without disillusionment, “Few sons are like their fathers; most are worse, few better than their fathers” (Odyssey, II, 276-277). In the modern era, the genealogical relationship has become a gold mine for critical thinking, starting with psychology and psychoanalysis: the Oedipus and Jocasta complexes (to stay with a Greek theme), both related to generative dynamics, are now part of our cultural baggage. Added to this are the contributions of Trauma Studies, which have evidenced the transmission of traumatic experiences along genealogical lines. Studies show that the first and third generations prove more capable than the second of verbalizing trauma.4 While children often maintain silence about the trauma experienced by their 68 parents, grandchildren show interest and compassion for their grandparents’ traumatic experiences. Something similar is observed in the phenomena of migration. While the children of migrants integrate into the new culture, which is different from the native culture of their parents, the grandchildren show interest in the culture of origin of their grandparents.5 In ancient poetic, epic and dramatic thought, as in the thought of the human sciences, vertical generationality has been a continuous focus of symbolic or critical reflection.
Synchronic generation On the other hand, Erll continues, another sense of the word “generation” has developed: a sense that is no longer vertical, but horizontal, referring to the generational group. The focus on generational identity is relatively new in the humanities. Its source can be traced to the use of the word “generation” that appeared during and after World War I. “It would not be an exaggeration to consider 1914 the starting point of the emergence of the concept of generation
4.Cf. V. Aarons - A. L. Berger, Third-Generation Holocaust Representation: Trauma, History, and Memory, Chicago, IL, Northwestern University Press, 2017. 5.The phenomenon in question is called “Hansen’s Law” in reference to M. L. Hansen, The Problem of the Third Generation Immigrant, Rock Island, IL, Augustana Historical Society, 1938. JEAN-PIERRE SONNET, SJ
as we know it today. One reason is that in connection with the war an idea emerged of the ‘war generation’ or, according to the title of Robert Wohl’s influential book, the ‘1914 generation.’ After the war, veterans in various European countries claimed for themselves the label of a ‘lost generation.’ They referred to the large number of young soldiers who died in unprecedented mechanized carnage, but also to their disillusioning war experience and their inability to find a role in society after spending so much of their early adulthood on the front.”6 Theoretical reflection continued after the war with Karl Mannheim’s 1928 essay, Das Problem der Generationen, generally considered a classic. Mannheim argues that a “coherent generation”7 consists of a “participation in the common fate” of “a socio-historical unit.”8 We speak of an Age Cohort, a cohort 69 marked by special historical circumstances and experiences, particularly in the formative years (youth and early adulthood), a cohort that identifies itself as belonging to the same “generation.” Historical “generations” are particularly constituted by shared traumatic events, such as lost wars or forced migrations. This use of “generation” has become pervasive today: we speak of the “Shoah generation,” the “baby boomer generation” (those born between 1945 and 1964), the “1968 generation,” and, more recently, “Generation X” (which follows the baby boom and runs until 1980), “Generation Y,” also known as Millennials (until 1994), Z (until 2010), and Alphas (beginning in 2010). In other words, the synchronic generation phenomenon is now part of our cultural context.
The biblical precedent At this point we need to exercise memory: what represents a relatively recent development in the humanities – the distinction of “generation” and “generation” – was already an integral part of biblical thought. The Bible, indeed, makes use of two
6.A. Erll, “Generation...,” op. cit. Cf. R. Wohl, La generazione del 1914, Milan, Jaca Book, 1984. 7.K. Mannheim, “Das Problem der Generationen,” in Kölner Vierteljahrshefte für Soziologie 7 (1928) 309 (“Generationszusammenhang“). 8.Ibid. ‘FROM GENERATION TO GENERATION’ words to designate each of the meanings of our (unique) word “generation.” We draw here on Paola Mollo’s valuable essay, The 9 Motif of Generational Change in the Old Testament (2016). In the Hebrew Bible, writes the author, the concept of generation is defined in two different senses – “genealogy” (diachronic) and “generation” (synchronic) – indicated by two distinct words: “‘Genealogy’ and ‘generation’ [...] are absolutely different concepts in the biblical narrative, as can be deduced from the same Hebrew text, which employs for each of the two a proper and differentiated root. To indicate the genealogy, the while, to indicate ,תודלת ,Hebrew mainly uses the term tôledôt the generation that is the focus of replacement and renewal, it .רֹוד ,prefers to use the term dôr The two Hebrew words, different in their roots, do not leave 70 room for erroneous overlapping of concepts. The transition to the Greek language (and from there to the modern Indo- European languages) did away with the diversity of meaning between tôledôt and dôr, choosing as translation, in both cases, terms coming from the same root *gen-, *gon-, *gn-. In fact, תודלת as can be seen from the concordances, the Hebrew word is translated (in the LXX) mostly by γενεσις (24 times) and by συγγενεια (14 times), and once by γενεα. As for the word ,it is translated almost exclusively by γενεα; in its place ,רֹוד συγγενεια appears once (Isa 38:12) and εκγονον four times (Prov 30:11-14), terms which also come from the root *gen-, *gon-, *gn-.”10
‘These are the generations (tôledôt)’ The Bible develops a particularly articulated reflection on vertical, genealogical generationality, associated with the word tôledôt, starting with the formula that marks the book of Genesis: “These are the generations of.”11 Genesis is the book of generation: it alternates between genealogical lists
9.Cf. P. Mollo, The Motif of Generational Change in the Old Testament: A Literary and Lexicological Study, Lewiston, NY, Mellen, 2016. 10.Id., The Motif..., op. cit., 25. 11.The titling in question appears 10 times in the book, in two waves of five occurrences: Gen 2:4a; 5:1; 6:9; 10:1; 11:10 / 11:27; 25:12; 25:19; 36:1(9); 37:2. JEAN-PIERRE SONNET, SJ
and stories centered on the conception and troubled birth of sons (Isaac, Jacob and Esau, Benjamin, Perez and Zerach). Genealogical lists are also found in the book of Exodus, the books of Ezra and Nehemiah, and Chronicles. If they are a distinctive sign of an editorial school (the priestly one), they are also constitutive elements of the macro-narrative as historiography.12 As already mentioned, Biblical Hebrew does not have a word to designate history: it is made up of “generations,” tôledôt, which are its frame. In the New Testament, genealogical lists appear in the Gospels of Matthew (Matt 1:1-17) and Luke (Luke 3:23- 38) as genealogies of Jesus. Although the New Testament is associated, in its eschatological dimension, with a phenomenon of contraction of time, all centered on the “son” (“Son of Man” 71 and “Son of the Father”), it nevertheless puts back into play, in a messianic way, the model of the generations.13 There is no shortage of episodes and scenes in the Bible that connect or compare two successive generations (fathers, mothers and children). “Who are you, my son?” asks Isaac, almost blind, to Jacob, who passes himself off as Esau, the firstborn (Gen 27:18). “For this child I have prayed,” says Hannah to the priest Eli (1 Sam 1:27). “I see you, son, light of my eyes!” exclaims Tobit, when he finds his son (Tob 11:13). The interweaving then is that of the very life of the child in its conception or survival, or that of the transmission of promise, blessing or inheritance from one generation to the next. The biblical God is closely linked to this bi-generational scenario, he it is who reveals himself as the one who turns “the heart of the fathers back to their children and the heart of the children to their fathers” (Mal 3:24). The process can equally extend over three generations. Thus in Gen 48:8-10, when Joseph presents to his father the children born to him in Egypt; or, in the female version, in Ruth 4:16-17,
12.Cf. J. L. Ska, “Le genealogie della Genesi e le risposte alle sfide della storia”, in Id., Il cantiere del Pentateuco. 1. Problemi di composizione e di interpretazione, Bologna, EDB, 2013, 83-112. 13.Cf. J.-P. Sonnet, “De la généalogie au ‘Faites disciples’ (Mt 28,19). Le livre de la génération de Jésus”, in C. Focant - A. Wénin (eds), Analyse narrative et Bible, Louvain, Peeters, 2005, 199-209. ‘FROM GENERATION TO GENERATION’ when Noemi welcomes Obed, son of Ruth: “Then Naomi took the child and laid him in her bosom, and became his nurse.” Four generations, on the other hand, are involved in the summary that concludes Joseph’s life in Gen 50:23: “Joseph saw Ephraim’s children of the third generation; the children of Machir son of Manasseh were also born on Joseph’s knees.” The same scenario is found in the story of Job, after he is restored: “After this Job lived a hundred and forty years, and saw his children, and his children’s children, for four generations (dôrôt). And Job died, old and full of days” (Job 42:16-17). These stories involving two, three or four generations allow us to understand a remarkable theological formula: in the Decalogue, God presents himself as the one who “visits the guilt of the fathers up to the third and fourth generation” ( 20:5; Exod 72 cf. Exod 34:7; Num 14:18; Deut 5:9). The key to the formula in question is essentially anthropological. During a lifetime, people may witness three or four generations, seeing their children’s children and perhaps even their grandchildren’s children. In other words, and from a properly ethical perspective, they will witness the consequences of their choices, and in particular their poor choices, until the third or fourth generation. It is these that God “visits” and sanctions. The formula thus has the value of a warning, putting people in front of their responsibility and choices: it will be their children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren who will pay the consequences, and they themselves will be witnesses. In this way the Bible connects the mystery of God with an essential dimension of the moral life: its transgenerational dimension. It demonstrates a keen sense of the impact of human “begetting” in the diachrony of history.
‘This generation (dôr)’ The Bible demonstrates an equal expertise with regard to the other generational axis – the “horizontal” one of the coeval generation – bringing into play the word dôr in both a historical and a moral sense. “Generation” in this latter sense makes its entrance into the biblical drama with the account of the flood in Gen 6:9: “Noah was a righteous man blameless in his generation (literally: “in his generations”) and walked with God.” JEAN-PIERRE SONNET, SJ
The narrator’s statement is reiterated by God himself in 7:1: “Then the Lord said to Noah, ‘Go into the ark, you and all your household, for I have seen that you alone are righteous before me in this generation.’” What is affirmed here is the identity of fate of a generational group; it is a moral identity. In her essay, Mollo focuses on a motif linked to the “generation” in question: that of generational turnover. In the Bible, this is a topos, in which generational groups are presented as so many “persons” marked by their character and their particular role in the course of history. We have already mentioned Noah’s contemporary generation, the generation of the flood (in Gen 6:9 and 7:1). The motif returns at the beginning of Exodus (Exod 1:6-8): “Then Joseph died, and all his brothers, and that whole generation ( ). But the Israelites 73 dôr were fruitful and prolific; they multiplied and grew exceedingly strong, so that the land was filled with them. Now a new king arose over Egypt, who did not know Joseph.” After Exodus and Leviticus, the book of Numbers makes the motif in question the fulcrum of its plot. It is the book that “dramatizes” the transition from one generation to the next: from the generation that experienced the exodus, the revelation, and the Sinai covenant to the generation that will enter the land. In this passage, the baton is not handed on in a simple way. In fact, the book of Numbers recounts how the first generation, witness and beneficiary of so many goods, is disqualified and finally condemned to wander 40 years in the desert: the years which bring about its total disappearance. The generation of the exodus, in fact, was discredited in the episode of the 12 explorers, reported in Numbers 13-14, when the people, with an attitude of contempt that culminated in apostasy, did not believe in God’s gift of the land. Hence the divine sentence: “None of the people [in other words, “this generation”] who have seen my glory and the signs I did in Egypt and in the wilderness and yet have tested me ten times and have not obeyed my voice, shall see the land that I swore to give their ancestors; 14 None of those who despised me
14.With the exception of Caleb and Joshua, explorers who recognized the goodness of the gift of the land, cf. Num 14:30; 26:64-65. ‘FROM GENERATION TO GENERATION’ shall see it [...] But your little ones, who you said would become booty, I will bring in, and they shall know the land that you have despised” (Num 14:22-23.31). The motif of generational turnover returns in Jdg 2:8-10, at the moment of Joshua’s death and the disappearance of his generation: “Then Joshua, son of Nun, the servant of the Lord, died at the age of one hundred and ten years [...]. That whole generation (dôr) was gathered to their ancestors; and another generation grew up after them, who did not know the Lord or the work that he had done for Israel.” There are four generational changes that are dramatized in the Hebrew Bible, associated with the figures of Noah, Joseph, Moses (around the revelation and the covenant of Sinai) and Joshua. On the basis of stylistic recurrences, analogies and contrasts, Mollo identifies two paradigms in the the one (Genesis topos: regenerative 74 6-9 and Numbers 13-14), in which one (Noah) or two (Joshua and Caleb) individuals are distinguished by their pietas from the rest of an evil generation (dôr); and the degenerative one (Exodus 1 and Judges 2), in which the death of the chief dôr (Joseph, Joshua) and of the coeval generation is followed by the rise of a new figure – a new ruler in Egypt, a new generation in Israel – characterized by ignorance, by “not knowing,” which marks a deterioration in the life of the people.15 A surprising twist, however, is reserved for the reader of the biblical macro-narrative. After being used in Jdg 2:10 and 3:2, the word dôr disappears completely from the lexicon of the biblical historical narrative, with one exception in 1 Chr 16:15. In fact, new historical and ethical subjects then arise: the kings of Judah and Israel. On them will fall the judgment of history. “The responsibility, which until all the dôr living during the judges is imputed to the behavior and choices of men as a collective – writes Mollo – subsequently finds in the figure of the kings the only place where it can be sought and evaluated.”16 If a generation in ancient times behaved as an ethical character, now it is the royal characters – including queens such as Jezebel and Atalia – who become the touchstone in history. This criss-
15.Cf. P. Mollo, The Motif..., op. cit., 89-97. 16.Ibid., 123. JEAN-PIERRE SONNET, SJ
crossing between a personalized generation and prominent characters reveals a profound thought about history and the complementary or alternate roles that groups and individuals can play in it.
‘From generation to generation’ This journey through the Old Testament leads to a significant phenomenon: the two generational axes – the vertical one of genealogy and the horizontal one of the generational group – are connected in the expressions “from generation to generation” and “throughout your generations.” The double formula translates the role of each coeval group in the inherited experience, lived in the course of history understood as tradition. Thus in Psalm 79:13: “Then we your people, the flock of your pasture, will give 75 thanks to you forever; from generation to generation we will recount your praise.” The expression is frequent in the Psalms (cf. Psalm 10:6; 33:11; 49:12; 77:9; 85:6; 89:2; 102:13; 106:31; 119:90; 135:13; 145:4; 146:10). It also recurs in narrative and ritual contexts. For example, in Gen 17:12: “Throughout your generations every male among you shall be circumcised when he is eight days old” (cf. Exod 12:17). Transmission and observance “from generation to generation” lie at the heart of biblical faith. Tradition is not only vertical, diachronic, from father and mother to son, but also involves successive coeval groups, to whom its actualization is entrusted. Inherited, like life, from parents and ancestors, revelation finds a new actualization in each generation, in its original experience of God.
‘Generation’ in the New Testament It is necessary to note that the category of “generation,” which disappeared in the course of the book of Judges, returns insistently in the New Testament. It is sufficient to mention here two statements of Jesus that we find in the Gospel of Matthew: “To what will I compare this generation? It is like children sitting in the marketplace...” (Matt 11:16-19); “An evil and adulterous generation asks for a sign, but no sign will be given to it except the sign of the prophet Jonah. For just as Jonah was three days ‘FROM GENERATION TO GENERATION’ and three nights in the belly of the sea monster, so for three days and three nights the Son of Man will be in the heart of the earth. The people of Nineveh will rise up at the judgment with this generation and condemn it, because they repented at the proclamation of Jonah, and see, something greater than Jonah is here! The queen of the South will rise up at the judgment with this generation and condemn it, because she came from the ends of the earth to listen to the wisdom of Solomon, and see, something greater than Solomon is here!” (Matt 12:39-42). Let us first observe how Jesus here is speaking the language of Scripture. When he rebukes “this generation” or “this wicked generation,” he echoes God and Moses in the book of Numbers and in Deuteronomy, who call the generation of the desert a “wicked generation” when it rejects the gift of the promised 76 land, which is “within reach” (cf. Deut 1:35; Num 32:13; 14:35). Scripture suggests to Jesus the words of his judgment in a similar kairos: that of the nearness of the kingdom of God. And Jesus manifests the same idea in his eschatological discourse, “Truly I tell you, this generation will not pass away until all these things have taken place. Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away” (Matt 24:34-35). In the following verses, he extends his reasoning in a generational key, relating the obliteration of the generation of the flood with that of the witnesses of the coming of the Son of Man (vv. 37-39). The eschatological trajectory of the Son of Man will be marked, like the protohistoric trajectory of Noah, by a generation that manifests other priority options. The choices before Christ are always personal choices, which are staged throughout the Gospel: from Herod to Judas, from the first disciple to the thief crucified with Jesus, from the rich man to the Syrophoenician. The same Gospel also shows how, in the face of God’s Messiah, people show solidarity for better or for worse. Confronted with the Gospel signs, they give mutually reinforcing responses. “Fear came over all their neighbors, and all these things were talked about throughout the entire hill country of Judea” (Luke 1:65); “His fame immediately spread everywhere” (Mark 1:28): the contrasting responses to the words and signs performed by Jesus become contagious. JEAN-PIERRE SONNET, SJ
Moreover, we should note that the expression used by Jesus – “this generation” – has a special value: that of reaching every generation that reads or hears the Gospel. Jesus is certainly addressing the generation that is contemporary with him in the world of the narrative, but the deictic “this one” has the power to transcend narrative boundaries and reach every reader-listener who actualizes the narrative. Through the expression “this generation” the Gospel reaches every generation – “present,” “actual” in history, until the end of time – called to make a decision before the Son of Man.
‘All generations will call me blessed’ Alongside the responsibility to respond to God’s Messiah, another dynamic involves every generation, in a perspective that 77 is both diachronic and synchronic: that of praise, which finds its icon in Mary. In the Magnificat,Mary declares in Luke 1:48b: “From now on, all generations (pasai hai geneai) will call me blessed (makariousin).” With these words she echoes her cousin Elizabeth, who had previously made use of the word makarios, “happy, blessed”: “And blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfillment of what was spoken to her by the Lord” (Luke 1:45). With her words, Mary also echoes an older sister in the history of the Jewish people, the matriarch Leah. At the birth of her son Asher (ʾāshēr, meaning “happy, blessed”), she exclaimed, kîʾishshĕrûnî bānôt, “women will call me fortunate” (Gen 30:13). The LXX translated this Hebrew expression as makarizousin me hai gynaikes, “the women will call me blessed,” introducing the verb makarizō (“to consider or declare blessed”), the one that will be taken up by Mary as recorded by Luke. To this verb Mary gives an original subject: “All generations (pasai hai geneai) will call me blessed.” For the word gynaikes, “women,” of the LXX Mary substitutes the word geneai, “generations,” expanding the future praise. Moreover, in Luke’s Gospel, Mary creates a significant time span through the change introduced: it is no longer a question of the present (“the women call me”), but of an open future: “all generations will call me.” Mary universalizes the speech act of “beatification” across time. ‘FROM GENERATION TO GENERATION’
In this case, too, an effect is created that transcends the limits of the narrated world: Mary’s prophecy reaches every generation that sings the Magnificat. Mary’s exclamation is certainly addressed to Elizabeth, and it first resonates within the world of the narrative, but, in an asymptotic way, it reaches each of the future generations that will actualize the hymn in proclamation or song. A speech act of the origins – that of Leah – is realized in a messianic way in that of Mary, who universalizes it for “all generations,” until it reaches what the Psalms call “the last generation (dôr ʾaḥărôn)” (cf. Psalm 48:14; 78:4; 102:19). Until the end of time (of the tôledôt), successive generations (dôrôt) are summoned in the song of Mary, and this is in regard to a double birth: that of John the Baptist and that of Jesus. 78 The image of generations in the teaching of Pope Francis Anticipating the discoveries of the human sciences, the Bible has proved to be magisterial in anthropology. Through the interplay of the concepts of “generations” and “generation,” it makes us reflect on history, starting from its fundamental dynamics. The anthropological perspective is flanked by a theological thought: the divine plan is deeply linked to the scanning of generations, before and after each covenant, before and after the event (birth, life, death, resurrection) of Christ Jesus. In its richness, this thought calls for new poets and storytellers, as well as new theorists, critics, and creators. It is interesting to observe how this dual biblical perspective runs through the thought and teaching of Pope Francis. From the very beginning of his pontificate, he appeared as one who called for a new understanding between generations, particularly between grandparents and grandchildren: “Blessed are those families who have grandparents close to them! The grandfather is father twice and the grandmother is mother twice.”17 “How I would like a Church that challenges the culture of waste with the overflowing joy of a new embrace between the young and the old!”18 This affinity between the youngest and the elderly
17.Francis, Meeting with seniors in St. Peter’s Square, September 28, 2014. 18.Id., Catechesis, March 11, 2015. JEAN-PIERRE SONNET, SJ
is very often highlighted by the pope through the verses of the prophet Joel: “After this, I will pour out my spirit on each one of you, and your sons and your daughters will become prophets; your elders will have dreams, your young people will have 19 visions” (Joel 3:1; cf. Acts 2:17). The anthropological module, as Pope Francis reminds us in many ways, is that of the three generations,20 and it is also a theological module: the God of the Bible revealed himself not as the God of a solitary ancestor, but as that of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, that is, of the patriarchs and matriarchs and their descendants for three generations. Significantly, the reference to the three generations reappears in the New Testament: “I am reminded of your sincere faith,” Paul writes to Timothy, “a faith that lived first in your grandmother Lois and your mother Eunice 79 and now, I am sure, lives in you” (2 Tim 1:5). The transmission of faith has a profound affinity with that of transgenerational life, as the Old Testament shows in many ways: “One generation tells another of your works, announces your deeds” (Psalm 145:4; cf. Isa 10:2; 12:26-27; 13:14; Deut 4:9; 6:7,20-25; Psalm 78:1- 8).21 The stories that parents and grandparents have the gift and the vocation to tell – those of the family, those of the human family – are destined to intersect with those of the Bible and to intertwine with them. The transmission of faith in Christ is lived out on many fronts, in many settings, and through many channels; with boldness and wisdom, Pope Francis keeps it close to its most vital place, precisely that of life transmitted from generation to generation (cf. Psalm 78:3-4). Central to Pope Francis’ concerns about life and survival are found on another transgenerational front: that of the “common home” and the future of the human family. Quoting the bishops of Portugal, he states, “since the world we have received
19.Id., Post-Synodal Apostolic Exhortation Christus Vivit (CV), March 25, 2019, No. 192; cf. Id., The Wisdom of Time. In Dialogue with Pope Francis on the Great Questions of Life, Loyola Press, 2018. 20.Cf. Id., Post-Synodal Apostolic Exhortation Amoris Laetitia on love in the family, March 19, 2016, Nos. 187-198. 21.Cf. Id., Encyclical Letter Lumen Fidei on the faith, June 29, 2013, Nos. 12 and 38. ‘FROM GENERATION TO GENERATION’ has been borrowed by our generation from the generation that will follow us.”22 The ecological question finds its first place of resonance in generational relationships. It is intimately linked to parents’ concern for the children yet to be born and those who are growing up. As manifested by the generation of “Fridays for Future,” linked to Greta Thunberg, it also takes the form of a challenge addressed by young people to adults. Ever since the encyclical Laudato Si’, Pope Francis’ word has stood out in this face-to-face of generations ordered to life on this earth. If he is the advocate of the nexus of generations, Pope Francis is also the advocate of the vocation of each generation to be its own protagonist, without letting its hope be stolen.23 The exhortation Christus Vivit, addressed to the youngest, is punctuated with appeals in this sense, and the encyclical Fratelli 80 Tutti returns to the subject: “Each generation must make its own the struggles and achievements of previous generations and lead them to even higher goals.”24 In speaking in this way, the pope shows himself to be animated by the “conviction that every woman, every man and every generation contains within itself a promise that can unleash new relational, intellectual, cultural and spiritual energies.”25 In this he echoes Paul VI, who, at the opening of Holy Week in 1975, addressed young people in this way: “You are here [...] as protagonists of your generation; not so much as spectators, guests and passive assistants, but as actors and factors in the characteristic phenomenon of your youth, the phenomenon of newness.”26
22.Id., Encyclical Letter Laudato Si’ on care for the common home (LS), May 4, 2015, No. 159; Id., Encyclical Letter Fratelli Tutti on fraternity and social friendship (FT), October 3, 2020, No. 178 (citing the Portuguese Bishops’ Conference pastoral letter Responsabilidade solidária pelo bem comum, September 15, 2003, 20). See also LS 53; 159-162. 23.See especially CV 15; 74. 24.FT 8. 25.FT 196; see also Francis, Post-Synodal Apostolic Exhortation Evangelii Gaudium, November 24, 2013, No. 122. 26.Paul VI, Homily, “Dominica Palmarum,” March 23, 1975. The introduction of the new in the world and in history, writes the philosopher Hannah Arendt in her essay Vita activa (1958), “is possible only because each person is unique, and with the birth of each comes into the world something new in its uniqueness” (H. Arendt, Vita activa. La condizione umana, Milan, Bompiani, 2017, 128f ). JEAN-PIERRE SONNET, SJ
The generation to come By coordinating the two categories of tôledôt (“generations”) and dôr (“generation”), the Bible provides a compass for anthropology and for thinking about history. It also opens up a perspective yet to be explored in the theology of history. This perspective brings us back to the boy whom the poet Tarkovsky saw “up in the stirrups,” projected toward the future. Of the final generation it must be said that it has an immeasurable privilege: that of being on the side of the Lord who returns. The most Paschal Psalm of all, Psalm 22, in the letter to the Hebrews is put on the lips of the Risen One: “I will proclaim your name to my brothers, in the midst of the assembly I will sing your praises” (Heb 2:12; Psalm 22:23). In 81 the Psalm, this announcement is addressed to “the generation to come” (v. 31), described in the last verse as the “people who will be born” (v. 32). In other passages of the Psalter, the “next generation” or “last” is named (Psalm 48:14; 78:4, 6; 102:19). In the Christian perspective, this “generation to come” is the one closest to the coming Lord. Of the sons and daughters who are born, who look to us, and who look for us to the future, it can be said that they are “on the side” of the Risen One, who returns in his glory and, through them, already visits us. The Strength of Being Authentic Reflections on culture and faith
Eugenio Rivas, SJ
The best description of today’s cultural reality is through “authenticity,” so says Charles Taylor, one of the most important contemporary Catholic intellectuals.1 There exists a true “culture of authenticity.” By this term the philosopher means the search for personal self-fulfillment supported by the 82 subjective principle of being faithful to what one sincerely feels. Behind this quest stands the moral ideal of “being true to oneself.” This ideal, Taylor asserts, is not to be defined according to what we desire or need, but offers an outline of what we should desire.2 As a consequence of this, it can be said that no matter how degraded or disguised the quest of the individual immersed in a given culture may be (affected by relativism, individualism, narcissism, self-referentiality, etc.), authenticity rests on a moral
La Civiltà Cattolica, En. Ed. Vol. 5, no. 2 art. 10, 1020: 10.32009/22072446.0221.10
1.Born in Canada in 1931, Taylor has taught at Oxford, at the University of Montreal and at McGill University, where he is professor emeritus. In addition to the history of philosophy, he has devoted himself to political philosophy and the philosophy of the social sciences. His best known contributions are in the areas of communitarianism, cosmopolitanism and the relationship between religion and modernity, in particular the theme of secularization, of which he is considered one of the most authoritative scholars. Among his works, we can mention: Sources of the Self (1989); A Secular Age (2007); The Language Animal (2016). He has received many international honors and awards, including, in 2019, the Ratzinger Prize. Cf. M. P. Gallagher, “La critica di Charles Taylor alla secolarizzazione”, in Civ. Catt. 2008 IV 249-259; G. Mucci, “Identità moderna e cristianesimo in Charles Taylor”, ibid. 2010 II 141-148; Id., “Un colloquio pubblico tra Charles Taylor e Christoph Schönborn”, ibid. 2011 II 450-455. 2.C. Taylor, The Ethics of Authenticity, Cambridge (Ma) - London, Harvard University Press, 2003, 16. EUGENIO RIVAS, SJ
force that is neither understood nor identified by the arguments that strip it of its dignity, defend it uncritically, or seek a wisely balanced compromise. Faced with this panorama of authenticity with its deviations, Taylor proposes a project of “retrieval,” through which the moral ideal, on which “authenticity” rests, can contribute to the renewal of practical, social and political life. The implication is that authenticity either triggers demands or is counterproductive. The life of faith finds itself immersed in this culture of authenticity. It is not immunized with respect to the culture, nor is it quarantined. This means that it too can be degraded or withdrawn, not inclined to any social commitment, that is, it can turn its back on the history in which it is called to be a leaven of liberation. In other words, faith lived and practiced runs the risk 83 of losing effectiveness, as well as social and political relevance. Theological reflection is called to highlight the relationship between Christian faith and commitment to the transformation of history, so that history becomes a true “theological place”: “Social praxis is gradually transformed into the very place where the Christian, with others, brings into play his or her destiny as a person and faith in the Lord of history.”3 This Christian commitment in history has meant, and still means, being present and engaging wherever the life and dignity of the person are defended and wherever the right to these is claimed as a guarantee of a dignified life.4 Commitment to history is the consequence of reading the Word of God – addressed to us today – in the light of faith, aided by the disciplines that reveal the past and explain the present.5 If the Word of God is addressed to us today, it necessarily has something to say to the concrete situation in which we live
3.G. Gutierrez, Teología de la liberación. Perspectivas, Salamanca, 1975, 80. 4.Christian commitment in history has been concretized and specified, in the Church and in Latin American theological reflection, as a “preferential option for the poor,” required by and encapsulated in faith in Jesus. This option for the poor is also an option for the care of the common home: one seeks to “listen as much to the cry of the earth as to the cry of the poor” (Francis, Laudato Si’ [LS], No. 49). 5.Cf. J. L. Segundo, Liberación de la teología, Buenos Aires, Carlos Lolhé, 1975, 12. THE STRENGTH OF BEING AUTHENTIC as individuals, and as a society. The Word conveys a liberating message with respect to any kind of dependence that reduces or disfigures the “image and likeness” of God. It is a Word that seeks to change reality, that seeks to transform death into life, hunger into abundance, sickness into health, war into peace, prison into freedom, darkness into light, doubt into faith, sadness into joy. This is the experience reported by the beautiful expressions of the prayer attributed to Saint Francis of Assisi, in which he asks to be an instrument for what the Word of God seeks to establish. The Word of God is a practical word, which does not return to God without first doing what it desires (cf. Isa 55:10-11). The life of faith is nurtured by it: it germinates and grows when it allows itself to be permeated by it and accepts 84 the historical challenge of engaging in every kind of struggle for the humanization of the world. It is precisely this kind of engagement with history that the culture of authenticity seems to be jeopardizing. We welcome Taylor’s reflection as a provocation for theology. We mean “provocation” in the sense of a stimulus or an aid or, if you will, an opportunity for thinking about faith from its context, for identifying challenges and indicating paths to follow on the basis of a theological reflection that feeds the life of faith and is nourished by it. Our question is whether it is possible, starting from the faith experience of authenticity, to conduct a fruitful theological reflection that helps to renew practical life, making use of the demands of faith that seeks to embody the values of the Kingdom. If we recognize, with Taylor, that authenticity is grounded and motivated by moral ideals, it is possible and imperative to develop a theological reflection on the “faith of authenticity” in order to recover the practical need for faith and contrast it with a certain spiritualism that, underneath and hiding behind a semblance of orthodoxy, reveals an “aversion to the human condition [...], to the ‘philanthropy’ of the Creator, which is EUGENIO RIVAS, SJ
manifested in the fact of assuming, in the incarnation of the Son, the creature, to whom he communicates himself through the gift of the Spirit.”6
Authenticity in contemporary culture Taylor does not stop at the superficiality of the culture of authenticity – or at what he calls its deviations – and proposes that it should also be considered a culture of research, behind which lies the moral ideal of truthfulness toward oneself and the awareness of a non-transferable originality: “Each of our voices has something of its own to say.”7 The idea that there is a certain way of being human that is non-transferable and can only be my personal human form has penetrated deeply into modern consciousness. The concrete way 85 of living my human form will consist of being authentic. This model of humanity I can only find within myself. If I were not authentic, I would corrupt my human form, and that individual originality would be lost: “Being true to myself means being true to my own originality, and that is something that only I can articulate and discover. In articulating it, I am also defining myself. I am realizing a potentiality that is properly my own.”8 Herein lies, according to Taylor, the moral force of authenticity. It is itself a moral ideal, an ideal understood by the philosopher as “a picture of what a better or higher mode of life would be.”9 This image offers a model of what we should desire, which is not necessarily defined by what we immediately desire or now feel the need for. It is evident that this ideal can be perverted. It can become degraded or disguise itself in relativism, narcissism, subjectivism, nihilism or egoism. The border that separates the ideal from degradation is almost imperceptible; it is easy to pass from personal self-realization to egoism or narcissism.
6.U. Vázquez, “Padecer e saber”, in Perspectiva teológica, January-April 2016, 16. Spiritualism is a disease of the spirit, a “pneumopathology” (cf. G. Parotto, “Pneuma e pneumopatologia nel pensiero di Eric Voegelin”, in Politica e religione. 2010-2011, Brescia, Morcelliana, 2012, 233-259). Pope Francis has describedthis concept as “spiritual worldliness” (cf. Evangelii Gaudium, No. 93). 7.C. Taylor, The Ethics of Authenticity, op. cit., 39. 8.Ibid. 29. 9.Ibid. 16. THE STRENGTH OF BEING AUTHENTIC
The quest for self-realization, by focusing on the self, can easily evade the demands of society and nature, and in this way can turn its back on history and the bonds of solidarity. This deviation is encouraged by the ideal of self and is reinforced by an instrumental and bureaucratic viewpoint that leads us to see and consider everything from an instrumental perspective whose immediate consequence is social atomism. In fact, people immersed in the culture of authenticity go astray when they “want to focus their realization on the individual, making their affiliations purely instrumental, that is, they push toward a social atomism. They tend to see self- realization as reduced only to the expectations of the self, neglecting or delegitimizing the questions that come from history, tradition, society, nature or God; in other words, they 86 nurture a radical anthropocentrism.”10 Criticism of authenticity focuses on the risks of possible deviations connected to this ideal, such as narcissism, relativism, nihilism, egoism. Zygmunt Bauman coined the metaphor of fluidity and liquidity to refer to the negativity of the culture that characterizes the current phase of modernity: “Liquids, unlike solid bodies, do not normally maintain a form of their own. Fluids, so to speak, do not fix space and do not bind time [...], they never retain their own form for long and are always ready (and inclined) to change it.”11 Characterizing culture and the environment in terms of fluidity is a description that smacks of a desperate culture, where the future seems to promise only ever-higher levels of narcissism.12 However, it is precisely this despair as regards the future that Taylor describes as a quest. The way authenticity manifests itself
10.Ibid., 58. Pope Francis speaks of a “despotic anthropocentrism” and “deviance” that places the human being at the center and gives absolute priority to his immediate interests, ignoring, to his own detriment, the reality that everything is interconnected (cf. LS 68-69). Cf. E. Rivas, “A esperança como chave de leitura da “Laudato Si’”, in A. Murad - E. V. B. Reis - M. A. Rocha (eds), Tecnociência e ecologia: múltiplos olhares, Belo Horizonte, Lumen Juris, 2019, 29-45. 11.Z. Bauman, Liquid Modernity, Cambridge, Polity, 2000, The same author has also published: Liquid Love (2003), Liquid Life (2005), Liquid Fear (2006), Liquid Future (2014), Liquid Born (2017). 12.Cf. C. Taylor, The Ethics of Authenticity, op. cit., 76. EUGENIO RIVAS, SJ
– in which everyone seeks to discern their own path, to be true to themselves – is not despair or the degradation of moral ideals: all of it is an expression of a search. The Canadian philosopher recognizes that cultural analyses manifest a real concern for the serious political consequences of change and are true in what they portray, but they openly express a tone of contempt for the culture they describe, which prevents them from seeing the moral ideal operating behind this phenomenon.13 Taylor believes that it is possible to engage in a rational dialogue with people immersed in a culture of authenticity, who apparently do not accept any principle higher than their own self-realization. This possibility is not arbitrary, but is based on the dialogical dimension that always accompanies human beings in the process of shaping and defining their own identity. 87 Dialogue takes the form of recovery; it does not consist in condemning, defending or assuming an intermediate position with respect to authenticity, but in rediscovering the ideal on which it is based as a way of restoring practical life. For this reason it is necessary to look sympathetically at the ideal that animates authenticity, and from there try to persuade people, seeking to raise the quality of their praxis and making the implications of the ideal to which they adhere clearer: “We should fight for the meaning of authenticity [...], we should try to persuade people that self-realization, far from excluding unconditional ties and moral questions that transcend the self, in fact in some way requires them.”14 The culture of authenticity, like any form of culture, is traversed by tensions and conflicts, which manifest themselves in a variety of tendencies in the way of living the ideal that sustains it. It may be that the dominant tendencies are the most degraded forms of that ideal, but the minority tendencies cannot be eliminated. In the cultural realm, Taylor asserts, an ongoing
13.Taylor makes explicit reference to these works: D. Bell, The Cultural Contradictions of Capitalism, Turin, Einaudi, 1978; C. Lasch, The Culture of Narcissism, Milan, Bompiani, 2001; Id., The Minimum I, Vicenza, Neri Pozza, 2018; G. Lipovetsky, The Age of Emptiness, Milan, Luni, 2018. Cf. C. Taylor, The Ethics of Authenticity, op. cit., 14. 14.C. Taylor, The Ethics of Authenticity, op. cit., 72f. THE STRENGTH OF BEING AUTHENTIC struggle takes place: “I suggest that in this matter we look not for the trend, whatever it is, up or down, but that we break with our temptation to discern irreversible trends, and see that there is a struggle here, whose outcome is continually up for grabs.”15 In this sense, the most important things are the very existence of a plurality of orientations and the awareness that cultural progress is not made by marginalizing a fraction of the culture, but by recovering what deeply animates all of this irreducible plurality, whether predominant or not. Taylor proposes to distinguish the manner from the matter or content of action: “On one level, [the ideal of authenticity] clearly concerns the manner of espousing any end or form of life. Authenticity is clearly self-referential: this has to be my orientation. But this does not mean that at another level the content must be self- 88 referential, that my goals must express or fulfill my desires or aspirations, as against something that stands beyond these. I can find fulfillment in God, or a political cause, or tending the earth. Indeed [...] we will only find genuine fulfillment in something like this, something that has meaning independently of us or our desires.”16 The possibility of this dialogue involves believing in three controversial ideals. First, that authenticity is a valid ideal (versus a critique of culture that evaluates it from its deviations). Second, that one can rationally discuss those ideals and their conformity with practice (versus an absolute subjectivism). Third, that this reflection has consequences (there are possible outcomes).17
The faith of authenticity The new believer or the believer immersed in the culture of authenticity, especially among the younger generations,18 lives his or her faith as a real tension between individualism and
15.Ibid., 79. 16.Ibid. 82. 17.See ibid., 23. 18.Cf. E. Rivas, “La fidelidad a la intemperie. Pensar en fidelidade en la vida religiosa hoy”, in CLAR 3 (2007) 9-19; Id., “The Faith of ‘Authenticity’: Challenges and Prospects for Liberation Theology”, in The Heythrop Journal 60 (2019) 871-882. EUGENIO RIVAS, SJ
groups, between autonomy and dependence, between freedom and affective maturity, between the use of religious language and daily attitudes, between what one proposes to do and what one actually does, between constancy and inconsistency, between daily routines and new experiences, between immediate and lasting responsibilities, between the past and the future, between near and far reality, and so on. The tendency toward individualism does not exclude, indeed it demands, strong friendships and the need to belong to a cohesive group. One can endorse solid community structures and at the same time demand absolute respect for individual freedom. On the other hand, the affirmation and search for greater autonomy and originality do not exclude a certain dependence on and attraction to uniform external symbols. 89 The emphasis on the external as a sign of identity creates a type of Christian life that could be called “corporatism.”19 The corporatization of religious experience is characterized by outward signs that objectify and affirm identity (hats, pens, logo T-shirts, posters). The emphasis by which the group is distinguished is so pronounced that the common Christian dimension is relegated to a weak background, but the fact that it is in the background does not mean that it disappears. Corporatism does not seek conversion, but the assumption of a language, a style, a family atmosphere, an identity. Within the group, one lives in a warm environment of effusive conviviality and generosity that suggests an authentic Christian brotherhood. The social theme does not exist. Much of the energy is devoted to matters of affection and personal maturity, but social problems are not part of the conversation. The attractive activities are those of short-term volunteering and limited responsibility. In this type of activity, people practice altruism, dedication, sympathy, mercy and solidarity. They are comfortable with fragmentation because they do not think about changing the world. They do not define themselves as coherent and faultless, but vulnerable and fragile. They consider the past
19.Cf. P. Trigo, “Mística y profecía en la vida religiosa”, in Iter 15 (2004) 113-117. THE STRENGTH OF BEING AUTHENTIC a very heavy legacy, and the future uncertain; their allegiance goes to the present and controllable moments of happiness. If we accept the famous Arabic proverb, quoted by Guy Debord, according to which “men are more like their times than their fathers,”20 as well as the fact that “authenticity” is what characterizes our age, we have to ask ourselves if faith is possible in an age where people do not seem to accept a higher principle than that of their own self-realization, or if, on the contrary, the tension experienced in the life of the believer is the manifestation of a search that does not find a satisfactory answer in the official goals offered to it. And whether, consequently, out of honesty with themselves, people do not feel the need to plan out their own path for themselves. Faith has its own demands. It is aroused in a time and a 90 space, it implies individuals capable of welcoming it, a capacity for renunciation, self-denial and self-abandonment, a capacity for memory and expectation; finally, it implies what defines it: trusting the “Other,” letting oneself be captured by the Other. These values do not seem to have any particular resonance in our “instant age,” in which the very choice of the life of faith brings with it the feeling of being able to “change direction,” and because of the awareness of that possibility the task of maintaining direction is even more discouraging.21 It seems to be a cultural rejection of the “forever,” of “putting all our eggs in one basket,” and it is in this cultural environment that we are called to live the faith. From its origins, Christianity has been a countercultural life proposal, but this does not mean abandoning the world (fuga mundi) – how easy it would be to misunderstand the ideal of monastic life – but rather being in the world without being of the world (cf. John 17:15-16). The difficulty of living the faith and maintaining direction cannot lead us to define its impossibility, however evident it may appear in all manifestations of culture. In these conditions, the life of faith presents itself as a battle that, paradoxically, does not produce collateral victims, but authentic
20.G. Debord, Comments on the Society of the Spectacle, London, Verso, 1990, 13. 21.Cf. Z. Bauman, Liquid Love, 2017. EUGENIO RIVAS, SJ
lives that can be liberated in a permanent way and with lasting assurance only through a deep rootedness in the One who calls.
Regenerate practical life It is not difficult to identify in the profile we have just sketched many of the characteristics of the religion of the “age of authenticity.” In general, we can affirm that they are found, although not exclusively, in the phenomenon of Pentecostalism present in all Christian denominations. An implicit question follows: Is a person with such characteristics capable of living a life project that demands self-abandonment, responsibility, gratuitous giving, generosity, but also involves boredom and the daily routines of life? However, the individuals who are described in the profile – or profiles – of believers in the age of authenticity donot 91 necessarily identify with them. This is a fundamental problem. The profiles drawn do not correspond to people’s perceptions of their own paths. Believers may even accept their own inconsistencies, but these are not attributable solely to them; the same can be said of any group. It is not always possible to make what one has planned coincide with one’s own experience; one does not always do what one wants. The resistance shown in the face of diagnoses that describe one’s situation as a believer stems from the perception of a negative language and comes with a strong dose of prejudice. It is difficult to imagine someone taking up a position that at first glance is disqualifying and many times is conveyed through a distorted language. On the one hand, this negativity inserted and perceived in a language hinders the possibility of a dialogue in which an interlocutor has nothing to say except to accept the diagnosis of him or herself and be willing to put into practice the remedies offered, if any are offered. On the other hand, the dismissive tone of language makes the other interlocutor’s gaze myopic. This short-sightedness prevents people from seeing reality in its deepest dimension: to recognize that what animates the diversity of paths and the struggle to be authentic is a strong moral ideal, no matter how disguised or corrupt its manifestation may be.22
22.Cf. C. Taylor, The Ethics of Authenticity, op. cit., 15. THE STRENGTH OF BEING AUTHENTIC
Moreover, the generations of the culture and faith of authenticity have the perception and feeling that they are not understood and – here lies the greatest difficulty – that one wants to deny them the truth of that personal struggle that each individual conducts to find his or her own way. Or – which is the same thing – that there is an attempt to reduce the irreducible originality of each individual experience to a single way, or to the way generated by a given context and shared by a given group. It is clear that the danger of deviance is present. The life of faith can degrade, can become uninterested in the history that it is called to transform. The work of recovery that Taylor proposes seeks to renew the practical life. In the midst of this culture, applying this work to the faith of authenticity, can help faith recover its Gospel efficacy of being the salt of the earth 92 and the light of the world (cf. Matt 5:13). What characteristics should such a recovery have? In the first place, it is necessary to recognize the authenticity of the research undertaken today by all forms of religion. It is not a matter of demonizing some on the basis of their possible deviances, nor of uncritically legitimizing the individual right of each to find its own way, but of recognizing that a search is underway that is experienced as a tension: a tension that “comes from the sense of an ideal that is not fully known in reality. And this tension can turn into a struggle, where people try to distinguish the flaw from the practice and criticize it.”23 In many cases, the ecclesial response to this search is a multiplication of religious offerings. The proliferation of movements within the Church – which in itself would not be a bad thing – not infrequently seems to respond to the logic of accommodation: the more movements there are, the better, because this means that there is room for everyone. Each person can choose the movement that best suits his or her way of being, needs and quest. The principle that operates in this evaluation of diversity is that of accommodation, of satisfying more people. As a result, one ends up reducing faith to an instrument at the service
23.Ibid., 76f . EUGENIO RIVAS, SJ
of individual needs, thus attenuating its meaning. When I enter the group, I find what I am looking for, but it does not change me; I do not make a commitment that is consistent with the principles of the Gospel. In other words, belonging to the Church, being a Christian, does not commit me to the common and evangelical task of transforming the world; on the contrary, it seems to flee from it. In order for this diversity of movements to maintain the scandal of the Christian life, theological reflection, which seeks to see reality in its deepest dimension, must enter through the path of dialogue and persuasion, “seeking to persuade people of the fact that self-realization, far from excluding unconditional relationships and moral questions that transcend the self, actually somehow demands them. The struggle ought not to be over 93 authenticity, for or against it, but about it, defining its proper meaning.”24 Secondly, this recognition comes through the path of discernment, of looking sympathetically at those who seek, through the path of decontaminating language, etc. The diversity of ways in which the faith of authenticity seeks to express itself does not necessarily mean denying the legacy of what has been done historically, or disengaging from it, nor does it mean denying the legitimacy and authenticity of the paths taken or denying the tradition and the weight of a shared common heritage. Rather, it means opposing everything that claims to supplant the authenticity of the singularity of each individual experience. If it is true that Christian revelation reserves a place for the experience of each individual, in the same way it guarantees, by its very nature, without distortion, the search that characterizes the culture of authenticity. The theological reflection that addresses this work of recovery presents itself as an opportunity to open new avenues to the inescapable demand of faith that embodies the good news of the Kingdom. Without this work, theological reflection would be reduced to a prophecy of doom, a desperate lament, often laden with prejudice and contempt, no matter how well-meaning the
24.Ibid., 72f. THE STRENGTH OF BEING AUTHENTIC diagnoses that describe such faith inauthenticity as shirking its demands. Pope Francis’ appeal is eloquent: “Rather than experts in dire predictions, dour judges bent on rooting out every threat and deviation, we should appear as joyful messengers of challenging proposals, guardians of the goodness and beauty which shine forth in a life of fidelity to the Gospel” (Evangelii Gaudium, No. 168). The only way to be critical without damaging the search for authenticity will be for us to strive to show how self-realization without other questions beyond individual interests and desires (“absolute egoism”) ends up isolating and atrophying the self and, consequently, is not allied with the interests of authenticity. In this way we will break the grip of “cultural pessimism”25 and resist the temptation of describing such trends as irreversible. 94
25.Ibid., 78. The Musical Journey of Jordi Savall
Luigi Territo, SJ
Jordi Savall is one of the most important current viola da gamba players. He is also a conductor and musicologist, but above all he is an itinerant musician, philologist and complete artist. His journeys furrow the paths of history, rediscovering 95 obscure scores and forgotten musical instruments to let ancient sounds re-emerge from the past causing that fascination only great art can inspire. Like many of his colleagues, Savall began his musical studies when he was very young. By the age of six he was singing in the choir of his town of Igualada (Barcelona), and soon after he commenced studying the cello at the Conservatory of Barcelona, from which he graduated in 1964. The following year he began studying the viola da gamba by himself, specializing later at the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis and in Brussels. Together with the musical ensembles he founded (Hespérion XXI, the vocal group La Capella Reial de Catalunya and the orchestra Le Concert des Nations), he has made the choral, orchestral and chamber music heritage of the 16th and 17th centuries known throughout the world, following the criteria of philological practice to which he has dedicated so much study and research. His music knows no boundaries. Having set sail from Renaissance Spain, traveling along the paths of the Baroque, his exploration has led him to interpret a multiplicity of voices, including those of ancient Persia, North Africa, Turkey, the Middle East and Asia. His latest work, Le Voyage d’Ibn Battuta, is dedicated to the Muslim traveler and historian Ibn Battuta, born in Morocco in 1300,
La Civiltà Cattolica, En. Ed. Vol. 5, no. 2 art. 11, 1020: 10.32009/22072446.0221.11 THE MUSICAL JOURNEY OF JORDI SAVALL and considered the Muslim Marco Polo. He began his pilgrimage in 1325, at the age of 21, leaving from Tangier: “I left alone, without a friend who would cheer me with his company and without being part of a caravan, but I was driven by a resolute spirit and concealed in my heart the yearning to visit those noble shrines. So I decided to leave those I loved and I left my country like a bird flying from the nest.” The Catalan maestro dedicates to this extraordinary explorer a double CD, a sound journey that collects recitatives and popular music from Morocco, Afghanistan and Central Asia. The double CD is of great musicological and historical value, capable of conveying fascinating melodies and adventurous travel narratives. 96 ‘Letter to You’ by Bruce Springsteen Between loneliness and company
Claudio Zonta, SJ
After the one-man theater tour Springsteen on Broadway (2018) and the studio album Western Stars (2019), Bruce Springsteen has returned to the recording scene with a musical work that is as complex as it is immediate, called Letter to You (2020). 97 Observing the genesis of this album, we can see how it is full of strong dynamic tensions with elements that could be considered in tension or contradictory. In fact, in the era of large productions and myriad technological possibilities, in which sounds are processed, corrected and recreated, Springsteen has opted for a more instinctive solution. He recorded in the studio at his farm in Colts Neck, New Jersey. It’s a live recording – as in a live concert – accompanied by the historic E Street Band. It’s as if he wanted to again feel the thrill of the pulsing, rough sound of the music of his origins. Another element of tension is of a temporal kind: if only five days were dedicated to the recording of songs, these nevertheless encapsulate the full extent of his career. “It’s a record that stretches across a wide swathe of time, takes in my first band, takes in my current band and takes in what I learned between[...] Between 17 and 70,” he says.1 On the album he reprises the song “If I Was The Priest,” which he sang at the beginning of his career during an audition at Columbia with the record producer John Hammond, who was one of the first to recognize the potential of Springsteen’s music.
La Civiltà Cattolica, En. Ed. Vol. 5, no. 2 art. 12, 1020: 10.32009/22072446.0221.12
1.G. Sibilia, “Bruce Springsteen, l’intervista: ‘La fratellanza con la E Street Band è una benedizione’”, in Rockol (www.rockol.it/news-717428/bruce- springsteen-letter-to-you-l-intervista-e-l-anteprima), October 14, 2020. ‘LETTER TO YOU’ BY BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN
The E Street Band, with whom he has shared a good part of his career as a musician, adds another dynamic. Following on from his solo performance in the recently concluded tour of theaters, the band accompanies him, sharing the load, the responsibility that is possibly too heavy for his shoulders. “I have lived 45 years with them: a lifetime. I’ve seen their best and worst sides, and they’ve seen mine,” Springsteen has said. “We were able to make peace with ourselves [...]. We’ve come a long way together, experiencing the natural brotherhood that comes from playing a thousand and one nights together: it’s a wonderful feeling, a blessing.”2 Another dynamic tension is between youth and maturity. Springsteen wrote the songs, making use of a guitar given to him by a young Italian admirer after one of his Broadway shows 98 and on it he composed, amongst others, the song “Ghost.” This was born from the last meeting, in 2019, with George Theiss of The Castiles, the last member of the group with which he had started playing. He died a few days after that meeting. And the E Street Band no longer has its original shape, as both keyboardist Danny Federici and saxophonist Clarence Clemons passed away a few years ago. This is a dimension that Springsteen takes on himself, coming to terms with the passing of time, with his musical career, with the people he met, with the relationships he had, knowing that the “blessing” also includes the wound of missing others, of their absence, of emptiness.
‘Letter to You’ The promotional single Letter to You, for which a black and white video was shot, is also centered on some significant polarizations. It opens showing the face of the American singer- songwriter on the right side of the screen, framed with a dim side light that also comes from the right, slightly illuminating half his face and leaving the other half in the dark as it blends and fades into the black background. The subsequent scenes, which show moments of the recording of the song with the musicians of the E Street Band,
2.Ibid. CLAUDIO ZONTA, SJ
maintain the same photographic setting. The prevalent colors are shades of gray and black, except for the shot of a sheet of paper on which Springsteen has written down the words and chords of the lyrics. These sheets of paper, in their simplicity, give off the whiteness of white, showing how the strength of the words and the poetic text prevails over the passing of time, within which the various human events take place. Springsteen begins to sing, understanding the humble intensity of the word: ’Neath a crowd of mongrel trees / I pulled that bothersome thread / Got down on my knees, / Grabbed my pen and bowed my head. The act of kneeling shows he recognizes the value of the earth, a place that sustains precisely because it is trodden upon, and, just as the body places itself on its knees, so too does thought bow down, through the movement of 99 lowering the head. This seems to be the same sentiment that Italian singer- songwriter Francesco Guccini sets to music in the song ‘Lettera’: Me lying on the green grass / dreaming lazily about my past. / But the years suddenly reveal / my ideals were not to be. In this song too, a natural image, less rough than that of the American singer, introduces a reflection on the time that advances and on one’s own uncertain existential experience. A profound look at your own existence shows how much your own convictions are not so transparent, but shaded by the doubt that becomes consistent as age advances. In the same way, Springsteen describes the attempt of an immersion in the abyss of his own soul, understanding how the learned truth must still be investigated and scrutinized: Tried to summon all that my heart finds true / And send it in my letter to you.
Between solitude and companionship As the music video continues it shows a man walking alone in a bare winter landscape, flecked by snow, with sparse, bare trees. Two parallel roads appear, but then they diverge, as if to suggest that this man can walk only one, the one he has decided upon: solitary, unique and personal. To define this reflection on life, a balance sheet that takes into account the extremes – The things I found out through hard ‘LETTER TO YOU’ BY BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN
times and good – that is, the painful events, but also those rich in beauty, the American singer uses a vigorous image: I wrote ’em all out in ink and blood. The black of the ink symbolizes the entire recording career of the singer, which is tinged with the blood of the passion for the lives of the many people met, imagined, dreamed and imprinted in his songs. The flow of ink represents that incessant race along the highway of life, as he had already sung of in “Born To Run” (1975) – And we’ll walk in the sun / But till then tramps like us / Baby we were born to run – through a microphone and the steel strings of his guitar, he makes resound the desire for a redeemed life of his own and of others. This is how Springsteen, at 70, rereads his journey, that of a soul furrowed by the most intimate feelings: I took all my fears 100 and doubts / In my letter to You / All the hard things I found out. Fear arises not only from considering, as Shakespeare’s Hamlet would say, “the whips and scorns of time,” but also from experiencing how not every problem is rationally solvable. The complexity of living teaches us that every road – as shown by the man in the music video who walks alone along a road – will bring with it dilemmas and doubts, the awareness of which will generate a radical change in one’s soul. But Springsteen’s nature is also in accord with the one belonging to the protagonists of his songs. These two lanes will take us anywhere / We got one last chance to make it real / To trade in these wings on some wheels [...] Riding out tonight to case the promised land, he sang in “Thunder Road” (1975). He sings of those who travel on the border between despair and redemption, accepting the extremes of existence, as he continues singing in the words of Letter to You: I took all the sunshine and rain / All my happiness and all my pain / The dark evening stars and the morning sky of blue. The sun, the rain, the darkness of the evening and the dawn – always symbols of happiness and pain in Springsteen’s lyrics – often refer to relationships. An example is in “Land of Hope and Dreams” (2001): I will provide for you / And I’ll stand by your side [...] Tomorrow there’ll be sunshine / And all this darkness past, and in “One Way Street” (2010): Well if the sun should fall from CLAUDIO ZONTA, SJ
the sky tomorrow / If the rain brings a tear to your eye, / I would share your sorrow [...] In the night, I see only the fire in your eyes / The morning light brings the shadows of your lies. In this song he refers to himself, thus the singer thus becomes the protagonist of his song and, precisely for this reason, can identify with his sung characters. Although in this song he refers to himself, at the same time he welcomes all his fellow travelers, who struggle or have struggled so that the American dream of freedom and social dignity would continue, shown also by the presence of the political song “Rainmaker” on the album. This desire of his for truth is written as a letter, and therefore assumes a recipient, a “you” who is capable of understanding, 101 guarding, loving the life of a man. In fact, the final images of the video, which again act as a counterbalance to the loneliness of the man walking alone in the snow, frame the joyful and laughing faces of the song’s musicians together with Springsteen and his wife, Patti Scialfa. This shows that if, on the one hand, the lonely man continues his journey along snowy roads, on the other hand, a community of old friends will continue to support and accompany him over time. Even Walls Break
Claudio Zonta, SJ
El Castillo, also called The Impact of the Book, is a work by Mexican artist Jorge Méndez Blake. It was first exhibited in the “José Cornejo Franco” Library in Guadalajara and later also in Venice, Paris and Istanbul. The installation consists of a wall, at the base of which 102 is placed a book that produces a ripple along the wall itself, undermining the stability of the brick structure. The book in question is the unfinished novel by Franz Kafka, the famous German-speaking Bohemian author, entitled The Castle. This complex and literary work, subject to multiple interpretations, tells the story of K., who is unable to exercise his profession of land surveyor in a town overlooked by a looming and mysterious castle, from which alienating and destructive laws are issued. The wall, made of exposed bricks, due to its consistency and impenetrability is no longer a protective structure, like that of a house, but it becomes a symbol – as in Kafka’s work – of separation, alienation and deadly threat, evoking the many walls that have arisen in recent times, from the one on the border between the United States and Mexico to the one between Ceuta and Melilla, or the one separating parts of Israel from Palestinians. In the work of the Mexican artist, the book – which is incomplete, and whose protagonist seems to fail while being overwhelmed by a multiplicity of laws that control his own existence – manages to compromise the wall’s solid structure. Today, when culture and art are under threat and whose
La Civiltà Cattolica, En. Ed. Vol. 5, no. 2 art. 13, 1020: 10.32009/22072446.0221.13 CLAUDIO ZONTA, SJ
existence is more and more often called into question, the apparent insubstantiality of a paper book now takes on all the gravity of the weight of an apparently impenetrable wall: even though crushed by its bulk, the words it contains become narrative and thought, and are able to cause it to crack, making it unsafe, letting rays of light pass through the crack created at its base. Through this work Jorge Méndez Blake seems to ask himself if we will be able to recognize the importance of culture, which allows us to bear the weight of events and, at the same time, to change those evil, unjust systems that dominate and loom over humanity.
103 The Spiritual Memoirs of Peter Faber, SJ
Miguel Ángel Fiorito, SJ - Jaime Heraclio Amadeo, SJ
We present a classic of the spirituality of the Society of Jesus: Peter Faber’s Spiritual Memoirs, commonly known as his Memoriale, or, to give it its full title, The Memoir of some good desires and good thoughts of Father Master Peter Faber.1 104 The external man At the time of origin of the Society of Jesus, Peter Faber was the first “companion” of St. Ignatius of Loyola (i.e., the first who was called to the idea and convinced by it) and the first priest of this mainly priestly Order.2 He was born in 1506 and died in 1546. He began his apostolic works early: in 1539 – the year in which the first “companions” decided to ask the pope for canonical approval of the Society of Jesus – he was sent to Parma in Italy and the surrounding regions. From there, the following year, 1540, he was sent to Germany. Here he traveled to several of the most important cities, where the “diets” and “discussions” with which the Emperor Charles V tried to obtain religious peace were being held. The following year (1541) he was sent to Spain, passing through his own region of, Savoy. He spent that year and the following one (1542) in the main Spanish cities, from where he was sent again to Germany,
La Civiltà Cattolica, En. Ed. Vol. 5, no. 2 art. 14, 1020: 10.32009/22072446.0221.14
1.This text is taken from M. Á. Fiorito, Escritos, V, Rome, La Civiltà Cattolica, 2019, 167-169. 2.Recall that Peter Faber was canonized by Pope Francis on December 17, 2013. MIGUEL ÁNGEL FIORITO, SJ - JAIME HERACLIO AMADEO, SJ
this time to the cities that constituted a sort of “frontier” between Catholic and Protestant allegiances a country where Protestantism was becoming stronger and stronger. At the end of 1543 he was sent by Saint Ignatius to Portugal. In order to make this journey by sea, he went to Belgium, where he remained for six months, while the papal nuncio in Germany appealed to the pope to have him return there. While he waited for the pope’s reply, he introduced the Society of Jesus into Belgium and welcomed the first novices and students, among whom was the man who would become Saint Peter Canisius, the apostle of Germany. In the middle of the following year (1544), he finally left Germany, bound for Portugal; and in 1545 he moved to Spain, with the aim of strengthening the Society of Jesus at the court 105 of Prince Philip, the future Philip II, who governed Spain in his father’s absence. In April 1546 he was called by the pope to take an advisory role at the Council of Trent. He reached Rome on July 17 of that year, to die in the arms of Saint Ignatius on August 1, the day on which the Church celebrates the feast of Saint Peter freed from his chains by an angel (cf. Acts 12:3-17). In little more than seven years – from June 1539 to August 1546 – this man crossed Europe in carrying out recurrent papal missions, especially in Germany. He established the Society of Jesus in three countries: Germany, Belgium and Spain.
The inner man A man of a profound interior life, Faber lived that absorbing exterior activity by founding it in God: of him it can be said – as of Ignatius, who was his master in spirit – that he was a “contemplative in action.”3 He was also a peaceful man on the outside and a sower of peace around him, but a fighter on the inside. Both of these features manifest themselves in his Spiritual Memoirs. Let us see them in detail.
3.Cf. Epistolae P. Hieronymi Nadal Societatis Jesu Ab Anno 1546 Ad 1577, vol. IV, Madrid, G. López del Horno, 1905, 651. THE SPIRITUAL MEMOIRS OF PETER FABER, SJ
First of all, his prayer. One of the words that recurs most frequently in the Spiritual Memoirs is “desires”: Faber was a “man of desires” (cf. Dan 9:23, Vulgate). The first editors rightly entitled the work Memoir of some good desires and good thoughts of Father Master Peter Faber. One of the main merits of the Memoriale is that it shows how all the circumstances of life (apostolate, travels, worries, friendships... and even neglect) for Faber were transformed into matter for prayer. Faber even profits from distractions in prayer. He recounts: “[One day,] while I was saying the office and trying to adjust my watch without need, it occurred to me to ask God for the grace to be stimulated and disposed by him to pray well. This is easier for him than it is for me to adjust or handle any material 106 object. Hence I came to reproach myself for having far too often allowed myself to be taken in by the desire to handle and adjust such and such an object without need, whereas at that moment I should have been attentive and applied myself to my prayers or meditation. I should have devoted all my efforts to disposing myself to do well what I had to do with my hands, mouth, intelligence and soul.”4 Another important characteristic of the Memoriale is that it is an almost continuous dialogue not only with God (the Trinity and Jesus Christ in particular), but also with the Virgin, the saints and the angels: indeed Faber could say with Saint Paul that “our citizenship is in heaven” (cf. Phil 3:20). And so we come to the second specific trait of Faber’s inner life: his fighting spirit. His struggle began very early and led him to Paris in 1530 where he placed himself in the expert hands of Saint Ignatius, who guided him to an understanding of “the temptations and scruples of which I had been a prisoner for so long, without intellectual light and without experience of the path where I could find peace. The scruples came from the fear of not having confessed my sins properly for a long time [...]. The temptations
4.P. Faber, Memorie spirituali, No. 249, Milan, Corriere della Sera - La Civiltà Cattolica, 2014. MIGUEL ÁNGEL FIORITO, SJ - JAIME HERACLIO AMADEO, SJ
consisted in obscene and impure carnal images subtly presented to me by the spirit of fornication. Before Paris, I did not know this through the spirit, but only through readings and teachings.”5 It was a struggle that lasted until the end of his life. In January 1546, the last year of his life – and in the last entry in his Spiritual Memoirs – Faber wrote: “I felt my deficiencies resurface [...]. I then felt, during these days, through the experience of temptation, that I was in need of abundant grace.”6 It is an inner struggle that is not to the detriment of the individual, but, if anything, to his merit: grace, which he tells us he needs “abundantly,” was granted to him aplenty. He himself informs us, referring to himself: “How you had no major temptation, in which you were not also consoled, not only through a clarity of knowledge, but also by a spirit 107 that was contrary to sadness, fear, pusillanimity or abasement, following favorable but illusory conditions. In this, God gave an extraordinary clarity and very true insights on the subject: remedies against the spirit of fornication; means of attaining purity in matters of the flesh, remedies against the world and its spirit.”7 Faber’s Spiritual Memoirs are, from the first to the last page, a testimony to the truth of that Ignatian rule of discretion according to which “the enemy of human nature is lurking nearby [...] and then attacks us and tries to take us where he finds us weakest and most helpless as regards our eternal salvation,”8 and also of that Pauline dictum: “For the strength [of the Lord] is fully manifested in [Faber’s] weakness” (cf. 2 Cor 12:9).
* * *
In both these features – that of prayer and that of spiritual struggle – the valiant disciple is clearly portrayed, trained as he was in the school of the Spiritual Exercises (we recall the controversy, now passed into history, between “unionists”
5.Ibid., No. 9. 6.Ibid., No. 443. 7.Ibid., No. 30. 8.Ignatius of Loyola, Spiritual Exercises, No. 327. THE SPIRITUAL MEMOIRS OF PETER FABER, SJ and “electionists”) and the consummate master in the art of spiritual guidance. After Faber’s death, Saint Ignatius, in February 1555, said of him that “of all those I knew in the Society, the first place in giving them [the Exercises] was held by Father Faber.”9
108
9.L. G. da Câmara, Memorial, 6, 1. The original text of the Spiritual Memoirs of Blessed Faber has not come down to us - or, rather, it has not yet been found, but we should not despair that sooner or later it will be found, buried in some archive - but there are several manuscript copies, of different sizes and in two languages: Spanish and Latin. The authors who have published the Spiritual Memoirs in various modern languages have used one copy or another, in some cases more than one. We have preferred to stick to the two copies critically published in the Monumenta Historica Societatis Iesu: one Latin (more complete) and the other Spanish (incomplete, with only approximately the first 180 points). The Latin copy is the most complete of all the existing ones, and some details lead us to think that it is more “original” than the others (although, as we said, there is no original in the proper sense): for example, although written in Latin, it contains some sentences in Spanish. We know that Faber knew how to speak and write Spanish, although his mother tongue was Savoyard French; but in both letters and sermons he mixed it with Latin when he wanted to be more exact or when the phrase came from his heart. Therefore we have thought that the original of the Spiritual Memoirs – a work that springs from the heart – may have been written in Latin, and that a copy of it is the one published by the Monumenta Historica Societatis Iesu.