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15 December 2020 Monthly Year 4

The Emotions and Affections of Jesus: An analysis of the Synoptic Gospels

React In Hope: The figure of Charles de Foucauld in ‘Fratelli Tutti’

A Lucky Universe? .12 o The Second Vatican Council in Cuba the first 25 years after the revolution

Nagorno-Karabakh: One hundred years of conflict

OLUME 4, N 4, OLUME The White-Red Revolution in Belarus V

2020 2020 Dante and the Jesuits

Stan Swamy’s Arrest: The need for a prophetic Church

The Power of Forgiveness: Colum McCann’s book ‘Apeirogon’

In memory of Fr. Giandomenico Mucci, SJ (1938-2020)

BEATUS POPULUS, CUIUS DOMINUS DEUS EIUS

Copyright, 2020, Union of Catholic Asian Editor-in-chief News ANTONIO SPADARO, SJ

All rights reserved. Except for any fair Editorial Board dealing permitted under the Hong Kong Antonio Spadaro, SJ – Director Copyright Ordinance, no part of this Giancarlo Pani, SJ – Vice-Director publication may be reproduced by any Domenico Ronchitelli, SJ – Senior Editor means without prior permission. Inquiries Giovanni Cucci, SJ, Diego Fares, SJ should be made to the publisher. Giovanni Sale, SJ, Claudio Zonta, SJ Federico Lombardi, SJ Title: La Civiltà Cattolica, English Edition Emeritus editors ISSN: 2207-2446 Virgilio Fantuzzi, SJ Giandomenico Mucci, SJ ISBN: GianPaolo Salvini, SJ 978-988-74903-0-2 (ebook) 978-988-74903-1-9 (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 1220

15 December 2020 Monthly Year 4

1 The Emotions and Affections of Jesus: An analysis of the Synoptic Gospels Vincenzo Anselmo, SJ

12 React In Hope: The figure of Charles de Foucauld in ‘Fratelli Tutti’ Diego Fares, SJ

25 A Lucky Universe? Paolo Beltrame, SJ

36 The Second Vatican Council in Cuba the first 25 years after the revolution Raúl José Arderí García, SJ

49 Nagorno-Karabakh: One hundred years of conflict Vladimir Pachkov, SJ

58 The White-Red Revolution in Belarus Giovanni Sale, SJ

70 Dante and the Jesuits Giandomenico Mucci, SJ

77 Stan Swamy’s Arrest: The need for a prophetic Church Stanislaus Alla, SJ

83 The Power of Forgiveness: Colum McCann’s book ‘Apeirogon’ Marc Rastoin, SJ

87 In memory of Fr. Giandomenico Mucci, SJ (1938-2020) La Civiltà Cattolica LCC 0121: JANUARY

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Vincenzo Anselmo, SJ

In Umberto Eco’s novel The Name of the Rose, the blind monk Jorge of Burgos, quoting John Chrysostom, argues that “Christ never laughed.” Such a strong statement seems not only to categorically exclude the possibility that Jesus of Nazareth could laugh, but also questions his humanity, a humanity that implies 1 an ability to participate in the totality of experience, including the possibility of experiencing the full range of affections and emotions. On the contrary, as the Pastoral Constitution Gaudium et Spes (GS) states, “the Son of God [...] worked with human hands, thought with a human mind, acted by human choice, and loved with a human heart. Born of the Virgin Mary, He has truly become one of us, like us in all things except sin” (GS 22). In fact, the Gospels present us with a very human portrait of a Jesus who is capable of rejoicing and crying, of being moved and angry, of being indignant and loving, of feeling anguish and marveling. He calls himself “meek and humble of heart” (Matt 11:29), but he is also ardent with zeal when he vigorously drives the merchants out of the temple. In this article we will try to open a window onto the interiority of Jesus as transmitted to us in the Synoptic Gospels.1 The most vivid and nuanced description of Jesus’ emotions and affections is found in the Gospel of Mark. Matthew and Luke are more sober but no less significant in portraying the interiority of the Son of God.2

La Civiltà Cattolica, En. Ed. Vol. 4, no. 12 art. 1, 1020: 10.32009/22072446.1220.1

1.The Gospel of John merits a separate treatment because of its distinctive features that differentiate it from the Synoptics. 2.On this topic, see the following contributions: G. Barbaglio, Emozioni e sentimenti di Gesù, Bologna, EDB, 2009; S. Voorwinde, Jesus’ Emotions in the Gospels, London - New York, Bloomsbury, 2011. VINCENZO ANSELMO, SJ

In psychology “emotion” may be defined as a rapid process, an intense response to a stimulus or a situation, while “affections” refer to a spectrum of feelings and passions that are more prolonged and constant over time, in some cases taking the form of stable traits that mark someone’s personality in a defined and peculiar way.3 We will see that in some episodes Jesus’ affectivity emerges as a reaction to a specific situation, while at other times it is characterized as a more constant trait of his humanity.

The compassion of Jesus A verb that recurs with a certain frequency in the Gospel of Mark and has Jesus as its subject is splanchnizomai, which translates as “to have compassion,” “to be moved with 2 compassion.” The image this verb conveys is very strong: in fact, it indicates the movement of one’s innards being shaken by something or someone. In the Semitic world the innards of the human being, the bowels and uterus, are considered the seat of the deepest, visceral feelings such as compassion and mercy.4 The first occurrence of this verb is at the beginning of the Gospel, in the encounter between Jesus and the leper. In response to his pleas, “[Jesus] took pity”5 on the leper, reached out his hand, touched him and said: ‘I do choose. Be made clean!’” (Mark 1:41). The movement that starts from the innards leads Jesus not only to heal through his word, but also to touch the leper, overcoming the social distancing prescribed by the book of Leviticus (cf. Lev 13-14), which imposed a clear

3.See P. Bonaiuto - V. Biasi, “Emozione”, in Enciclopedia filosofica, Milan, Bompiani, 2006, vol. IV, 3331. 4.See H. Köster, “σπλάγχνον, σπλαγχνίζομαι, εὔσπλαγχνος, πολύσπλ- αγχνος, ἄσπλαγχνος”, in Grande Lessico del Nuovo Testamento, Brescia, Paideia, 1979, vol. XII, 903-934. 5.A variant of this text in some manuscripts has “angered” instead of “had compassion.” Although this is the lectio difficilior, it should be noted that the reference to anger could be an insertion aimed at harmonizing the text, giving coherence to the affective tone of Jesus, who would later show himself to be severe toward the leper (cf. Mark 1:43). Cf. G. Perego, Vangelo secondo Marco. Introduzione, traduzione e commento, Cinisello Balsamo (Mi), San Paolo, 2011, 67. THE EMOTIONS AND AFFECTIONS OF JESUS separation between the community and the sick, to avoid being contaminated by impurity. Yet this time it is the sanctity of Jesus that proves to be contagious, healing the leper.6 What happens immediately afterward between Jesus and the leper reveals how the world of emotions is complex in the Gospels: “After sternly warning him he sent him away at once” (Mark 1:43). Why does Jesus’ attitude change so suddenly? What drives the Lord to such an abrupt reaction that clashes with the compassion he just manifested? The verb being used takes on the negative connotation of “to threaten, to reject, to treat harshly.”7 Perhaps the behavior of Jesus should be understood in relation to the command not to say anything to anyone, giving it a nuance of authoritative abruptness and (cf. Mark 1:44). Jesus wants his instructions to be respected, but the healed leper 3 disregards them. This has serious consequences for Jesus, who can no longer publicly enter a city after the news has spread of his works of healing (cf. Mark 1:45). In the Gospel of Mark the verb “to have compassion” occurs again in the context of the two episodes of the multiplication of the loaves, but in two different ways. In the first account it is the narrator who presents Jesus’ reaction to the sight of the crowd that had gathered to meet him: “As he went ashore, he saw a great crowd; and he had compassion for them, because they were like sheep without a shepherd; and he began to teach them many things” (Mark 6:34). The innards of Jesus are moved because of the crowd, which to his eyes appears disoriented and lost, without guides to take care of them (cf. Ezek 34). Compassion urges Jesus to speak, teaching many things and spending time and energy at the service of the crowd. This attitude stands out even more, because it is counterbalanced by that of the disciples, who would like to get rid of the inconvenience of having people dependent on them and say to Jesus: “This is a deserted place, and the hour is now very late; send them away so that they may go into the surrounding country and villages and buy something

6.See ibid. 7.See ibid., 68. VINCENZO ANSELMO, SJ

for themselves to eat” (Mark 6:35-36). Jesus responds to this request with the first multiplication of the loaves reported by the Gospel of Mark. In the second episode it is Jesus himself who expresses his inner feelings, saying to the disciples: “I have compassion for the crowd, because they have been with me now for three days and have nothing to eat” (Mark 8:2). This time it is the tiredness and hunger of the people that touches the innards of Jesus, together with the concern that without food they will not survive the journey back (cf. Mark 8:3). The result of this inner movement in Jesus is the second multiplication of the loaves. In Mark, a recurrence of the verb “to have compassion” is found in another instance of direct speech. This time it is not 4 Jesus who takes the initiative, but the father of a boy possessed by a mute spirit who appeals to the Lord’s compassion to get help, after the attempt made by the disciples has failed: “but if you are able to do anything, have pity on us and help us” (Mark 9:22). In the other Synoptic Gospels the verb splanchnizomai with Jesus as its subject appears in some significant contexts.8 In Matthew, as well as in the accounts of the multiplication of the loaves, it is ascribed to the Lord at a crucial moment of his mission: “When he saw the crowds, he had compassion for them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd. Then he said to his disciples, ‘The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few; therefore ask the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest.’ Then Jesus summoned his twelve disciples and gave them authority over unclean spirits, to cast them out, and to cure every disease and every sickness” (Matt 9:36-10:1). Jesus’ compassion for the suffering and bewildered crowds led him, on the one hand, to ask his disciples to pray to God to send workers for his harvest and, on the other hand, to commission the Twelve himself, giving them the authority to do his own works.

8.The verb “to have compassion” is also present in some parables: “The master had compassion on that servant, let him go and forgave him the debt” (Matt 18:27); “But a Samaritan who was on a journey, passing by him, saw and took pity on him” (Luke 10:33); “When he was still far away, his father saw him, took pity on him, ran toward him, threw himself around his neck and kissed him” (Luke 15:20). THE EMOTIONS AND AFFECTIONS OF JESUS

Later, the innards of Jesus were shaken by the request of two blind people to be healed: “Moved with compassion, Jesus touched their eyes. Immediately they regained their sight and followed him” (Matt 20:34). Once again healing implies contact between Jesus and those who ask him for help. In Luke, however, on only one occasion is it said that Jesus has compassion. It is when he meets the widow who accompanies her only son to the tomb: “When the Lord saw her, he had compassion for her and said to her, ‘Do not weep’” (Luke 7:13). From this inner upheaval comes the miracle of the resurrection of the son. According to one New Testament lexicon, “these texts do not describe an emotional movement, but characterize the messianic figure of Jesus.”9 This statement, however, risks 5 being reductive, because, if on the one hand it is true that in the Gospels the subject of the verb “to have compassion” is almost always Jesus the Messiah, on the other hand the characterization of this person does not exclude his being fully human, his being capable of feeling what every person feels, and his way of being is “upset internally,” revealing his inner feelings. From the occurrences considered above we can see that Jesus’ compassion is not a momentary emotion, but a stable trait, which characterizes his affectivity and his way of approaching and interacting with people.

Does Jesus love? Another very important verb, which only once occurs in reference to Jesus, is agapaō, “to love”: “Then Jesus fixed his gaze on him, loved him and said to him: ‘You lack one thing; go, sell what you own, and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; then come, follow me’” (Mark 10:21). Among the Synoptics, only Mark highlights this emotive reaction, giving the reader access to the most intimate gaze of Jesus. To the one who wants to know from Jesus what he must do to have eternal life, because it seems to him that dedication

9.H. Köster, “σπλάγχνον, σπλαγχνίζομαι…”, op. cit., 922. VINCENZO ANSELMO, SJ

to the law cultivated since his youth is not enough, Jesus offers a new perspective. However, no matter how demanding, his words are dictated by a gaze of affection. His command, therefore, should not be interpreted according to the category of duty, but rather from the perspective of love. He invites this man to the radical course of following, because he loves him deeply and in a certain sense wants to free him from the anxieties that grip him and from the chains that tie him to material possessions. The reader is given the privilege of knowing the feelings of Jesus that are hidden behind his words, although we do not know if the one to whom Jesus addressed this look of love perceived that he was loved. However, he did not respond to what was asked of him and preferred to depart sad and downcast rather than abandon his riches. 6

Some negative emotions In the Gospels the person of Jesus is also characterized by some emotional reactions which, perhaps wrongly, we might consider excessive. The Gospel of Mark offers us some examples that contribute to giving depth to the complex portrait of Jesus of Nazareth. Faced with the silence of those who would like to catch him out and accuse him of having healed a man with a withered hand on the Sabbath day, Jesus’ reaction is vigorous and complex at the same time: “He looked around at them with anger; he was grieved at their hardness of heart and said to the man, ‘Stretch out your hand.’ He stretched it out, and his hand was restored” (Mark 3:5). In this attitude of Jesus, anger at and sadness toward the Pharisees are united because of their hardness and silence, behind which is hidden their aversion to him. It is interesting to note how Jesus enters into conflict with his opponents not only by being angry with them, but also by being saddened by their implacable stubbornness. Thereafter, in the Gospel of Mark, the verb thaumazō, “to marvel” also appears. In Nazareth Jesus is the object of conflicting emotions: at first his fellow citizens are astonished by his teaching in the synagogue (cf. Mark 6:2), then they are scandalized by him; and Jesus, as the evangelist affirms, “marveled at their unbelief” (Mark 6:6). Because of their lack THE EMOTIONS AND AFFECTIONS OF JESUS of faith he cannot perform miracles in his own community, and his actions are limited (cf. Mark 6:5). His being the Son of God who knows what others think (cf. Mark 2:8) does not prevent him from marveling at those who oppose his mission.10 The verb “to sigh” (stenazō) deserves separate treatment. Depending on the context in which it appears, we can understand it in different ways: “[Jesus] looking then toward the sky, emitted a sigh (stenazō) and said to him: ‘Ephphatha,’” that is, ‘Be opened’ (Mark 7:34). “But [Jesus] sighed deeply (anastenazō) and said: ‘Why does this generation ask for a sign? Truly I say to you, this generation will not be given any sign’” (Mark 8:12). In the first case, Jesus’ sigh is linked to the prayer that leads to the healing of the deaf-mute; in the second case, Jesus sighs because he is annoyed by the disbelief of the Pharisees, who, testing him, ask him for a sign. 7 In another episode Jesus is irritated with his disciples because they impede those who want to present him with children for his touch: “But when Jesus saw this, he was indignant and said to them, ‘Let the little children come to me; do not stop them; for it is to such as these that the kingdom of God belongs’” (Mark 10:14). On other occasions there is no explicit indication of the emotion that characterizes the action of Jesus, but it is easily intuited from the context. One example concerns the purification of the temple. Mark writes: “Then they came to Jerusalem. And he entered the temple and began to drive out those who were selling and those who were buying in the temple, and he overturned the tables of the money changers and the seats of those who sold doves” (Mark 11:15). Jesus chased away the sellers with vehemence and ardor, outrage and anger, overthrowing the tables of the money changers. His state of mind shines through in the vigorous actions he performs in the temple of Jerusalem, so much so that in the Gospel of John this prophetic action will remind the disciples of Psalm 69:10: “The zeal for your house will consume me” (John 2:17).

10.In the other Synoptic Gospels, Jesus also marveled at something as positive as the faith of the centurion: “Listening to him, Jesus marveled and said to those who followed him: ‘Truly I tell you, in Israel I have not found anyone with such great faith!” (Matt 8:10 and Luke 7:9). VINCENZO ANSELMO, SJ

At other times it is the severe words pronounced by Jesus that make one think that behind them there is a very strong emotional feeling: “If any of you put a stumbling block before one of these little ones who believe in me, it would be better for you if a great millstone were hung around your neck and you were thrown into the sea” (Mark 9:42). Jesus knows how to be hard not only on the scribes and Pharisees, but also on people in general and his own disciples, when they seem not to fully understand the mission of their master. These emotional reactions help to give us a realistic image of Jesus.

In Gethsemane In the Synoptic Gospels ( 26:36-46; 14:32-42; 8 Matt Mark Luke 22:40-46) there is an episode that offers the reader privileged access to the interiority of Jesus, to his intimate communication with the Father at a dramatic and crucial moment of his passion. It is the episode at Gethsemane: “He took with him Peter and James and John, and began to be distressed and agitated. And he said to them, ‘I am deeply grieved, even to death; remain here, and keep awake.’ And going a little farther, he threw himself on the ground and prayed that, if it were possible, the hour might pass from him. He said, ‘Abba, Father, for you all things are possible; remove this cup from me; yet, not what I want, but what you want’” (Mark 14:33-36). At first Jesus desires the company of Peter, James and John; then he is alone, and the reader is made to share in the inner drama that consumes him.11 First, the evangelist communicates that Jesus feels fear and anguish. In the eyes of the reader, the Master appears terrified and disturbed.12 This double observation makes the situation heavy and gloomy; and, in a certain sense, the darkness that Jesus feels casts a shadow even beyond him, on the reader. Jesus, however, is not afraid to express his emotions in

11.In this regard, see the contribution of the Lacanian psychoanalyst M. Recalcati, La notte del Getsemani, Turin, Einaudi, 2019. 12.Only Mark uses a verb that indicates a strong and intense fear (cf. Mark 9:15; 14:33; 16:5; 16:6), while Matthew uses the verb “to be sad, to feel sadness” (Matt 26:37). THE EMOTIONS AND AFFECTIONS OF JESUS front of his disciples through a strong expression: sadness to the point of death, which indicates the intensity of his affliction.13 Then the story introduces us to Jesus who is alone while he turns to God. Falling to the ground is a visible sign of the state of psychological prostration in which he finds himself. The request addressed to God is sincere, as is the confidential and intimate use of “Abba, Father.” Jesus asks to be freed from the anguish of the passion and death that await him, and yet he goes beyond his own emotions and declares himself willing to accept what the Father wants of him. Cardinal Gianfranco Ravasi explains it thus: “It is interesting to note in this invocation the dialectic between the anguish that leads to bitter sadness and the will that dominates the emotion, with the decision to follow the painful path that will climb to the summit of Calvary.”14 9 While Peter, John and James are sleeping – not only do they not accept the request to keep vigil, but they do not even perceive the emotional charge of that invitation addressed to them by the master who confesses his weakness – Jesus’ prayer continues into the night and the reader has the privilege of participating in the experience and observing it closely, as if admitted to his bedchamber. Luke enriches the description of Jesus’ pain with considerable detail: the suffering of that night leads him to hematidrosis, that is, to sweating blood (cf. Luke 22:44).

The tears and the joy of Jesus The Jesus of Luke is not afraid to express his emotions before Peter and his disciples, whether it is anguish in the perspective of the completion of the baptism of the cross (cf. Luke 12:50) or the strong and intense desire to share Passover with them (cf. Luke 22:15). Among the Synoptics, only Luke introduces us to Jesus who bursts into tears when he sees Jerusalem15: “As he came near and

13.See G. Perego, Vangelo secondo Marco..., op. cit., 294. 14.G. Ravasi, Piccolo dizionario dei sentimenti: Amore, nostalgia e altre emozioni, Milan, il Saggiatore, 2019. 15.In the Gospel of John Jesus bursts into tears at the death of his friend Lazarus (cf. John 11:35). VINCENZO ANSELMO, SJ

saw the city, he wept over it” (Luke 19:41). Jesus laments the fate that awaits the holy city, which will be besieged and destroyed. His pain contrasts with the joyful welcome reserved for him (cf. Luke 19:35-40), but it is a prelude to the controversial sign of the purification of the temple and the rejection of the leaders of the people, who will lead him to the cross. And as Jesus wept, could he not also laugh? The question from which we started, remembering Eco’s The Name of the Rose, finds a possible answer in the Gospel of Luke, where exultation and joy resonate from the very first pages. These are promised first of all to Zechariah, and then they are manifested in John the Baptist leaping with joy in his mother’s womb (cf. Luke 1:44) and on Mary’s lips as she sings the Magnificat (cf. Luke 1:47). 10 So too, some of the parables of Luke are an invitation to the Pharisees and scribes to rejoice, sharing in the joy of God for every sinner found: “Just so, I tell you, there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who need no repentance” (Luke 15:7). And on one occasion it is Jesus himself who rejoices: “At that same hour Jesus rejoiced in the Holy Spirit” (Luke 10:21). If not his laughter, we can certainly imagine his smile full of joy in the Spirit as he praises the Father for revealing himself to the little ones. As Stephen Voorwinde reminds us, this is a Trinitarian joy: “The exultant joy of Jesus in Luke 10:21 is therefore the joy of the Messiah, the only one supremely anointed by the Holy Spirit. But it is also the joy of the Son of the Most High, the one who has a unique relationship with the Father.”16 During the Spiritual Exercises (ES), in the fourth week, St. Ignatius of Loyola addresses a pressing invitation to the exercitant to ask God for a particular grace in prayer: “The third prelude consists in asking what I want: to ask for the grace to rejoice intensely for the great glory and joy of Christ our Lord” (ES 221). Those who pray ask the Lord for the gift of rejoicing at the joy of Christ risen from the dead. Therefore, they are not simply asking to rejoice because Jesus is risen, but to be part

16.S. Voorwinde, Jesus’ Emotions in the Gospels, op. cit., 132. THE EMOTIONS AND AFFECTIONS OF JESUS of the same feelings as the one who is alive, rejoicing together with him. The one who prays, therefore, can adhere to the emotions and affections of Jesus by learning from his humanity, which we have seen to be multi-faceted and varied, from his being compassionate towards the poor and the sick, but also hard with those who are stubborn and opposed to the mission that the Father has entrusted to him. As Gaudium et Spes recalls, “whoever follows Christ, the perfect man, also becomes more of a man” (GS 41). To follow Christ, true God and true man, means to conform oneself to him, becoming similar to him even in our inner feelings, emotions and affections as we interpret what happens in the world.

11 React In Hope: The figure of Charles de Foucauld in ‘Fratelli Tutti’

Diego Fares, SJ

“Fratelli Tutti!” With these now famous words Pope Francis opened his new encyclical on fraternity and social friendship, showing that he was again inspired by St. Francis of Assisi, the saint of fraternal love for all creatures and especially our 1 12 abandoned brothers and sisters. Pope Francis has focused his doctrine on the proclamation of the essential obligations of Christianity: the adoration of God and the service of our neighbors. He states: “We believers are challenged to return to our sources, in order to concentrate on what is essential: worship of God and love for our neighbor, so that some of our teachings, taken out of context, do not end up feeding forms of contempt, hatred, xenophobia or negation of others” (FT 282). Several times, in accordance with fundamental teaching, the pope returns to the themes necessary for our conversion and the conversion of the world. He does so in the manner of Saint Ignatius and his Spiritual Exercises (ES), where repetition is the key to “feeling and tasting internally” the truths that the Spirit proposes today to the Church and the world (ES 2). Pope Francis is not bothered by his critics, those who claim his speeches are too concerned with politics and say little about eschatology. Rather, following the criteria that the Lord has given us in the parable of the Good Samaritan, he removes eschatology from the sphere of abstract affirmations about the end of time and places it in our present-day reality, on the “roadside,”

La Civiltà Cattolica, En. Ed. Vol. 4, no. 12 art. 2, 1020: 10.32009/22072446.1220.2

1.Cf. Francis, Encyclical Fratelli Tutti, on fraternity and social friendship, October 3, 2020. In the article the encyclical is cited by the acronym FT. REACT IN HOPE: THE FIGURE OF CHARLES DE FOUCAULD IN ‘FRATELLI TUTTI’ where we “come to know ourselves through our relationships with our brothers and sisters,” whenever “we encounter a person who is suffering” (FT 69). If anyone had any remaining doubts about what Francis wishes to announce and witness during his pontificate, in this new encyclical he returns to point out where social issues, the economy, politics and religious life play out, undivided and unconfused: “Today there are more and more injured people. The decision to include or exclude those lying wounded along the roadside can serve as a criterion for judging every economic, political, social and religious project” (FT 69).

The prophetic image of Charles de Foucauld Together with the opening image of Francis of Assisi, a closing 13 image of Charles de Foucauld encloses the entire content of the encyclical in an embrace full of hope. The pope summarizes the encyclical dynamically by placing fraternity and social friendship as the central focus: “It is my desire that, in this our time, by acknowledging the dignity of each human person, we can contribute to the rebirth of a universal aspiration to fraternity” (FT 8). Let us dream together, he exhorts us at the beginning. And he repeats the suggestion at the end: “May God inspire in each of us the dream that inspired Charles de Foucauld” (cf. FT 287). The figure of the soon-to-be-canonized Charles de 2 Foucauld serves as a great testimonial force in Fratelli Tutti: he gathers and updates the legacy of Francis of Assisi, synthesizes and embodies the Gospel content that the pope repeats in the encyclical, and challenges us concretely wherever the greatest issues of our time arise. The final two paragraphs, which the pope explicitly dedicates to Blessed Charles, are brief but dense with evangelical content. Francis writes of de Foucauld’s dream of a total self-giving to God and to his brothers and sisters that would allow him to become “brother of all” or “universal brother.” Charles understood that he could realize this only by “identifying himself with the least”

2.On May 26, 2020, Pope Francis authorized the Congregation for the Causes of Saints to promulgate a decree regarding the forthcoming canonization of Blessed Charles de Foucauld. DIEGO FARES, SJ

(FT 287; cf. 2-4). The most important thing the pope points out to us is that this is not a random dream. It comes weighted with history: the dream of Blessed Charles is the same one that God inspired in Francis of Assisi. It is an ideal long dreamed, an ideal that also involves a path of transformation within us, to make us feel ourselves to be brothers, sisters and friends of all, just like these saints. This dream of fraternity and social friendship has always been among the primary concerns of Pope Francis (cf. FT 5).3 And we note that de Foucauld’s spirituality does not appear only in the final paragraphs but pervades the entire encyclical. In addition to the explicit reference to fraternity and social friendship specific to this saint, we can highlight two aspects of his spirituality that are extensively present in . 14 Fratelli Tutti

The abandoned In chapter three, the “stranger on the roadside” is called “the abandoned,” an expression that the pope uses to speak of the concreteness of Francis of Assisi’s universal love and Charles de Foucauld’s identification “with the poor, abandoned deep in the African desert” (FT 287). This predilection for the most abandoned has not only an ethical character, but also a deeply theological one. In the life of Charles de Foucauld, abandonment into the hands of the Father (“prayer of abandonment”) and embracing the least in their abandonment are one and the same thing: “Embrace humility, poverty, abandonment, abjection, loneliness, suffering with Jesus in the manger; do not make any case for human greatness, elevation, esteem of men, but esteem the poor as well as the rich. As for me, I always aim to seek the last of the last places, to order my life so as to be the last, the most despised of men.”4

3.The then Cardinal Bergoglio spoke to the young catechists of Buenos Aires about the dream that makes you “walk in the loving presence of the Father, abandoning yourself to Him with infinite trust, as Saint Teresina or Brother Charles de Foucauld did.” (J. M. Bergoglio, Discorso all’Incontro arcidiocesano di catechesi, Buenos Aires, March 11, 2006, in Id, Nei tuoi occhi è la mia parola: Omelie e discorsi di Buenos Aires 1999-2013, Milan, Rizzoli, 2016, 413 f). 4.C. de Foucauld, Scritti spirituali, Assisi (Pg), Cittadella, 1968, 69. REACT IN HOPE: THE FIGURE OF CHARLES DE FOUCAULD IN ‘FRATELLI TUTTI’

It is interesting to note that de Foucauld not only searches for the abandoned, one by one, but in each of them he captures all the people: to be precise, he goes in search of the most abandoned peoples. Blessed Charles said: “Since no people seemed to me more abandoned than these, I urged my request and obtained permission from the Apostolic Prefect of the Sahara to settle in the Algerian Sahara and to lead you into solitude, seclusion and silence, manual labor and holy poverty, alone or with some priest or lay brother in Jesus, a life as far as possible in accordance with the life of the beloved Jesus in Nazareth.”5 The other characteristic of Charles de Foucauld that Pope Francis makes his own is the embrace of the abandoned. It is not only one of mercy or justice, but one of personal and social friendship. 15 Regarding friendship, here is an important example of how Pope Francis categorizes realities that are usually taken at most as good examples. By “categorize” we mean that he deepens and formulates the universal essence of phenomena that are often treated as special cases. Francis points out: “Social friendship and universal fraternity necessarily call for an acknowledgement of the worth of every human person, always and everywhere. If each individual is of such great worth, it must be stated clearly and firmly that ‘the mere fact that some people are born in places with fewer resources or less development does not justify the fact that they are living with less dignity.’ This is a basic principle of social life that tends to be ignored in a variety of ways by those who sense that it does not fit into their worldview or serve their purposes” (FT 106). How much is a human being worth? In this encyclical Francis tells us that a human being has value not only because he is worthy of justice and mercy, because he is a brother or sister, and equal in humanity, but can be worth infinitely more because he is worthy of being our friend. “As the Latin American Bishops taught, ‘only the closeness that makes us friends can enable us to appreciate deeply the values of the poor today, their legitimate desires, and their own manner of living the faith. The option for the poor should lead us to friendship with the poor’ [Aparecida 398]” (FT 234).

5.Ibid., 182. DIEGO FARES, SJ

The conversation Chapter six, on dialogue and social friendship, reflects the wisdom of Charles de Foucauld’s own resolution to “increase my conversation with the humble, shorten it with the powerful.”6 Worthy of note is the emphasis on dialogue in his way of approaching his Muslim brothers: “Approaching them, making contact, befriending them, making their prejudices against us fall, through daily and friendly relations; changing, through conversation and the example of our life, their ideas [about us].”7 His dialogue comes not only from his natural sociability, nor is it merely a pastoral strategy. For him the most important thing in life, prayer, is dialogue with God: “Prayer is any conversation of the soul with God [...], an intimate conversation, a delightful 8 16 secret.” And it is precisely this most precious dimension of his that he offers to the most humble people he meets. Charles de Foucauld is one of those men of whom one can say, as the highest praise, “he speaks to everyone,” a person who makes no distinction between people, not only as regards being just and open, but also as regards the kind of conversation that we reserve only for those we consider worthy of friendship. In chapter one – “Dark clouds over a closed world” – the pope goes beyond a criticism of the degradation affecting dialogue through false news, slander and denigration of neighbors, which are so damaging to the political and social life of a country and the world. Francis goes to the heart of a friendly dialogue because it is the only one capable of uniting humanity, of making us speak in the first person plural, saying “us” with the heart. He says: “They lack the physical gestures, facial expressions, moments of silence, body language and even the smells, the trembling of hands, the blushes and perspiration that speak to us and are a part of human communication. Digital relationships, which do not demand the slow and gradual cultivation of friendships, stable interaction or the building of a consensus that matures over

6.Id., Escritos espirituales, Madrid, Studium, 1964, 124 (www.iesuscaritas. org/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/kupdf.net_escritos-espirituales-carlos-de- foucauld.pdf). 7.Id., Escritos espirituales, op. cit., 199. 8.Ibid., 90; 93. REACT IN HOPE: THE FIGURE OF CHARLES DE FOUCAULD IN ‘FRATELLI TUTTI’ time, have the appearance of sociability. Yet they do not really build community; instead, they tend to disguise and expand the very individualism that finds expression in xenophobia and in contempt for the vulnerable. Digital connectivity is not enough to build bridges. It is not capable of uniting humanity” (FT 43). There is a way to converse that is only possible if there is social friendship. The pope aims to build together, to establish consensus around the fundamental truth of the absolute dignity of every human being, the pleasure of recognizing the other and the recovery of kindness. These are the ways of dialogue that are fully in place when speaking among friends.

The real overcoming of conflicts: what is more intimate, what is more universal 17 The figure of Charles de Foucauld assumes a paradigmatic stature in the perspective of Francis, who presents him as the one who embodied in our time the Gospel truth of the yeast that ferments the dough. According to Guardini’s language it can be formulated as follows: only what is more intimate can be transformed into something truly universal; and only what is more universal can be radically internalized. This contrasts with all false universalism and all false intimacy. It may be helpful, here, to remember how the then doctoral student Bergoglio dealt with this tension in his masterly lecture on political anthropology, delivered at the beginning of the 1989 academic year at the University of San Miguel. He spoke of the correct tension that must exist between interiority and totality (or universality) and pointed out the temptations against interiority, that is, self-closure and individualism, and the temptations against universality, that is, totalitarianism and loss of self. He stated: “Totality is possessed only from our deepest interiority; otherwise it becomes an abstract structure and does not serve as a frame for transcending conflicts, but becomes the loss of self in a whole that neither understands nor represents what is most authentic.”9

9.Francis, Non fatevi rubare la speranza. La preghiera, il peccato, la filosofia e la politica pensati alla luce della speranza, Milan, Mondadori, 2013, 179 f. DIEGO FARES, SJ

Today, in the encyclical, we see the pope has come back to this intimate concern in a broader context of reflection (cf. FT 5), where he seeks to universalize what exists most freely and intimately, such as friendship, so that fraternity can take root deeply in the social and political life of humanity. In fact, fraternity is not enough. From Cain onward, the clashes between brothers – from inheritance disputes to civil wars – are often the most fierce. For a good fraternal relationship it is necessary to cultivate freely offered friendship. This adds to fraternity the qualitative component of the free choice to be friends and thus consolidates a fraternal relationship that, because it is based on a common origin not chosen, can lead to friendship as much as the opposite. The pope’s discernment on social exclusion as the evil of our time leads us to conclude that this exclusion is not resolved 18 except by an intimate and gratuitous reality such as the desire for friendship, which involves considering the other not only as equal in dignity, despite differences of race, religion or social condition, but also as capable of friendship. The figure of Charles de Foucauld, far removed from that of the solitary little friar dedicated to a heroic but individual and inimitable mission, before our eyes is transformed into a universal figure, who carries out a mission that is totally imitable and programmatic. It was his intuition, for example, that in order to prepare the Muslim world for the coming of the Gospel and Christ, a slow work of establishing unconditional friendship and service is required, without the pretension of imposing any universal truth. He universalized the Christian service practiced toward every person he met, and not simply general Christian ideas. On these, rather, he was silent. He declared: “Such is the pastor, such is the people.” “The good that a soul does is in direct proportion to its inner spirit.” “The sanctification of the peoples of this region is, therefore, in my hands! They will be saved if I become holy.”10 Let us see how intense, in Blessed Charles, is this relationship between the radicality of his personal holiness and the force of universal irradiation of that same holiness to all peoples. This is what the parable of yeast in the dough expresses. But Pope Francis

10.C. de Foucauld, Opere spirituali. Antologia, Milan, Pauline, 1961, 538. REACT IN HOPE: THE FIGURE OF CHARLES DE FOUCAULD IN ‘FRATELLI TUTTI’ also shows us the other side of the coin: the relationship between interiority and universality is not a one-way street, which from the more interior becomes more universal. Francis makes us understand that there is no true universality that does not try to take root in the deepest values, which are free and gratuitous. A politics that does not cultivate the desire for friendship among the people and that limits itself to manipulating attitudes and votes from outside, will never come to be true politics, that is, service to the common good. And although it seems to take longer to see this, we can say the same about the economy: an economic system that does not reach out to the most excluded will sooner or later collapse on a global scale. With the Covid-19 pandemic, we have come to understand at an existential level this relationship between the health of an 19 individual and that of humanity as a whole. And if we go a little further, we can say the same thing about joy and beauty: a joy that not everyone can rejoice in, that only a few can share in a selfish way, is not a full joy. It lacks something. Everything is connected, and the relationship between interiority and universality is about being; it is not a mere abstract theory.

Two principles This healthy and fundamental connection between interiority and universality also illuminates those famous principles the pope always recalls: the principle that the whole is more than the part, and even more than the mere sum of the parts (cf. FT 78; 145; 215); and the principle that “unity is superior to conflict” (FT 245). These should not be read in the lineof abstract reasoning, opposing the different definitions of each concept, but in the vital sense that goes beyond any definition, because it is expressed in the asymmetrical tension that is given between what exists in the most intimate and gratuitous setting, and what can be expected to be more universal. The pope affirms in various ways that universality is rooted in the intimacy of what is more local: “There is a false openness to the universal, which derives from the empty superficiality of those who are not able to penetrate deeply into their own homeland, or of those who carry an unresolved resentment DIEGO FARES, SJ

toward their own people. In any case, ‘we constantly have to broaden our horizons and see the greater good which will benefit us all. But this has to be done without evasion or uprooting. We need to sink our roots deeper into the fertile soil and history of our native place, which is a gift of God. We can work on a small scale, in our own neighborhood, but with a larger perspective… The global need not stifle, nor the particular prove barren.’ Our model must be that of a polyhedron, in which the value of each individual is respected, where ‘the whole is greater than the part, but it is also greater than the sum of its parts’” (FT 145). The image of the Good Samaritan sums up this relationship between dealing with the whole heart of a single case and the building of an “us” around it. For this, “we can start from below and, case by case, act at the most concrete and local levels, and 20 then expand to the farthest reaches of our countries and our world, with the same care and concern that the Samaritan showed for each of the wounded man’s injuries. [...] Yet let us not do this alone, as individuals. The Samaritan discovered an innkeeper who would care for the man; we too are called to unite as a family that is stronger than the sum of small individual members. For ‘the whole is greater than the part, but it is also greater than the sum of its parts’” (FT 78). In the same way, the union capable of overcoming conflicts is the one that is rooted “in the highest dimension of ourselves.” “On numerous occasions, I have spoken of ‘a principle indispensable to the building of friendship in society, namely, that unity is greater than conflict… This is not to opt for a kind of syncretism, or for the absorption of one into the other, but rather for a resolution which takes place on a higher plane and preserves what is valid and useful on both sides.’ All of us know that ‘when we, as individuals and communities, learn to look beyond ourselves and our particular interests, then understanding and mutual commitment bear fruit… in a setting where conflicts, tensions and even groups once considered hostile can attain a multifaceted unity that gives rise to new life’” (FT 245; our italics). Speaking of his desire to be a universal brother, Charles de Foucauld said: “The natives seem to welcome us well. This reception is not sincere; they give in to necessity... How long REACT IN HOPE: THE FIGURE OF CHARLES DE FOUCAULD IN ‘FRATELLI TUTTI’ will it take for them to have the feelings they simulate? It may be that they will never have them. If they do, it will be the day when they will be Christians... Will they know how to distinguish between soldiers and priests; to see in us servants of God, ministers of peace and charity, universal brothers? I don’t know... If I fulfill my duty, Jesus will spread abundant graces, and they will understand.”11 Francis points out two things as the highest and most intimate, because they are fully free: forgiveness and friendship.

Forgiveness After a detailed phenomenological description in which he admits all the difficulties and deviations connected with the idea of forgiveness, the pope speaks to us of “free and heartfelt 21 forgiveness,” which is “a reflection of God’s own infinite ability to forgive.” He writes: “If forgiveness is gratuitous, then it can be shown even to someone who resists repentance and is unable to beg pardon” (FT 250). In one of the most original passages of the encyclical, the pope states that forgiveness does not mean forgetting, and specifies his proposal: “In the face of a reality that can in no way be denied, relativized or concealed, forgiveness is still possible. In the face of an action that can never be tolerated, justified or excused,we can still forgive. In the face of something that cannot be forgotten for any reason, we can still forgive” (FT 250; italics ours). We see here, expressed as what is most universally able to be demanded, the condition without which a fraternal society cannot be built: forgiveness. That is, we see that it can only be given as a free and gratuitous interior act. The pope does not say “we must” but “we can” forgive. This decision – choosing to forgive – is not idealistic or a purely religious matter. Any alliance – local, national or worldwide – always implies a decision to forgive certain things in order to move forward. Forgiveness as a free decision is at the root of any policy that seeks the common good.

11.Id., Escritos espirituales, op. cit., 144. DIEGO FARES, SJ

Friendship Reflecting on friendship, Francis emphasizes what he calls the “law of ecstasy,” of going out of oneself to find in the other a potential for the growth of our being. “In the depths of every heart, love creates bonds and expands existence, for it draws people out of themselves and toward others. Since we were made for love, in each one of us a law of ekstasis seems to operate: ‘the lover goes outside the self to find a fuller existence in another.’ For this reason, ‘people must take up the challenge of moving beyond themselves’” (FT 88). This is why the noblest forms of friendship are found in the hearts that let themselves be completed. The bonds binding couples and friends open the heart around us, making us capable of 22 going out of ourselves to welcome everyone (cf. FT 89). The most proper characteristic of friendship is love for others as such, and this moves us to seek the best for them. “Only by cultivating this way of relating to one another will we make possible a social friendship that excludes no one and a fraternity that is open to all” (FT 94).

The best politics and aspects of each religion Thus we see how the tension between interiority and universality is the one that builds the best politics and fosters dialogue between the best aspects of each religion. The pope writes: “Recognizing that all people are our brothers and sisters, and seeking forms of social friendship that include everyone, is not merely utopian. It demands a decisive commitment to devising effective means to this end. Any effort along these lines becomes a noble exercise of charity. For whereas individuals can help others in need, when they join together in initiating social processes of fraternity and justice for all, they enter the ‘field of charity at its most vast, namely, political charity.’ This involves working for a social and political order whose soul is social charity. Once more, I appeal for a renewed appreciation of politics as “a lofty vocation and one of the highest forms of charity, inasmuch as it seeks the common good’” (FT 180). As for the relationship between the various religions, Francis continues to direct the dialogue not around ideas about God, but rather to the appreciation of every human person as a creature REACT IN HOPE: THE FIGURE OF CHARLES DE FOUCAULD IN ‘FRATELLI TUTTI’ called to be a child of God. This, to begin with, always allows each religion to “contribute significantly to building fraternity and defending justice in society. Dialogue between the followers of different religions does not take place simply for the sake of diplomacy, consideration or tolerance. In the words of the Bishops of India, ‘the goal of dialogue is to establish friendship, peace and harmony, and to share spiritual and moral values and experiences in a spirit of truth and love’” (FT 271). The eighth chapter – “Religions at the Service of Fraternity in our World” – is particularly clear if we read what Charles de Foucauld said about his hermitage at Béni Abbès, where he welcomed the visits of nomads and people in general: “In the ‘Fraternity’ – as he called his hermitage – to always be humble, sweet and serve, just as Jesus and Mary and Joseph did in the 23 holy house of Nazareth... Sweetness, humility, abjection, charity, serving others.”12

React in hope We conclude with a brief reflection on paragraph 6 of the encyclical, where Francis expresses his basic intention in terms of a “reaction”: “I offer this social encyclical as a modest contribution to continued reflection, in the hope that in the face of present-day attempts to eliminate or ignore others, we may prove capable of responding with a new dream of fraternity and social friendship that will not remain at the level of words” (FT 6; italics ours). A reaction is necessary given the magnitude of the world crisis affecting us on all sides. The pope invites us to react not with words, but with a new dream, that dream realized by Francis of Assisi and Charles de Foucauld with small gestures of a radicality that carries within itself a seed of universal expansion. Francis proposes the concrete example of the many ordinary people who reacted generously in the face of the unexpected pandemic of Covid-19: “The recent pandemic enabled us to recognize and appreciate once more all those around us who, in the midst of fear, responded by putting their lives on the line” (FT 54).

12.Id., Opere spirituali. Antologia, op. cit., 546. DIEGO FARES, SJ

The pages of his encyclical, the pope explains, “do not claim to offer a complete teaching on fraternal love, but rather to consider its universal scope, its openness to every man and woman” (FT 6). This love, capable of extending beyond borders “has as its basis what we call ‘social friendship’ in every city and in every country.” “Genuine social friendship within a society makes true universal openness possible” (FT 99). This is the dynamic contained in the words of St. Francis who declares “blessed is he who loves the other ‘when he is as far from him as if he were next to him’” (FT 1), those who are distant – from a geographical, cultural, ideological, political, or religious point of view – as much as those who are closest. Fratelli Tutti has the style of a conversation between friends, of those conversations from which, dealing with the vital issues 24 that challenge us and move us, more than mere definitions, inspire our interest in the concrete hope that comes from this friendly and fraternal way of speaking. In his friendly tone Francis invites us to “the hope that ‘speaks to us of something deeply rooted in every human heart, independently of our circumstances and historical conditioning. Hope speaks to us of a thirst, an aspiration, a longing for a life of fulfillment, a desire to achieve great things, things that fill our heart and lift our spirit to lofty realities like truth, goodness and beauty, justice and love… Hope is bold; it can look beyond personal convenience, the petty securities and compensations which limit our horizon, and it can open us up to grand ideals that make life more beautiful and worthwhile.’ Let us continue, then, to advance along the paths of hope” (FT 55). May God inspire this hope in us, as he inspired it in Saint Francis and Charles de Foucauld, who, as Madeleine Delbrêl says, “is, in himself, the coincidence of many opposites [...] and appears to us rooted in the crossroads of charity. [...] He makes the two extremes of love coincide: the immediate neighbor and the whole world.”13

13.M. Delbrêl, “Perché amiamo il padre de Foucauld,” in Id., Che gioia credere!, Turin, Gribaudi, 1969, 31-34. A Lucky Universe?

Paolo Beltrame, SJ

Our universe seems made for life; it has the right characteristics to make it possible, to let it prosper and evolve.1 It hosts biological activity, perhaps with a certain waste of space, for today we can observe a total extension of about 92 billion 23 light years, or about 9 x 10 km (= 9 followed by 23 zeros, 25 900,000 billion km). Anyhow, life is present here. Even if life exists only on this small planet orbiting around a star at the edge of one of the 100 billion galaxies, even in all this “waste of space,” life is present. Is its presence an obvious affirmation, a fact taken for granted? Perhaps. But theologians, philosophers, cosmologists and scientists have been asking themselves this question for centuries: Why do the laws of nature seem to have been “fine tuned” so accurately that they allow the development of living beings? In cosmology, this is called “the fine tuning problem.” Such a state of affairs should also be an extremely important theme for men and women of faith who, with mind and spirit open to the truth, are passionate about creation. The “fine tuning” of the universe consists in the fact that, if the laws of physics were different, even by a little, life would not be possible.2 And the laws of physics – as we observe them

La Civiltà Cattolica, En. Ed. Vol. 4, no. 12 art. 3, 1020: 10.32009/22072446.1220.3

1.The recent discovery on Venus of phosphine (a chemical that occurs in abundant quantities only where there is biological activity) seems to indicate that the planet Earth may not be the only one to enjoy the right conditions to welcome life. 2.On this matter, cf. G. F. Lewis - L. A. Barnes, A Fortunate Universe. Life in a Finely Tuned Cosmos, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2016. PAOLO BELTRAME, SJ

– represent only one set among all those possible, thus making the existence of our universe – governed by these particular laws – extremely improbable. And yet, it is the only one in which we live and which we can observe experimentally. To explain the fine-tuning of physical laws, one can venture the analogy of a violinist who tunes their instrument before the beginning of a concert so as to play harmoniously with the whole orchestra. On a much larger scale and with much greater accuracy, such a thing seems to be the case with natural laws. But what can we call “life”? Since we are not experts in biology, we avoid going into technical and complex questions; however, we are not too wide of the mark if we say that we do not know exactly what life is. Even so, we know that under certain conditions it would not be possible, and that in a completely 26 different universe from ours it would probably not be present.3 Now, saying “we don’t know” is not a bad thing in itself, and – methodologically perhaps even more relevant – one of the strengths of the physical sciences is knowing how to recognize when a concept or a size is not essential to understand the phenomenon under consideration. The ability to put limits on one’s own field of investigation – as science should do, when considered seriously and honestly – is a founding element and guarantor of the whole scientific enterprise.

The main issue and methodology Our universe is described by physical laws that contain numerical values, which, in technical language, are called “fundamental universal constants.” You could say that the laws in a mathematical formulation are the grammar of the universe, while the constants – the numerical values – are the concrete words used by the universe to “disclose itself.” You may therefore wonder what would happen if the physical laws, or constants, were different. Would life still be possible? And therefore, why does the universe seem to be fine-tuned, so precisely tuned, to allow the birth of complex and sentient living beings?

3.Ibid., 13; 161-164. A LUCKY UNIVERSE?

Cosmologists normally build enormous and complex simulation programs in order to study possible universes with different natural laws, developing in this way the game of “What would happen if…?” What would happen if the constant of gravitational acceleration were modified? What would be the consequences of a change of electron mass? What would happen if there were a different strong nuclear interaction, changing the one that keeps together protons and neutrons (the nuclei of atoms)? What if there were a change in the masses of quarks (that is, the elements that form the protons and neutrons, and are at the base of the atomic nuclei)? Cosmologists ask these questions in an increasingly radical way, even asking themselves what would be the consequences if the free parameters4 of the physical models, the different fundamental forces,5 the second 27 law of thermodynamics,6 and even the number of spatial dimensions were changed.

4.In physics, the free parameters, are those quantities that cannot be predicted (for now?) through fundamental theories and must therefore be determined experimentally. Free parameters can be the mass of elementary particles (for example, the electron), or the gravitational constant, or the numerical coupling constants that determine the “intensity” of each fundamental force. 5.In physics, as we know it today, we have four fundamental forces: gravitational force, electromagnetic force, weak nuclear force and strong nuclear force. Gravitational force is the weakest among the interactions and it is practically negligible when we consider subnuclear dimensions (less than 10-10 m, that is 0,00000001 m) described by quantum mechanics, but it is the one we experience daily. Electromagnetic force is responsible for electricity and magnetism. Weak nuclear force is responsible for most of the radioactive decay of particles. This force was unified in the 1960s with electromagnetism in a unique mathematical formalism. Today therefore we speak of electroweak force, to indicate the electromagnetic force and weak nuclear force. The fourth fundamental force is the strong nuclear force, that keeps together the constituents of the atomic nuclei (protons and neutrons) and also describes the interactions between the quarks. 6.The second law of thermodynamics states that “the amount of order in the universe (or part of it that is isolated) cannot increase spontaneously” (A Fortunate Universe..., op. cit., 97). It must be said, however, that the concept of “order” is somewhat subjective and equivocal, while physicists prefer to use as much as possible quantitative and clearly defined concepts. Instead of “order,” we refer to “entropy,” which represents the amount of energy that can be extracted and converted into another form. PAOLO BELTRAME, SJ

These studies and their conclusions, although impossible to observe experimentally, represent established facts that are generally shared by the scientific community. And it can be said that hypothetical universes with even slightly modified laws of nature would not be inhabitable by humans. In this article I will present, as examples, only two of the many studies, choosing them from those I consider to be the most significant and easiest to understand.

The electron mass The first example is probably quite intuitive: it concerns the electron mass. Trying to make the treatment as simple as possible, we will neglect many other parameters strictly interconnected with the mass of this particle. However, it is good to clarify 28 that the variation of these quantities should be considered in its complexity, that is that the various quantities change in a coordinated and systematic way, and not in a disconnected, independent and simplistic way. As for simplicity it will be described here. The electron is one of the fundamental particles of the universe. It “orbits” – or, better, it has a “probabilistic distribution” – around the nucleus of atoms, and its mass may be measured with very high precision. It corresponds to 9.10938215 x 10-31 kg (with a very high precision of 4.5 x 10-40 kg, that is, about half a billionth of the measured quantity).7 This value is universal: all electrons have the same mass at any point in the universe. Moreover, it should be noted that this is what is called a free parameter of the Standard Model of particle physics.8

7.Usually in particle physics the electron-volt divided by the speed of light 2 squared (eV/c ) is used as a unit of mass, because of Einstein’s well-known 106 equation E = mc2. In this unit, the electron mass is 0.511 x eV/c 2. 8.The Standard Model is to date the most complete and fundamental description we have of the subatomic world. It is essential for the understanding of the subatomic world (i.e., 10-10 m) and is also a fundamental tool for understanding the extremely large universe (of the order of 1021 m, i.e. 1 followed by 21 zeros). The Standard Model is an extraordinary instrument, extremely effective: all experiments and all observations made so far have confirmed its predictions. But it is not very elegant and, above all, we know that it is not complete. For example, it cannot explain – among other things – the presence A LUCKY UNIVERSE?

If we consider what appears to have happened late in the history of the universe – so, closer to our time – if we increase the electronic mass to about 3.5 x 10-28 kg, this would completely upset the chemistry we know: we would have no solid planets, no stable DNA molecules, no bones, no walls of our cells, no organs, no life. If instead we examine a more primordial cosmological scenario – that is, closer to the initial instant of which we can have some knowledge, the Big Bang – the change of electron mass to about 2 x 10-30 kg would prevent the formation of atoms in the primitive universe. This is because nuclei (made of protons and neutrons) would swallow the electrons “orbiting” around them. A universe like this would be completely collapsed on itself and radically unsuitable for life. 29 Gravitational attraction One can also hypothesize a universe in which gravitational attraction is different. Gravity is a fundamental force of nature. It holds together objects that have mass, makes them fall, like apples from a tree,9 keeps planets in orbit in solar systems and makes galaxies move with a regular, elegant and harmonious motion. In Newtonian theory, gravitational force is described by a law of attraction proportional to the product of the mass of the objects themselves. For the theory of General Relativity – born from Einstein’s genius – the gravitational field should rather be seen as a perturbation of space-time and the space-time grid. This can be compared to a tightly held “sheet” that is deformed when heavy objects (an apple, a book, etc.) are placed on it. In physics, the field is an entity that expresses a quantity according to its position in space and time (or space-time, if the field is a relativistic field). The gravitational field is what can be called a “vector field,” where a vector – given by a length, direction and head – indicates the force acting on an imaginary conventional unitary mass, located at that particular point in space. of the enigmatic “dark matter” of the universe and cannot justify the existence of the mass of neutrinos (other elementary particles that are very important for astrophysics and cosmology). 9.According to legend, Isaac Newton discovered the law of gravitational attraction by observing an apple falling from a tree. PAOLO BELTRAME, SJ

All the bodies that exist in the universe – the planets, the solar systems, us – move on this “sheet” according to trajectories that are not straight, but curved, depending on the curvature caused by the masses that occupy this cloth and meet on the path. In Einstein’s theory, the parameter G – which was already present in Newtonian theory as a coefficient of proportionality of the acceleration of the fall of bodies – is the parameter that correlates the space-time curvature with the amount of matter and energy present in local space. To modify the value of this parameter even by a few percentage units would create a universe incredibly different from ours. Even a minimal increase would cause the collapse of all matter in a short time, immediately after the Big Bang, and would not allow life to develop and become complex. If the constant were even 30 slightly smaller, the elements would not be able to cluster and form galaxies, stars, planets and life.

The improbability of universal constants and the Intelligent Designer Therefore, the physical variables seem to have been adjusted with extreme precision to allow life to develop. But, at the same time, all other values could have been equally possible. We should note, in fact, that the precise value assumed by each constant is only one – that is, the one “adjusted and tuned with precision” – and is one among many. So the probability that precisely that number occurs and exactly is incredibly low, much lower than the sum of the probabilities of all the other options taken at random. It is like what happens if you take a roulette wheel with 38 numbers: the probability of selecting successfully one number (the number bet on) is 1/38 (about 2.63%), while the total probability of getting any other number is 37/38 (i.e. 97.37%).10 And we must consider that in cosmology the number of possible situations is much higher than 38. Could one then conclude that the laws of nature and universal constants, so carefully tuned, have been designed

10.This ratio (37/38) represents the probability of obtaining any one of all other possible numbers on the roulette wheel except the “winning” choice, and 97.37% is a probability very close to certainty (that is, 1). A LUCKY UNIVERSE? to allow this particular result, this universe and complex life? Are we therefore logically inclined to accept the anthropic principle, or the concept of intelligent design? As for the anthropic principle, it should be distinguished in its two formulations: the weak one and the strong one. The “weak anthropic principle,” first introduced by the cosmologist Brandon Carter in 1973, states that we must bear in mind that “our position in the universe is necessarily privileged, because 11 it is compatible with our existence as observers.” The “strong” formulation of the same principle states that “the universe must be like this in order to allow the creation of observers,” thus assuming a more properly teleological character. John Barrow and Frank Tipler12 drew up a new definition from this last formulation for their book The Anthropic Cosmological 31 Principle (1986). They argue that the “universe must have those properties that allow life to develop within it at some point in its history.”13 In particular, the weak anthropic principle should not be considered as an explanation of “why” we are here, but rather as a tautology: “Since we exist, the universe (with its laws) must have allowed observers, that is us.”14 Even if it has no explanatory power, this type of tautological statement still plays an important role in the scientific understanding of the world. Beyond the possible positions deriving from the various anthropic principles, this condition of extreme improbability requires an explanation, whether it is to admit the existence of an Intelligent Designer (a Supernatural Higher Being) who has “hand-tuned” the laws in order to have us here; or to discover a more profound physical theory that is still to be explored, one that goes beyond and supports our current knowledge. Or perhaps both scenarios coexist.

11.Brandon Carter is an Australian theoretical physicist, researcher at the Laboratoire Univers et Théories of the CNRS. 12.John D. Barrow, English cosmologist, theoretical physicist and mathematician, was professor of geometry at Gresham College. Frank J. Tipler, American mathematical physicist and cosmologist, worked in the Mathematics and Physics departments at Tulane University. 13.J. D. Barrow and F. J. Tipler, The Anthropic Cosmological Principle, Oxford, Calderon Press, 1986. 14.G. F. Lewis - L. A. Barnes, A Fortunate Universe..., op. cit., 54. PAOLO BELTRAME, SJ

‘Multiverse’ and ‘eternal inflation’ On the cosmological scene, more or less recently, models have appeared that seem to enjoy considerable credit in the scientific community. We will consider here the multiverse model and the inflationary one. The multiverse scenario attempts, in a certain sense, to solve the problem of the extreme improbability of our physical parameters by assuming a multiplicity of universes, each of which has its own physical laws. Given the enormity of possible cases – both in time and space – from a statistical point of view it may not be impossible that one of these universes has appropriate laws to accommodate complex life forms. Linked to the multiverse scenario there is the theory of 32 “eternal cosmic inflation.” In our universe, inflation started about 10-35 s after the initial birth and lasted up to 10-34 s. During this infinitesimal lapse of time the volume of the cosmos doubled at least 80 times (2 x 1080, 2 followed by 80 zeros). According to eternal cosmic inflation, this inflationary phase would still be ongoing in most of the universes, which would “swell” to infinity, continuously producing a very large number of universes, each with its own natural laws. The expansion would stop only in a very small fraction of this endless cosmic landscape, and our universe would be part of one of those sections that have seen inflation stop. The enormous variety of “parallel” universes also happens simultaneously, thus increasing the possibilities available in the cosmic scenario and solving the enigma of the infinite probability of our physical laws. If you increase out of all proportion the cases that are realized, even the situation that in principle is very unlikely can become possible. However, according to one of the framers of such a model, Alan Guth, although inflation is generally unlimited in the future, it would not be eternal in the past.15 If one takes into account the work of Lewis, Barnes, Davies and others, “eternal inflation” and the resulting “multiverse” leave open and unresolved

15.See A. H. Guth, “L’inflazione eterna e le sue implicazioni”, in Journal of Physics A 40 (2007) 6811-6826. A LUCKY UNIVERSE? a number of problems (although it must be said that sometimes objections to the multiverse and the model of eternal inflation risk being more philosophical than scientific). Multiverse and eternal inflation seem not to solve the fundamental problem of fine tuning: Why are the parameters of physics so precisely adjusted to result in a universe that is hospitable for life? What is the field – in the physical sense – that is at the origin of inflation, that regulates its dynamics, that starts and ends inflation? It could therefore be said that inflation is rather an effect and not a cause of fine tuning. Moreover, eternal inflation could even be an argument in favor of a certain formulation of the anthropic principle: we, living and sentient beings, are in a privileged position in the multiverse. And humans would once again be at the center of the universe or, more precisely, of the 33 universes, in a sort of neo-ptolemaic perspective.

Some philosophical aspects One aspect to pay attention to in these theories is to distinguish, as honestly and precisely as possible, between philosophical or theological statements and more properly scientific-observational statements. Science is not an “interpretation” of data, but rather a descriptive-predictive “interpolation” of them. It is inevitably up to us – as human beings – to develop our worldview and our more philosophical interpretations (which must, however, be in accordance with scientific results). In any case, scientific- observational cosmology should be recognized and encouraged when it establishes a close and enriching dialogue with philosophical thought. The method the scientific community uses when confirming or disproving a hypothesis is the “Bayesian approach.”16 It allows us to assign to a given theory a probability of truthfulness based on the observed data. An essential element of this method is

16.Thomas Bayes was an English statistician, philosopher and Presbyterian minister, who lived in the 18th century. He was the first to employ conditional probability, which uses evidence to calculate the limits of an unknown parameter. Bayes’ theorem could be considered, for the theory of probability, what Pythagoras’ theorem is for geometry. PAOLO BELTRAME, SJ

the awareness that, even if the experimental data are necessarily uncertain and incomplete, the true theory, which should be recognized thanks to them, is not at all uncertain. For Bayesians the validated theory can tell us something about the universe itself, as it is. And in a sense this is the ultimate goal of science: to offer us a knowledge of the universe as free from human prejudices as possible. In the case of fine tuning, we can therefore reason as follows: 1) if a certain universe obeys some laws of nature, without these, and in particular the universal constants, being completely specified, 2) the probability that it is able to contain life forms is extremely small; 3) but in reality we observe a universe that contains life, and this requires a fine- tuning that sets these laws. Therefore, fine-tuning may not necessarily imply the existence 34 of a God who “hand adjusts” the physical constants; but the probability of the existence of a personal deity17 is more consistent with this (tuned) scenario than the one that theorizes a completely random process, involving a very large number of universes. The existence of a God who has developed the laws of physics – in whatever way he has preferred, even through the natural order – is not at all in contradiction with scientific observations. It should be added that a transcendent God could also offer the guarantee that natural laws, and physics in particular, have a foundation. In this sense the opposition is not in fact between the different theories or scientific models, but rather the alternative is between the perspectives that refer to “casualism” and those that refer to “theism.” Casualism claims that physical reality is the only reality, and that there is nothing beyond it. Consequently, natural laws are what they are without any further explanation or foundation needed or possible. For the casualistic approach, everything is possible in a completely casual way: the constants and laws of nature, which appear to be tuned to make life possible, seem to be such only for us, but in reality the very concept of fine tuning is a mere illusion that requires no explanation other than

17.In this argument one should consider not only the existence of complex life forms, but also the moral characteristics of living beings. A LUCKY UNIVERSE? to be removed. There is nothing further needed to support the laws of physics. Ultimately, natural laws and universal constants are what they are, because “it just so happened.” Theism instead prefers those laws of nature that allow the existence of complex, intelligent and moral forms of life. And since this is the universe and the only reality we can observe – our experimental data – according to Bayesian objective reasoning, it is more likely that there is a God than not. We do not feel we can draw objective and categorical conclusions from these considerations here, but rather we leave it to each person to choose freely and fully perceive that “life exceeds science,” as John C. Polkinghorne says.18 We feel, however, that theism encourages deeper and deeper scientific investigations, a broader vision, and dialogue with philosophers 35 and theologians. It is an intellectual and existential position that marvels and is intrigued to reveal the brilliant creativity of the Absolute. One can see how this attitude – which we could call “reasonable theism” – is very different from the “God of the gaps” conception of a certain outdated religious mentality, and is intimately linked to the “intelligent faith” of Jesuit spirituality. Such divine creativity could indeed find its actualization on a purely natural and describable plane with a “new physics,” which – this is our hope – would also be able to offer an answer to the enigma of fine tuning through physical laws still unknown to us. The term “new physics” is here understood in the sense in which physicists interpret it, i.e. as a technical and broad term that indicates the possibility of new models and new physical theories that go well beyond the Standard Model. In conclusion, it seems that the Transcendent, rather than being an obstacle or brake on human capabilities, is actually an energy that encourages research and science itself.

18.John C. Polkinghorne is a British philosopher, theologian and physicist, Fellow of the Royal Society and Anglican priest. The Second Vatican Council in Cuba the first 25 years after the revolution

Raúl José Arderí García, SJ

The visits of the last three popes to Cuba – John Paul II (1998), Benedict XVI (2012) and Francis (2015 and a stopover in 2016) – have allowed the international community to see the state of the island’s Catholic community. Not so well known 36 are the history of the Cuban Church in the first 25 years after the revolution and the process of reflection that involved all its members in the 1980s.1 Two events marked the universal and continental Church during that period: the Second Vatican Council (1962-65) and the Second General Conference of the Latin American Episcopate in Medellín (1968). Both were important events for the Cuban Church, which was intent on defining its mission in an exceptional situation, constrained by a socialist political system. The purpose of this article is to explore how the Council was received in Cuba, and how that set the conditions for synodal processes to take place. At the same time, it attempts to go beyond the usual description that presents the Catholic community under Castro’s rule as a “Church of Silence,” focused on cultural survival and detached from any interest in evangelization. The first part of this article provides the historical context, the life of the Cuban Church between 1959 and 1985, dividing the period into four stages. The second part examines the influence of Vatican II on Cuba under the categories of participation and witness.

La Civiltà Cattolica, En. Ed. Vol. 4, no. 12 art. 4, 1020: 10.32009/22072446.1220.4

1.This synodal path is known as Reflexión Eclesial Cubana (REC), culminating in the Encuentro nacional eclesial cubano (ENEC) of February 1986. THE SECOND VATICAN COUNCIL IN CUBA THE FIRST 25 YEARS

This essay contributes to a wider analysis of the reception of the Council in Latin America and the recovery of synodal experiences that could be exemplary for the current process of ecclesial renewal promoted by Pope Francis.

Optimism (1959) Castro’s victory in January 1959 was welcomed with joy by most of the population and also by the Cuban Church. Many considered the revolution the way to restore constitutional government, which had been broken by Fulgencio Batista’s coup in 1952, and to build a nation along the lines of the social doctrine of the Church. These hopes were reinforced by the support of some lay people engaged in the new revolutionary government. Episcopal support for one of the first measures of 37 the government – the land reform law – is an example of the optimistic climate that also recognized the land rights of the previous owners who were to be compensated. It also warned against the danger of excessive state control over property.2 The ecclesial hierarchy considered itself representative of the majority of the people and therefore rejected any political project that did not recognize Catholicism as synonymous with being Cuban.3 The First National Catholic Congress of Cuba, held in December 1959, was notable for this attitude, which did not take into sufficient account the Creole anticlericalism that had resulted from the alliance between throne and altar, and an ecclesial position hostile to the independence movements of the 19th century. All Catholics were invited to participate in this Congress, which was intended as a demonstration of religious vitality and a rejection of communist influence. The numerous

2.Cf. A. M. Villaverde, “La Reforma Agraria Cubana y la Iglesia Católica (3 de julio de 1959)”, in La voz de la Iglesia en Cuba: 100 documentos episcopales, México, D.F., Obra Nacional de la Buena Prensa, 1995, 80-83. 3.This opinion, however, contrasts with a 1954 survey that showed that the Cuban population, although professing to be believers, did not consider themselves practicing. 72.5% of citizens declared themselves Catholic, but 27% of them said they had never seen a priest. Only 24% (or 17.4% of the entire population) habitually attended Sunday Mass. See M. J. Marimón, “The Church”, in C. Mesa-Lago (ed.), Revolutionary Change in Cuba, Pittsburgh (PA), University of Pittsburgh Press, 1974, 400f. RAÚL JOSÉ ARDERÍ GARCÍA, SJ

contacts between the hierarchy and the government in the preparatory phase of this event show that at the end of 1959 the bishops still hoped to have an influence on the revolutionary process through the social doctrine of the Church.4 They were quickly disabused of this misconception in the first months of the following year.

Break up (1960-61) From the second half of 1959, the rapprochement between the new government and the Soviet Union became evident, as demonstrated by the visit of the Russian vice-premier Anastas Ivanovich Mikoyan in February 1960. The majority of Cuba’s clergy were Spanish and they had suffered the consequences of a civil war in their home country. This strongly marked their 38 interpretation of the visit. In the course of that year there were various episcopal pronouncements that confirmed communism’s incompatibility with the Christian faith. The tension at that time went as far as physical aggression and led the bishops to write a public letter to Fidel Castro in which they denounced an anti-religious campaign at the national level and asked him to take a position on this issue.5 In response, Castro enunciated the connection between anti-communism, counter-revolution and an anti- Catholic attitude. But the presence of three priests and numerous lay leaders among the Bay of Pigs invasion troops (April 1961) provided the government with proof of the Church’s active opposition to the Marxist character of the revolution. In June 1961 all private teaching institutes were nationalized, including two universities and 324 Catholic schools. The government also intervened in the media, and in September of that year more than 100 pastoral workers were expelled from Cuba. Many other priests, as well as men and women religious left the country for fear of reprisals or because they had lost their

4.Cf. P. Kuivala, Never a Church of Silence: the Catholic Church in Revolutionary Cuba, 1959-1986, Helsinki, University of Helsinki, 2019, 90. 5.Cf. Cuban Conference of Catholic Bishops, “Carta abierta del Episcopado al Primer Ministro Dr. Fidel Castro (4 de diciembre de 1960)”, in La voz de la Iglesia en Cuba: 100 documentos episcopales, op. cit., 146-150. THE SECOND VATICAN COUNCIL IN CUBA THE FIRST 25 YEARS institutions, churches and convents. By the end of that period, in practice, the entire non-parish infrastructure had passed into the hands of the State, and the Church had lost the possibility of mobilizing public opinion.6 Although a minority of lay people continued to recognize their Catholic identity, many left the country in response to the measures of the revolutionary government, and others turned away from the Church because of their political ideas or as a result of external pressure.7

Resistance (1962-68) Many authors label this period as that of the “Church of Silence.” They use this term to describe the strategy followed by the Church in order to survive and avoid further clashes with the Castro regime. According to these authors, the Church was 39 practically confined to the cultural dimension without being able to carry out any social apostolate or evangelizing work.8 The absence of magisterial documents dating back to that period in the official collection La voz de la Iglesia en Cuba would seem to endorse this conclusion. Nevertheless, the category “Church of Silence” was imported from the experience of Eastern Europe and does not fully correspond to the Cuban historical reality. During those years, in fact, there were communications between pastors and bishops, and at least one bishop was in correspondence with revolutionary leaders to resolve particular issues.9 Although discreet, the Church was never absent from the public forum, as the frequent articles on religious themes by Fr. Ignacio Biaín Moyúa and Carlos Manuel de Céspedes in

6.Of the 723 priests and 2,225 women religious present in Cuba in 1960, only 225 priests and 191 sisters remained five years later. Cf. M. J. Marimón, “The Church”, op. cit., 402. 7.Between 1960 and 1962 about 200,000 Cubans left the island, out of a population of just under seven million people. 8.E. Dussel, Historia de la Iglesia en América Latina: medio milenio de coloniaje y liberación (1492-1992), Madrid - Mexico, D. F., Mundo Negro - Esquilla Misional, 1992, 259. 9.Cf. I. Uria, Iglesia y Revolución en Cuba: Enrique Pérez Serantes (1883-1968), el obispo que salvó a Fidel Castro, Madrid, Encuentro, 2011, 527-530. RAÚL JOSÉ ARDERÍ GARCÍA, SJ

10 the newspaper El Mundo show. In 1962 the bulletin Vida Cristiana was born, which from January 1963 had a national circulation and became the unofficial organ of the Church. While the Second Vatican Council was taking place, these media sources spread information about the debates and conclusions of the Council. In those years, the meetings of the Episcopal Conference and its working groups were not interrupted. Although attendance at Mass by the faithful was drastically reduced, the bishops continued to visit their communities, especially on patronal feasts, and in turn the communities continued to receive the sacraments and offer opportunities for formation. This shows how the apparent silence did not mean the absence of the Church from public space, but rather an active resistance under strong pressure on its members to abandon religious practice. 40 Two protagonists of this period were Monsignor Cesare Zacchi, the Vatican’s representative in Cuba from 1962 to 1974, and the Cuban ambassador to the Holy See, Luis Amado Blanco, who held that position from 1961 until his death in 1975. These two personalities worked to keep open a channel of communication between the Church and the Cuban government, even in times of great difficulty.

Improving relations and critical collaboration (1968-85) As other regions of Latin America, the Medellín Conference (1968) had a fundamental impact on the Cuban Church, contributing to a rethinking of its mission in the socialist context. The influence of this assembly combined with a generational change in ecclesial authorities, which led to a totally indigenous configuration of the Episcopal Conference. In April 1969, coinciding with the anniversary of the invasion of the Bay of Pigs, the first collective pronouncement of the Cuban episcopate after 1960 was made public. The communiqué emphasized the spiritual dimension of work. Through their work Christians were to offer testimony as “salt of the earth” and “light of the world.” This indicated a common basis for dialogue between

10.M. F. Trujillo Lemes, El pensamiento social católico en Cuba en la década de los 60, Santiago de Cuba, Editorial Oriente, 2011, 128f. THE SECOND VATICAN COUNCIL IN CUBA THE FIRST 25 YEARS

Christians and revolutionaries regarding the importance of work for the development of the country. Particularly resonant was the part of the communiqué that affirmed the link between the option for the poor and the condemnation of the economic embargo imposed by the United States. The Cuban Catholic community was divided over the document. Some praised the new attitude of the ecclesial authorities, but others considered it a betrayal of the former policy of resistance and denunciation. This communiqué had the merit of prioritizing the problems of the faithful on the island over the interests of a majority sector of Cuban Catholics in exile. The internal debate that ensued forced the bishops to publish a second communiqué to explain in greater depth the ideas of Medellín and the Second Vatican Council. The Cuban 41 Church recognized that the revolutionary process was not a passing phenomenon, and that therefore it had to seek possible ways of dialogue with that reality. Such an attitude meant a critical process of maturation and growth that involved “dying to something in order to acquire new elements.”11 From that moment on, a new alternative emerged in relations between the Church and the State, characterized by pragmatic collaboration on shared values, although a critical attitude toward certain aspects of socialist ideology remained.12 As the Jesuit historian Manuel Maza Miquel points out, “if liberal Spain between 1830 and 1840 closed its novitiates, expelled religious and confiscated Church property, [this did not prevent] the 1851 Concordat.”13 Why should things have been different in 1969? After the publication of the communiqués of 1969 there were sporadic signs of improvement in relations between the Church and the government. During his visit to Chile in 1971, Fidel Castro met with a group of priests and Cardinal Raúl

11.Conference of Catholic Bishops of Cuba, “Comunicado de la Conferencia episcopal de Cuba “A nuestros sacerdotes y fideles” (3 de septiembre de 1969)”, in La voz de la Iglesia en Cuba: 100 documentos episcopales, op. cit., 185. 12.On this point we agree with the conclusions of M. J. Marimón, “The Church…”, op. cit., 406f. 13.Cf. M. Maza Miquel, “Perderse en Cuba. Apuntes sobre la Iglesia en la Revolución cubana (1959-1992)”, in Sal Terrae, October 1992, 561. RAÚL JOSÉ ARDERÍ GARCÍA, SJ

Silva Henríquez, and that meeting, although it sparked much criticism, was supported by the Archbishop of Havana, Francisco Oves. In 1974 the Vatican Secretary for Relations with States, Cardinal Agostino Casaroli, received an invitation from Castro to visit Cuba. On the other hand, in 1976, the new Constitution was approved, which confirmed the atheistic character of the State and portrayed religion as an anti-scientific prejudice to be eliminated. In the previous year, the first Congress of the Cuban Communist Party, which excluded believers from its ranks, had been held. In the summer of 1985, the Continental Dialogue on Foreign Debt was inaugurated in Havana, attended by the president and secretary of the Episcopal Conference. In a message to the Catholics of the island, the bishops emphasized that this was the first time that the hierarchy was invited to an 42 event organized by the socialist government.14 At the beginning of 1985 the book Fidel y la religión was published in Cuba, a decisive event regarding the perception of the religious phenomenon.15 The work was a great editorial success on the island and, surprisingly, it marked the return of religion to public debate. For the ideologues of Marxism- Leninism, the fact that Castro himself broke the official silence on a subject considered taboo was a truly unprecedented event. Many readers, and the general public, began to wonder if they too could speak openly about their religious beliefs and return to the churches without fear of reprisals.16

The reception of the Council in socialist Cuba Another claim made about the Church in Cuba in the 1960s and 70s, along with that of having been a Church of Silence, is that it received the Second Vatican Council poorly or not at all. According to those who support this view, the Church of Cuba was so focused on its own survival that it was unable to assimilate

14.Esclavos, patriotas y poetas a la sombra de la cruz: cinco ensayos sobre catolicismo e historia cubana, Santo Domingo, DR, Padre Juan Montalvo Center for Social Studies, 1999, 66. 15.Cf. F. Castro - F. Betto, Fidel y la religión: conversaciones con Frei Betto, La Habana, Oficina de Publicaciones del Consejo de Estado, 1985. 16.Cf. P. Kuivala, Never a Church of Silence..., op. cit., 279f. THE SECOND VATICAN COUNCIL IN CUBA THE FIRST 25 YEARS the renewal of the Council.17 However, from the historical point of view, there is evidence of study groups in Cuba, composed of clergy and laity, to analyze the documents of the Council.18 In the same way, there is evidence of an exchange of letters between the Cuban bishops in Rome and some lay people on the island, informing them about the work of the Council.19 The archbishop of Santiago himself, Enrique Pérez Serantes, who had a markedly pre-Conciliar formation, to the point of citing health problems in order to avoid a trip to Rome, was able to embrace the novelty of Vatican II, spread its teaching in his diocese and organized a day of ecumenical reflection in his city’s cathedral.20 From the theological point of view, it is not correct to generalize about the alleged poor reception of the Council 43 without taking into account the particularities of the local Churches. Doing so would deny the Council’s principle that recognizes the value of diversity in the various communities and the birth of a non-uniform universal Church.21 Certainly, if as indicators of the Council’s reception in Latin America, we are only talking about the affirmation of liberation theology, the creation of the comunidades eclesiales de base (Base Ecclesial Communities - BECs) and the political radicalization to the left of a substantial part of the clergy and faithful, then we must say that the impact of the Council on the island at that time was very limited.22

17.Cf. M. E Crahan, “Cuba: Religion and Revolutionary Institutionalization”, in Journal of Latin American Studies 17 (1985) 319-340; R. Gómez Treto, The Church and Socialism in Cuba, Maryknoll (NY), Orbis Books, 1988; F. Pérez Valencia, “La Iglesia católica cubana: Entre el Vaticano II y la Revolución marxista (1959-1966)”, in Cultura y Religión 13 (2019) 4-23. 18.Cf. P. Kuivala, Never a Church of Silence..., op. cit., 127. 19.See ibid., 142f. Two Cuban bishops participated in the Council and made efforts to spread its doctrine when they returned to Cuba. They were Adolfo Rodríguez de Camagüey and the Jesuit Fernando Azcárate, auxiliary in Havana. 20.See I. Uría, Iglesia y Revolución en Cuba..., op. cit., 529f. 21.Cf. K. Rahner, “A Basic Theological Interpretation of the Second Vatican Council”, in Id., Theological Investigations, vol. 20, New York, Crossroad, 1981, 77-89. 22.This is the thesis supported by F. Pérez Valencia, “La Iglesia católica cubana...”, op. cit. RAÚL JOSÉ ARDERÍ GARCÍA, SJ

Nevertheless, in the Cuban reality of the 1960s most of the ecclesial communities were so small that in them there was the “living with others in a personal and fraternal way” that Medellín wished for the BECs.23 The Episcopal Communiqué of 1969 was an example of the application of Gaudium et Spes, the documents of Medellín and Populorum Progressio in Cuba, showing that the reflection on the option for the poor was by no means ignored by the Cuban Church. On the other hand, theological reception is not mere obedience to decisions taken from above according to the pyramidal ecclesiological model, which provides a clear distinction between the Church that teaches (ecclesia docens) and the Church that passively accepts these formulations (ecclesia ). On the contrary, this phenomenon can be considered 44 discens “the process by which an ecclesial body makes its own in truth a determination that it has not given itself, thus recognizing, to the declared extent, a rule that suits its life.”24 This definition by Yves Congar admits that reception is not an automatic matter, and that the specific conditions of the local Church cannot be ignored. The influence of the Council in Cuba can be recognized according to two main principles – those of participation and witness – which must be explained from the Cuban context. Contrary to the view of López Oliva, after the Revolution, the Church did not go through a process of “clericalization and delaicalization” that would have oriented it in the opposite direction to the rest of Latin America.25 The dissolution of historic secular organizations such as Juventud obrera católica (Joc) was due to the context of political uncertainty in 1961, but it did not mean that the laity would become an “appendix controlled by the hierarchy.”26

23.See II General Conference of the Latin American Episcopate, Medellín Document (1968), in Enchiridion. Documenti della Chiesa latinoamericana, Bologna, Emi, 1995, 250. 24.Y. Congar, La ricezione come realtà ecclesiologica, in Concilium 8 (1972/7) 77. 25.Cfr E. López Oliva, “La Iglesia católica y la Revolución cubana”, in Temas 55 (2008) 142f. 26.Ibid., 143. THE SECOND VATICAN COUNCIL IN CUBA THE FIRST 25 YEARS

After the exile of many pastoral workers, the lay Cubans took responsibility for most of the parish activities, including the administrative and liturgical roles that were previously reserved for the clergy. This unplanned situation made possible a strong sense of belonging and community co-responsibility. The new ecclesiology of Vatican II offered a theological basis for dealing with this emerging context. Sacrosanctum Concilium (SC) consecrated the idea of an actuosa participatio as the leitmotif of all liturgical renewal, and with this it anticipated the ecclesiology of the people of God and the priesthood of believers that would later be developed by 27 Lumen Gentium. It is no coincidence that worship itself was one of the areas in which the Council’s ideas found the greatest development in Cuba, not least because this dimension was 45 one of the least affected by the conflicts with the new political system. The Council’s intention was to transform the role of the faithful from being “outsiders or silent spectators” (SC 48), exactly what the Catholics on the island needed to keep alive a Church in which there was a shortage of ordained ministers. This new way of conceiving Christian worship “implicitly extended beyond the liturgy to the Church in general [...]. The liturgy, so to speak, had ecclesiological implications and ramifications.”28 According to the scholar Petra Kuivala, “silent witness” is the other key to understanding ecclesial action from the 1960s onward.29 In a context in which clergy and laity suffered to the same extent social stigma and risks involved in the practice of their faith, silent witness constituted a privileged mode of evangelization and resistance. This concept required them to assume religious discrimination with integrity and to show at the same time, by an exemplary life, the consequences of that faith which was decried in official discourse. This testimony, albeit silent, did not mean mere passivity and concealment, but could also be interpreted as a sign of fidelity in the context of an ideologically hostile system.

27.Cf. Second Vatican Ecumenical Council, Constitution Sacrosanctum Concilium, Nos. 11; 14; 19; 21; 27; 30; 41; 50; 79; 113; 114; 121; 124. 28.J. W. O’Malley, What happened at Vatican II, Cambridge (MA), Harvard University Press, 2008, 141. 29.Cf. P. Kuivala, Never a Church of Silence..., op. cit., 161-173. RAÚL JOSÉ ARDERÍ GARCÍA, SJ

The danger of this attitude was that Catholics would create a mentality of isolation, making them unable to recognize that this very context could enlighten the experience of their faith. The overcoming of this temptation, basically during the REC and ENEC processes, did not take place without intergenerational tensions within the Catholic community. As with the notion of participation, Cuban Catholics found support in the Second Vatican Council for the development of Christian witness as a means of evangelization. This term appears throughout the conciliar documents with different variations, 30 through the Latin terms: testimonium, testis and testificare. Even in passages where these terms are not used, their meaning is latent in the description of the ecclesial mission. The category of witness has enabled the Church to progress in the understanding 46 of evangelization, which should not be implemented by imposing mechanisms of control over temporal realities, but through “the strength [or witness] that [...] consists in that faith and charity actually lived” (Gaudium et Spes [GS], No. 42). To understand the work of evangelization in the Cuban context, a passage from the Council deserves particular attention: “Sometimes circumstances are given which, at least temporarily, make it impossible to proclaim the Gospel message directly and immediately. In this case, missionaries can and must with patience and prudence, and at the same time with great confidence, offer at least the witness of the charity and goodness of Christ, thus preparing the ways of the Lord” (Ad Gentes, No. 6).

Final considerations Unlike other Latin American countries, the Cuban Church in 1986 was a numerically small reality.31 Although devoid of political influence and with material resources too scarce to

30.Cf. O. Rush, The Vision of Vatican II: Its Fundamental Principles, Collegeville (MN), Liturgical Press, 2019, 525f. 31.This consideration takes into account only those members who actively participated in ecclesial life; many other Cubans kept their religious beliefs on a strictly private and family level. The Pontifical Yearbook of that year reported, as a number of (baptized) Catholics, 3,973,000 Cubans out of a total of 10,484,000 inhabitants. The Episcopal Conference estimated the number of active believers in the Church at 150,000 (1%). Cf. E. Crahan, “Cuba...”, op. cit., 335, note 58. THE SECOND VATICAN COUNCIL IN CUBA THE FIRST 25 YEARS succeed in implementing its evangelizing option, Christian communities had developed a strong sense of participation and fraternity among their members. In an ideologically hostile environment, being Catholic was considered a kind of social suicide, because it meant being subject to numerous limitations on a professional level, in studies and in daily life. It is understandable that in such circumstances silent witness was the preferred way to evangelize society. Consistency between an exemplary life and the professed faith was the main resource for breaking down anti-religious prejudices. This situation did not necessarily mean a community withdrawn into the cultic dimension and fearful of the idea of explicitly proclaiming the Gospel: a distrust shared by its opponents, who considered any religious message as a threat to 47 the revolutionary process. Cuban Catholics probably felt a sort of inferiority complex, treated as they were as second-class citizens, for whom it was practically impossible to have full social recognition. At the same time, those believers who had chosen to join the revolutionary process felt marginalized from the ecclesial sphere. Sporadic signs of less strained relations between the Church and the State showed the possibility of a different path. At that moment, when many predicted that the Church would become extinct over the years due to the aging of its members, the initiative of a synodal process arose, which showed the vitality of the Cuban Church.

Conclusions Rather than looking for the guilty or innocent, perpetrators or victims, in the complex relations between the Church and the Cuban revolutionary government since 1959, in this article we have preferred to ask how the Church gradually discovered its mission in a new socialist context for which it was not prepared. The Cuban Catholic community – lay people and pastors – went from a state of clashing with the new socio-political system to one of critical collaboration, without letting themselves be completely assimilated by it, nor identifying themselves as being part of a religious organization subordinate to the State. This evolution can be explained as a simple adaptation to ensure RAÚL JOSÉ ARDERÍ GARCÍA, SJ

the survival of the Church. Without denying legitimate concerns, one can also interpret it as a deepening of the dynamics of the Incarnation and a maturation of an ecclesial conscience in an unprecedented context. Indeed, there is no reality in which one can declare the absence of the Spirit of God and where the Church cannot learn from the signs of the times, deepen her understanding of the Gospel and bring its values to collaborate in the progress of society. It was the Second Vatican Council itself that recognized this: “It is the task of the entire People of God, especially pastors and theologians, to hear, distinguish and interpret the many voices of our age, and to judge them in the light of the divine word, so that revealed truth can always be more deeply penetrated, better understood and set forth to greater advantage” (GS 44). 48 Nagorno-Karabakh: One hundred years of conflict

Vladimir Pachkov, SJ

The armed conflict in the region of Nagorno-Karabakh, which broke out again this year, is only the latest in a dispute with a centuries-long history. I want to examine the genesis of this conflict and its historical background, without going into the current situation, which is constantly changing and well 49 reported by the media. Since it is all too obvious that any statement about the conflict can be considered biased, I am trying to rely on sources that are considered academic (for example, university research, although this can bring to light tragic events whose reporting will please no one), or to present the point of view of both sides. In my attempt to describe events as objectively as possible, I try to report the facts as they emerge from today’s research.

Karabakh in history The area of present-day Nagorno-Karabakh was an Armenian homeland as early as the 6th century B.C., when the first independent Armenian dynasty established its rule there after the collapse of the kingdom of Urartu.1 A very eventful history has seen this area being ruled by independent Armenian dynasties and foreign powers, such as Persia and Byzantium.2 From the 15th century, under the aegis of the Persian Empire, Armenian rulers were able to maintain a certain autonomy.

La Civiltà Cattolica, En. Ed. Vol. 4, no. 12 art. 5, 1020: 10.32009/22072446.1220.5

1.See R. H. Hewsen, “The Kingdom of Artsakh”, in T. Samuelian - M. E. Stone (eds.), Medieval Armenian Culture, Chico, CA, Scholars Press, 1984. 2.Ibid. VLADIMIR PACHKOV, SJ

In the 18th century they organized a national movement that, with the help of Russia, would lead to the liberation of the Armenians from the Persians and Turks.3 In the middle of the 18th century Turkish nomads managed to invade the Karabakh area – it had been known by that name since the 16th century – and established the so-called Karabakh Khanate, which existed for 40 years before coming under the control of the Russian Empire. The time of peace in this region ended with the first revolution in Russia, when the population was involved in the so-called Armenian-Tartar War.4

The roots of the current conflict The modern phase of the conflict in the Nagorno-Karabakh area dates from 1918. After a peace treaty was signed between 50 the Bolshevik government and the German Empire in Brest- Litovsk, the South Caucasus area was occupied by German and Turkish troops. In a region of the South Caucasus province, which had been part of the faltering Russian Empire, the state called “Azerbaijan” was founded. Its name was borrowed from that of a province in northern Persia. The plan was to unite the former Russian territories with this Persian province into a single state. The occupation of the Germans and Turks in the South Caucasus did not last long because these two empires soon dissolved. After the Russian Revolution of 1917, Karabakh was incorporated into the Transcaucasian Federation, which soon split into Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia. The territory of Nagorno-Karabakh was claimed by both the Armenians (who made up 98 percent of the population at the time) and the Azeris. After the Bolshevik conquest in 1920, the territory (as well as that of Nakhchivan) was assigned to Azerbaijan by Stalin.

3.Cf. . . - 1770-1780- (A.V Suvorov and Russian-Armenian Relations between 1770 and 1780), Yerevan, Hayastan,А В Суворов 1981. и русско армянские отношения в х годах4.It was called the “Armenian-Tartar war” because the term “Azerbaijanis” was not used until the 1930s. See N. A. Troinitsky (ed.), The First Russian Imperial Census of 1897, St. Petersburg, Publication of the Central Statistical Committee of the Ministry of the Interior, 1899-1905. NAGORNO-KARABAKH: ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF CONFLICT

In 1923 Nagorno-Karabakh was established as an autonomous administration, but without including wider territories that were historically part of the region inhabited by Armenians, which instead were under the direct control of Azerbaijan. A small village called “Khankendi” (from Turkish: “the settlement of the khan”), renamed shortly afterward “Stepanakert” (in memory of a communist, Stepan Shaumyan) became the administrative center. When the autonomous region was established – according to the reports of the meeting of the South Caucasus Office of the Communist Party on June 23, 1923 – 158,000 Armenians, 11,000 Turks (Azeris) and 6,000 Kurds lived there. Moreover, in 1923 Armenians made up almost 90 percent of the population not only in the autonomous region of Nagorno-Karabakh, but also in neighboring areas. 51 The incorporation of Armenian territories into the Republic of Azerbaijan, albeit as an autonomous entity, did not satisfy either Armenians or Azeris.5 At a meeting with writers in November 1999, Heydar Aliyev, Azerbaijan’s first president, said that the self-government of Nagorno-Karabakh had become a tragedy for the country. In fact, at the time, people wanted to give that area to Armenia, but Azerbaijan’s leadership prevented it, so Nagorno-Karabakh remained assigned to Azerbaijan, but it should not have become an autonomous region.6 The Armenians were even less satisfied. The incorporation of the Nagorno-Karabakh region into the Republic of Azerbaijan led to mass protests on the Armenian side, and at the same time led to armed resistance in Nagorno-Karabakh against both the government of Azerbaijan and the Bolsheviks. This movement was subsequently suppressed.7

5.See https://cyberleninka.ru/article/n/sotsialno-politicheskie-prichiny- vozniknoveniya-mezhetnicheskogo-konflikta-v-nagornom-karabahe-i- vokrug-nego-v-kontse-1980-h-nachale-1990 6.See Aliyeva’s speech at the meeting with the writers of Azerbaijan, in (“The Baku worker”), December 11, 1999. 7.See https://cyberleninka.ru/article/n/sotsialno-politicheskie-prichiny- vozniknoveniya-mezhetnicheskogo-konflikta-v-nagornom-karabahe-i-Бакинский рабочий vokrug-nego-v-kontse-1980-h-nachale-1990 VLADIMIR PACHKOV, SJ

In the 1920s the South Caucasus Republic played an important role in local politics and administration, as an administrative structure above the Republics of Azerbaijan, Armenia and Georgia. Its existence diminished the authority of the government of Azerbaijan over the Armenian territories. The Armenians continued to hope that Nagorno-Karabakh would be given to Armenia. In 1930-32 and 1936-37, representations were made at state and party authority meetings for this to happen. But these demands were never met. An interesting event took place in 1945, after the end of the war, when the first secretary of the Communist Party of Armenia wrote to Stalin, asking for Nagorno-Karabakh to be given to Armenia, on the grounds that this was the will of the people, and also for economic and socio-cultural reasons. The 52 request was not rejected, but Moscow first wanted to know the opinion of the first secretary of the Communist Party in Azerbaijan. He replied that there was nothing against it, provided that Georgia, Armenia and Dagestan gave Azerbaijan their historical territories (a total of 330,000 square kilometers) in exchange.8 The central government in Moscow did not agree with this, so nothing was concluded. During this period, Azeri settlement took place in areas that were mostly inhabited by Armenians and now belonged to the Republic of Azerbaijan: the best land was taken from the Armenians to establish Azerbaijani settlements. At the same time there was also a process of deportation of members of the Azeri ethnic group from the Armenian Republic. The deportation was decided at a meeting of the USSR central government on December 23, 1947, not by the Armenians. At that time, more than 170,000 Azeris were living in the territory of the Republic of Armenia. In 1947, the 60 settlements that had Turkish names at the time were given Armenian names. It is still unclear how many of the Azeri people were forcibly displaced: according to Armenian sources, they numbered 58,500, while the Azeris claim more than 100,000.9

8.See https://cyberleninka.ru/article/n/deportatsiya-azerbaydzhantsev-iz- armyanskoy-ssr-1947-1953-gody 9.Ibid. NAGORNO-KARABAKH: ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF CONFLICT

Heydar Aliyev was president of the Republic of Azerbaijan from 1993 to 2003. He devoted special attention to the development of the Nagorno-Karabakh autonomous region. The government built roads, schools and other economic and social infrastructure. In the Pedagogical Institute of the capital of the Autonomous Republic of Nagorno-Karabakh, education was taught in three languages, Armenian, Russian and Azerbaijani. All this made it possible for more and more ethnic Azeris to live in that territory. If in 1970 the Azeris were 18 percent of the total population of Nagorno-Karabakh, in 1979 their numbers increased to 23 percent, and in 1989 to 30 percent.10 The Armenian language had been designated as the official language when the Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Region 53 was established. It was the language of the majority of the population, but was not even mentioned in the Nagorno- Karabakh territory order adopted in Azerbaijan at the time of Aliyev (June 22, 1981).11 The Armenians in the Nagorno-Karabakh region suffered not only from nationalism, but also because of atheism. If in 1931 there were 112 churches and 18 monasteries in the region, with 276 priests and monks, after 1932 everything was closed. Until 1989, there were no longer any churches in that region in which liturgies were celebrated. The situation for Armenian Christians did not change even after Stalin mitigated the persecution of the Russian Orthodox Church during the Great Patriotic War

10.See R. Usubov, “Nagorno-Karabakh: la missione di salvataggio iniziò negli anni 70”, in Panorama, May 12, 1999. Usubov writes: “It can be said without exaggeration that after the arrival of Heydar Aliyev at the helm of Azerbaijan, the Azeris of Karabakh felt that they were the masters of the region. A lot of work was done in the seventies. All this caused an influx of Azerbaijanis into Nagorno-Karabakh from the surrounding regions: Lachin, Agdam, Jabrail, Fizuli, Agjabedi and others. All these measures, implemented thanks to the farsightedness of the first secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Azerbaijan, Heydar Aliyev, favored the influx of Azerbaijanis. While in 1970 the percentage of Azeris in the NKAO population was 18 percent, in 1979 it was 23 percent and in 1989 it exceeded 30 percent.” 11.“Law of the Soviet Socialist Republic of Azerbaijan ‘On the Nagorno- Karabakh Autonomous Region’ adopted by the Supreme Council of the AzSSR on June 16, 1981, introduced on July 22, 1982”, Baku, Azerneshr, 1985, 51. VLADIMIR PACHKOV, SJ

against the Nazis. After the collapse of the Russian Empire and until the time of Perestroika, Armenians were prevented from developing their national and spiritual identity.

The time of change The situation changed suddenly in 1988. On February 20 of that year, an extraordinary session of the Nagorno- Karabakh parliament invited the Parliaments of the Republics of Azerbaijan and Armenia, as well as the USSR, to hand over the region to Armenia.12 On September 2, 1991, the Declaration of Foundation of the Republic of Nagorno-Karabakh and the Appeal to the Azerbaijani People and the People of Nagorno- Karabakh were adopted.13 On December 10 of the same year the referendum on the independence of the Republic of Nagorno- 54 Karabakh took place.14 Unfortunately this was only the beginning of a new phase that would lead to war. Conflicts and voices suppressed (or kept under control) by the USSR exploded during Perestroika and immediately after the collapse of the Soviet Union. The Azerbaijani government reacted harshly to the decision of the Nagorno- Karabakh Parliament to establish itself as an independent republic. And what is worse, fighting immediately broke out between Armenians and Azeris. The first violent conflict took place on February 22, 1988. According to eyewitness accounts, several hundred Azeris arrived in the city of Askeran to demonstrate, followed by a shootout in which two Azeris were killed. But what happened next – the events in Sumgait, which shook the whole of Russia – can be considered as an Armenian pogrom. On February 27 and 28, 1988, 26 Armenians and two Azeris were killed, and 18,000 Armenians had to flee.

12.See “Materials of the extraordinary session of the Council of People’s Deputies of the Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Region”, 20th convocation, Soviet Karabakh, February 21, 1988. 13.See State Archives of the Republic of Nagorno-Karabakh, F. 1. Op. 2. D. 309. St. 42. 14.See Protocol of the Central Electoral Commission on the results of the vote in the referendum of the Republic of Nagorno-Karabakh, State Archives, F.1 Op. 2. D. 332. St. 28. L. 6-8. NAGORNO-KARABAKH: ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF CONFLICT

In June, the parliaments of Azerbaijan and Armenia took two opposing decisions: Azerbaijan rejected Nagorno- Karabakh’s request to join Armenia, while the Armenian Parliament granted it. As a result, there were further Armenian pogroms in Azerbaijan (the bloodiest in the capital, Baku). On July 12 the Parliament of Nagorno-Karabakh decided that the region was no longer part of the Republic of Azerbaijan. As the situation was worsening and violent clashes between Armenians and Azerbaijanis continued, on January 15, 1990, by decision of the Supreme Council of the USSR, the right of derogation was granted to the Nagorno-Karabakh region. In Baku this right was introduced only on January 19, when the pogroms were practically finished. Tens of thousands of Armenians had fled the capital and other areas of Azerbaijan, while the exodus 55 of Azerbaijanis from Armenia had begun.15 This “population exchange” ended practically between 1988 and 1991.16 When on March 17, 1991, in a referendum that took place on the entire USSR territory, the majority of Armenians voted against the preservation of the USSR while the majority of Azerbaijanis voted in favor, the central government in Moscow chose to repress the Armenian population and, in the framework of the so-called “identity card control,” other Armenians were expelled by force, as reported by an officer of the USSR Interior Ministry.17 After this operation – known as “Operation Ring” – the Armenian armed resistance began. It was then that the first self-defense groups were organized, which later became the core of the Armenian army and the Nagorno-Karabakh army. After the failure of an attempted coup in Moscow in August 1991, a referendum was held in Armenia on independence from the USSR: 90 percent of the population voted in favor.

15.See https://cyberleninka.ru/article/n/k-30-letiyu-nagorno-karabahsk- ogo-konflikta-klyuchevye-sobytiya-do-i-posle-raspada-sssr 16.See S. M. Markedonov, - : Де факто образование постсоветского (Formation of de facto States in the post-soviet area: 20 years of state building), Yerevan,пространства Istituto delдвадцать Caucaso, 2012,лет 208.государственного строительства 17.See V. Krivopuskov, ̆ . (Rebel Karabakh. From the diary of an officer of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the USSR),Мятежныи Moscow, GolosКарабах Press, 2007,Из дневника200f. офицера МВД СССР VLADIMIR PACHKOV, SJ

On August 30, the Supreme Council of the Republic of Azerbaijan adopted the “Declaration on the Restoration of State Independence of the Republic of Azerbaijan as it existed between 1918 and 1920,” and on September 2 the Republic of Nagorno-Karabakh was founded, which included the former Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Region and an area inhabited mainly by Armenians outside that region. Although during the period of the Independent Republic of Azerbaijan the territory of Nagorno-Karabakh was a disputed area and not yet legally part of the Republic of Azerbaijan, the Government in Baku did not want to give it up, and so, on November 26, it dissolved the Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Region. On December 10 a referendum was held in which 99 percent of the population voted for the self-determination of 56 this small sub-Caucasian Republic. As a consequence of these conflicting decisions, a war broke out. It lasted from January 1992 to May 1994. Armenia was not officially involved in this conflict, although the country was in fact on the side of the Armenians living in Nagorno-Karabakh. This war did not end with a peace treaty or agreement, but only with a ceasefire. The armistice was signed by the respective defense ministers. In practice, the Armenians acquired control of the autonomous region of Nagorno-Karabakh and some surrounding, predominantly Armenian, territories, which the Azerbaijani side did not recognize. Since then, this ceasefire held – again with some incidents – until the events of this year, when the Azerbaijani leadership tried, with Turkish support, to gain control of the region. On the night between November 9 and 10, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev, Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan and Russian President Valdimir Putin signed a declaration that sanctions the end of hostilities in Nagorno- Karabakh. An agreement reached, therefore, with the mediation of Moscow: it was Putin himself who announced the agreement. This, however, was followed by the furious reaction of hundreds of Armenians, who invaded the Parliamentary building, attacking the government in Yerevan, trashing its offices and accusing Prime Minister Pashinyan of treason. NAGORNO-KARABAKH: ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF CONFLICT

Conclusions We conclude with a personal episode. In Russia there are large diasporas of Armenians and Azeris. Not far from the house where I was born, an Armenian bought a piece of land, built a store and rented it to a greengrocer from Azerbaijan. When this Azerbaijani was asked: “Now there is war in Karabakh between Armenians and Azeris. What is your relationship with your Armenian business partner?” He replied: “The war is between tycoons and politicians. We have nothing to do with it.” If simple people – both Armenian and Azerbaijani – manage to stay at peace and live in friendship with each other, it is to be hoped that these peoples too, although in the context of a territory torn apart by many clashes and open wounds, may succeed in establishing peace and living in friendship in 57 the future. The White-Red Revolution of Belarus

Giovanni Sale, SJ

In Belarus, for over two months now, a revolution has been underway. It is a peaceful, popular protest led by three courageous women linked to people who before the presidential elections were either imprisoned by the police or forced into 58 exile. The “White-Red Revolution,” as it has been described, began immediately after President Alexander Lukashenko, who has been in power for 26 years, officially announced the results of the presidential elections of August 9, 2020. He claimed 80.23 percent of the popular vote, which has been described as an “indefensible exaggeration.” In any case, the election was preceded by a disastrous election campaign, marked by threats against political opponents and arrests, by unlikely attacks on the sovereignty of the country by some foreign powers, primarily Putin’s Russia, and by too many inappropriate jokes about the coronavirus, to be fought with vodka and sauna, instead of seeking to stop its spread by following the advice given by the World Health Organization. The popular protests began immediately after the announcement of the result of the polls, while different sources reported electoral fraud as well as violence against people who had worked in the polling stations. Even so, some claim that even without these manipulations and violence the president would still have won the election, probably with a lower majority.1

La Civiltà Cattolica, En. Ed. Vol. 4, no. 12 art. 6, 1020: 10.32009/22072446.1220.6

1.See D. Trenin, “Quattro opzioni per Mosca”, in Internazionale, August 21, 2020, 18. THE WHITE-RED REVOLUTION IN BELARUS

Lukashenko’s actions, which some observers have described as arrogant, authoritarian and narcissistic, confirm that his legitimate right to rule has come to an end. Regardless of how much longer his regime will last and despite the fact that he has officially taken office for the sixth time as the head of state (September 23), for many Belarusians 2 “the bác’ka (dad) has lost his parental authority.” Clearly, he no longer has the support of the country. The change that hundreds of thousands of citizens in Minsk, Grodno, Brest and other centers took to the streets demanding and kept on repeating with unusual insistence for weeks, has revealed a deep discontent and a desire for transformation, which can neither be underestimated nor ignored. These protests, unlike the previous ones, are not carried out 59 by a politicized minority, but are now supported by a large part of the country from large cities to small towns and includes students, farmers and factory workers. Many Belarusians who voted for Svetlana Tikhanovskaya in the elections – who, according to the official results, obtained only 9.9 percent of the votes – did so not so much to support her, a virtually unknown candidate until shortly before, without a program and without a party, as to side against the old president Lukashenko.3 According to some (mostly independent) polls, Tikhanovskaya would have received 30-40 percent of the vote, according to others more than 60 percent.4 We will probably never know the truth, but now that the people have filled the streets, we know which side a significant part of the country is on. Even if the differential in the vote projections is very wide, “in any case it denies the official data, and indicates that the disintegration of the electoral base of the president has necessarily taken place in the cities [...], in the factories that then attempted to strike, among the young people

2.O. Moscatelli - M. De Bonis, “La Bielorussia in bilico continua a pendere verso la Federazione russa”, in Limes, No. 8, 2020, 261. 3.See A. Klinau, “La rivoluzione dei bielorussi”, in Internazionale, August 21, 2020, 17. 4.See O. Moscatelli - M. De Bonis, “La Bielorussia in bilico…”, op. cit., 263. GIOVANNI SALE, SJ

who knew no other leader than him [...]. And, above all, among women disappointed by an authoritarian drift that offers less and less in exchange for their silence.”5 After the official statement, which announced the usual landslide victory in favor of Lukashenko, Tikhanovskaya – who in the meantime had fled to Lithuania to escape arrest – did not accept the election result and declared herself the winner.6 A considerable part of the Belarusian people fully “validated” and accepted her statement and mobilized to support her. Since then in the capital Minsk every Sunday almost 100,000 people7 have been demonstrating peacefully to demand the resignation of the president.8 More than 200,000 people participated in the demonstrations on August 16 and 23, which had never happened before in the history of the country. One of the most evident 60 limitations of this movement is that it fails to organize itself into a unitary political party and to express itself as a government, even in principle, one with a program to show it is capable of directing the country toward a more open and modern democratic system. The police responded to these massive mass gatherings by using force, in particular by using tear gas, firing rubber bullets and attacking the demonstrators. In addition, several hundred of them, mostly young people, were arrested, while many unarmed protesters were brutally beaten and humiliated in various ways. To understand what is happening in recent months in Belarus, it is necessary to examine the issue more closely and within its historical framework.9

The last revolution in Europe Belarus gained full independence in 1991, following the dissolution of the Soviet Union. Since 1994 it has been dominated

5.Ibid. 6.See “Fuori dal tempo”, in Internazionale, September 18, 2020, 43. 7.In the following Sundays the number of demonstrators decreased, but not considerably. 8.See O. Rhodionova, “A Minsk in marcia per il futuro e la libertà”, in la Repubblica, August 18, 2020; T. G. Ash, “Il grido dei bielorussi che ci ricorda il valore della libertà”, ibid., August 22, 2020. 9.See A. Teslia, “Une nation en quête d’histoire”, in Courrier international, No. 1558, September 10, 2020, 13. THE WHITE-RED REVOLUTION IN BELARUS by the autocratic President Lukashenko, who in a few years had centralized in his hands several public prerogatives, “at the expense of the judiciary and legislature, so as to be commonly called by international journalists ‘the last dictator of Europe.’”10 Many international non-governmental organizations have accused him of violations of democratic freedoms and human rights. Under his leadership Belarus has not started, like other countries of the former USSR, the transition to a market economy, and the ownership of large companies has remained in state hands. This has blocked any economic and political transformation of the country toward a more open and liberal system. The last general election, on November 17, 2019, fully confirmed this fact: no opposition candidate was elected to the new parliament. This result seems to contradict the timid signs of 61 political openness from Minsk toward the West in recent times, starting from 2016. In fact, in September 2019, Lukashenko announced that he wanted to establish diplomatic relations with the United States – relations that had been interrupted in 2008 – and start trade relations with the European Union in order to ease a little the economic dependence of his country on Russia and to obtain more easily Schengen area transit visas for Belarusian citizens. These relations served as a counterbalance – especially after the events of Ukraine in 2014 – to the close relations with the country’s Russian ally, in the perspective of a “multi-sector” foreign policy also oriented toward the West. In 1999 Russia and Belarus – countries very close to each other in terms of culture, language and religion – signed a Treaty of Union, which should have led to their ever stronger integration and the creation of a single confederated state. However, the project remained largely on paper, mainly because of Lukashenko’s resistance to a too-close union between the two brother states. In any case, the institutional relations between the two countries are very strong, not only from an economic, but also from a military point of view: both are members of the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU) and of the organization of

10.Atlante geopolitico 2020, Rome, Istituto dell’Enciclopedia Italiana, 2020, 113. GIOVANNI SALE, SJ

the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), according to which Russia commits itself to come to the allied countries’ aid if they request it for internal or international security reasons. In 2020, as mentioned, Lukashenko ran for the sixth time for the presidency. On that occasion, as had happened in the past, the candidatures of many members of the opposition were not accepted and some of them were, for arbitrary or made-up reasons, arrested by the police. The campaign for the presidential election of August 9 was marked by the repression of every dissident voice. After the arrest of former banker Viktor Babariko (considered a puppet of Moscow) and blogger Sergei Tikhanovsky (convicted as a political agitator), who had decided to challenge the old president in the elections, his wife, Svetlana Tikhanovskaya, took the decision to stand for election, supported by two other women 62 involved in opposition activities: Maria Kolesnikova, Babariko’s collaborator, and Veronika Tsepkalo, wife of Valery Tsepkalo, entrepreneur and former diplomat, who fled to Ukraine after having tried in vain to run for president. These three women have been able to do what no opposition force has been able to do in 15 years: lay the foundations for an unprecedented protest movement, which has brought more than one and a half million people on to the streets and has undermined the foundations of Lukashenko’s personal and autocratic power.11 They are often accused by the regime’s press and some representatives of the old opposition of having no political experience and of only engaging in propaganda. On government-controlled social networks they are described as “poisonous snakes,” who are dangerous for a peaceful society, and they are slandered in inappropriate sexist terms. However, all the alleged weaknesses of the “new opposition”: the decentralized and apparently chaotic organization, the inexperienced leadership considered weak and without a clear

11.Recently, the European Parliament awarded the Sakharov Prize 2020 “to women and men of the Belarusian opposition, represented by Svetlana Tikha- novskaya. President of the Assembly Davide Sassoli said they have proved strong in the face of a very powerful opponent, and on their side have something that brute force can never defeat: the truth” (“Premio Sakharov agli oppositori della Bielorussia”, in la Repubblica, October 23, 2020). THE WHITE-RED REVOLUTION IN BELARUS

political agenda have turned out to be strengths. Despite this inexperience, the unprecedented opposition has been able to mobilize a large part of the population. Belarusians no longer want to live as before; they demand political change, and in the street demonstrators have a new found courage and clamor for the resignation of the old president. These events have surprised many chancelleries, not least the one in Moscow, which had foreseen a normalization of the situation in a short time, as had happened in 2010. Today, however, things have changed: “It is time,” say the supporters of Tikhanovskaya, “for the international community and civil society in democratic countries to recognize and support the commitment of these women and citizens in general,”12 who struggle peacefully to live in a normal country, which needs to be free and democratic. 63

Between Russia and Belarus Political observers in recent weeks have repeatedly pointed out that the popular revolution underway in Belarus does not aim to change the political outlook of the country. Unlike Ukraine in 2014, protesters do not wish to leave the orbit of Russian influence to enter the European or American one. The main purpose of the uprising is to force President Lukashenko to leave office. The people on the streets – mobilized through social media, word of mouth among young people, and accompanied at a distance by the messages of Tikhanovskaya – at no time shouted anti-Russian slogans or displayed pro-Western banners. The only flags that were seen in the demonstrations were the white-red-white ones of the Independent Republic of Belarus in 1918, which had a short duration, but today its supporters claim the right to be a new country with a new identity. The Opposition Coordination Council itself, which includes politicians, journalists and intellectuals (including the Nobel Literature Prize winner Svetlana Alexievich), specified in a statement that the current demonstrations do not aim to “change the institutional structure and the course of foreign

12.I. Petz, “L’ultima rivoluzione d’Europa”, in Internazionale, September 18, 2020, 42. GIOVANNI SALE, SJ

policy of the country.” This was also made clear by the leader of the new opposition, Svetlana Tikhanovskaya, in numerous interviews with European journalists.13 In particular, she tends to emphasize, in order to reassure Moscow, the difference between what is happening in Belarus in recent weeks and what happened in 2014 in Ukraine: “We do not want any kind of conflict,” she said in an interview with Corriere della Sera, “in the territory of Belarus. That is why we ask the rest of the world to respect our sovereignty. We do not accept any kind of intervention in our territory. We are neither pro-European nor anti-Russian.”14 In fact, from a geopolitical and geostrategic point of view, Belarus occupies a position too central not to be in the sights of other countries. “The Russians consider it an essential cushion 64 to protect their lands. For the Americans it is useful to keep pressure on their opponents. Even the Chinese appreciate it and invest in it. The Poles and the Baltic states scrutinize it with the terror that the invader will return from it.”15 Among these countries, Russia is in the most delicate position. Its political strategy requires it to hold fast to Belarus. Without it, it would lose all political and cultural influence over what it calls the “ethnic Russian people” and would lose the last European people it considers its ally and friend. Losing this country, Russia would also be definitively surrounded by pro-Western states. Russia already has NATO on its doorstep in Estonia and Latvia, and has even fought a war to prevent Ukraine from passing into the European orbit. “Losing Minsk as well, it would see the first line of defense retreat as never before in the last five centuries, stuck on that invisible edge between St. Petersburg and Rostov-on-Don, beyond which the country is to all intents and purposes invaded.”16 In short, for Russia, Belarus plays

13.See C. Ayad, “En Bielorussie, la peur a changé de camp”, in Le Monde, August 27, 2020. 14.X. Colas, “Intervista a Svetlana Tikhanovskaja”, in Corriere della Sera, August 27, 2020. 15.F. Petroni, “Il girotondo delle potenze attorno al caos di Minsk”, in Limes, No. 8, 2020, 290. 16.Ibid. THE WHITE-RED REVOLUTION IN BELARUS a remarkable and irreplaceable strategic role, if only for the fact that its territory wedges deep into the center of Europe. Through it, moreover, a significant part of Russian trade flows to the West, above all, gas and oil: 20 percent of “black gold” exported to Europe transits through Belarus. For all these reasons Moscow follows the “Belarusian chaos” with great apprehension. Putin, in fact, fears that the campaign against Lukashenko may serve as a prelude to what may happen to him in the future. It is a fear that, in any case, must be relativized for the simple fact that the Belarusian conditions are not easily replicable in a country like Russia, “equipped with thousands of atomic weapons and an inordinate idea of itself.”17 Before the demonstrations on the streets, relations between Minsk and Moscow were quite tense. During the election 65 campaign Lukashenko used strongly anti-Russian rhetoric, in order to gain the sympathy of the European chancelleries. This was due to some economic and political issues still open between the two “friendly” countries: first of all, the increase imposed by Moscow on oil prices, on which most of the country’s economy is based. In addition, there was the question of military bases that the Russians would like to set up in Belarus to counter the Americans: a prospect that Lukashenko finds disagreeable. Finally, there is Russian pressure to implement the federating project signed by the two countries several years earlier, which, due to Lukashenko’s resistance, has so far remained on paper. To these issues can be added some clumsy accusations denouncing the penetration of Russian soldiers into the territory of Belarus. Eleven days before the vote the Belarusian KGB arrested 33 Russian mercenaries employed by the private company Wagner – probably in transit to some theater of war in the Middle East – accusing them of having come to Minsk to sow chaos during the presidential elections. The Kremlin, irritated, felt that it was a Lukashenko maneuver to obtain the support of Western governments for his re-election through an anti-Russian campaign, based on

17.Ibid. GIOVANNI SALE, SJ

the defense of national sovereignty.18 At this point Moscow lost the little trust it had in the old president. However, it preferred not to reach an open confrontation, not to complicate the situation, which was already difficult and intricate.19

Putin’s strategy and EU inactivity For Moscow, the Belarusian dispute is delicate and demanding. The Kremlin is aware that it must somehow intervene in the situation that is stirring up the “allied” country, for two main reasons: to prevent it from moving away from Russian influence and closer to the European Union (as Poland and Lithuania would like), and to keep at its side one of the few countries remaining faithful to the Pan-Russian spirit. For his part, Putin has assured Lukashenko of his full willingness to 66 intervene if the situation deteriorates. In this regard, he recalled that according to the CSTO, Russia would be obliged to offer its military aid if asked.20 Lukashenko did ask, but the Russian leader replied that for the moment he does not believe that the conditions for intervention are met.21 At the same time,

18.See D. Trenin, “Quattro opzioni di Mosca”, in Internazionale, August 21, 2020, 18. 19.It should be noted that the economy of Belarus is supported by economic exchanges with Russia. Imports of crude oil and natural gas are the main costs for the Slavic country, which buys at very low prices and then transforms and resells the product with large profit margins (up to 13 billion dollars for oil). Minsk exports 41.5% of its products to Russia for 13.7 billion dollars and imports Russian goods for 22 billion, or 55.7% of total imports. The two economies have almost managed to merge with 2,500 joint ventures. Relations between the two countries are also very close in the military field. They have the air defense system in common, as well as a large part of the military ground contingents. Common military exercises are also frequent. [...] In addition to language, the two countries also share the Orthodox faith. Until a few months ago, the Belarusian Orthodox Church was led by Exarch Pavel, of Russian nationality and appointed by Patriarch Kirill. Recently, also due to internal controversies, he was replaced by Metropolitan Venjamin of Belarusian nationality and conservative orientation. There are about 300,000 local Catholics, mostly Polish, and many of them sympathize with the protesters. See O. Moscatelli - M. De Bonis, “La Bielorussia in bilico...”, op. cit., 269. 20.See “L’annuncio di Putin: pronti a inviare truppe in Bielorussia”, in Corriere della Sera, August 28, 2020. 21.See F. Sforza, “Bielorussia, Putin telefona a Conte: ‘L’Europa non deve intervenire’, in La Stampa, August 27, 2020. THE WHITE-RED REVOLUTION IN BELARUS

Putin urged the Belarusian authorities to take into account the demands of the people and denounced possible “foreign pressure” in order to precipitate the events. In addition, he left it to Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov to comment on the elections of August 9, calling them “imperfect,” although he later recognized their formal validity. On September 14, 2020, Lukashenko met with Putin in Sochi for the first time after the popular protests. There, he accused the opposition of being manipulated by the U.S. and the West, while, as we have seen, until recently he had said that it was the Russians who were destabilizing the country. The meeting took place without delegations: the two presidents spoke for four hours alone. The only concrete result was the loan offered by Putin to help the country, which is in great 67 economic difficulty, not least because of Covid-19.22 After the meeting Putin reiterated his support for the constitutional reform promised by the Belarusian president. The latter stated that he is willing to call new elections once the reform is implemented. The response of the opposition to this proposal was clear: first of all, the president must leave office. It has also been suggested that Lukashenko, in order not to give in to the demonstrators, would hand the country over to the Russians. But Putin would hardly accept such an offer. Protests for democracy would take on the character of a national struggle to defend the independence of the country, and Russia “could forget the favor it enjoys among the majority of Belarusians. Among ordinary citizens, hatred for Lukashenko is stronger than sympathy for Russia.”23 In any case, the international community would never accept a negotiating agreement that visibly limits Belarusian sovereignty and does not take into account the will of the majority of the people.

22.The way Lukashenko managed the Covid-19 epidemic in Belarus is one of the main reasons for the protests. From the very beginning he belittled the danger of the pandemic, considering it a “social psychosis,” ridiculing those who fell ill, considering them weak and useless individuals. 23.A. Shaibmen, “Una mela avvelenata per la Russia”, in Internazionale, September 18, 2020, 44. GIOVANNI SALE, SJ

For Moscow, the ideal solution at this time would be a bloodless stabilization by Lukashenko, “followed by a coordinated transition with the Kremlin to a less autocratic power system.”24 Or it would be even better if the Belarusian leader discreetly left the scene, especially since he – after the accusations made against Russia during the election campaign – no longer enjoys Putin’s esteem and trust. For the moment, the old president is doing everything to avoid such a solution. On the one hand, he is waiting for the street protests to diminish so that he can stabilize the country by force; on the other hand, he has had the opposition leaders arrested, thus preventing Moscow, or other political intermediaries, from finding valid interlocutors for a negotiated solution to the current crisis. The fact is that Lukashenko is in the sunset of his long reign, even if, for the 68 moment, we do not see the emergence of a new political class, ready to take the reins of power with a firm grasp. The European Union, beset by internal divisions, has kept a rather low profile and an ambiguous attitude in the Belarusian affair.25 On August 19, at the end of a videoconference dedicated to Belarus, European Council President Charles Michel expressed solidarity with the demonstrators, declaring that he did not recognize the outcome of the presidential elections and that the Union is ready to introduce “targeted sanctions” against those responsible “for the violence on demonstrators, repression and falsification of the elections, which were neither fair nor free and did not meet international standards.”26 The countries of the Union, after a night of tense talks between October 1 and 2, were able to approve the sanctions against Belarus. This decision, in fact, was opposed by Cyprus, which strongly

24.Ibid., 45. 25.Cf. P. Smolar, “Le dilemme européen face à la crise biélorusse”, in Le Monde, August 27, 2020; B. H. Levy, “Ora l’Europa aiuti questa nuova rivoluzione di velluto”, in la Repubblica, August 22, 2020. 26.G. Colorusso, “Bielorussia, l’Ue annuncia sanzioni. ‘Non riconosciamo l’esito del voto’”, in la Repubblica, August 20, 2020. Chancellor Merkel said that the European Union “wants to support civil society, but for us it is clear that Belarus must find its own way [...] and there must be no intervention from outside.” The clarification was addressed not only to European countries, but in particular to Russia. THE WHITE-RED REVOLUTION IN BELARUS demanded the adoption of sanctions against Turkey (accused of expanding beyond its territorial waters in the Mediterranean and violating the rights of other states). The solution was found by sending Erdoğan an “ultimatum” inviting him to continue talks with the parties involved in the crisis, and with the promise – by the Union – to pay “new money” to Turkey for the 4 million refugees it is hosting in its territory. To implement this project, the EU will “use all the instruments and options at its disposal.”27 This is a clear reference to possible sanctions. As for Belarus, the 27 decided to sanction “high-ranking” personalities accused of electoral fraud and repression against political opponents and unarmed protesters. The measure, for the moment, has not affected the president, but only the home affairs minister and other members of the executive, as well as 69 those responsible for security and the armed forces. The U.S. has also announced that it is taking a series of measures that are “coordinated” with those adopted by the European Union.28 Pope Francis has also spoken on the matter. During the Angelus of August 16, he said he was following closely the post- election situation in Belarus and called for dialogue between the parties, hoping for “the rejection [by all] of violence and respect for justice and the law.”29 A negotiated settlement of the current crisis seems, realistically, the only way forward, in order to avoid unnecessary bloodshed.

27.A. D’Argento, “Superato il nodo sulla Turchia. L’Ue approva le sanzioni contro il regime bielorusso”, in la Repubblica, October 3, 2020. 28.Some members of the Union, such as Poland and the Baltic countries, during the long discussion, insisted on applying sanctions to President Lukashenko as well. Some countries, such as Germany and Italy, opposed this solution in order not to compromise the remaining possibilities of a negotiated solution to the crisis. On October 12, the 27 foreign ministers stated that the Union intends to adopt new sanctions “against high-ranking entities and officials” of the Belarusian regime, including this time also the president (accused of lack of democratic legitimacy), if the situation does not improve and the violence against demonstrators continues. See A. D’Argento, “Sanzioni alla Russia. L’Europa unita sul caso Navalnyi”, in la Repubblica, October 13, 2020. 29.Francis, Angelus of August 16, 2020, in www.vatican.va Dante and the Jesuits

Giandomenico Mucci, SJ

In 1965, during the celebrations for the seventh centenary of Dante’s birth, our magazine published two articles aimed at dispelling a popular misconception among Italians about 1 the attitude of the Jesuits toward the Divine Comedy. This 70 misconception arose thanks to a critique of the poem by a famous 18th-century Jesuit scholar and literary critic, Saverio Bettinelli. Since then there has been no lack of attention given to his unhappy critique and to those who were quick to repeat Bettinelli’s judgement. Thus, over the centuries, the opinion of one of its members has been attributed to the entire Society, as if the Jesuits had excommunicated the poet! In truth, in Jesuit schools Dante was not the most recommended of authors, a status attributed to the authors of classical antiquity. This was because the Jesuits only assigned a marginal place to the teaching of the Italian language in their academic programs. However, select groups of young people in those schools formed so-called “Academies,” whose members were allowed to read the Divine Comedy in a way that makes one think of future lecturae Dantis or Dante Readings.

An apologetic purpose It is also possible that the Jesuit masters may have hesitated to recommend Dante’s poem to their students as the very period when their schools and colleges flourished was also the century

La Civiltà Cattolica, En. Ed. Vol. 4, no. 12 art. 7, 1020: 10.32009/22072446.1220.7

1.See D. Mondrone, “Dante e i gesuiti”, in Civ. Catt. 1965 II 535-547; ID., “Gesuiti studiosi di Dante”, ibid. 1965 III 119-132. We have taken from these two articles the historical and literary news that we quote. DANTE AND THE JESUITS that witnessed the breakup of Western Christianity with criticism of the institute of the papacy across Europe. In this sense, the cantos of the great poem that clearly denounced the vices and weaknesses of some popes may not have seemed the healthiest nourishment for youthful minds. And so Saint Robert Bellarmine, who was one of the first Jesuit connoisseurs and admirers of Dante, initiated the study of the poet with an apologetic aim, distinguishing the value of Dante’s art and his perfect Catholic orthodoxy from the political bitterness, sometimes under the cover of a prophetic attitude, with which the poet passionately expressed the expectations of his political views in disagreement with the behavior of the popes on a purely historical level. Bellarmine was a precursor in interpreting Dante based exclusively on his poetic genius, 71 opening the way for those who would reject Dante as the enemy of the papacy and the Church, the Manichean or Kabbalist Dante, member of a secret sect that used esoteric language to cover the obvious meaning of words.2 So there is a double apologetic method: a defense of the poet, exalting the skill of his art, and a defense of the papacy, acquitting the poet from the accusation of denying the pope’s authority. This method has often been taken up by Jesuits in relation to Dante. For example, in Italy, in the 19th century, when liberal advocates for national unity made Dante their symbol and attributed to his anti-papal invective the meaning that suited the liberals in their struggle against the temporal and spiritual power of the popes, Fathers Giovanni Battista Pianciani and Carlo Maria Curci, founders of our magazine, who were familiar with the Divine Comedy, defended the orthodoxy of the poet. Curci prepared and published an edition of the poem for publication with a minimal commentary – pocket-sized, as one would say today – so that it could be read assiduously “on walks, in villas, or on travels.” As evidence of the love of the Jesuits for Dante and the acknowledgement of his importance, it is useful to remember two well-known Jesuits of the 17th century: Fathers Daniello

2.Cf. A. Valensin, Il cristianesimo di Dante, Roma, Paoline, 1964, 11f. GIANDOMENICO MUCCI, SJ

Bartoli, whom Leopardi called “the Dante of Italian prose,” who loved to cite Dante’s concepts and expressions, and Carlo D’Aquino, who translated almost the entire Comedy into Latin hexameters.3

Jesuit historians Among the Jesuit historians of literature we should first of all mention Francesco Saverio Quadrio, author in the 18th century of the seven volume work Della storia e della ragione d’ogni poesia, a kind of major encyclopedia of universal literature, which investigates the origin, nature and history of music, drama and poetry in all ages and in all countries. Dante is present in each of the large volumes, represented by his songs, ballads and 72 sonnets, but above all by the Divine Comedy, the history of its composition and its first versions. And then another Jesuit, Girolamo Tiraboschi, author of a monumental History of Italian Literature, highly esteemed by Foscolo and De Sanctis praised Dante as having “a vivacious imagination, an acute genius, with a style that is sublime, full of pathos and energy, that rises up and enraptures with picturesque images.” His writing is described as including “strong invective, tender and passionate passages, and other similar ornaments, so that this poem is highly wrought. These are abundant compensations for the defects and stains that are found therein.” And then there is Saverio Bettinelli’s infamous Lettere Virgiliane (Letters from Virgil). Vincenzo Monti, in an act of petty revenge, wrote of him: “Here lies Bettinelli who so much lived / to see forgotten what he wrote.” But he was prophet only in part. Because this 18th-century Jesuit is still remembered both for unhappily repudiating Dante and denying him his place in the history of literature with the renewal process within the Italian culture of his century, despite the intemperance, excesses and contradictions.4 As we have already said, Bettinelli’s position, hostile to Dante, expressed his personal conviction, not the position of the Society

3.Cf. P. Chiti, “Un insigne latinista ammiratore e traduttore di Dante. Il P. Carlo D’Aquino (1654-1737)”, in Civ. Catt. 1960 I 250-267. 4.See G. Natali, Il Settecento, Milan, Vallardi, 1929, 1157. DANTE AND THE JESUITS as such. In fact, as soon as Bettinelli had committed his literary misdeed, he was removed by his superiors from the office of professor and academic in the Collegio dei Nobili in Parma and was sent to direct courses of spiritual exercises at Casino near Verona. Some praise was given to Bettinelli by a few French Jesuits, because at that time in France Voltaire, a famous opponent of Dante and later equal to Lamartine, reigned. In Italy, the Letters from Virgil were appreciated by Cesarotti, Giovio and Verri. One understands the reason why. Among Dante’s admirers is another 18th-century Jesuit, the Venetian Andrea Rubbi, author of the 56 volumes of the Italian Parnassus, three of which contain the Divine Comedy, the biography and the list of the poet’s works and the comparison between him and Michelangelo. In the mid-19th century, Father 73 Valeriano Cardella, professor of literature at the College of Orvieto, published a small volume on the order of the canticles of the Comedy for the use of students, urging them to quench their thirst with the “profuse wisdom in that miracle of poetry.”

Jesuit commentators During the 19th and 20th centuries, commentators on the entire Comedy were never lacking in the Society. We present some of them as evidence of the interest that the Italian Jesuits brought to Dante, but not without first mentioning one of their illustrious predecessors in the 18th century: Father Pompeo Venturi, whose commentary on the poem by 1870 already had run into no less than 30 editions. The editorial history of this commentary was notably troubled, and we refer those who want to know more to Mondrone’s study. Here suffice it to say that the work of Venturi deserved the praise of Vico, and Croce recognized that the work of the Jesuit contains “precisely all the things that Vico praises and lacks all those he considers better ignored.”5 A century and a half after Venturi, Father Giovanni Cornoldi published his commentary on the Divine Comedy. These were the years in which Leo XIII was restoring Thomism in Catholic

5.B. Croce, “Il ‘Giudizio su Dante’ di G. B. Vico e il ‘Commento’ di Pompeo Venturi”, in La Critica 25 (1927) 407-410. GIANDOMENICO MUCCI, SJ

schools of philosophy and theology and, in this context, he established a Dante professorship in Rome. On the other side, with the clear intention of making the poem an instrument against the papacy, misinterpreting the sense of the poet’s invective, Freemasonry established a similar position at the “Sapienza” and offered it to Giosuè Carducci, who, despite being a Freemason, did not accept. He replied to the Grand Master of Freemasonry, Adriano Lemmi, who had invited him on behalf of Minister Bovio, that he disagreed with the purpose intended by the government because Dante was too obviously perfectly Catholic. Then, on the Catholic side, the need was felt to comment on the Comedy according to the authentic spirit of its great author. 74 The commitment was made by Cornoldi, one of the editors of Civiltà Cattolica, who, as a fervent Thomist, composed his commentary clarifying the philosophical, theological, historical, ethical, political and ascetic aspects of the poem, but perhaps spending too long on issues discussed by Dante’s exegetes, which made his work unsuitable for students as much as it was useful to Dante scholars, who did not fail to appreciate it. About 10 years later there was a commentary by Father Domenico Palmieri, a theologian of the Gregorian University, of non-Thomist philosophical orientation. In this three-volume commentary the author’s attention is not directly focused on Dante the poet but on his Catholicism, his Ghibellinism, other doctrinal questions and the great philosophical currents of the Middle Ages. This commentary immediately became a significant feature in the dialogue between Dante scholars, but it proved unsuitable for teaching. Among the scholars of Dante present in the 19th century at Civiltà Cattolica mention should be made of Fathers Carlo Piccirillo and Francesco Berardinelli, to whom we owe the Dante reviews regularly published in the magazine, and Father Tito Bottagisio who, working in the Vatican Archives on the Papal Registers, studied the relations of Boniface VIII with Celestine V, with Dante, with Florence and with Philip the Fair, with the aim of defending that pope against the attacks of Dante and, among his interpreters, of Scartazzini. DANTE AND THE JESUITS

In the 20th century there was one member of the college of writers at Civiltà Cattolica who was a distinguished Dante scholar. Father Giovanni Busnelli (1866-1944) is still known today among specialists. The most famous Dante scholars – Flamini, Zingarelli, Barbi, Vandelli, Grabmann, Parodi, Mandonnet, Pietrobono, D’Ovidio, Torraca, Porena – had him as a friend, a colleague and, when necessary, an adversary of their interpretations. Gifted with a great intellectual versatility in the field of literature, he particularly studied Foscolo, Leopardi and Manzoni, but his field of specialization was Dante, which he approached not so much as an exegete of poetry as from philological, philosophical and theological points of view: everything about Dante that was published in Italy and abroad was the object of his attention, of his fine criticism, his broad 75 cultural knowledge not only acknowledging the studies of others, but also making his own contributions. He was a regular contributor to La Civiltà Cattolica and the Giornale Dantesco. Busnelli touched on most of the topics discussed in his time by Dante scholars in his volumes and articles, which are sometimes equivalent to volumes in theme and size. But the work that occupied him most intensely and best revealed his exceptional preparation was the Convivio (The Banquet), which he commented on together with Giuseppe Vandelli. This work was published by Le Monnier in two volumes in 1934, with an introductory essay by Michele Barbi. A medieval didactic work full of speculative problems, the Convivio is, among Dante’s works, the one that his scholars felt most distant from their spirit and interests. Busnelli, who had already dedicated several occasional writings to it, showed an interest in it that was not perhaps inferior to that which he held for the Divine Comedy. He knew its sources and felt close to the world of the poet. Those who even today scroll through the dense columns that occupy at least two thirds of the two volumes of the commentary can see how much wealth of erudition and doctrine is condensed in them. The preparation of the critical text, on which the Jesuit had been working since 1925 in collaboration with Vandelli, can be followed through the copious papers of the two Dante scholars, which also remains GIANDOMENICO MUCCI, SJ

a document of the significant part played by Busnelli in the philological reconstruction of Dante’s text. We opened this article with Bettinelli, the Jesuit who three centuries ago, with his opinion on Dante, opened the door to the calumny of the alleged aversion of the Jesuits to the status and skill of the great Florentine. The well-known events that consumed the Society in the 18th century, with the combination of powerful enemies and weak friends, which led to the temporary extinction of the Jesuit Order, were the grounds on which these and other more serious calumnies took root and gained strength. Then, in time, they settled and grew in the collective unconscious, and from purely marginal and subjective episodes they were given the color and dress of 76 objective truths, as though incontrovertible and not subject to critical review, which would have brought them back to their very modest status. These pages, which refer to the Society in Italy and to the honor that it has not ceased to offer Dante, aim to testify, on this seventh centenary of the poet’s death, to the interest and veneration that the Jesuits, through the studies of its remarkable men, have expressed towards him who with his art illuminated the Church and the Catholic faith. Stan Swamy’s Arrest: The need for a prophetic Church

Stanislaus Alla, SJ

Stan Swamy (Stanislaus Lourduswamy) is an 83-year-old Indian Jesuit who has spent his life working for the integral development of the Adivasis1 in various parts of north India. A native of Tamil Nadu, he opted to serve the northern missions and joined the Jamshedpur Jesuit province. For nearly two 77 decades he has been at Ranchi, one of the epicenters of the life and the world of Adivasis, Catholics and non-Catholics alike. Belgian Jesuit missionaries who came to work in this area started giving legal advice and assistance to the Adivasis around 1880. They began to win land-related cases against the landlords in the local courts (this area was under direct British rule, like large parts of India), and thousands of Adivasis began to embrace Catholicism. Though less well known, the flourishing of this mission is comparable to that of St. Francis Xavier’s. Constant Livens (1856-1893), called the apostle of Chota Nagpur, worked in this area only for seven years before he succumbed to tuberculosis. The cause for his beatification has been opened. In what is known today as the field of “safeguarding land rights,” Jesuit missionaries played an important role in the enactment of the Chota Nagpur Tenancy Act (1908) and other similar measures across the country. In brief according to these “British” laws, Adivasis retain land ownership rights, and non- Adivasis are prohibited from owning or buying the land from them in the “scheduled areas” where the Adivasis are in a majority.

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1.“Adivasi” is the name of a minority indigenous tribe. It means “original dwellers” or “aboriginals.” However, “tribals” is used more commonly in India by the people and governments. STANISLAUS ALLA, SJ

These property laws have largely helped them to retain the land, and, though revised and diluted, these laws are still in force today. In this current age of privatization and multinational companies, both the federal government and corporate firms seek to change the property laws so that under the guise of development, the land of the Adivasis, rich in minerals and other natural resources, can be taken over. This long introduction is intended to help readers understand what Stan Swamy does and why he was arrested. Stan Swamy empowers the Adivasis, helps them assert their dignity and rights and inspires them to take action. He stands with them as they oppose the “developmental” processes that eventually would destroy their culture and life. 78 The arrest of Fr. Swamy Stan Swamy was arrested on October 8, 2020, by the National Investigation Agency (NIA is a powerful federal agency) at Bagaicha in Ranchi, a Jesuit research and training center dedicated to educating and empowering Adivasis, and since then he has been in the news in India and around the world. Global and local press covered the news, and several TV channels held discussions and debates on him. Condemning the arrest and calling for Fr. Stan’s release, many press releases were sent out: they include those issued by the Catholic Bishops Conference of India (CBCI), several States Bishops’ Councils, Jesuit offices and institutions, prominent politicians and intellectuals, and most recently, the UNHCR. Demonstrations were held all over India – they are still being held – they have been peaceful, and some of them were attended by large numbers in spite of Covid-19 fears and restrictions. Brandishing StandwithStan banners, the protesters (including laity, clergy and religious, archbishops and bishops, politicians and parliamentarians, scholars, rights’ activists, writers, poets, historians, Adivasis, and ordinary people) appealed for Stan’s immediate release. In spite of the fact that he has been cooperating with the investigating agencies, they took away his laptop and other documents earlier, and in July and August 2020, in five sessions, STAN SWAMY’S ARREST: THE NEED FOR A PROPHETIC CHURCH he was questioned for 15 hours. In spite of his advanced age and the ailments he struggles with, in spite of reminding them of the Covid-19 travel restrictions that are in force, NIA officers took Fr. Stan away on October 8 and flew him to Mumbai the next day. A special court ordered that he stay in custody until October 23. On October 22 his bail plea was rejected and his jail stay extended. He is in custody along with 15 other people also being investigated; these include human rights activists, lawyers, writers and journalists. The allegation is that they all have links to the Bhima- Koregaon incident. On January 1, 2018, a group of Dalits assembled there to celebrate their ancestors’ victory over persons of higher castes two hundred years ago. The celebration turned violent, resulting in a death and some injuries. The allegation 79 is that, directly or indirectly, these 16, through their writings or speeches and support, incited violence. Fr. Stan Swamy denied visiting Bhima-Koregaon, knowing of the event or supporting it in any way. Similarly, the others denied their involvement, and termed it a fabricated case to implicate them since they question the government policies. Another allegation is that, again, like the others, Fr. Stan has links with the Maoists, also known as Naxalites. This is an armed guerrilla group that promises to empower the poor by fighting inequalities and injustices by using force and violence. Some portray them as anti-nationals. Fr. Stan rejected the allegation and said that he has always upheld the Indian Constitution, worked to secure human and land rights for the Adivasis under the laws of the land, and when protesting, always used Gandhian non-violent means.

Fr. Stan’s work for the Adivasis What was Fr. Stan working for and why was he arrested? He offered an insight into his life and mission in an article titledDoes Raising Questions on the Rights of Adivasis make me a ‘Deshdrohi’?, 2 re-published in The Wire.in on October 9, 2020 : “Over the last two decades, I have identified myself with the Adivasi people and

2.Deshdrohi means anti-national. STANISLAUS ALLA, SJ

their struggle for a life of dignity and self-respect. As a writer, I have tried to analyze the different issues they face. In this process, I have clearly expressed my dissent over several policies and laws enacted by the government in the light of the Indian constitution. I have questioned the validity, legality and justice of several steps taken by the government and the ruling class.” Why do his actions make those in authority, who have power and wealth, uncomfortable? He shows how the Indian Constitution provides special status and privileges to Adivasis; he recalls the Supreme Court judgements that favor the cause of the Adivasis, and he files cases in the courts seeking the release of thousands of Adivasi youth who languish in jails for lack of support and legal help. Put simply, Fr. Stan Swamy defends the Adivasis and this 80 annoys the powerful, the landed, and the corporates. In a video message he released days before his arrest, he said that he was conscious of what he was doing, and the price he will have to pay for his stand: “What is happening to me is not something unique happening to me alone. It is a broader process that is taking place all over the country. We are all aware how prominent intellectuals, lawyers, writers, poets, activists, and student leaders are all put into jail just because they have expressed their dissent or raised questions about the ruling powers in India. So we are part of the process. In a way, I am happy to be part of this process because I am not a silent spectator but a part of it, part of the game and ready to pay the price, whatever it be.” Fr. Stan Swamy can be glad that many in India and abroad seek his release. At this juncture, is it fair to say that Indian Catholics are living fully conscious of this “Stan-moment” and that it is helping them find their prophetic voice? Historically, through its varied ministries and the stand it has taken when required, the Indian Catholic Church has stood for human dignity, human rights and for upholding Constitutional values. In that sense, Fr. Stan Swamy’s arrest and the Church’s response is not unique: yet, it is a very special moment since it comes at a time when India is going through unprecedented changes, STAN SWAMY’S ARREST: THE NEED FOR A PROPHETIC CHURCH at a time when the nation’s undisputed diversity and plurality are threatened, and, arguably, it finds itself at a crossroads where the very idea of India is at stake.3

The Church and its prophetic vocation The Church carries out its mission of proclaiming the Gospel and celebrating the Sacraments, but for many Indians the Church is identified with what it does through works of charity and service. Education, healthcare, and social services are usually admired and appreciated by most. However, public reaction will vary when the Church’s personnel, especially priests and religious, focus on activities that promote human dignity and human rights. Such activities can disturb the mindsets of those who uphold and perpetuate hierarchy and benefit from the unjust social structures. 81 Empowering the Adivasis, Dalits and others is risky, and Fr. Stan Swamy has been doing it for decades. In this situation the Catholic Church is called to find its prophetic voice. All Christians by vocation are called to be prophets. When they consciously grow as prophets, the Church can gladly recognize it as a kairos moment. It could rightly be argued that the example and mission of Fr. Stan has stirred up debate among many Catholics in India about the commitment and willingness of each baptized person to run risks with their lives in the name of faith in Jesus. In other words, if a section of Indian Catholics, especially some members of the clergy and the religious, begin to reflect and ask, “Why was I not there where Stan was?” or say “From now on I want to be where he was,” we can say that this Stan-moment has generated inspiring and thought-provoking theological and spiritual responses. While it is important to say “I-stand-with-Stan,” probably one needs more courage and spiritual stamina to say “I-am-Stan” or “I-shall-be-Stan.” Holding a poster with the former is certainly appreciated but moving to the latter needs deeper convictions and commitment, as well as willingness to take risks in life, much like Fr. Stan himself.

3.Cf. G. Sale, “Modi’s India: between Hindu traditionalism and coronavirus”, in laciviltacattolica.com/modis-india-between-hindu-traditionalism-and- coronavirus/ STANISLAUS ALLA, SJ

As I hear, read and speak to others, it is clear that Fr. Stan has stimulated a very significant debate among large sections of Catholics in the country. He has helped Catholics find their own voice. In light of Fr. Stan Swamy’s life and mission, discussion has begun to focus on three fronts: a) the people we serve, b) the collaborators we choose, and, c) the powers that we are destined to face and confront! Fr. Stan chose to serve the Adivasis, who are the “most oppressed among Indian people,” according to Harsh Mander. Stan did not seek potential converts among them. He brought Adivasis under one umbrella and helped them discover their God-given dignity and to claim their freedoms and rights. He wanted them to realize that God made us all for freedom and any chain that binds anyone needs to be broken. 82 Perhaps not everyone has Adivasis in their neighborhood or in their constituencies but one can always find those who are in similar situations. The commitment of Fr. Stan helps Catholics become conscious of such people and contexts, what keeps them there, and what needs to be done to free them. It also enables more Catholics to open their eyes to see what is happening in the country, and, what is happening to the country. The phenomenon is not entirely unknown but we need someone to point it out so that the picture is clearer. Fr. Stan spoke of the “processes” that are attempting to re-shape India, relying on a blue-print that significantly differs from what Gandhi, Nehru, Patel, and Tagore had in mind, and what Ambedkar and other drafters of the Constitution of India had envisaged. One needs stronger faith and hope than ever to believe that God is greater and more powerful than the apparently dark and powerful forces that encircle the country now, and that surely, people’s collective will and imagination will prevail. Let us recall Gandhi’s iconic glasses at this time. Along with their fellow Indians, Catholics can consciously wear these glasses. The Power of Forgiveness Colum McCann’s book ‘Apeirogon’

Marc Rastoin, SJ

For decades now the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has been in the news and on our minds. It is certainly not the most harrowing conflict that humanity has known since the end of the Second World War, nor is it the most deadly or atrocious. Nevertheless, countless pages of geopolitical reflection and 83 narrative have been written about it. Meanwhile, it has evolved, year after year, as national identities, as well as narratives built around conflicts, keep changing over time. To underline only the most evident aspect of this conflict, the religious dimension was hardly present in either the first Zionist movement or the Palestinian nationalist organizations of the 1960s or 1970s. And now an Irish author, Colum McCann, has written a book that approaches it from an original perspective and looks at the conflict in depth.1 The book has an enigmatic title, Apeirogon, a term that indicates a geometric figure with an infinite number of sides. It is neither a novel nor a work of fiction, neither a work of history nor an academic essay; it does not claim to offer solutions or explanations. It claims nothing: this is its strength.

Two wounded fathers What, then, is the intent of this book? The author spent months meeting two men at length. One is Bassam Aramin, a Palestinian; the other is Rami Elhanan, an Israeli. What do they have in common? Something very simple and at

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1.See C. McCann, Apeirogon, A Novel, London, Bloomsbury, 2020. MARC RASTOIN, SJ

the same time very painful: both of them have lost a daughter because of “others.” Rami and his wife had a 13-year-old daughter, Smadar, who was killed in a suicide attack in Jerusalem. Ten years later, Bassam and his wife also lost a much-loved daughter, Abir: the rubber bullet from an Israeli soldier struck her in the back of her head and took her life. Two intelligent, happy girls, full of life, the joy of their families. How to live on after these events? How not to give in to the desire for deadly revenge? Or to an endless despair while the conflict continues and it seems there is no glimpse of a solution to stop other children from suffering the same fate year after year? McCann listened to these two men and their families. With extreme sensitivity and an incredibly precise choice of words, 84 he gives universal resonance to their pain and their lives. The two fathers became friends by collaborating in an association that brings together the parents of the victims of the violence of this conflict, the Parents Circle. McCann has made up neither their meeting nor their words. He was struck by their story and wanted, with their consent, to make it into a “novel.” It is a novel, because he himself added elements, reconstructed or imagined certain thoughts, but with a keen desire to remain faithful to their voices. There was nothing to predispose Rami and Bassam to enter this path. Bassam is a Palestinian fighter who spent a long time in an Israeli prison. He wanted to learn, to discover the truth of the Shoah, the history of the Israeli people, the law. He does not resign himself to the occupation. On the other hand, Rami lived like many Israelis, not thinking at all, or only rarely, about the Palestinians, as if they were very far away. The drama that affected them both men - and still affects them - challenged them in their deepest convictions about their people and themselves. In a certain sense Bassam and Rami are small and anonymous, but they refuse to do nothing, to let the unjust deaths of their beloved daughters be forgotten. They think that starting to talk, to share their pain, to try to understand the other with deep empathy is the only possible way, the only way to peace. “Bassam and Rami gradually came to understand that they would use THE POWER OF FORGIVENESS: COLUM MCCANN’S BOOK ‘APEIROGON’ the force of their grief as a weapon.”2 They have become a new type of activist, risking the misunderstanding and rejection of their respective communities.

Talking for a living Almost imperceptibly, this book makes us penetrate the mindset of Israelis and Palestinians, and it recounts many admirable and honest anecdotes. For Bassam the root of all evil is the reality of the Occupation, with its sequel of humiliations: “For him everything still came back round to the Occupation. It was a common enemy. It was destroying both sides. He didn’t hate Jews, he said, he didn’t hate Israel. What he hated was being occupied, the humiliation of it, the strangulation, the daily degradation, the abasement.”3 85 Rami became aware of this: “You see, I was forty-seven, forty-eight years old at that time, and I had to learn to admit it was the first time in my life, to that point - I can say this now, I could never even think it then - it was the first time that I’d met Palestinians as human beings.”4 The frankness of both fathers is impressive. The structure of the book is quite original, although it has become more frequent in modern literature, as the narrative is not linear, but makes frequent use of flashbacks. The paragraphs are numbered, and their length varies from one or two lines to several pages. Our only reservation concerns certain inclusions that the author has inserted here and there and that mention characters or events that have nothing to do with the story of Bassam and Rami. For example, he gives us the last menu of the meal that President Mitterrand wanted to eat before his death. It is difficult to understand what positive contribution this brings to the story. But this is a minor criticism, since it is the inner journey of these two men that illuminates the work.

2.Ibid., par. 160. 3.Ibid., par. 277. 4.Ibid., par. 500. MARC RASTOIN, SJ

What perhaps most strikes a Christian reader is to see to what extent the thoughts of these two men deeply align with the Gospel insights into the scope of speech and forgiveness. “It will not be over until we talk.”5 Without the term being mentioned, there is sometimes a hint of the Beatitudes. For example, when Rami says, “We had to learn to use the force of our humanity. To be violently nonviolent. To bow our heads to the things we need to tell one another. That is not soft, that’s not weak, on the contrary, it’s human.”6 No reader can come away indifferent from such a book, from this encounter with two men that we come to have the impression of knowing well. For this reason, a tribute must be paid to Colum McCann.

86

5.Ibid., par. 247. 6.Ibid., par. 500. In memory of Fr. Giandomenico Mucci, SJ (1938-2020)

La Civiltà Cattolica

Father Giandomenico Mucci, an emeritus writer of our magazine, died in Rome on November 23, 2020. He was born in Benevento on December 2, 1938, and having completed high school, went to university to study chemistry, before entering the Society of Jesus on September 4, 1958. After completing 87 the usual training as a Jesuit, he was ordained priest in Naples on June 29, 1968. On July 2, 1975, he made his solemn profession in the Society. He obtained a doctorate in theology and taught, first at the Regional Seminary of Benevento, then at the Theological Faculty in Naples and, for a very short time, at the Gregorian University. In 1984 he transferred to La Civiltà Cattolica to be a writer. For several years he worked on the theology of the Church, later and longer on the relationship between Church and contemporary culture and, less regularly, on the history of Ignatian spirituality. He edited and had published several books on these three areas. He was passionate about his pastoral ministry and was spiritual director to many people of every state and condition, who chose him as their advisor and guide. For more than 30 years he served the Holy See as a spiritual father at the Pontifical Ecclesiastical Academy. We commend him to the prayers of our readers and those who knew him.

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That was the concise and unembellished obituary he himself composed and left us, and we respectfully publish it in his dear memory.

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However, in gratitude for his many years of service to our journal, and moved by affection and esteem, let us add a few more words about this confrere. In fact, he wrote over 360 articles for La Civiltà Cattolica, not counting numerous reviews. Browsing through the titles gives an idea of the depth of his culture and the breadth of his reading. He had his own style, which was clear and devoid of any verbosity and redundancy, leading the reader directly to the core of the issues addressed; his reasoning was stringent and viewpoints precise. Fr. Mucci moved in the current of Christian thought and was thoroughly imbued with the teaching of the Church’s Magisterium, and he was always very attentive to developments in contemporary culture pertinent to a person of faith. He entered into dialogue with respect and engaged in discussion with authoritative lay 88 thinkers in a confident manner. It is no coincidence that Fr. Giandomenico, long before he became a member of our College of Writers, was interested in the founder of La Civiltà Cattolica, Fr. Carlo Maria Curci. He was certainly one of the most eminent experts on him, not only from the historical and political point of view, but even more from the perspective of his theological thought and his participation – as a believer and priest – in the travails of the Church in his time, the crucial period of the waning of the pope’s temporal power. We cannot forget the commitment with which Fr. Mucci wanted to visit the tomb of Fr. Curci in Florence. He managed to obtain the transfer of his remains – accompanying them personally – to the resting place of members of the Society of Jesus at Campo Verano in Rome. By this act of Christian piety he wanted to testify explicitly that Fr. Curci before his death had been officially readmitted to the Order, from which for many years he had to live separated – while remaining an exemplary priest – as a result of his critical positions on temporal power, positions that today everyone recognizes as enlightened, but which were not accepted then by the ecclesiastical authority. Whoever was a close friend of Fr. Mucci knew that the deepest fibers of his heart vibrated in a particular way when he discussed the world of spirituality. He often recalled with gratitude Fr. Ugo De Mielesi, who from the early years of his religious formation, IN MEMORY OF FR. GIANDOMENICO MUCCI, SJ (1938-2020) in Gallarate, had guided him to reading the great classics of spirituality, such as the writings of Teresa of Jesus and John of the Cross and, among the Jesuits, those of the “mystic” Ignatius of Loyola, Louis Lallemant, Jean-Pierre de Caussade and others. The lives of the saints also fascinated him; not for nothing were a significant number of his articles dedicated to hagiographic profiles, continuing in this way, albeit in a different style, the beautiful tradition cultivated in the past in our journal with passion and enthusiasm by Fr. Domenico Mondrone.

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Fr. Mucci thus drew upon the most genuine sources, rich spiritual doctrine and a spirit of discernment that over the 89 years would make him an appreciated guide, sought and loved by many people “of every state and condition” – as he rightly recalled – that is, from the most humble to the highest in civil or ecclesial rank. He was a guide who was capable – something very rare today – of leading with a heart full of charity, but was also firm and wise and, if necessary, demanding. He travelled on a road nourished by a life of prayer, which is not content with the plains but knows how to ascend, accompanied by grace, to the heights of the Spirit. It is not for nothing that generations of students at the Pontifical Ecclesiastical Academy, today scattered throughout the world in the diplomatic service of the Holy See and often called to positions of great responsibility, continued to remain in contact with him for a long time and to consider him a spiritual point of reference on their journey. Popes have often emphasized how clerics called to the service of the Holy See must be free from any spirit of careerism and ambition, in order to carry out their work truly as a “service,” motivated by faith, with an apostolic and priestly soul, in a spirit of faithful love for the Church and the Holy Father. We think that Fr. Giandomenico, carrying out the task of spiritual father with wisdom and absolute discretion for decades, made an eminent contribution to this end, by means of his personal example. LA CIVILTÀ CATTOLICA

His willingness to listen to the many who sought him out for advice and comfort was admirable. Personal encounters, as well as listening on the telephone, occupied most of his days, from morning to night. Those who had the gift of his friendship and were able to enjoy his pleasant conversation were impressed by the depth of his knowledge and love for the great authors of Italian literature, Dante and Manzoni above all, who for their inspired and faith-imbued art continued to be among his favorite works until the last moments of his life. He also had an enduring affection for the greats of German literature, to which he had been introduced in his youth, leaving him with a deep knowledge of the language, for which he always remained grateful to a teacher of distant years. But it was 90 music above all that gave him the joy of spiritual elevation: Bach and Mozart were his favorite composers, but the music of many others also accompanied him during his time spent studying and writing.

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The main stages of Fr. Mucci’s life, as he himself mentioned above, took place in his native Benevento, to which he always remained very attached as his true “home,” then later Naples, and finally Rome. But no less important was his relationship with the land of Abruzzo. For his regency during his religious formation, he was sent to Pescara, and since then his love of and apostolic service to that region never ceased. On the contrary, they grew over the decades. He was generously offered hospitality by the Dominican Sisters in Francavilla al Mare (Ch), in their home for young mothers. This truly became his favorite place to live during the summer months and to return to frequently at other times of the year. He saw it as a familiar and simple place from where he could carry out that priestly and pastoral ministry he loved with all his heart. How many baptisms celebrated! Also, how much affection for the many Muslim children! He was also able to cultivate a wide network of conversations and friendships, IN MEMORY OF FR. GIANDOMENICO MUCCI, SJ (1938-2020) which many priests and bishops of the region enjoyed with gratitude. For this reason he wished to be buried in Abruzzo, in Pescara, in the cemetery of Porta Nuova.

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In conclusion, we must thank the truly generous people who provided loving attention and competent, patient medical care to Fr. Mucci for so many years. In fact, his poor health meant he required quite a lot of care, which had to be increased as his physical suffering grew in recent times. To Prof. Raffaele Manna, Dr. Giovanna Masci, the Dominican Sisters and all those who cared for him with affection and sensitivity, his great gratitude and ours also. 91 * * *

The Holy Father sent a message of condolence to the Superior General of the Society of Jesus, Fr. Arturo Sosa, which was read during the celebration of Fr. Mucci’s funeral on Thursday, November 26 at the church of Santo Spirito in Sassia, Rome. We report it in its entirety.

I join with prayer in the memory of Father Giandomenico Mucci, SJ, and I express my closeness to those who mourn his earthly passing. In remembering him, I feel a strong desire to thank the Lord for this faithful and discreet servant who has given glory to God both through his theological and literary talent, manifested in particular in the numerous articles published in La Civiltà Cattolica, and through his full dedication to spiritual accompaniment. Father Mucci walked humbly along the path traced by the Exercises of St. Ignatius, seizing, in the spirit of Father Louis Lallemant, the call to seek union with God, in thinking and acting, through an emotional prayer centered on grace and passivity toward the mysterious work of the Holy Spirit, who purifies the heart. LA CIVILTÀ CATTOLICA

Thus, escaping worldliness and living with simplicity, he was a witness and spiritual guide for many, especially for the priests whom he accompanied at the Pontifical Ecclesiastical Academy over the course of thirty years and also later, a humble and appreciated point of reference in Rome and at the Pontifical Representations. Many found in him a father who, with sensitivity and delicacy, never tired of carrying in his heart and prayer those who relied on him. This genuine and caring availability gave a touch of tenderness to his rigorous laboriousness and the vast knowledge that characterized him. These were never ends in themselves, but dedicated to the service of the Church and people, as is right for those who know that “it is not the abundance of knowledge that satiates and satisfies the soul, but the feeling and tasting of 92 things internally” (Saint Ignatius of Loyola, Spiritual Exercises, 2nd annotation). In commending to the Father the soul of this dear Brother, I hope that his example and his teachings will continue to bear fruit. On those who cherish his precious memory and on those who participate in the funeral liturgies, I impart the Apostolic Blessing.

Rome, St. John Lateran, November 26, 2020. Francis