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15 January 2020 Monthly Year 4

Live Your Faith from The Perspective of the End

Urban Life and Citizenship: The Future of Freedom .01 o Each Couple is like a Garden: A Biblical Perspective

Human Trafficking and the Dignity of

OLUME 4, N 4, OLUME Work V ‘Source of Peace’ The Turkish 2020 2020 Operation against the Syrian Kurds

Inculturation in Africa: Challenges and Prospects

From the Amazon River to the Tiber: Notes from a Special Synod

From Darkness to Light: ‘Ghosteen’ a new album from Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds

CONTENTS 0120

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. Francesco Occhetta, SJ, Giovanni Sale, SJ Claudio Zonta, SJ Title: La Civiltà Cattolica, English Edition Federico Lombardi, SJ

ISSN: 2207-2446 Emeritus editors Virgilio Fantuzzi, SJ ISBN: Giandomenico Mucci, SJ 978-988-79390-9-2 (ebook) GianPaolo Salvini, SJ 978-988-79391-0-8 (kindle)

Published in Hong Kong by Contributors UCAN Services Ltd. George Ruyssen, SJ (Belgium) Fernando de la Iglesia Viguiristi, SJ (Spain) P.O. Box 69626, Kwun Tong, Drew Christiansen, SJ (USA) Hong Kong Andrea Vicini, SJ (USA) Phone: +852 2727 2018 David Neuhaus, SJ (Israel) Fax: +852 2772 7656 www.ucanews.org Camillo Ripamonti, SJ (Italy) Vladimir Pachkow, SJ (Russia) Publishers: Michael Kelly, SJ and Arturo Peraza, SJ (Venezuela) Robert Barber Bert Daelemans, SJ (Belgium) Production Manager: Thomas Reese, SJ (USA) Grithanai Napasrapiwong Paul Soukup, SJ (USA) Friedhelm Mennekes, SJ (Germany) Marcel Uwineza, SJ (Rwanda) Marc Rastoin, SJ (France) Joseph You Guo Jiang, SJ (China) Luke Hansen, SJ (USA) CONTENTS 0120

15 January 2020 Monthly Year 4

1 Live Your Faith from The Perspective of the End Marc Rastoin, SJ

15 Urban Life and Citizenship: The Future of Freedom Juan Antonio Guerrero, SJ

28 Each Couple is like a Garden: A Biblical Perspective Jean-Pierre Sonnet, SJ

40 Human Trafficking and the Dignity of Work Brett O’Neill, SJ - Andrea Vicini, SJ

53 ‘Source of Peace’ The Turkish Operation against the Syrian Kurds Giovanni Sale, SJ

66 Inculturation in Africa: Challenges and Prospects Marcel Uwineza, SJ

75 From the Amazon River to the Tiber: Notes from a Special Synod Victor Codina, SJ

82 From Darkness to Light: ‘Ghosteen’ a new album from Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds Claudio Zonta, SJ LCC 0220: FEBRUARY

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Marc Rastoin, SJ

The seriousness of the ecological crisis that the planet is experiencing stimulates the creativity of authors and screenwriters, and pushes our thinkers and philosophers to decisively address the issues it raises. There is nothing new about the prospect of a probable end of humanity at a more or less 1 distant moment in time. It will be remembered that the danger associated with the atomic bomb aroused a deep collective fear, especially in the 1960s. While this fear has not yet completely disappeared, it has nevertheless been replaced by the prospect of a much slower but also more certain end. Yet the anxieties that this perspective provokes do not have a lesser impact on the collective psyche. How can we continue to hope in the future of humanity? Is it reasonable to hope for decisive action by political leaders and for the practical effectiveness of a collective and global awareness of the changes needed? Will humanity be capable of a profound conversion of its ways of life? What role can the Christian faith play in the future? How can the hope that this faith has always brought, even in times of catastrophe and great desolation, be translated into the concrete life of those who profess it?

‘First Reformed - Creation at Risk’ We would like to give some elements of a response by considering a film and a book. The film is First Reformed - Creation at Risk and was released in the United States in 2017. The book is Le Mal qui vient (The Evil That is Coming) and

La Civiltà Cattolica, En. Ed. Vol. 4, no. 01 art. 1, 0120: 10.32009/22072446.2001.1 MARC RASTOIN, SJ

was published in France in 2018. Even if their authors come from very different cultural and intellectual contexts, they still share common questions, in particular about the consequences of a birthrate in a world whose horizon seems to be becoming increasingly dark. In fact, a form of radical Malthusianism in ecological and ethical guises is spreading among Western urban youth, and those who believe there is a need to give a response that is both reasonable and evangelical. Paul Schrader, the director of First Reformed - Creation at Risk, is well known in the United States for writing the script for Taxi Driver (1976). Although he is essentially a screenwriter, since 1978 he has also worked as a director. First Reformed - Creation at Risk is his 22nd film. Schrader 2 is also known for having published in 1972 a work that was appreciated by film critics: Transcendental Style in Cinema: Ozu, Bresson, Dreyer. In this latest film, Schrader reveals his taste for a cinema that could be defined as “metaphysical.” As an adult he has distanced himself from the rigid Calvinist tradition of his childhood, while continuing to call himself a Christian. By his own admission, First Reformed - Creation at Risk is a kind of manifesto of his cinematic principles. The film has received numerous awards, as well as being nominated in 2018 for the Oscar for best screenplay. It is explicitly inspired by two famous films: Robert Bresson’s 1951 Diary of a Country Priest and Ingmar Bergman’s 1963 Winter Light. Both films are deeply spiritual Christian dramas. Inthe first of these two films, obviously very close to the novel by Georges Bernanos, Schrader retains the idea of a tormented priest who keeps a spiritual diary. The main character in Schrader’s film is not Catholic, but he reads some Catholic writers, such as Thomas Merton, lives a life of profound loneliness and regularly wears the cassock. Like the character of Bernanos, he is very sick but is reluctant to take serious care of himself. Of course, it would be easy to consider him prey to depression, but this would risk too hastily excluding, or at least minimizing, the properly spiritual dimension of his inner drama. LIVE YOUR FAITH FROM THE PERSPECTIVE OF THE END

This character embodies, one might say, the suffering dimension of Christianity. One day he observes sharply: “How easily those who have never prayed speak of prayer.” Like the monk Anatoly from Pavel Louguine’s film The Island, he lives prayer with intensity and coherence. Every Sunday, in front of a very small congregation, he ascends to the pulpit as if he were going over the top.

Resist in the faith Schrader’s film draws several interesting elements from Ingmar Bergman’s screenplay. In the Swedish director’s film, a couple experience a moment of trial. The man is extremely anxious about the existence of Chinese nuclear weapons and the prospect of the destruction of humanity. Is it still worth 3 living and having children with such a threat looming on the horizon? In Schrader’s screenplay, on the other hand, it is the radical ecological crisis, the ineluctable nature of global warming and its socio-political consequences that puts the young husband, William, into crisis, prompting him to refuse to welcome a new child. His young pregnant wife is a believer and turns to Pastor Toller – the name is obviously not chosen by chance, being a clear allusion to the medieval mystic John Tauler (1300-61) and the importance he attached to the theology of the cross – hoping that he will be able to help her husband out of depression. Refusing to bow to contemporary cinematic norms, the film is a wonderful tribute to the filmmakers admired by this writer/director. Without being afraid of silence, of the austerity of a meditative temporal pause, this film gives viewers time to reflect, refusing to offer all the answers. In a film that is superbly written and magnificently interpreted, Schrader offers a glimpse into the drama of faith that confronts the sins of humanity and reflects on the resources available to it to oppose despair. Faced with the gravity of the situation, “the only rational answer is despair,” cries Pastor Toller, who asks himself: “Can God forgive us?” As the critic Kevin Lincoln writes: “Few modern films take spirituality with as much seriousness and attention as MARC RASTOIN, SJ

First Reformed - Creation at Risk, and even fewer try to achieve one of the great goals of art: to express the inexpressible, to make the light shine where otherwise there would be only darkness.”1 The film also denounces the links between certain megachurches in the United States and big industry, the source of pollution, and how a certain theology can justify the lack of an ecological commitment on the pretext that in the end everything will be fine. The way in which a moment of grace comes to enlighten existence is rendered in an extremely poetic and eloquent way. Ultimately, Schrader’s final answer is that, whatever the darkness we face, only love justifies life and gives meaning to existence. A Christian believer can only agree with this statement. 4 Accepting children? It is no surprise that procreation is the issue at the heart of William’s moral dilemma and suddenly makes Toller think. In fact, in the current context of the planet, the question of population arises acutely. And there are numerous voices, mainly in the Western world, that speak in favor of a new Malthusianism. Some radio broadcasts give the floor to young people who say they have decided not to have children.2 Even though half of the world’s countries have a fertility rate of less than two and the issue of an aging population imposes itself as a major public health policy issue (and not only in China, Japan and Europe), there are people who urge us to refrain completely from having children. It is striking that, although it is in Africa that the greatest population growth takes place, it is in Europe and North America that they want to see the population refrain from having children. They think this despite the fact that maintaining a minimum fertility rate in already elderly populations affected by important reductions in their number seems to be

1.K. Lincoln, “Let’s Talk about the Ending of ‘First Reformed’” in Vulture, June 5, 2018. 2.Cf. this very informative 30-minute program on a major public radio station: www.franceinter.fr/emissions/le-telephone-sonne/le-telephone-sonne- 13-mai-2019 LIVE YOUR FAITH FROM THE PERSPECTIVE OF THE END an objective that is considered not only politically rational, but also morally legitimate. This is joined with a determination not to oppose an immigration that, induced by the economic and climatic crises of the countries of origin, has the tendency to continue, but on the contrary to favor a virtuous process of cultural integration. Asking these people to stop having children does not seem reasonable. It will not facilitate the reception of migrants, who wish, for various reasons, to escape from war or dictatorship, but also increase opportunities for their families and children. On the contrary! If we take the example of Italy, one of the oldest and most Malthusian country in the world, the falling birthrate produces clearly negative effects. When the writer Francesca Melandri 5 was asked in Paris what she thought of her country in general, she replied: “The real underlying problem is demographic. People are old. There are few children, few young people, and this creates a certain mentality. It is something that you see in politics, in the way you see the rest of the world: you are afraid. The political crisis, the lack of prospects has to do with this aging.”3 The salvation of humanity cannot be achieved in the first place through the self-annihilation of humanity itself. Instead of reducing the number of human beings, the way of life of those same people must be transformed. The economist Sandrine Paillard states: “The number of human beings in excess is less important than their ways of living, organizing and producing.”4 This is all the more true when one realizes that the process of reducing the growth of the human population is largely underway. Once the African population also enters the demographic transition – and at this point it is only a question

3.C. Devarrieux, “Qu’est-ce-que la patrie et la paternité? Entretien avec Francesca Melandri” in Libération, June 14, 2019, 45. 4.Cf. S. Paillard, “Anthropocène: la planète va-t-elle craquer?” in Projet, No. 359, 2017, 6-11. MARC RASTOIN, SJ

of when, and not if – within one or two generations the great planetary question will be how humanity will manage aging and demographic decline.5

Le Mal qui vient The burning issue of the future of humanity, which is at the heart of First Reformed - Creation at Risk, is also the subject of several recent books. A significant example is the essay by the French philosopher and psychoanalyst Pierre-Henri Castel, 6 entitled Le Mal qui vient. In this work, rich in stimuli, the author tries to say something precise and sensible about “the idea of an apocalyptic, but not religious, horizon, of an end to the world linked in particular to war, political catastrophes, 6 the collapse of civilization,”7 and draw the consequences from it in terms of ideas. Castel rightly observes that “if we learn from the projections what abyss we are falling into, this is information we can’t believe.”8 It is difficult for humanity to face the consequences of a way of life characterized by over-consumption and the destruction of natural resources. Scientific voices calling for a radical change in the economic model are falling on deaf ears.9 Both the large states and the big multinationals are struggling to change. The writer points out that a whole theme and vocabulary which would seem purely religious, and at the same time

5.Certainly, taking into account the youth of the global population, Africans will increase significantly even as fertility continues to decline, as can be seen today. It should also be noted that the situations differ greatly between countries, since some countries (such as South Africa) already have a very low rate of fertility. See J. A. Goldstone, “Africa 2050: Demographic Truth and Consequences” (www.hoover.org/research/africa-2050-demographic-truth- and-consequences), January 14, 2019. According to S. Paillard, “Africa would contribute 54 percent of the world population increase between 2015 and 2050 and 83% between 2015 and 2100” (“Anthropocène...”, op. cit., 10). 6. P.-H. Castel, Le Mal qui vient, Paris, Cerf, 2018. 7.Id., Le Mal qui vient, ebook EMP, 22. 8.Ibid., 57. 9.Just think of the appeal of 15,000 scientists from around the world published in the journal BioScience on November 13, 2017, or that of 300 Belgian, French and Swiss scientists of March 15, 2019. LIVE YOUR FAITH FROM THE PERSPECTIVE OF THE END totally aberrant from the scientific point of view, suddenly turns out to be much less ridiculous: the end that awaits us “is a drastic end, without final judgment or punishment or salvation for anyone: in short, an ‘apocalypse without a kingdom,’ as Anders calls it.”10 The author refuses to be listed among the doom-mongers of an imminent collapse11 or other prophets of short-term catastrophes. He claims that we still have several centuries ahead of us: “For the speculations that will follow, it is important that the imminence of the end gives us a certain amount of time; in other words, that there are final times before the end of time.”12 Castel thinks of an action from the perspective of the end, not wanting in any way to foster a discouragement that 7 leads to passivity: “one should be able to combine a serious practical belief in an inescapable apocalypse with the margin of uncertainty required for there to be room for authentic 13 actions.” The problem is to act authentically, knowing that the end can come. In the second part of the book, the author develops an exciting, but more questionable argument, according to which evil will assume a particular color, so to speak, in the final times. Willing to do anything to continue their lives without conversion, those who put themselves at the service of Evil will deny any need for change and will use all means to gain time: “Hungry, terrified, provoked by injustice, the people of the end of time will hesitate less and less in the face of mass crime as a means to confiscate the last available resources to support life: transport, energy, drinking water, etc.. None of this requires a great effort of imagination: post-apocalyptic science fiction (which takes into account the times of the end, and not, by

10.P.-H. Castel, Le Mal qui vient, ebook EMP, 98. 11.For this latter current, see P. Servigne - R. Stevens, Comment tout peut s’effondrer: petit manuel de collapsologie à l’usage des générations présentes, Paris, Seuil, 2015. Cf. also www.franceculture.fr/emissions/linvite-des-matins/ collapsologie-comment-vivre-avec-la-fin-du-monde 12. P.-H. Castel, Le Mal qui vient, ebook EMP, 139. 13.Ibid., 179 (italics are ours). MARC RASTOIN, SJ

definition, the times when everything will already be finished), by simply projecting an amplification of the evils of our time, has already accustomed us to all this.”14 It is a hard, disturbing prospect, but some events in various countries of the world, together with the growth of inequalities on a global scale, oblige us to consider the possibility of this type of scenario. It is striking that the author, an atheist, uses an explicitly religious language to describe our situation and what is being announced: “Just as there is a climate of rather right-wing skepticism, sometimes veined with superstition – God will not allow people to destroy creation – there is also a rather left- wing distrust of apocalyptic predictions, which bring together the idea that there is not an end of the world but only the end 8 of a world, with a hypercritical exegesis of recurrent cultural clichés, characteristic of the prophetic style.”15 Castel fears that “the more certain the end will be, and therefore the closer it will be, the more the final pleasure that will 16 remain will be the pleasure of Evil.” He is aware of the moral risks that such a perspective can generate and strives to develop an ethical attitude precisely to resist such pressures that lead to Evil: “To combat any anxious guilt, the main virtue in which the effective implementation of the Future Good would consist seems to be that it can consist of one thing only: do not be intimidated by the Evil that comes. It’s not enough not to be anxious.”17 The question of the inner attitude toward what is coming and resources on the level of action is linked to the Christian problem of how to act rightly before the end of time. When Castel writes that “one should be able to combine a serious practical belief in an inescapable apocalypse with the margin of uncertainty required for there to be room for authentic actions,” he poses a question that Christian theology has had to address from the beginning.

14.Ibid., 294. 15.Ibid., 414. 16.Ibid., 352 (italics by the author). 17.Ibid., 507. LIVE YOUR FAITH FROM THE PERSPECTIVE OF THE END

Acting in the perspective of the end In fact, our action in the world to promote good and life does not rest on the intellectual conviction that everything will be fine and that history will end with a perfect society, as the communists of the past held, who believed in the inevitability of the advent of a “classless society.” The Christian knows that the Kingdom arrives like a thief and that the span of human history can certainly end with a “real” apocalypse, as witnessed by the New Testament writings (both the Gospels – cf. Mark 13; Luke 21; Matt 24 – and the Book of the Apocalypse). In other words, the Christian faith continually thinks of its own action from the perspective of the end and does not measure its efforts on the certainty of success: trying to live the Beatitudes and commit oneself to a more just world does not depend at all 9 on the idea that history will end well. The Gospels tell us of this question from Jesus which is far from triumphalist: “But when the Son of man comes, will he find any faith on earth?” (Luke 18:8). Christian commitment is based on faith, and only on faith: that is, faith that God will take care of the people he has created out of love, and that even the hairs of our head are counted (cf. Luke 12:7). The seriousness of a situation in which the desire to commit oneself and the desire for service do not depend on the “chances” of success is therefore evident. However, what we see in some countries is the power of the forces that deny the seriousness and inevitability of change, while often discrediting the social actors who call for radical changes in the way of life. This attitude of rejection does not affect only Christians: on the contrary, the encyclical Laudato Si’ has allowed many non-Christians to realize that the Church takes the planet’s situation very seriously and is not satisfied at all with a simple and naive appeal to trust in God. On the other hand, highly rational people find it hard to see what is happening. As Castel observes, the resources of reason sometimes seem powerless: “I wonder how some developed societies, where the emphasis is undoubtedly on critical and even hypercritical reflexivity, that are totally imbued with science and rationality MARC RASTOIN, SJ

but at the same time are constantly able to question their place and their function in social life, how therefore do such societies make invisible to themselves the Evil that comes and yet that interests them intimately in their structure and their destiny. How, ultimately, can the best of reason and its autonomous use fuel an aberrant skepticism, a rejection of facts that leaves unarmed those who believe that love for facts is the religion of Modernity?”18 According to some, “dramatizing” too much would crush the momentum in terms of action. Humanity should be actively committed to life – both that of its ecosystem and its own – but it is threatened by anguished immobility. Castel observes that, even if scientists constantly warn about the situation, there is no 10 greater awareness, but rather a form of stiffening: “Why then should [the anguish of the end of everything] not be, in this particular case, the cause of a vital momentum rather than an excess of immobility? Let’s take a good look: isn’t that exactly what we’re witnessing today? The more we try to distress ourselves with the imminence of an irreversible catastrophe, the more it petrifies us.”19 As Christians, we carry a message that holds together the announcement of the end and hope for humanity. This should immunize us against despair and immobility.

Procreate in the perspective of the end Continuing under the flag of taken-for-granted atheism, the author goes further, and it is precisely at this point that our paths diverge. For Castel, in fact, “if there is to be such an end, it is clear that it would retroactively annul all the good done by the human species since its origin. Then everything will have 20 been in vain.” In fact, if God cannot justify the death of any of the losers in history and the innocent victims of barbarism and cannot ensure justice in any way, his credibility is nullified. However, as Castel acknowledges, “in fact, it is essentially the task of Good to preserve its own horizon of meaning and,

18.Ibid., 819. 19.Ibid., 203. 20.Ibid., 233 (italics by the author). LIVE YOUR FAITH FROM THE PERSPECTIVE OF THE END

I dare say, to be able to project itself forward, where it will be fully justified, even if in another life, or in a future life, or in the eyes of generations yet to come.”21 But for the author this perspective, being based on faith, is illusory, and therefore the announced end of humanity is equivalent to a loss of meaning. It is here that the question of birth returns: “The meaning of love, of sexual relations, of procreation, but more generally of all the things that we project beyond our particular existences into the lives of future generations, the works of art, the messages of wisdom, the great collective projects, all this appears to be denied at the root.”22 For Castel, it makes no sense to procreate in the perspective of the end. But this is not the case with the vision of faith. 11 We believe that God will be able to reward all the good that has been done and to give life to those who have lost it, a fortiori if this has happened in order to bear witness to him. As the mother of the seven children says in the Second Book of Maccabees: “Undoubtedly the Creator of the universe, who originally shaped us and provided for the generation of all, by his mercy will give you back your breath and your life again, for you now do not care about yourselves because of his laws” (2 Mac 7:23). As it appears from his discussion with the Sadducees, Jesus also shares this faith in the Resurrection, that is, in God’s capacity to restore life to those whom he has created (cf. Mark 12:18-27). Two dangers can threaten believers in the face of the prospect of the end: a wait-and-see fideism, which would justify the absence of decisive actions in favor of life, and an activist Pelagianism, which believes it can ensure the salvation of humanity by its own efforts. These two attitudes were well described in the Letter Placuit Deo of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, published in 2018.

21.Ibid., 237. 22.Ibid., 263. MARC RASTOIN, SJ

With regard to the first attitude, the Letter states that “a merely interior vision of salvation is becoming common, a vision which, marked by a strong personal conviction or feeling of being united to God, does not take into account the need to accept, heal and renew our relationships with others and with the created world.”23 And with regard to the second attitude, it affirms: “A new form of Pelagianism is spreading in our days, one in which the individual, understood to be radically autonomous, presumes to save herself or himself, without recognizing that, at the deepest level of being, he or she derives from God and from others. According to this way of thinking, salvation depends on the strength of the individual or on purely human structures, 12 which are incapable of welcoming the newness of the Spirit of God.”24 Neither of these two attitudes is evangelical. Jesus invites us to place radical trust in God, knowing that salvation “is impossible for mortals” (Matt 19:26), and uniting this trust with firm action for good: “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father in heaven” (Matt 7:21).

Conclusion Faced with the situation of humanity, the question of faith cannot be avoided, and it is striking that both the film by Paul Schrader, a Christian director, and the book by Pierre-Henri Castel, an atheist philosopher, treat it explicitly. A real challenge to humanity, and therefore also to believing humanity, is launched: how can we think of acting justly in a world that runs at full speed, wrapped in a spiral in which human beings will face increasingly difficult living conditions? While the two authors argue that births in the developed world should decrease even more, it is necessary to formulate a Christian response that is rational and at the same time founded on faith. We do not believe, nor do we think that the salvation

23.Cf. Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Letter Placuit Deo, No. 2. 24. Ibid. No. 3. LIVE YOUR FAITH FROM THE PERSPECTIVE OF THE END of humanity passes through the drastic limitation of births as a theoretical and practical choice. The challenge today, for Europe and the Americas as a whole, is to find the social conditions to welcome children. Consumerist and individualistic values are now so widespread that the pressure not to have children, or to have only one, is already very strong. It is important to tell Christian couples – especially those in the so-called “developed world” – to welcome life today, to choose to have children (even more than two), and that their choice is courageous, reasonable and evangelical.25 The more couples around them cease to have children – after all, “out of fear of death” (cf. Heb 2:15) – the more important it will be for Christians to affirm, by deed, that life is worth living. 13 This choice in no way dispenses with the obligation to review our ways of life and to commit ourselves collectively to achieving forms of existence that give primacy to the conservation of the resources of the planet. On the contrary, it is certainly difficult to engage in a profound transformation of our ways of life. As Sandrine Paillard acknowledged: “These transformations appear to be very difficult to implement: they constitute above all a social and political challenge rather than a technological and scientific one. However, they would bring much greater environmental progress than a reduction in demographic pressure without a change in our ways of living, producing and organizing ourselves.26 The Lord in fact calls us to a more sober and less consumerist life. Pope Francis affirms: “To accuse the increase of the population and not the extreme and selective consumerism

25.The Church promotes an openness to life that is accompanied by a discernment of personal, family and social circumstances, as explicitly stated in the Constitution Gaudium et Spes, No. 50: “[The spouses] will therefore carry out their duty with human and Christian responsibility and with docile reverence toward God, with reflection and common commitment a correct judgment will be formed, taking into account both their own good and the good of their children [...], evaluating the circumstances of the times and of the conditions of life, both material and spiritual, and finally considering the good of the family community, of temporal society and of the Church.” 26.Cf. S. Paillard, “Anthropocène...”, op. cit., 10. MARC RASTOIN, SJ

of some is a way not to face the problems.”27 Even if human beings do not find the moral resources to reform themselves, their choice as parents and believers would remain valid and just. Until the moment of the end of the world, life will be worth living, because, whatever the conditions in which we find ourselves in that moment, it will be possible to love. It is love that justifies existence, because it is God who created it. The film and the book we have examined in this article give an account of the climate experienced by our civilization and ask for a response from Christians, a response that is of both faith and reason.

14

27.Francis, Laudato Si’, No. 50. Cf. also, on sobriety, Nos. 222-225. Urban Life and Citizenship: The Future of Freedom

Juan Antonio Guerrero, SJ

What does it mean to be a citizen in today’s Western societies? There is often talk of a certain discomfort with the responsibilities that come with citizenship. Why?1 We will look here at three areas where we spend our daily lives as citizens. They shape and establish in us some “habits of 15 the heart,” to use the well-known expression of Alexis de Tocqueville, who referred to customs, to what the ancients 2 called mores. The study of these habits “enlightens us on the state of society, on its continuity and on its long-term vitality.”3 The three areas that seem to us to be of particular importance for the problem that we intend to address are the public space, work and the family.

La Civiltà Cattolica, En. Ed. Vol. 4, no. 01 art. 2, 0120: 10.32009/22072446.2001.2

1.Certainly there is a perception of a certain impotence: it seems that control over the forces that govern our lives is diminishing. Cf. M. Sandel, “The Procedural Republic and the Unencumbered Self” in S. Avineri - A. de Shalit, Communitarianism and Individualism, New York, Oxford University Press, 1996, 25; 28; C. Taylor, Il disagio della modernità, Rome - Bari, Laterza, 1994. H. Fenichel Pitkin’s book The Attack of the Blob, Hannah Arendt’s Concept of the Social, Chicago - London, University of Chicago Press, 1998, is dedicated to the same theme. The search for solutions to the problem through a reflection on its roots and on its philosophical, legal and political consequences has generated the debate between liberals and communitarists that has marked political philosophy over the last two decades. It has featured authors such as John Rawls, Ronald Dworkin, Robert Nozick, Michael Sandel, Charles Taylor, Michael Walzer and Alasdair MacIntyre. 2.Cf. A. de Tocqueville, Democracy in America. A study by Robert Bellah has disseminated the expression and expanded it to “conscience, culture and practices of daily life”: see R. Bellah et al., Le abitudini del cuore. Individualismo e impegno nella società complessa, Rome, Armando, 1996, 345. 3.Ibid. JUAN ANTONIO GUERRERO, SJ

The public space Besides home and work, there are other places in the city where we spend a lot of time. We have become familiar with some of them in recent years: shopping malls, roads, buses, subways, train stations, terminals and airports. The common characteristic of these places is that they are non-anthropological spaces, “non-places”: places of “anonymity,” without human relations and without shared history. They do not encourage relationships or common purposes, and we can walk through them absorbed in our own thoughts, lost in another image of ourselves.4 They are transit spaces where most of the activities of those who move within them “consist in concealing or barely mentioning who 16 they are, where they come from and where they are going, what they devote themselves to, their business, their origins or their objectives.... Urban life can therefore be compared to a great masquerade ball,”5 in which who you really are remains hidden. In “non-places” no one has an identity of their own: you are travelers or consumers, you can see exotic people, and this gives the feeling of cultural variety, but we all do the same thing: pay at the checkout, show our passport, get a stamp on our ticket and so on. Each user is expected to observe the rules and behave appropriately and predictably. These spaces are very appropriate for the prevailing individualism. They are usually liked for the feeling of freedom they create. You can buy anything or go anywhere without anyone knowing. You are anonymous. The metaphor for those who frequent these urban places is the “invisible man,” who desires a relative invisibility: that is, to be considered, yet without ceasing to hide one’s true face, taking advantage of a “generalized myopia”. This is how the “invisible man” is seen: he makes himself visible, but he cannot be controlled because he is invisible.6

4.Cf. M. Augé, Nonluoghi, Milan, Elèuthera, 1993, 74. 5.M. Delgado, El animal público. Hacia una antropología de los espacios urbanos, Barcelona, Anagrama, 1999, 13ff. 6.Cf. ibid., 17. URBAN LIFE AND CITIZENSHIP: THE FUTURE OF FREEDOM

These spaces solve certain existential problems, and therefore are practical, comfortable and well organized for these purposes. But we would make a serious mistake if we transferred them to other areas of life as models of social relations and organizational processes. What would happen if we transposed this type of relationship to the community of our neighbors, the school, the university, the Christian community, the political party or the trade union? The model of the invisible man does not apply to questions where one has to be oneself and show one’s face. It would already be an important step if this organizational model were to remain limited to its own issues. But preventing it from entering other areas of life is not enough. The organizational modalities of “non-places” are permeable not only for their characteristics, but also for the habits of the heart 17 they induce in individuals. When we organize spheres such as politics, education or the Church, it is good to keep in mind that in “non-places” we get used to a centrifugal freedom, to a life of fragmented individualism without bonds, to a communication without reciprocity. 1) Centrifugal freedom. The present-day experience of freedom has a rather close relationship with the life we live in these spaces: the free choice between many possibilities – the more the better – without constraints and without conditioning, with total independence from the decisions of those who stand around us. But this is an atrophy of political freedom. If this is practiced while participating in the construction of the common world, such spaces will not help to form the necessary habits of the heart. Rather, they will make them impractical. We can compare these places to a restaurant with an extensive menu, where we can choose between a large number of dishes, but without ever being allowed to take part in their preparation. In our individual and common lives there are aspects that cannot proceed well if we are mere consumers or users. There are areas of our existence that require our active participation in order to develop. 2) Fragmentation of individuals and their relationships. These “non-places” owe part of their success to the fact that their users are fragmented and their relationships have been emptied of JUAN ANTONIO GUERRERO, SJ

substance. The communication between the users of these spaces is impersonal and anonymous. There is little in common with consumers who shop in the same supermarket, or who use the same railway station, even though they have the same individual aims. It is difficult to imagine common action between users of large supermarkets or public transport. 3) The loss of reciprocity in the relationship. The fragmentation of users makes the communication of space with each of them more effective and unequal. It is a non-reciprocal communication. “Non-places” communicate with the user via signs or speakers. Users, on the other hand, communicate with the large space through their individual conduct: they buy or they do not buy, they ask for refunds, complain to the cashier 18 and so on. But this is like saying something quietly in the midst of a deafening chorus of screams; individual behaviors are dispersed in the statistical law of large numbers, becoming in practice irrelevant: think of the protests about airplane delays, lost luggage or inefficiencies in supermarkets. If the public sphere in which citizenship is exercised were like the one described above and the types of organization and relations of “non-places” were extended to the whole of community life, we would be faced with the death of citizenship. We would have a citizenship governed by the megaphone, without a shared history, without a significant reciprocal presence; a public environment where people do not meet and do not know each other, where the discussion of common problems is insignificant because they have been transformed into individual problems because of an organization with respect to which everyone relates individually, with the loneliness and vulnerability of their hearts, with signs, with anonymous voices, with human figures replaceable by machines. We would find ourselves plunged into “soft despotism.” “Despotism” because tyrants subordinate the public sphere to their private interests; and the fact that a tyrant can be impersonal, in an “organization,” changes little. “Soft” because instead of propping up the organization with terror, it does so with seduction. The triumph of the new organization, in which we all basically consume the same things, frequent the same places, URBAN LIFE AND CITIZENSHIP: THE FUTURE OF FREEDOM carry out the same activities and so on, is that it makes us live with a feeling of freedom. However, as we go along, we are gradually impairing our ability to say something and to participate in our common destiny, the ability to exercise our freedom. One wonders whether the organizational modes of “non-places” have not already established themselves more than is appropriate, and whether we are not now understanding citizenship according to user and consumer patterns. The politics of our times seem to be a battle of “loudspeakers” between a few candidates. The only thing we citizens need do is to support one or the other of them, until they can impose themselves; then, once we are alone, we find it hard to grasp what the loudspeakers are saying, and even less do we manage to oppose their hullabaloo. 19 The workplace Our work life, its conditions and evaluation have changed substantially, with serious consequences for family, social and political relations. We will report three consequences. 1) The quality of life is deeply affected by the fact that work is confused with paid work. This is an immediate consequence of industrial development, with its idea that only those tasks that produce market exchanges are to be considered “work.” But also requiring time, effort and dedication is the maintenance of “social cohesion,” in whatever respect it is considered, involving family ties, those in the neighborhood or in the community.7 The same can be said of the education of future generations, which cannot be left in the hands of professionals alone. What would happen if we learned how to live in society only from the instructions of teachers, social workers, psychologists, pedagogues and so on? The most important aspects of life in common can only be taught free of charge, and this is an intrinsic requirement of them. Maternity, paternity, proximity or the bond between citizens cannot be commodified. When adults interrupt what they are doing to reprove a child for crossing the street without looking around, they are

7.Cf. Z. Bauman, Lavoro, consumismo e nuove povertà, Troina (En), Open City, 2004. JUAN ANTONIO GUERRERO, SJ

teaching them not only to cross the street, but above all that adults have to worry about children simply because they share the same society. They are teaching them that in this society we are all connected, so that we care about each other selflessly, the more mature for the youngest. And this is not something that can be entrusted to the teaching of a professional. The side effects of this way of thinking about work have affected the condition of women and the family. Today what the Americans call the double income family is very common and paid work outside the home is considered a sign of women’s equality.8 The consequences of these changing roles for the family are important, although difficult to assess.9 In any case, we are faced with a road with no return, which, however, 20 requires a redistribution of parental functions. 2) The intrusion of economic functional logic into other areas of 10 life. As Zygmunt Bauman points out, the two institutions that have characterized social integration par excellence have been the factory and the military. The meaning of a healthy body was defined by a person’s ability to work or to serve in the military. Both institutions produced docile and obedient subjects needed by the state. The factory layout was replicated in the family. The man – husband/father – exercised vigilance and discipline in a way proper to a foreman in a factory or a sergeant in the army, with obvious consequences for the condition of the wife. On the other hand, in private and family life an implicit system of costing was introduced, starting from economic

8.On the other hand, according to Bauman, the transition from the working conditions of domestic craftsmanship to those of the factory was anything but emancipatory for men: it was rather a submission to patterns of behavior imposed under the threat of misery, which were passed off as freely adopted. 9.There are studies that go both ways. Some highlight the problems that the entry of women into the labor market has caused to the family: see A. Wolfe, One Nation, After All: What Middle-Class Americans Really Think About... New York, Penguin, 1998, 88-124; others instead celebrate the new balance gained by the family institution, once it has become normal for both men and women to work: see R. C. Barnett - C. Rivers, She Works, He Works: How Two-Income Families Are Happy, Healthy, and Thriving, Cambridge, Harvard University Press, 1996. 10.Cf. Z. Bauman, Lavoro, consumismo e nuove povertà, op. cit. URBAN LIFE AND CITIZENSHIP: THE FUTURE OF FREEDOM life, which changed the meaning of paternity and maternity.11 Paternity involves great sacrifice. Children are no longer an economic resource, as was the case in past eras, but instead pose many problems: loss of freedom, well-being, opportunities to benefit from alternatives, and are a source of concern. It has also been claimed that a greater extension of the functional relations of the market to other areas has impoverished the production of meaning and ties. The neoliberal offensive in this context consists in neutralizing the conflict, orienting the emotional urges of the masses toward regressive and authoritarian forms of identification. The consequence, for politics, is its transformation into a spectacle and the return of the charismatic leader.12 3) The psycho-physical stress of the worker. In the new 21 capitalism it is proclaimed that “the market can be oriented by the consumer like never before.” This means that large companies bind themselves to small companies or individuals with short- term contracts, as the market is too volatile for long-term planning. On the consumer side, this is a win-win situation, but from a labor point of view, for those who have to satisfy the whims of the market, human costs are high. Richard Sennett draws attention to the new ways of organizing time, and in particular that of work, as the characteristic mark of capitalism in our time. He sums them up in the formula: “No long term.”13 The stable world of the three decades following the Second World War no longer exists. It allowed life to be planned beyond the short term. In the world of flexible business, which is an archipelago of related activities, work is organized into teams that require of members a lot of effort, malleability and chameleonic personality. Some business schools teach that, in a context where everything is short term, institutional loyalty is a trap.

11.Cf. J. A. Schumpeter, Capitalismo, socialismo e democrazia, Milan, Etas, 2001. 12.Cf. P. Barcelona, Il ritorno del legame sociale, Turin, Bollati Boringhieri, 1990. 13.R. Sennett, L’uomo flessibile. Le conseguenze del nuovo capitalismo sulla vita personale, Milan, Feltrinelli, 2016, 20. JUAN ANTONIO GUERRERO, SJ

In the new context, employees must understand that they cannot depend on the company; therefore, they become marketable: “Detachment and superficial cooperation are better suited to the current reality, rather than behavior based on the values of loyalty and service.”14 Trust, loyalty and mutual commitment are values that are no longer valued. They are seen as counterproductive. The new institutions are characterized by the strength of weak links. Strong ties depend on a long association, precisely what has become superfluous today. The consequences of this situation on the family, on social relations and on political life are predictable: how can we strengthen social cohesion if we do not have time for common realities? Where do we learn the gratuitousness and the 22 necessity of sacrifices, needed in city life and human relations, when economic calculation has become a habit of the heart? Where do you learn to appreciate the strength of the bonds and pacts maintained over time, so necessary for a genuine political life? How can one teach children to contract and maintain a commitment, when for them this is an abstract virtue they see applied nowhere? How can one prevent the family itself from succumbing to this short-term philosophy?

Family Today as yesterday we feel good in the family, yet the reasons that lead us to see the family institution as besieged by the same forces that have impoverished work and civic life have not disappeared.15 In addition to the collateral influences of the evolution of work on the family, of which we have already spoken, we can highlight three characteristics of the modern urban family that change habits of the heart, but not always for the better. 1) The separation between discipline and affection. Today, the family, rather than endorsing strong values, is the bearer of emotional warmth. If before, traditionally, it educated by means of discipline and affection, faced with social pressure it

14.Ibid., 23. 15.Cf. C. Lasch, Rifugio in un mondo senza cuore. La famiglia in stato d’assedio, Vicenza, Neri Pozza, 2019. URBAN LIFE AND CITIZENSHIP: THE FUTURE OF FREEDOM has turned into an emotional refuge, taking as a paradigm the relationships of friendship between equals, rather than those of parent and child. The state, on the other hand, in the socialization of individuals has progressively taken on roles that traditionally belonged to the family. “The school, professional help and the group have taken the place of most family functions, and many parents are very happy to delegate their functions and to be for their children only friends and older companions.”16 This separation between discipline and affection, according to Christopher Lasch, makes it possible “to develop character traits that are more compatible with totalitarian regimes than with democracy.”17 The split between discipline and affection is resolved in endorsement of the morality of “feeling well,” which makes one’s subjective moods the main objective of happiness, 23 and dilutes any genuine concern for the common world. 2) The entrance of individualism into the relationships of couples and families. The relationship of the couple is increasingly conceived as a kind of pact in which each of the contracting parties brings their own demands for independence and individual life. The “for all” becomes a matter of consensus and mutual agreement, and the “for ever” is for now and for as long as it lasts.18 An interesting study of individualism in the life of a couple19 shows the unravelling of the bond between young couples who begin to live together in an attempt by the two members to maintain freedom and independence. When one partner feels the need for independence, as is normal if the starting point is individual taste, problems will arise. Many of them have the feeling that everything was better when they were separate: in fact, in the time they spent with their loved one, each of them

16.Ibid., 14. 17.Ibid., 13. These traits are: a strong group attachment; fear of loneliness; alienation from the past; strong interest in the authenticity of relationships, without the mediation of conventional forms of courtesy or respect for the individuality of others; lack of introspection and inner life. 18.Cf. A. Spadaro, “Vivere: esperienza o esperimento? Riflessioni in margine a un saggio di Filippo La Porta” in Civ. Catt. 2005 IV 458-466. 19.Cf F. de Singly, Libres ensemble. L’individualisme dans la vie, Paris, Nathan, 2000. JUAN ANTONIO GUERRERO, SJ

gave 100 percent. One of the striking facts of the study is that young couples lack activities which they can engage in together, and their common life is mostly composed of the succession of individual activities. The same problem can be found in many city or youth associations. 3) Television in family life. Since the mid-20th century, families have made room for a new member, who speaks out on everything and imposes behavioral models for almost all areas of life. Talking about the sacredness of the domestic hearth has become like a hypocritical discourse in a world dominated by gigantic corporations and by the mechanism of mass marketing that, thanks to television, has insinuated itself into our homes. Today we live the effects of the television monopoly, linked 24 to the desire to reach the widest possible audience, offering viewers raw products whose paradigm is the talk show or reality show, explicit exhibitions of experiences to satisfy voyeurism or exhibitionism.20 Democracy theorists have always taught us that it is a system that needs virtuous citizenship to function. It seems that neither old paternalism nor the exploitation of lower instincts can be the ideal basis for democratic citizenship.

The future of freedom Hannah Arendt – a privileged witness to what happened in the 20th century, a persecuted Jew in Germany who had to flee to the United States – was a narrator of the trial against Adolf Eichmann, one of the worst criminals of the Nazi regime.21 While she had expected to meet an evil person, Arendt found that Eichmann was a bland individual, incapable of thinking, incapable of judging good from evil, a man who followed orders. This made her understand “the banality of evil”; that there is no need to be evil to inflict immense suffering It is enough simply not to think, to have inhibited the ability to judge or discern between good and evil; that is, to behave automatically, hiding behind an “it is” done, an “it is” imposed, or “it is” carried out.

20.On television and its submission to commercial interests, see P. Bourdieu, Sulla televisione, Milan, Feltrinelli, 1997. 21.Cf. H. Arendt, Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil, ibid., 2013 (or. 1963). URBAN LIFE AND CITIZENSHIP: THE FUTURE OF FREEDOM

After years of the horrors of the regime that had succeeded in making people superfluous, those fears Arendt had expressed were to reappear in her reflection on American society. She called that new evil “conformism.”22 Her entire work is a defense of the human capacity to act, to judge, to exercise freedom. She was frightened by the extraordinary fear of making judgments that she noticed in the good people of her time.23 To hide behind the impersonal “it is” to justify one’s actions, behind today’s “it is said,” “it is thought,” “it is done,” “it is coming,” is to abdicate freedom. There may be a feeling of freedom, but not its exercise. Speaking of the Nazi evil, Arendt knew that “the nonparticipants, called irresponsible by the majority, were the only ones who dared judge by themselves, and they were capable of doing so not because they embraced a better system of values 25 or because the old standards of right and wrong were still firmly planted in their mind and conscience … I therefore would suggest that the nonparticipants were those whose consciences did not function in this, as it were, automatic way – as though we possess a set of learned or innate rules which we then apply to the particular case as it arises … Their criterion, I think, was a different one: they asked themselves to what extent they would still be able to live in peace with themselves after having committed certain deeds … not because the world would then be changed for the better, but simply because only on this condition could they go on living with themselves at all.”24

* * *

We have seen that the three areas of our urban life induce some paralyzing habits of the heart. If we are to continue to live with ourselves, our analysis cannot be the analysis of a

22.Charles Taylor spoke of “soft despotism” in reference to our Western democracies; cf. C. Taylor, The Malaise of Modernity. 23.In the morals of moderation and tolerance of the American middle class, the fear of making judgments has been transformed into the “virtue” of not criticizing what others do: cf. A. Wolfe, One Nation After All..., op. cit., 72; 126 ff. 24.H. Arendt, “Personal responsibility under dictatorship.” From a conference held in Boston in 1964. JUAN ANTONIO GUERRERO, SJ

spectator. The next step is to exercise freedom. The instruments of freedom that enable us to distinguish the ways toward a more human and more humanizing life and to act accordingly are good judgment, prudence and discernment. In our societies there is an unregulated search for order and organization that aims at transforming the human world into an organic whole, where everything works perfectly according to plan, subordinated to a suprapersonal system. This is the first thing needing discernment. The anxiety regarding order can be anxiety regarding death and life. On the one hand, human life has something that opposes order: in fact, it is creative, irreducible to uniformity and unpredictable; on the other hand, it itself requires order: 26 in fact, in chaos we self-destruct. There is an order and an organization that kills life and makes people superfluous; there is another order that is a necessary condition for the emergence of creative and unpredictable human life. One order makes the effective participation of citizenship superfluous, and the other makes it necessary and possible. In the Socratic tradition, the exercise of freedom has two sides: to avoid certain evil and not to fear the possible good. Opposing evil is necessary, but it does not yet mean that we know what we must do. The second step is increasingly modest and contingent. Therefore, the exercise of freedom requires two movements: resistance and action. 1. Resist paralyzing order and its effects. We need “democratic asceticism” to resist the siren song. It is like leaving a bad habit, like quitting smoking. Individualism, the soft world of undisciplined and effortless affections and the typical middle- class obsession with money, which allows all areas of life to be invaded by functional economic logic, have attractive aspects, but are corrosive from a human and political point of view. Fragmented individuals, lacking the objective reference of a common world shared with others, are easy to buy and manipulate, with the help of television and other media. It is enough to make them feel good subjectively, to offer them sensations of freedom, the illusion of choosing from a large number of alternatives, the possibility of “being on the air,” URBAN LIFE AND CITIZENSHIP: THE FUTURE OF FREEDOM adapting to the indices of public opinion and participating in mass shows. We will not be able to exercise our freedom if we are bought and colonized. We cannot keep feeding on what kills us. 2) Acting together for the common good. As de Tocqueville had already intuited, the almost exclusive interest of citizens in family and friends, which emerges from opinion polls, means the death of politics and associated life. Between the warmth of the hearth and the coldness and isolation of “non-places,” there are other spaces of human relationship. A first step to take is, therefore, to broaden the horizon of our relations to spaces in which we are fully ourselves, recognize others and are recognized. The human and humanizing way of making ourselves freely predictable does not emerge from the abdication of 27 freedom in favor of a suprapersonal organization that wants to keep us isolated and reduce us to impotence, but from connecting with others for common purposes, in conditions of equality and plurality. And it must be borne in mind that a common purpose cannot derive from the intersection of individual and private interests. Miracles interrupt a natural series of events or an automatic process, contexts in which they constitute what was absolutely unexpected.25 The exercise of freedom is a miracle. To be human is to be able to take initiatives, to begin something new and to work miracles. The exercise of political freedom cannot take place in solitude, but requires the plurality of men and women and, like miracles, it is not only a question of will, but above all of faith. Hope must be placed in groups that bind themselves in equality and plurality around a shared faith. They are the bearers of the future of freedom. Each Couple is like a Garden: A Biblical Perspective

Jean-Pierre Sonnet, SJ

The Bible begins with the garden planted by God in Eden (cf. Gen 2:8). It ends with the evocation of a garden-city, the heavenly Jerusalem: “In the middle of the city square and on either side of the river, there is the tree of life with its twelve 28 kinds of fruit, producing its fruit each month; and the leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations” (Rev 22:2). Even at its center, the Bible houses a garden, that of the Song of Songs. The “center” in question, it should be specified, is that of the sequence of books in the Catholic tradition, taken from the Greek version of the Old Testament, the Septuagint. At the center of this “book of books,” in the booklet that Rabbi Akiva described as the “Holy of Holies” of the Scriptures, there is a garden with flowing waters and flowering trees. The phenomenon just described is repeated with regard to the human couple.1 The Bible recounts in its opening pages the appearance of the human couple (cf. Gen 2-3), and in its last lines we hear the invitation of the bride to the groom, of the Church to Christ who comes in glory: “The Spirit and the bride say, ‘Come!’” (Rev 22:17). The Bible also rings out the entwined voices of the lover and the beloved in the center of its corpus, in the sanctuary that is the Song of Songs: “Ah, you are beautiful, my love!”; “Ah, you are beautiful, my beloved!” (Song 1:15-16).

La Civiltà Cattolica, En. Ed. Vol. 4, no. 01 art. 3, 0120: 10.32009/22072446.2001.3

1.See in particular L. Alonso Schökel, I nomi dell’amore. Simboli matrimoniali nella Bibbia, Casale Monferrato (Al), Piemme, 1997. The apostolic exhortation of Pope Francis Amoris Laetitia opens with an evocative journey through the Bible in a spousal and family key (cf. Nos. 8-30). EACH COUPLE IS LIKE A GARDEN: A BIBLICAL PERSPECTIVE

In the following pages we would like to reflect on this twofold perspective that associates the “mystery” of the garden with that of the human couple. Why does the couple meet in the garden? How is the affinity of the couple and of this living space understood phenomenologically? In what way is the anthropological and cosmic figure of the couple in the garden the bearer of a theological truth? The Song of Songs provides the environment for such a reflection; its pages express explicitly the invitation of the lovers to go to the garden: “Let my beloved come to his garden [...]. I come to my garden, my sister, my bride” (Song 4:16-5:1). In parallel to the exploration of the biblical texts, we will examine the links that unite – as through a network of common roots – two important texts of the teaching of Pope Francis: his 29 encyclical letter Laudato Si’: On the Care of our Common home (2015) and the apostolic exhortation Amoris Laetitia: The Joy of Love in the Family (2016). The human couple considered in this second text has its background and perspective in the first, with its expressions of the divine design.

Again and always, the garden In the Book of Genesis, the human couple appears in a garden planted by God but entrusted to human care (cf. Gen 2:8). This garden (in Hebrew, gan) is a “fence” (the root ganan means “to enclose, to protect”), irrigated by four streams, where plants abound. “Out of the ground the Lord God made to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food, the tree of life also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil” (Gen 2:9). In this microcosm of creation, initially filled with original gifts, man and woman discover each other. While the human couple is then removed from this garden for having transgressed the divine command (and the offering of life that it concealed), the garden does not leave the biblical perspective for this reason.2 Instead, it reappears

2.Regarding gardens in the Bible, see in particular D. M. Carr, The Erotic Word. Sexuality, Spirituality, and the Bible, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2005; JEAN-PIERRE SONNET, SJ

repeatedly in the imagination of the poets and prophets of the Bible. The metaphor of the garden thus appears in Isa 61:11, when it comes to proclaiming to the grieving people the certainty of divine intervention in their favor: “For as the earth brings forth its shoots, and as a garden causes what is sown in it to spring up, so the Lord God will cause righteousness and praise to spring up before all the nations.”3 This metaphor is privileged among all the others to indicate the transformation that Israel will undergo following divine intervention: “And you shall be like a watered garden, like a spring of water, whose waters never fail” (Isa 58:11). In Jer 31:12 the same image is associated with a return from desert places. Plant images, in fact, have no equal in representing 30 the ontological depth of divine healing: “I will be like the dew to Israel; he shall blossom like the lily, he shall strike root like the forests of Lebanon. His shoots shall spread out; his beauty shall be like the olive tree, his fragrance like that of Lebanon” (Hos 14:5-6). The metaphor of the garden – associated with other plant metaphors – thus underlies the biblical vision, demonstrating that the world and its history are always in “genesis,” regardless of their repeated wounds. God is the one who reactivates this genesis in the healings he bestows: he is “dew,” the mysterious principle of plant life (Hos 14:6; cf. Gen 27:28; Deut 33:13; Ps 133:3). In a wise counterpoint to the prophetic texts, the Song of Songs shows that, whatever the exile from the first garden, this image continues to support the horizon of the Bible. The Song of Songs reminds us that the garden is, again and always, the place of the appearance of the human couple, not to repeat the unhappy choice made by the original couple, but rather to envisage their new beginnings and new loyalty.

G. Andresen, Gartengeschichten der Bibel, Stuttgart, Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft, 2006. 3.See the wedding symbolism in the previous verse (Isa 61:10); see also Isa 45:8 and the splendid sequence in Sir 24:12-19. EACH COUPLE IS LIKE A GARDEN: A BIBLICAL PERSPECTIVE

The metaphor of the Garden In the Song of Songs, the garden is present above all in the form of a metaphor. This is certainly embedded in a background that the reader cannot help but imagine, that of the Mediterranean and Middle Eastern gardens of ancient Israel.4 But the “reality” of the garden in the Song of Songs is primarily literary, inseparable from the speech of lovers. As Robert Alter pointed out in his essay The Art of Biblical Poetry, the Song of Songs has, in the Bible, a unique strategy in the field of metaphors, which distinguishes it from all other books (including the Book of Job, which is characterized by its metaphorical inventiveness.)5 The metaphors introduced by the lovers of the Song of Songs have the effect of “confusing borders.” As in a Lewis Carroll’s 31 novel, the characters pass “through the looking glass” and find themselves in the world of metaphor. The metaphors thus open up new worlds to the characters of the Song of Songs, which require appropriate behavior. This is the case with the metaphors borrowed from the plant world: [She:] “As an apple tree among the trees of the wood/ so is my beloved among young men/ With great delight I sat in his shadow/ and his fruit was sweet to my taste” (Song 2:3). For the lover, it is not enough to see the beloved as an apple tree; one must act accordingly: sit in his shadow and eat his fruit. On the other hand, two verses later, the beloved will implore: “Refresh me with apples” (2:5). Later, the beloved will say to his beloved: “O may your breasts be like clusters of the vine/ I said, ‘I’ll climb the palm, / I’ll pick the clusters of dates’” (Song 7:8-9). It is not enough to compare the figure of the beloved to that of the palm tree: it is necessary to climb the tree and reap its fruits. The whole paradox of the poetic discourse of the Song of Songs is there, in this way of letting oneself be caught up in the game of metaphors, remembering their artifice (“Your stature is comparable to that of a palm tree”). A metaphor can support a long sequence in the Song of Songs. Thus the metaphor of the garden is developed in chapters 4 to 6, so that the young woman becomes a garden: one must JEAN-PIERRE SONNET, SJ

behave with regard to her as one behaves toward a garden with lush fruits. He: “A garden locked is my sister, my bride” (4:12). She: “a garden fountain, a well of living water [...]. Let my beloved come into his garden / and eat its choicest fruits” (4:15- 16). He: “I have come into my garden, my sister, my bride” (5:1). She: “My beloved has gone down to his garden/ to the beds of spices” (6:2). The excellence of the metaphor of the garden can be recognized in that it is both a revelation of the being of the beloved woman (“You are a garden”) and a “map” for the action of the beloved, suggesting appropriate behavior (“to come,” “to go down,” “to eat”). Between chapters 4 and 6, the lovers of the Song of Songs thus develop the game of 32 metaphor, to the point of becoming a garden themselves and acting accordingly.

The garden, intimacy and openness When in the Song of Songs the word “garden” appears on the lips of the beloved, it is to express the secret intimacy of the relationship: “A garden locked is my sister, my bride / a garden locked, a fountain sealed” (4:12). If the garden has a fence, and is a hortus conclusus, then the locked garden, which protects a secret source, is the fence of the fence.6 The context makes us realize the sexual meaning of this “closed being” of the woman. The richness of the poetic discourse also allows us to recognize the expression of her personal intimacy. In the deepest part of the beloved there is embodied a mystery (a source, a fountain) that grounds her beauty. It is necessary to observe that it is the lover who develops this language, declaring inviolable the sanctuary of the beloved woman. He makes himself the poet celebrating it – and is therefore its guardian – thanks to the metaphor of the garden: in this case, the “closed garden,” in its most secret “room,” where a discreet and lively source of water sings.

6.For more about hortus conclusus in history, see R. Aben – S. de Wit, The Enclosed Garden: History and Development of the Hortus Conclusus and Its Reintroduction Into the Present-day Urban Landscape, Rotterdam, 010 Publishers, 1999. EACH COUPLE IS LIKE A GARDEN: A BIBLICAL PERSPECTIVE

The beloved’s answer is surprising. She takes up the imagery of her beloved’s speech, and infuses it with an unexpected dynamism. Beyond its walls and hedges, the garden is also an open place: the hortus conclusus is, as Rob Aben and Saskia de 7 Wit put it, a room with no ceiling. The winds (from the north, from the south) cross it, coming from without, infusing it with a deep breath; the waters are flowing: “a garden fountain / a well of living water / and flowing streams from Lebanon / Awake, O north wind / and come, O south wind / Blow upon my garden / that its fragrance may be wafted abroad” (4:15-16). Once again the context suggests a sexual interpretation of the images, “animated” by the speech of the beloved. (The beloved will respond by saying: “I came to my garden, my 33 sister, my bride” [5:1]). The poetic nature of the woman’s speech, however, makes it possible to understand, in addition to the erotic connotations, an evocation of the personal: if it is a “closed garden,” the woman is not therefore closed in on herself, but also breathes outdoors (and so it is for everyone). Once again, it is the garden that allows things to be said in the best possible way. If it is an enclosed place, it is also an open place: open to the changing sky, to the atmospheric elements, to the water currents that pass through it. In its contrasting aspects, the garden thus offers lovers a parable of their being in relation, between the enclosure of personal mystery and the openness of being in relation.

Sprouts and ripe fruits Throughout the Song of Songs, the garden – or the orchard and the vineyard – is the place of wonder that requires all the attention of lovers: “We’ll see if the vine blooms, / if the buds open /, if the pomegranates bloom: / there I’ll give you my love!” (7:13). Three times the text mentions the spectacle of spring blossoming (besides 7:13, cf. 2:13 and 6:11, “in the walnut

7.See ibid., 10-19. JEAN-PIERRE SONNET, SJ

garden”): the lovers have an appointment with the miracle of the buds. A parallel is the basis of this attraction: in the flowering of the trees in the garden they recognize the flowering of their love; the same germination works in the natural world and in the union of the lovers. Modern botany will reflect the discourse of lovers, establishing the sexual nature of flowers, between pistil and stamen. The intuition of lovers is sufficient for them, invincible in a way. In the context of the vineyards and the flowering pomegranates, the intimacy of the couple is discovered to be in unison with the entire creation; the latter, for its part, celebrates the blossoming of their love. The spring garden thus offers the prodigy of the beginning, which amazes the lovers: the 34 irresistible gratuitousness of the buds reflects the bond of their love. The garden of the lovers not only contains buds: there are also ripe fruits (1:3; 4:13.16; 7:9.14) and adult trees (6:11; 7:8-9; 8:5).8 If love is always at the beginning, it is also at home in the duration, in the prolonged time of promises and oaths (cf. 8:6-7). That is also why it is at home in the garden. The philosopher Robert Harrison likes to say that gardens are places that slow down time. The growth rates are slow: the ripening of the fruit, the growth of the trees.9 The garden thus supports, with its long duration, the promises and oaths by which the lovers live. As one of the characters in Richard Powers’ novel The Overstory points out, if lovers engrave their names on the trunks of large trees, it is because they realize confusingly the long life of these silent companions: “Maybe

8.The Song of Songs is entirely focused on the sexual awakening of lovers in the miracle of their encounter. If the fertility promised to this love (through generation) is not thematized, it is still characterized by the fertility of the natural environment of their exchange. On the other hand, plant metaphors are present in the Bible regarding human generation. Children are therefore “the fruit of the womb” (cf. in particular Gen 30:2; Deut 7:13; Ps 127:3; Isa 13:18; Prov 31:2). Psalm 128 goes further in the development of the metaphor: “Your bride a fruitful vine in the intimacy of your house; your children olive saplings around your table” (v. 3). 9.Cf. R. P. Harrison, Gardens: An Essay on the Human Condition, Chicago (IL), University of Chicago Press, 2008, 39. EACH COUPLE IS LIKE A GARDEN: A BIBLICAL PERSPECTIVE we try to hurt trees like that because they live much longer than we do.”10 In his mystical vision, the Persian poet Rumi (1207-73) protected the trunk, so to speak, when he wrote: “Love is a tree whose branches reach eternity and whose roots grow in eternity, and therefore the trunk is nowhere to be found.”11 Whatever happens to the trunk, the oaths of the lovers of the Song of Songs are grafted onto the trees that surround them (figs, cedars, walnuts), borrowing something of their longevity.

The Easter Garden The relationship that unites the couple and the garden in the Song of Songs has received a surprising Christological adaptation in the Gospel of John. In the scene of the apparition 35 in John 20, the Risen Christ and Mary Magdalene borrow their respective roles from the lovers of the Song of Songs. The most anthropological element – the comparison of lovers in the sanctuary of the garden – reveals itself to be the most evangelical. John 20 is set in a garden, which includes the tomb of Jesus: “Now, in the place where he was crucified, there was a garden and in the garden a new tomb, in which no one had yet been placed. There then [...] they laid Jesus” (John 19:41-42). It is toward this garden that Mary Magdalene hastens, “early on the first day of the week, while it was still dark” (John 20:1). The discovery of the empty tomb throws her into dismay. The angels say to her, “Woman, why are you weeping?” She says to them, “They have taken away my Lord, and I do not know where they have laid him” (v. 13). Then she turns around and sees Jesus asking her in turn: “Woman, why are you weeping? Whom are you looking for?”

10.R. Powers, The Overstory, London, Vintage, 2018. See J. Sonnet, “The Whisper of the World: in the margins of the Amazon Synod” in Civ. Catt. En. November 2019, https://www.laciviltacattolica.com/the-tree-world-in-the- margins-of-the-amazon-synod/ 11.C. Barks, Rumi: The Book of Love. Poems of Ecstasy and Longing, New York, HarperCollins, 2003, 121. JEAN-PIERRE SONNET, SJ

Supposing him to be the gardener, she says to him, “Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have laid him, and I will take him away” (v. 15). Those who know the Song of Songs well must recognize the scene of the beloved’s search in chapter 3: “Upon my bed at night / I sought him whom my soul loves / I sought him, but found him not / I called him, but he gave no answer” / “I will rise now and go about the city / in the streets and in the squares / I will seek him whom my soul loves / I sought him, but found him not / The sentinels found me / as they went about in the city / ‘Have you seen him whom my soul loves?’ / Scarcely had I passed them / when I found him whom my soul loves / I held him, and would not let him 36 go” (Song 3:1-4). The encounter between the Risen One and Mary Magdalene is thus “dramatized” thanks to the scenario borrowed from the Song of Songs. (Is this perhaps an ancient testimony of the association of the Song of Songs with the feast of Pèsaḥ, which will develop in Rabbinical Judaism?). Behind the reference to the Song of Songs there is also a reference to the garden of the origins (cf. Gen 2-3). It was in a garden that man lost access to life, and it is in a garden that he finds it again. But the most remarkable thing is that the Easter scene in the garden integrates the dialogue between the man and the woman. The work of God par excellence – the resurrection of Jesus Christ – finds its fulfillment when it takes up the anthropological symbolism of the word exchanged between man and woman in the enclosure of the garden.

‘This mystery is great!’ Although the symbol of the garden has many cultural variations, it perennial in history: it is a human universal. However, it is only alive to the extent that there are gardens. The more anthropological and environmental balances are threatened, the greater the social challenges, the more trees and gardens need to be planted. In his short novel The Man Planting the Trees, Jean Giono tells the story of a shepherd, Elzéard Bouffier, who revives EACH COUPLE IS LIKE A GARDEN: A BIBLICAL PERSPECTIVE his entire region, in Haute-Provence, simply by planting the acorns of oaks and seeds of beeches with delicate obstinacy. The Provençal shepherd found a North American imitator in Richard Powers’ novel The Overstory: Douglas Pavlicek, who for his part plants 50,000 “Blue Douglas” trees to combat deforestation and plantation forestry in California.12 Similarly, it is necessary not only to preserve historic gardens, but also to create new ones and offer them to future generations.13 The great architects of contemporary gardens (Mirei Shigemori, Jacques Wirtz, Piet Oudolf, Marc Peter Keane, Kathryn Gustafson, to name but a few) are therapists of humanity. By bringing together plant species, colors and shapes, building closed spaces and open perspectives, allowing life to express itself through the seasons, they 37 create sanctuaries, large or small, where the human person rediscovers the self. In fact, how can we protect the “inner garden” in oneself and in others if the garden fails? “And when I’m in the garden, which for me is a home of smells, I 14 sit on the bench,” says the hero of Citadelle. To enter a garden and sit down is to access a place where one is born to oneself, a locus amoenus, dear to Plato and Erasmus, where people can think, because they are close to their being.15 “We must cultivate our garden,” Voltaire told Candide (1759), implying that it was time to improve the human condition, leaving aside any speculations (Leibnizian, in this case). Today it is necessary to revisit Voltaire’s injunction and take it literally, creating gardens

12.The two characters of the fiction, however, have been overtaken by a recent initiative that involved all the Ethiopian people. In the Green Legacy Initiative in Ethiopia, this second most populous country in Africa is trying to remedy the massive deforestation that has affected its landscape, climate and social life. On August 5, 2019, 350 million trees were planted in 12 hours; the goal was to plant 4 billion trees by September 2019. 13.For a survey of biblically inspired gardens around the world, see Z. Włodarczyk, “Biblical Gardens in Dissemination of Ideas of the Holy Scripture” in Folia Horticulturae 16 (2004/2) 141-147. 14.See A. de Saint-Exupéry, The Wisdom of the Sands, 1948. 15.See, in this regard, V. Lingiardi, “Terapeuti giardinieri” in Id., Mindscapes. Psiche nel paesaggio, Milan, Raffaello Cortina, 2017, 191-202. JEAN-PIERRE SONNET, SJ

(kitchen, medicinal, botanical, vertical, urban herbal, where we can be lost in nature, in silence and meditation). The garden is certainly a utopia, or a “heterotopia,” as Michel Foucault points out: “The garden is the smallest particle in the world and then it is the totality of the world. Since ancient times, the garden has been a kind of happy and universalizing heterotopy.”16 But these “heterotopias,” Foucault writes, are “mythical and real contestations of the space in which we live.” Designing, planting, growing a garden is to plan in space and time an appointment for ourselves with ourselves, in thanksgiving.17 Such an appointment will always be, in a privileged way, that of couples and lovers. “Come into the garden, Maud!” is the 38 invitation addressed to someone beloved in a poem of Alfred Tennyson (1809-92), who also includes, thinking of her: “I could walk forever in my garden.” Planting a garden also means offering believers a living parable of God’s faithfulness in his plan of salvation, between the garden of the origins and that of the resurrection, while waiting for the garden-city that is the heavenly Jerusalem. Over the centuries, the garden of the Song of Songs has become, in Christian interpretation, that of the encounter between God and humanity in the mystical wedding, but also, preliminarily, in the incarnation of the Word: “[Christ] has therefore descended into his garden – writes Apponius, an Italian monk of the fifth century – stripping himself of the divine power through which he is united with the Father, so that human frailty, through which he is united with man, may welcome him who has become a mediator between one and the other. In his garden, that is to say in this people who knew him, where patriarchs and prophets had sweated copiously

16.Cf. M. Foucault, Le corps utopique - Les hétérotopies, Fécamp, Nouvelles Éditions Lignes, 2009, 23. 17.See in particular the “theology of the environment” (especially in the disadvantaged urban context) that Pope Francis developed in the encyclical Laudato Si’ (cf. Nos. 147-155), hoping also for the creation of “spaces that connect, relate, promote the recognition of the other!” (Evangelii Gaudium, 210). EACH COUPLE IS LIKE A GARDEN: A BIBLICAL PERSPECTIVE working to instruct him.”18 Planting a garden means reviving the origin, the medium and the end of God’s plan in his relationship with humanity; it means, in particular, reviving the bond that unites the couple and the garden. Between the man and the woman, the garden is the “Holy of Holies” of their meeting, the parable of miraculous beginnings and faithful growths, of secret intimacy and communion with all creation and with the Creator. “This mystery is great,” says Paul about human marriage and the (Eph 5:32). Equally great is the mystery between the couple and the garden.19

39

18.Apponius, Commentary on the Song of Songs, t. III, Paris, Cerf, 1997, 53. 19.This text is published in memory of Hubert Brenninkmeijer (1934-2018), husband of Aldegonde Brenninkmeijer-Werhahn. In a first version, it appeared in an Album Amicorum, which celebrated the 50th anniversary of the couple: A. Brenninkmeijer-Werhahn (ed.), Ehe: Bestand und Wandel im Miteinander (Marriage. Constancy and change in living together), Münster, LIT, Verlag, 2017. At the beginning of their marital life, the couple designed and planted an exceptional garden in Rhode-Saint-Genèse (Belgium), which inspired this text. Each “room” leads to another, like the stagesof life, and welcomes in the center the statue of a couple, the work of a contemporary artist. Human Trafficking and the Dignity of Work

Brett O’Neill, SJ - Andrea Vicini, SJ

The campaign against human trafficking is one of the most important and urgent global social responsibilities of our time. In order to deal with the exploitation and violence on which trafficking depends and which it promotes, it is necessary 40 to examine the phenomenon of coercive labor and other dehumanizing working conditions. In response to human trafficking in all its forms, Pope Francis has appealed to all people of good will for a “mobilization comparable in size to that of the phenomenon itself,” urging us “not to become accomplices,” but instead to “forge a new worldwide solidarity and fraternity.”1 To strengthen its mobilization against trafficking and to eliminate all forms of exploitation, the entire Catholic Church responds with a firm commitment to the appeal of Pope Francis, making use of its rich tradition of social teaching. This commitment is particularly important today as the anti- trafficking movement is facing some criticism on account of the imprecise ways in which this complex phenomenon is defined. As Pope Francis is organizing an important event for 2020 to examine economic dynamics, the consideration of recent magisterial documents on the theme of work allows us to reflect on this phenomenon, identifying appropriate ways to define and combat it.

La Civiltà Cattolica, En. Ed. Vol. 4, no. 01 art. 4, 0120: 10.32009/22072446.2001.4

1.Francis, “Message for the celebration of the 48th World Day of Peace: ‘No longer slaves but brothers’ (January 1, 2015)”, No. 6, in w2.vatican.va. This site hosts all the texts of the Second Vatican Council and of the popes that are mentioned below. HUMAN TRAFFICKING AND THE DIGNITY OF WORK

A global concern Since the turn of the millennium we have seen an increasing global mobilization against human trafficking. The highlight was the adoption in 2000 of the United Nations Convention against 2 Transnational Organized Crime (UNTOC) and its Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, Especially 3 Women and Children (“Trafficking Protocol”). This Convention was born out of international concerns over border integrity, given increasing irregular immigration and transnational crime, global phenomena that affect the quality of life and working conditions of many people of all ages. Since then, many organizations – governmental and non-governmental – have been active in helping victims of trafficking and intervening at a systemic level against any 41 structure that facilitates and perpetuates it. Recently, the UN-sponsored Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration (GCM) was adopted, with the aim of increasing international cooperation in dealing with migration flows between source and destination countries. Although the document lacks the support of key nations, it was approved in December, 2018, by many UN member states. One of the objectives of the Global Compact on Migration is to prevent, combat and eradicate human trafficking.4 In our era, transnational human trafficking is probably fueled by two contradictory global dynamics: on the one hand, the free movement of goods and capital across borders, which characterizes the liberalization of global trade; on the other hand, the simultaneous tightening of border controls, which increases

2.See www.unodc.org/unodc/en/organized-crime/intro/UNTOC.html 3.Cf. “Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, Especially Women and Children, supplementing the United Nations Convention against Transnational Organized Crime” (became effective on December 25, 2003), in United Nations Treaty Series Online (https://treaties.un.org/doc/ Treaties/2000/11/20001115%2011-38%20AM/Ch_XVIII_12_ap.pdf). 4.Cf. United Nations, ‘Final Draft: Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration’, in https://refugeesmigrants.un.org/sites/default/ files/180711_final_draft_0.pdf Cfr M. Czerny, “The Global Compact for Migration” in Civ. Catt. En. 2018, https://www.laciviltacattolica.com/the- global-compact-for-migration BRETT O’NEILL, SJ - ANDREA VICINI, SJ

obstacles to labor migration. These two global dynamics may have facilitated the increase in irregular migration and human trafficking as a means of meeting the growing needs of the labor market. As a result, organized crime is involved in migration flows and exploits many vulnerable people, encouraging irregular border crossings. In the sphere of labor, trafficking is present in many ways: from low-skilled labor – for example, in urban, agricultural and industrial sectors – to sexual exploitation. Victims of trafficking are also often to be found in the fishing industry, on farms, in factories and wealthy households. The Global Slavery Index, published by the International Labor Organization (ILO) and the Walk Free Foundation, 42 estimates that in 2016 40.3 million people were involved in some form of “modern slavery.”5 This term includes human trafficking, both in the case of “forced labor” and in the case of arranged marriages. However, it is difficult to quantify precisely the amount of trafficking because it is a hidden and polymorphous reality. For example, the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) and the United States Department of State provide more limited figures, based on the victims who have been identified. From 2003 to 2016, UNODC recorded 225,000 victims of trafficking,6 while in 2018 the US State Department identified 85,613 victims globally.7

Catholic efforts against human trafficking In 2002, addressing an International Conference on “Slavery in the 21st Century,” Saint John Paul II made one of the first papal interventions concerning “human trafficking.” He explicitly associated the term “human trafficking”

5.Cf. Walk Free Foundation, “2018 Global Slavery Index” in https://www. globalslaveryindex.org/resources/downloads 6.Cf. United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, “Global Report on Trafficking in Persons 2018” in https://www.unodc.org/documents/human- trafficking/2019/GLOTiP_2018_BOOK_web_small.pdf 7.Cf. U.S. Department of State, “2019 Trafficking in Persons Report”, 38, in https://www.state.gov/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/2019-Trafficking-in- Persons-Report.pdf HUMAN TRAFFICKING AND THE DIGNITY OF WORK with the various practices identified by the Fathers of the Second Vatican Council that threaten human dignity: “slavery, prostitution, the selling of women and children, and disgraceful working conditions where people are treated as mere instruments of gain rather than as free and responsible persons.”8 For the Council Fathers, these practices are “a supreme dishonor to the Creator.”9 Previously, in the encyclical Veritatis Splendor, John Paul II himself had defined these social ills as “intrinsically evil,” inasmuch as they “radically contradict the good of the person”10 made in the image of God. The Catholic Church has taken a leading role in the contemporary movement to combat human trafficking. In particular, many women religious are displaying great 43 dedication, ability and courage, and their admirable efforts are saving many victims, as well as raising awareness and stimulating international commitment. See. for example, in 11 the last 10 years, the international network Talitha kum. At the same time, the Holy See has given increasing attention to this tragic problem, to the point that human trafficking is now “one of the defining priorities” of the papacy of Francis: “a particular priority of the diplomatic work of the Holy See and an urgent pastoral task of the Catholic Church.”12 Trafficking is a constant theme in the teaching ofPope Francis. In his first apostolic exhortation, Evangelii Gaudium, he expressed his concern for “those who are victims of various kinds of human trafficking.”13 In a painful tone, he wrote: “How I wish that all of us would hear God’s cry: ‘Where

8.John Paul II, S., “Letter to Archbishop Jean-Louis Tauran on the occasion of the International Conference on the theme: ‘Slavery in the 21st Century: The Dimension of Human Rights in Trafficking in Persons’” (May 15, 2002). 9.Second Vatican Council, Pastoral Constitution Gaudium et Spes, No. 27. 10.John Paul II, Encyclical Letter Veritatis Splendor (August 6, 1993), n. 80. 11.See www.talithakum.info/it 12.B. Auza, “The Holy See and The Fight Against Human Trafficking” Febru - ary 23, 2017, in https://holyseemission.org/contents/statements/58ba091c820ab. php 13.Francis, Evangelii Gaudium, No. 211. BRETT O’NEILL, SJ - ANDREA VICINI, SJ

14 is your brother?’ (Gen 4:9)” . In the encyclical Laudato Si’, the pope spoke of the “culture of relativism,” which reduces other people to mere objects, subjecting human beings to the impersonal forces of the market: “In the absence of objective truths or sound principles other than the satisfaction of our own desires and immediate needs, what limits can be placed on human trafficking?”15 In 2013, in a speech to the newly-accredited ambassadors to the Holy See, Pope Francis condemned the commodification of people and stated: “The human person ought never to be sold or bought as if he or she were a commodity. Whoever uses human persons in this way and exploits them, even if indirectly, becomes an accomplice of this injustice.”16 In 2014, addressing 44 the participants inan International Conference on Trafficking organized by the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences, the pope described trafficking as “an open wound on the body of contemporary society, a scourge upon the body of Christ. It is a crime against humanity.”17 In his message for the 2015 World Day of Peace, Francis highlighted the incongruence of the fact that, despite the numerous international agreements adopted, “millions of people today – children, men and women of all ages – are deprived of freedom and forced to live in conditions akin to slavery.”18 For the pope, the root cause of this is the corruption of sin, which distances humanity “from our Creator and our neighbors” in such a way that we reject the humanity of others.19 Francis also stressed that the world suffers from a “globalization of indifference.” Those who do not pay attention to the needs of others become

14.Ibid. 15.Id., Encyclical Letter Laudato Si’ (May 24, 2015), No. 123. 16.Id. “Speech to a group of new ambassadors on the occasion of the presentation of letters of credence” (December 12, 2013). 17.Id. “Speech to participants at the International Conference on Trafficking in Human Persons” (April 10, 2014). 18.Id. “No more slaves but brothers”, op. cit., No. 3. 19.Ibid., No. 4. HUMAN TRAFFICKING AND THE DIGNITY OF WORK

“accomplices of this evil.” In order to face it, the pontiff called for a “mobilization comparable in size to that of the phenomenon itself.”20

In 2014 the Holy See promoted the Joint Declaration of Religious Leaders against Modern Slavery, signed by Pope Francis and representatives of world religions gathered in the Vatican.21 In addition, at the United Nations, it contributed to the negotiations on the Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration and the Global Plan of Action to Combat 22 Human Trafficking. The Vatican State collaborates with police forces through the Santa Marta group, which promotes cooperation between the local Churches and police forces.23 Finally, the research of the Pontifical Academy of Social 45 Sciences and the Pontifical Academy of Sciences also aims to eliminate slavery and trafficking, as Pope Francis has been calling for since 2013. In recent international forums on human trafficking the Holy See has stressed the importance not only of responding to dramatic cases, but also of addressing the root causes of this phenomenon. Archbishop Bernardito Auza, apostolic nuncio and permanent observer of the Holy See to the United Nations, declared: “there is a huge need for honesty and commitment with regard to examining and addressing the demand that fosters trafficking, especially the economic realities and avarice that catalyze labor trafficking and sexual exploitation that dehumanize and commodify other persons as mere objects of gratification. We must become far more practical, even ruthless, in addressing not just the evil fruit but also the roots of the problem. And this requires, honestly,

20.Ibid., No. 6. 21.See “Joint Declaration of Religious Leaders Against Modern Slavery” (December 4, 2014), at www.pass.va/content/scienzesociali/it/events/2014-18/ jointdeclaration.html 22.Cf. B. Auza, “General Statement at the opening session of the third round of the intergovernmental negotiations on the Global Compact on Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration,” New York, April 3, 2018, in http://www.endslavery.va/ content/endslavery/en/events/declaration.html 23.See http://santamartagroup.com BRETT O’NEILL, SJ - ANDREA VICINI, SJ

the courage to have ethical conversations in a relativist age and to name forthrightly the harmful consequences, to subjects, victims and society as a whole, from addiction to money or to sex.”24 These words, which call for a serious reflection on the structural causes of trafficking, confirm the recent diplomatic efforts of the Holy See.25 In January 2019, the Migrants and Refugees Section of the Dicastery for the Service of Integral Human Development of the Holy See published its Pastoral Orientations on Human Trafficking to better coordinate the work of the Church in supporting the victims of human trafficking.26 In his speech to a conference dedicated to the implementation of this document, Pope Francis observed that “Trafficking 46 profoundly disfigures the humanity of the victim, offending his or her freedom and dignity. Yet at the same time, it dehumanizes those who carry it out, denying them access to ‘life in abundance.’ Finally, trafficking seriously damages humanity as a whole, tearing apart the human family as well as the Body of Christ.”27 Hence, in an admirable and diverse way, the Catholic Church has invested and is investing much energy in the fight against human trafficking and continues to draw global attention to this tragedy. At the same time, the Catholic voice and commitment could be further amplified and strengthened, issuing pronouncements and making commitments in a more explicit and profound way in the tradition of Catholic social thought, especially as it

24.B. Auza, “Practical Solutions to Eradicate Human Trafficking”, November 9, 2018, in https://holyseemission.org/contents//statements/5be61bb130c7e.php 25.Cf. Id., “Survivor-Centered Approach To Trafficking In Persons”, New York, June 23, 2017, in http://www.endslavery.va/content/endslavery/en/events/ declaration.html; P. R. Gallagher, “High-Level Meeting On UN Global Plan Of Action To Combat Trafficking In Persons”, New York, September 27-28, 2017, in https://holyseemission.org/contents//statements/59cbca3f7b983.php 26.See Department for the Service of Integral Human Development: Migrants and Refugees Section, Pastoral Orientations on Human Trafficking (2019), at https://migrants-refugees.va/it/tratta-di-esseri-umani-e-schiavitu 27.Francis, “Address to the Participants of the International Conference on Trafficking in Persons” (April 11, 2019). HUMAN TRAFFICKING AND THE DIGNITY OF WORK applies to human labor. Such an approach is promising, because it allows the renewal of the many ecclesial efforts and contributes to further articulating both the rhetoric and the actions aimed at eradicating human trafficking in the international arena, where difficulties have emerged in defining precisely its various aspects, with a consequent attenuation of the commitment to eliminate it completely.

Different definitions UNTOC’s “Trafficking Protocol” provides the basic definition of this phenomenon under international law: trafficking in persons means “the recruitment, transportation, transfer, harboring or receipt of persons, by means of the threat or use of force or other forms of coercion, of abduction, of 47 fraud, of deception, of the abuse of power or of a position of vulnerability or of the giving or receiving of sums of money or benefits to obtain the consent of a person having control over another person for the purpose of exploitation. Exploitation shall include, at a minimum, the exploitation of the prostitution of others or other forms of sexual exploitation, forced labor or services, slavery or practices similar to slavery, servitude or the removal of organs.”28 In a comprehensive way, this definition includes the multiple circumstances that could be considered forms of human trafficking. In particular, it expresses the original concerns about the criminal movements of trafficked persons across borders, calling for the coordination of law enforcement agencies in different jurisdictions. At the same time, in examining the phenomenon of trafficking, it recognizes the margin of interpretation in individual states. In recent years, however, both the reality of trafficking and the ways in which it is defined have changed. In international politics and academic discourse, it now includes a wide range of coercive and exploitative practices, even where there has been no movement of people across borders.

28.“UNTOC Trafficking Protocol, Article 3. BRETT O’NEILL, SJ - ANDREA VICINI, SJ

In 2019, the U.S. State Department’s Trafficking in Persons Report clarified that “a victim need not be physically transported from one location to another for the crime to fall within this definition,” a position held since 2004.29 This means that “human trafficking” can encompass a broad range of circumstances that involve some form of exploitation: slave-labor, debt-bondage, forced prostitution, child labor and underpaid migrant labor. In recent years, the movement against this phenomenon has come under criticism from a number of commentators from different disciplines, who stress the difficulty of defining trafficking in an inclusive and comprehensive30 way. These criticisms stem from the fear that the complex phenomenon 48 of labor exploitation will be oversimplified, as will the variety of ways in which the term “trafficking” is used today by both activists and governments. A number of critics have warned against the conflation of human trafficking with “modern slavery,” as many organizations and states today regard human trafficking as synonymous with “slavery.” Calling human trafficking “modern slavery” can be a useful rhetorical strategy to catalyze public moral outrage. However, this strategy can become problematic if it is the only way to define trafficking, because it can limit efforts to eradicate slavery as an extreme form of human servitude. In addition, such identification risks not enhancing the capacity for moral action (albeit limited) that can still be exercised by the victims of trafficking. Consequently, the ambiguity and inconsistent use of the term “trafficking” has required a multi-year research project by UNODC, to better clarify the international legal definition. This project examined the many ways in which trafficking is defined

29.U. S. Department of State, Trafficking in Persons Report (Washington, 2019), 5. 30.For critical opinions see P. Kotiswaran (ed.), Revisiting the Law and Governance of Trafficking, Forced Labor and Modern Slavery, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2017; J. A. Chuang, “Exploitation Creep and the Unmaking of Human Trafficking Law” in The American Journal of International Law 108 (2014) 609-649. HUMAN TRAFFICKING AND THE DIGNITY OF WORK from country to country, concluding that “the parameters for defining ‘trafficking’ have not yet been definitively established.”31 An imprecise definition of trafficking complicates any effective global response to coercive labor exploitation practices. In addition, efforts to combat this phenomenon can become thereby easy targets for criticism, undermining efforts to eliminate all types of trafficking. Finally, such imprecision may hinder adequate responses. If human trafficking is defined in too simplistic and general a way, the solutions adopted to deal with it can be limited to the isolated rescue of victims, unfortunately often only to return them to the same social and labor conditions that gave rise to their exploitation. At the same time, a broad and inclusive definition can facilitate efforts to implement the necessary structural changes 49 in production and market logic, so that demand dynamics that facilitate labor exploitation can be critically considered in the global marketplace. Ultimately, we need a structural conversion that promotes the good of the human person as the highest priority in the organization of labor.

The dignity of work in Catholic Social Doctrine In the light of contemporary criticism of the anti-trafficking movement, it is important that the Catholic Church clearly shows what it means by “human trafficking.” If this also concerns to a large extent corruption and the perversion of labor, then the rich contribution of the Church’s social teaching on this subject is enlightening. In Laborem Exercens, the last encyclical dedicated in a specific way to work, Saint John Paul II, to address current concerns, deepened the teaching of Pope Leo XIII on the theme of work as he had expressed it in his encyclical Rerum 32 Novarum. For Saint John Paul II, work is a “fundamental dimension” of human existence, and is sanctified by Christ’s

31.UNODC, “Issue Paper on the International Legal Definition of Trafficking in Persons” (2018), in https://www.unodc.org/documents/human- trafficking/2018/Issue_Paper_International_Definition_TIP.pdf 32.Cf. Leo XIII, Encyclical Letter Rerum Novarum (15 May 1891); John Paul II, Encyclical Letter Laborem Exercens (LE) (September 14, 1981), No. 3. BRETT O’NEILL, SJ - ANDREA VICINI, SJ

own participation in the toil of labor at the carpenter’s bench.33 The value of human work, therefore, is not “first of all the kind of work being done but the fact that the one doing it is a person.”34 Such dignity is undermined when human persons are regarded as bargaining chips rather than as workers, as ends in themselves. For Saint John Paul II, human labor carries a twofold tension: it involves toil and wear on the person, yet it also aids human self-realization. He affirmed that “work is a good thing for man – it is a good for his humanity – because through work man [...] achieves fulfilment as a human being and indeed, in a certain sense, ‘becomes more of a human being.’“35 In their work people realize their dignity, their being created in the image and likeness 50 of God. Moreover, human work is participation in the ongoing creative work of God, and with it people become cooperators and co-creators at the service of the common good.36 Benedict XVI reiterated this idea in his encyclical Caritas in Veritate, rejecting any tendency to consider workers – especially migrants – “as a commodity or a mere workforce. They must not, therefore, be treated like any other factor of production.”37 For Benedict XVI, the “dignity of human work” implies “work which, in every society, is the expression of the essential dignity of every man and woman: work chosen freely, which effectively associates workers, men and women, with the development of their community.”38 In the same way, in Evangelii Gaudium Pope Francis states that “it is through free, creative, participatory and mutually supportive labor that human beings express and enhance the dignity of their lives. A just wage enables them to have adequate access to all the other goods which are destined for our common use.”39 Work is therefore a privileged expression of human

33.See LE 4. 34.LE 6. 35.LE 9. 36.See LE 25. 37.Benedict XVI, Encyclical Letter Caritas in Veritate (June 29, 2009), No. 62. 38.Ibid., 63. 39.Francis, Evangelii Gaudium, No. 192. HUMAN TRAFFICKING AND THE DIGNITY OF WORK freedom; it allows us to share our creativity and assume our responsibilities, protecting the earth’s resources and promoting the good of humanity. In the light of these teachings on human work, we can say that trafficking offends human dignity not only because it considers the person as a mere commodity for exchange, but also because it frustrates personal and social self-realization. Considered as commodities, trafficked persons are deprived of the ability and opportunity to use their creativity and ingenuity to contribute to the good of human society. In many cases, it is precisely the nature of the work that people are forced to undertake that is damaging to their dignity. This is an injury which, especially in the case of women and children, goes as far as sexual exploitation. It violates all the aspects of the 51 person (physical, relational and spiritual) and profoundly, and sometimes indelibly, undermines human dignity, preventing us from cooperating in God’s ongoing creative action. In this regard, pastoral reflection would also be important.

How to intervene Human trafficking damages the dignity of both the trafficked person and the trafficker, and it frustrates the humanizing dimension of work, which should contribute to the ongoing realization of the identity of every human being, created in the image and likeness of God. Moreover, trafficking corrupts and perverts society, introducing and promoting structures of exploitation that, for the sake of economic success, depend on the labor of the victims. Without denying the need and urgency to work to protect every victim of trafficking, we now need effective, timely and long-term structural interventions. Saving these people also requires judging and transforming the economic and market dynamics that promote this tragic phenomenon. Furthermore, the “rescue” of victims of trafficking must also include the promotion of their capacity for moral action, engaging with them and helping each of them to find forms and conditions of labor that promote their human dignity in an integral manner. BRETT O’NEILL, SJ - ANDREA VICINI, SJ

Finally, responding to human trafficking in an authentic, integral and coherent manner requires a change in the economic demands that perpetuate these forms of exploitation. It requires tackling the structural and sinful causes of our global dependence on industries that use trafficked humans. It requires an evangelization of our global economic system, so that the dignity of each person is respected in every type of work. Therefore, we look forward with confidence to the forthcoming initiatives of Pope Francis that aim to foster further reflection and engagement to promote work in just ways, protecting every worker and fostering the common good worldwide. Those who are victims of trafficking must be 52 guaranteed reasons to hope, concrete commitments for a human future and actions that promote justice in every field of work. ‘Source of Peace’ The Turkish Operation against the Syrian Kurds

Giovanni Sale, SJ

The Turkish offensive against the Kurds of Rojava The evening of Wednesday, October 9, 2019, saw the beginning of the Turkish offensive in northeastern Syria against the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (Yekîneyên Parastina Gel - YPG). The Turkish government in Ankara 53 considers them to be the Syrian branch of the “Kurdistan Workers’ Party” (PKK), which they have officially declared to be terrorists. The purpose of the operation, called “Source of Peace” (or “Spring of Peace”), was to create a buffer zone on the Syrian-Turkish border east of the Euphrates. The area is now home to a large number of Kurds and includes the city of Kobane, a symbol of the Kurds’ struggle against the Islamic State group (IS). It was from here that in October 2014 the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) – an alliance of militias led by the YPG and actively supported by the western coalition as well as by various Arab groups in the area – began to resist IS and the other Jihadist movements that had conquered the entire region. After years of bloody conflict, the SDF – which in October 2017, after a long battle, liberated the city of Raqqa, the capital of the Islamic State – managed to conquer much of northern Syria (about a third of the country), called “Rojava,” which they organized under an autonomous administration, run on secular and in part democratic principles. Turkey has for years tried to weaken the regime of Syrian leader Bashir al-Assad, as well as the Kurds. The territorial proximity between Turks and Kurds was considered by Ankara as a thorn in the side and a threat to national security.

La Civiltà Cattolica, En. Ed. Vol. 4, no. 01 art. 5, 0120: 10.32009/22072446.2001.5 GIOVANNI SALE, SJ

Members of the PKK and fighters of the YPG were already beginning to plan the creation of an autonomous Kurdish region on the model of Iraqi Kurdistan in the territories they conquered. These battles cost the lives of about 12,000 fighters. In fact, the Turkish project to keep YPG militants away from their borders had already been underway for several years. There had been two notable recent military campaigns. The Turkish army, with the help of the Arab allied militias, had entered Syrian territory in September 2016 at Al-Bad, which was then in the hands of the IS. Then, in 2018, in a military operation named “Shield of the Euphrates,” it attacked the Kurdish district of Afrin, defeating the YPG militias. In this way, the Kurds were prevented from creating a unitary corridor on the two banks of 54 the Euphrates, on the eastern border of Turkey.1 The green light for an operation planned for months was given, in some way, by U.S. President Donald Trump, when on October 6 he indicated via Twitter that he wanted to withdraw the U.S. contingent from northern Syria.2 He then declared that he would abandon “these ridiculous and endless tribal wars.” The U.S. military had been present in Syria – along with its allies – since 2014 to fight IS. The Western forces were allies of the Kurds, to whom they provided means, military training, intelligence and air coverage. However, those who carried out the military operations, that is, who “put their boots on the ground” and who died in battle, were in fact, in the main, the Kurds. In the area controlled by the SDF there were about 2,000 U.S. soldiers, located in a dozen bases. Trump’s decision was harshly condemned by the Kurds, who considered it “a stab in the back,” a real betrayal on a political and military level. In fact, the U.S. president left the Kurds vulnerable to attacks from the Turks, who had now decided to enter Syrian territory to conquer the safe zone. The Kurds were left alone to manage the problem of the thousands of IS guerrillas detained

1.See G. Sale, “La Turchia e le enclave curde in Siria” in Civ. Catt. 2018 I 476-490; G. Stabile, “Il piano del Sultano del Bosforo per annettere i territori al confine” in La Stampa, October 8, 2019. 2.Cf. “Syrie. Les États-Unis prêts à l cher les Kurdes” in Courrier international, October 10, 2019. ȃ ‘SOURCE OF PEACE’ THE TURKISH OPERATION AGAINST THE SYRIAN KURDS in unsafe prisons. This decision has also been criticized by European governments – in reality, very mildly – and by various representatives of the U.S. administration as well as the Pentagon (the US Department of Defense), which considered it “shameful” to abandon their Kurdish allies. Trump immediately tried to back down, threatening Turkey with economic sanctions (“I will destroy the Turkish economy”) if its army went beyond “certain limits.” However, he failed to indicate what those limits were. Actually, already on September 24, 2019, on the sidelines of the UN Assembly in New York, Trump and the Turkish President, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan met and it is likely that they spoke about the withdrawal of the U.S. from North Syria.3 The Turkish president, in the last session of the UN General Assembly, outlined, with map in hand, his project for a safe 55 zone to be established in Syrian territory. It provided for a strip of land about 440 km long and 30 km deep, into which he would transfer one million Syrian refugees, to be housed in 140 villages to be built at a cost of US$27 billion. Erdoğan intends to share this cost with the EU, as a condition for continuing to host another 2.6 million Syrian refugees. Otherwise, he would open his country’s doors to Europe for refugees and migrants. This perspective frightened many EU nations and led them to adopt an ambiguous attitude toward the Turkish attack; the EU would have preferred a “non-military solution” to the conflict. It established an arms embargo on Ankara at an administrative level, but left it to the individual member states to implement this measure, which would in any case only apply to contracts still to be concluded.

3.According to some political experts, two important internal political factors influenced Erdoğan’s decision to start the offensive. The first is the heavy defeat suffered by the president’s party in the previous local elections in March and June; the attack against the Kurds should generate a wave of nationalism and a climate of national collaboration among the population, which would strengthen the ruling party. The second factor is the need to alleviate the pressure of the approximately 3.5 million refugees housed inTurkish territory; they would be partly “relocated” to Syrian territory. The presence of such a high number of refugees (despite EU subsidies) is beginning to affect the country’s economy and generate discontent as expressed in public opinion. See K. Gürsel, “Una questione interna” in Internazionale, October 18, 2019, 24. GIOVANNI SALE, SJ

Furthermore, it should be stressed that the forced or unforced transfer of Sunni Syrian refugees to this region – the so-called “relocation” desired by Erdoğan – would considerably change the predominantly Kurdish demographics of the area. This would strengthen the repression of Kurdish dissidents in Turkey, “also relieving Ankara of its responsibility toward Syrian refugees, who would be sent back to a country devastated by war.”4 It should be remembered that U.S. disengagement from the Middle East wars – already begun at the time Trump’s predecessor, President Barack Obama – is part of Trump’s political agenda, which he intends to carry out before the 2020 U.S. presidential election. He does not understand the usefulness of the American presence in these “tribal conflicts” (both in Syria 56 and in Afghanistan), so far from the homeland. So he gave the green light to the operation after Erdoğan assured him that he would guarantee the custody of terrorists detained in northern Syria along with assurances Turkey would continue to fight IS. This is a condition that has yet to be verified and it seems that during this period hundreds of IS militiamen and their families have fled from the prisons where they were detained. The executive order of the U.S. president to withdraw troops, thus abandoning the Kurds to their fate, was opposed in the U.S. by both Democrats and Republicans. Even some news outlets, usually pro-Trump, stressed the political risks of such a decision. According to The Atlantic magazine, “in the future it will be increasingly difficult for Washington to convince the governments of those [Western] countries to work together to solve the problems that are dear to the United States. It is to be expected that more and more countries that have so far relied on U.S. protection will look for new allies,”5 which could be Washington’s current rivals, namely Russia and China, who will be very happy to help them make the transition. Trump’s decision could lead to new unpredictable scenarios, and not just in the Middle East. If the war continues, it could create a new humanitarian catastrophe – deaths, injuries, displacements

4.“I curdi lasciati soli di fronte alla Turchia” ibid., October 11, 2019, 18ff. 5.“L’ultimo tradimento”, ibid., 19. ‘SOURCE OF PEACE’ THE TURKISH OPERATION AGAINST THE SYRIAN KURDS and, above all, new refugees – and restore strength to the “sleeping formations” of IS, even after the killing of its leader, Abu Bakr al- Baghdadi, the so-called “Black Caliph of Mosul.” We should not forget that at that moment several thousand dangerous jihadists were being detained in the prisons controlled by the Kurds, who had been informing the international community for months that they would be unable to guarantee the security of the prison system due to inefficient facilities and a shortage of staff. About 70,000 people live in the Al Hol refugee camp, located near the Iraqi border, mostly family members of dead or imprisoned IS fighters. According to reliable sources, a third of these are IS sympathizers.6 It seems that some areas of the camp are managed by the jihadists, “given that the SDF has no means to monitor them and is struggling to deal with the 57 prisoners under its control, including hundreds of fighters from countries that oppose their repatriation.”7 After the recent killing of the so-called “caliph,” on October 27, following a raid organized by the United States intelligence services – which sometime before had identified, perhaps with assistance from their Kurdish allies,8 the hiding place of “target number one in world terrorism”9 – it has become easier to see how Trump’s decision to leave a free hand to the Turks against the Kurds of the Rojava was also determined by the collaboration offered by Ankara in the preparation of the American attack. Trump, in his public statement, stressed the importance of Turkish aid in conducting the delicate operation. “A big part of the trip that was of great danger was the flying in and the flying out,” he said. “We informed Turkey; they were terrific,

6.See “Green light, go” in The Economist, October 12, 2019, 35ff. 7.“I curdi lasciati soli di fronte alla Turchia”, op. cit, 19. 8.However, according to Gilles Kepel, it was the Turkish intelligence that “sold” the “self-styled caliph of Mosul” to the United States. See P. Del Re, “Gilles Kepel: ‘Al Baghdadi era solo un ologramma. Lo Stato Islamico è finito’” in la Repubblica, October 27, 2019. 9.Al-Baghdadi, who was hiding with others in a compound in the region of Adlib (a Syrian zone under Turkish control) to escape American capture, blew himself up with an exploding belt, which also killed two of his children and others in the same place. See www.repubblica.it/esteri/2019/10/27/news/trump_ al_baghdadi_morto-239641310 GIOVANNI SALE, SJ

we flew over part of their territory.” This raid, conducted with eight helicopters – continued the president – “was made possible thanks to the help of Russia, Syria, Turkey and Iraq, and also of the Syrian Kurds.”10 Trump also confirmed the decision to withdraw from the area, although many U.S. military continue to monitor oil wells in northern Syria and in the Deir ez-Zawr region. In reality, U.S. operatives remain in the field “to observe the moves of others, especially Iranians and Turks.”11 According to Moscow, the killing of al-Baghdadi does not affect the situation in Rojava and does not change the decisions taken in this regard in recent weeks.

The neo-Ottoman rhetoric of Erdoğan 58 After the withdrawal of the U.S. from its military positions near the Syrian border, on the evening of October 9 the first massive air raids began, conducted by the Turkish Air Force with F-16s. The action was announced by President Erdoğan in the early afternoon.12 NATO, of which Turkey is a member, had been informed in advance of the operation and limited itself to advising its member to use “moderation” in the attack. The Turkish airstrikes hit the border towns of Tell Abyad and Ras al-Ain, and further inland as far as Ayn Issa. The land attack, on the other hand, was conducted by the “Syrian National Army,” composed mostly of Arab-Sunnis, followed by Turkish special forces. Following a pattern already used in the majority- Kurdish district of Afrin in northwest Syria, Erdoğan used mainly Arab soldiers on the ground, while the Turks dominated, unchallenged, the skies of the region without the delimitation of a no-fly zone. The Kurds fought without the decisive help of American air support and used all the forces of the SFD. As expected, the attack caused a considerable humanitarian crisis: the number of Kurdish refugees who have left the fighting zone exceeded 300,000, and could rise to half a million if the

10.Ibid. 11.www.limesonline.com/siria-bilancio-vincitori-e-vinti-fonte-di- pace/114943 12.See G. Stable, “Artiglieria e raid di F-16, Erdoğan attacca i curdi. Trump: ‘Cattiva idea’” in La Stampa, October 10, 2019. ‘SOURCE OF PEACE’ THE TURKISH OPERATION AGAINST THE SYRIAN KURDS conflict were to continue. The number of Kurdish soldiers killed in battle is more than 600.13 In addition, the number of civilians killed is considerable, seemingly about 200, including many children. Some jihadist groups took advantage of the situation to eliminate some Kurdish leaders. On October 12, the secretary general of the “Syrian Future Party” and civil rights activist Hevrin Khalaf was barbarously slaughtered (while driving her off-road vehicle on the M4 motorway, which is on the edge of the buffer zone). According to the political scientist Lucio Caracciolo, for Erdoğan the operation “Source of Peace” is not an act of aggression or invasion of a foreign country, but simply an act of “domestic policing.” He writes: “The president-sultan’s mental 59 charter remains that of the National Pact, launched on February 2, 1920, by the last Ottoman parliament.”14 This manifesto provided for an extension of the new Turkey that (on this side) moved along the Aleppo-Mosul-Arbil-Kirkuk line, thus entirely including the regions inhabited by the Kurds, which also included Turkish populations. This neo-Ottoman rhetoric was also used by the Kurdish leader Abdullah Ocalan, who in a 2013 proclamation, openly asked “the Kurds, the Turkmen, the Assyrians and the Arabs who, against the spirit of the National Pact, are divided and live today in the Arab Republics of Syria and Iraq, to join in a confederation of peace to meet each other and discuss.”15

13.“Siria: uccisi 600 combattenti curdi” in www.ilmessaggero.it/mondo/ siria_turchia_guerra_news-4799025.html 14.L. Caracciolo, “Erdoğan, i curdi e le colpe dell’Europa” in la Repubblica, October 7, 2019. 15.D. Santoro; “‘Una cosa sola’: la Turchia senza curdi non può esistere” in www.limesonline.com/turchia-curdi-siria-erdogan-pkk-ocalan/114652/ It should be remembered, however, that the Kurds, the “stateless people,” are not such a cohesive group, united by a sense of ethnic, political and cultural belonging, as they are usually considered in the West. Politically, they are very divided in the countries where they are present. In Turkey, where they make up about 20 percent of the population, the “Kurdish National Party” (HDP) has never had an absolute majority of its electorate. In Iraqi Kurdistan, where since 2013 the Kurds have enjoyed their own autonomous space, the Kurdish parties are facing each other as rivals and keep bodies of peshmerga separate; GIOVANNI SALE, SJ

In his speech to the UN General Assembly on September 24, 2019, Erdoğan, presenting the creation of the safe zone, made a significant allusion to the possible expansion of the buffer zone – with the aim of fighting IS – to Raqqa and Dayr al-Zawr, which are 200 kilometers within Syrian territory. If this imperialist and neo-Ottoman project, known as Greater Turkey, were to materialize, it would be the end of all legitimate expectations of the Kurdish people to have their own territory in which to exercise some form of political and cultural autonomy.16

Moscow and Damascus enter the scene Immediately after the attack by the Turks in north-eastern 60 Syria, the SDF formed a military alliance with the rais of Damascus, who until then had left full freedom to the Kurds in their fight against IS and had “tolerated” that, in the territory conquered by them, an autonomous administration was being organized politically. On October 13, media linked to the Damascus regime declared that the Syrian army would soon intervene alongside the SDF to defend the predominantly Kurdish cities of Manbij and Kobane. Soon, instead of the flags of Rojava, Syrian flags would wave in those places. Meanwhile, Moscow announced that the Russian Air Force would “patrol” the surroundings of the Kurdish cities, thus preventing the Turks from intervening quickly.17 In the meantime, Russian President Vladimir Putin was the guarantor of the agreement between his two allies. He announced that “the dialogue between Turkey and Syria [was] underway” and hoped that an agreement would be

even the party of Prime Minister Masoud Barzani enjoys the support and protection, including economic protection, of Ankara. Moreover, the Kurds of Turkey and those of the Syrian Rojava, allied from a political point of view, do not speak the same language and, to understand each other, they need an interpreter. Despite this diversity, they have the right to regulate themselves as a people in the form they consider most appropriate and possible (as in fact happened in Iraqi Kurdistan), without being opposed by other states in their legitimate aspirations. 16.See “I curdi lasciati soli di fronte alla Turchia”, op. cit., 18. 17.Cf. “Poutine, seul maître du jeu en Syrie” in Le Monde, October 17, 2019. ‘SOURCE OF PEACE’ THE TURKISH OPERATION AGAINST THE SYRIAN KURDS reached as soon as possible. For him, a confrontation between Ankara and Damascus would have been “unacceptable.”18 Damascus condemned the Turkish attack from the outset, even though it did not actually consider it to be too negative as it would have allowed Assad to enter the scene and reach, with the help of Moscow, an agreement with Ankara advantageous for all. According to some political scientists, the terms of such an agreement could be of this kind: the Turks would deliver to Assad the province of Idlib (where the Syrians had conducted a vigorous offensive from April to August), and in return Moscow and Damascus would let the Turks act against the Kurds – not according to the neo-Ottoman ambitions of Erdoğan, but on the basis of the agreements established. This would explain Moscow’s veto on the Security Council’s resolution calling on 61 Turkey to end the offensive.19 As well as the advantages for Damascus, the Turkish operation in Syria is a political opportunity for Russia due to a variety of reasons. First of all, it involved the withdrawal from the east of Syria of U.S and Western forces, which prevented the new Syria from being formed according to the interests of the Russian-Iranian-Syrian axis. It has also contributed to increasing tensions between Western nations, allies of the Syrian Kurds, and helped to create friction between Turkey and the other NATO countries. These contrasts would benefit Moscow in particular. Finally, the offensive pushed the Kurds into the arms of the Damascus regime, breaking the alliance, not appreciated by the Russians, between the Kurds and the U.S.20 As far as the Kurds are concerned, Washington’s withdrawal from the theater of war has left them no alternative but to enter into an agreement with Damascus, so as not to end up being

18.G. Sarcina, “I soldati di Putin tra Assad e i turchi” in Corriere della Sera, October 16, 2019. 19.This resolution was requested on October 11 from the UN Security Council by France. Russia and the United States voted against it. Cf. A. Samrani - S. Le Stradic, “Chi approfitta della nuova situazione” in Internazionale, October 18, 2019, 23ff. 20.Ibid. GIOVANNI SALE, SJ

massacred by the Turks. However, this has come at a very high price. First of all, the Kurds had to hand over all their heavy weapons to the Syrians and join their troops with those of the rais to fight the powerful Turkish army together. On the political level, this alliance will have an even greater cost: the Kurds will probably, in the immediate future, have to give up their project of political autonomy in exchange for the protection of the Assad regime.21 While Damascus has sent its troops to northern Syria, “patrolling” the cities of Kobane and Manbij, it is more likely that in the future there will be no clash between the two armies. Russia, which aims to protect its interests in the region, would not allow this to happen. Rather, there will be a division of control 62 of the territories, where everyone will have their share, including Iran, which is currently absent from the game. Tehran, in fact, has every interest in consolidating the Shiite corridor linking Iran to the Mediterranean via Iraq and Syria. In short, the fate of Syria, at this moment, seems more than ever in the hands of Russian President Putin.

From the American truce to the Soči meeting Trump, on the other hand, pressed by some sectors of his administration and by public opinion, has had to change tactics on some points. At first he called for sanctions against Turkey (duties of up to 50 percent on steel imports and a blockade of a US$100 billion trade agreement), and in a letter sent to Erdoğan he toldhim “Don’t be a tough guy, don’t be a fool!”22 He then sent his closest collaborators – Deputy President Mike Pence and the Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, a “high level” delegation as never before – to Ankara to agree with the Turkish President on a ceasefire. On October 17, a 13-point agreement was reached, whereby Ankara undertook to stop its offensive for 120 hours, to allow YPG militants to retreat south. In return, Trump would cancel the sanctions already announced and would waive the imposition of further sanctions.

21.Cf. “Green light, go”, op. cit. 22.P. Mastrolilli, “L’America ferma l’avanzata di Erdoğan: cessate il fuoco di cinque giorni in Siria” in La Stampa, October 18, 2019. ‘SOURCE OF PEACE’ THE TURKISH OPERATION AGAINST THE SYRIAN KURDS

Turkey, on the basis of the agreement, has obtained a security zone 32 km deep in the north of Syria, purged of the presence of the Kurdish “terrorists.” The area is 120 kilometers long – from Tell Abyad to Ras al-Ain, the two cities attacked by the Turks at the beginning of the offensive – where the country can place some of the 3.6 million refugees it is currently hosting, a sort of Turkish protectorate in northern Syria.23 In any case, the agreement was a tactical and political success, especially for Erdoğan. Turkey, in fact, has gained everything it could hope to get in a situation unfavorable to it. Ankara did not give in on the indefinite “ceasefire,” as the U.S. wanted, but only agreed to a “120-hour suspension of military activities.”24 In fact, the agreement only partially met Turkey’s demands as it was applicable in less than a third of the territory of 63 the safe zone, as indicated by Erdoğan; the rest of the area (Manbij, Ayn al-Arab, Qamishli) is now occupied by Russian and Syrian troops. The Kurds, for their part, have declared that they accept the agreement, and the YPG militiamen have immediately begun to demobilize in the area concerned, albeit with incidents that have made observers fear the worst. “We accept the truce,” said Mazloum Abdi, commander of the SDF, “but neitherthat Turkey remains in the region, nor a demographic change.”25 The exit of the U.S. from the theater of war and the consequent abandonment of the Kurdish allied militias have favored the establishment of a Pax Russica in Syria and in the region. This is evidenced by the dialogue between Putin and Erdoğan on October 22 (the day on which the “American truce” expired) in Soči, which lasted about seven hours and gave the results expected by the Russian leader. In the press conference that followed the meeting, Putin highlighted the role played by the Russians in trying to limit the possible resumption of the

23.See M. Ansaldo, “La pax di Trump: ‘Sarà ritiro curdo’” in la Repubblica, October 18, 2019. 24.D. Santoro, “L’accordo con gli Usa è un successo tattico di Erdoğan” in www.limesonline.com/siria-accordo-usa-turchia-erdogan-pence-curdi-russia- putin/114839 25.M. Ansaldo, “La pax di Trump: ‘Sarà ritiro curdo’”, op. cit. GIOVANNI SALE, SJ

Turkish offensive in the region. Erdoğan, for his part, specified that from October 23 the Kurds (i.e. the members of the YPG) would have another 150 hours to withdraw from the border. In any case, despite mutual mistrust, the Kurds have completed the evacuation of the affected area – 125 km long and 30 km deep – according to the demands of the Turkish leader. On the basis of the agreement, the rest of the border – which includes the important cities of Manbij and Kobane and, on the other side, that of Qamishli, capital of Rojava – up to the Iraqi border, would be guarded by the Syrian army, assisted by the Russians. Moscow has also undertaken to support Erdoğan’s project to facilitate the safe and voluntary return of Syrian refugees to the region evacuated by the YPG militiamen. It was also established 64 that in the “demilitarized band” there would be Russian and Turkish patrols to verify that the agreements signed were not violated. The decisions taken in Soči also benefited Assad, who “spreads out in a radial pattern in the heart of Rojava. The dream of a Kurdish autonomous region in federal Syria [as it was in the projects of both Erdoğan and Putin] is defeated.”26 Both presidents, for different reasons, are hostile to the creation of an autonomous or independent Kurdish region in Syria. On the same day as the Soči summit, Trump announced via Twitter the lifting of sanctions against Turkey, at the same time claiming the success of the truce agreed by others, which he described as “definitive.” The international community – including the UN, the EU and the Arab League – even though they cared about the problem of the Syrian Kurds and while recognizing the merit of having fought the Islamic State more than others, acted with excessive prudence in denouncing but not stopping the aggression in the Rojava border territories by Erdoğan. Indeed, not even world public opinion – even though there have been some courageous initiatives in various countries – has done much to defend the Kurdish cause.

26.L. Cremonesi, “Siria, pace russa nel Nord del Paese. Putin detta i tempi a Erdoğan” in Corriere della Sera, October 23, 2019. See M. Jego - B. Vitkine, “Syrie: Poutine se porte garant du retrait des forces kurdes à la frontière turque” in Le Monde, October 24, 2019; L. Alsaafin, “Turchia e Russia decidono il destino dei curdi in Siria” in Internazionale, October 25, 2019, 31. ‘SOURCE OF PEACE’ THE TURKISH OPERATION AGAINST THE SYRIAN KURDS

The Holy Father, during his Angelus address delivered on October 13, clearly recalled the serious situation, appealing to the international community: “My thoughts go once again to the Middle East. In particular to the beloved and tormented Syria from where dramatic news again comes about the fate of the populations of the north-east of the country, forced to abandon their homes due to military action: among these populations there are also many Christian families. To all the actors involved and also to the International Community, please, I renew my appeal to commit yourselves, with sincerity, honesty and transparency, to the path of dialogue to seek effective solutions.” Today it seems that political issues, even when they affect the fundamental values of people and communities, no longer move most people. Yet for Europe in particular, the new 65 Syrian conflict, if it were to continue, would have very serious repercussions. This is both in terms of the refugee emergency – as it was in 2015 and with all it entails on the political and social level – and in terms of the jihadist threat. Inculturation in Africa: Challenges and Prospects

Marcel Uwineza, SJ

The theme of inculturation is not new among African theologians, especially in recent studies. Because of its importance, we carried out a brief investigation to observe how the process of inculturation has been at the center of the Church 66 for centuries. We also looked at how it continues to be new, and how its implications have not yet fully penetrated the hearts of the African Catholic faithful. In this article we will suggest some “routes” that the process of inculturation could take today in Africa.

Why inculturation? In his book Inculturation: Its Meaning and Urgency, John Mary Waliggo describes inculturation as “the honest and serious attempt to make Christ and his message of salvation evermore understood by peoples of every culture, locality and time, that is, the reformulation of Christian life and doctrine into the very thought-patterns of each people. It is the continuous endeavor to make Christianity truly ‘feel at home’ in the cultures of each people.”1 The refusal to inculturate the Gospel message slows down the process of the Church putting down roots in the African continent, making the Church and the faith remain like a “potted plant”, forever living in a foreign soil. This belittles the dignity and self-respect of Africans as children of God.2

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1.J. M. Waliggo et al., Inculturation: Its Meaning and Urgency, Kampala, St Paul Publications, 1986, 12. 2.Cf. Laurenti Magesa, Anatomy of Inculturation: Transforming the Church in Africa, New York, Orbis Books, 2004, 10. INCULTURATION IN AFRICA: CHALLENGES AND PROSPECTS

Christianity has remained alive in some areas of Coptic- speaking Egypt, Ethiopia and the Sudan because it had been translated into the local languages, adapted to these cultures and propagated by local evangelizers.3 However, it was unable to survive the invasion of Islam in North Africa. There is no reason to doubt that what happened in the past could happen again to the flourishing and numerically strong Churches established in Africa. We could draw eloquent examples in this regard from the numerous religious wars in Nigeria, and worse still from what happened in Rwanda during the 1994 genocide, when almost a million Rwandans were exterminated because of their identity. In West Africa it is said: “We eat everything they give us, but we digest it in our own way.”4 This “digestion” also applies 67 to the process of appropriation of the faith. Faith ceases to be external when it penetrates the very fabric of our being. This means that “the Christian faith cannot be digested by people of a given culture unless it is digested by that culture.”5 The fears, challenges or “allergies” that arise in people every time the word “inculturation” is mentioned can be summarized as follows: 1) inculturation wants to dismantle the central doctrines of our faith; 2) it wants to lower the Christian standards set at a high price by the missionaries; 3) it will stunt Christian growth by introducing “superstitions” that have long been condemned by the Church; 4) it will trivialize Christianity for the African people; 5) it could lead to divisions in the Church; 6) it could generate a gap between the local Church and the universal 6 Church ; 7) the theologians of inculturation want to create their own Church in order to gain recognition. Some of these fears may have a foundation, but it is only when we face them head on that we can present a truly effective Christian message that touches people’s lives. Inculturation wants to deepen new ways of living as Christians in Africa today, shaping Christian worldviews, creating new human relations and

3.J.M. Waliggo et al. Inculturation..., op. cit., 12. 4.Laurenti Magesa, Anatomy of Inculturation..., op. cit., 6. 5. Ibid., 7. 6. Cf. J.M. Waliggo et al. Inculturation..., op. cit., 14. MARCEL UWINEZA, SJ

offering a new beginning for African values and customs to find their way in the context of the Christian faith. This is a call for a re-appropriation of the Paschal Mystery, which entails the need to die in order to rise again to a new Christian life in Africa.7 Saint John Paul II declared: “A faith that does not become culture is a faith that is not fully accepted, not entirely thought through, not faithfully lived.”8 Christianity exists when people believe; and it becomes deeply rooted when it touches people and their lives where they are and how they are. Faith can only find its expression and life within cultures.9 Saint Paul VI, who had a strong interest in inculturation, wrote: “Evangelization loses much of its strength and effectiveness if it does not take into account the actual people to whom it is addressed, if it 68 does not use their language, their signs and their symbols, if it does not answer the questions they ask it, if it does not have an impact on their concrete life.”10

Inculturation in the history of the Church Since its foundation in 1622, Propaganda Fide has insisted on the need for evangelizers to respect the cultures of the evangelized so that they might accept Christianity and regard it as their own. The missionaries were told again and again by those who commissioned them to take time to study the languages and cultures of the peoples they were to evangelize and to avoid as much as possible turning their converts into African or Asian Europeans. Instead, they were to make them African and Asian Christians. Propaganda Fide said: “Who could think of something more absurd than transporting France, Italy or Spain, or some other European country, to China? Bring them your faith, not your country.”11

7.Cf. E. D. A. Goussikindy, The Christic Model of Eboussi Boulaga, a Critical Exposition and Evaluation of an African Recapture of Christianity, Toronto, National Library of Canada, 1997, 17f. 8.John Paul II, Letter of Foundation of the Pontifical Council for Culture, May 20, 1982. 9.Cf. C. McGarry, “Preface” in J. M. Waliggo et al, Inculturation..., op. cit. 10.Paul VI, Apostolic Exhortation Evangelii nuntiandi (1975), No. 63. 11.S. Neill, A History of Christian Missions, New York, Penguin Books, 1977, 170. INCULTURATION IN AFRICA: CHALLENGES AND PROSPECTS

In the last century Saint Paul VI, with regard to the Church’s commitment to inculturation, affirmed: “An adaptation of the Christian life in the pastoral, ritual, didactic and also spiritual fields is not only possible, it is even favored by the Church.”12 He urged the African Church: “You can and must have an African Christianity. Indeed, you have human values and characteristic forms of culture that can [...] find in Christianity and for Christianity a genuine and superior fullness.”13 On the other hand, he expressed himself in favor of a wise caution: their desire to have an African Christianity, the natives of this Continent should remember the Tradition, because undermining the deposit of the apostolic tradition would mean taking a wrong path. The desire for inculturation should find its expression 69 within the essential patrimony of the teaching of Christ as professed by the tradition of the Church. The more we desire to make our faith truly African, the more we must be custodians and good stewards of the Catholic faith. This means that faith in Jesus Christ remains the cornerstone, but the expression, i.e. “the language, the way of manifesting this one Faith, may be manifold. It may be original, suited to the tongue, the style, the character, the genius and culture of the one who professes this one Faith.”14 The challenge is twofold: a clear and systematic understanding of the faith, and a rooted understanding of our cultures.

Challenges What are the current challenges of inculturation in Africa? What are the factors that prevent it being successful? There are those who say that it is not necessary, because some of our traditions are archaic, have lost their relevance and applicability. Therefore, any effort at inculturation is a futile exercise ifit is based on massive borrowing from the indigenous African

12.Paul VI, Eucharistic Celebration at the Conclusion of the Symposium of Bishops of Africa, July 31, 1969. 13.Ibid.. Cf. T. Okure - P. van Theil et al., 32 Articles evaluating Inculturation of Christianity in Africa, Eldoret, Amecea Gaba Publications, 1990, 16. 14.Ibid., 39. MARCEL UWINEZA, SJ

heritage of past eras. Some people dwell on the liturgy and believe that inculturation is not taking place because local proposals should have a greater weight in liturgical matters. Others renounce inculturation, because often there is a lack of dialogue and sharing between the laity and the clergy. Finally, the decline of moral values, especially in the area of sexuality, affects young people in particular. Of course, in Africa we are witnessing a crisis of collective identity, because people are slowly transforming from subjects to objects of the forces of globalization and postmodernism, where the “human being” has been supplanted by “material having.” We must always remember that inculturation means both reading and living the Gospel in the light of the categories of a 70 given society, and transforming society in the light of the Gospel, as Saint Paul did when he appropriated the Greek language and transformed its semantics in the light of the Gospel. What perspectives, then, could favor the process of inculturation? How do we move from a Church inclined to think that by inculturation we mean only the drums, the songs in local languages, the dances with African rhythms, the replacement of white icons with black ones and so on? Which areas are in urgent need of inculturation? How can we actually move from a superficial meaning of inculturation to a deeper one?

Ten perspectives Proposals can be drawn up to facilitate the debate on inculturation and its implementation. 1) An African adage says: “Build a school, chase out ignorance.” The first people to be trained for inculturation are clergy, catechists and other Church agents. Gone are the days when a priest was only trained in philosophy and theology: today preparation is also required in the human sciences. If we are to deepen the faith and make Christianity truly African, we need courses on African culture and values, on African theology and customs. In this process it is vital to develop an inculturated Catholic catechism. This will allow Catholics to be more aware of their faith. INCULTURATION IN AFRICA: CHALLENGES AND PROSPECTS

2) We need to educate families today. The current crisis of Christian marriage leads to both family breakdown and cohabitation, and in general it is observed that the number of divorces today is very high: “At least 30 percent of marriages now end up in divorce after fewer than ten years.”15 As a result there are many single parents looking for sexual partners, regardless of whether the latter are married or not. Recent studies reveal that HIV/AIDS is spreading more in families than in any other sector of the population. Some seek a short-term marital relationship, saying, “Let’s try it out and see if we get along; and when we get tired of each other, each one will go his or her own way.”16 Today, what is lacking is a sense of value and respect for the family and the community that traditionally kept people 71 together and motivated their commitment, even when faced with obstacles. In this sense, traditional African religion still teaches us many things, especially about community life as opposed to individualism. 3) Diseases have traditionally been considered as disharmonies within the individual. However, sickness is not just a problem for the individual but for the community, since health is one of the major concerns for all societies. To be healthy is to be in harmony with one’s body and society. And since the Church holistically cares for the sick, her ministry of healing will be more significant in Africa if she takes into account this conception of the human person. In many parishes, a number of Christians still believe that the sacrament of the Anointing of the Sick should be conferred only on those who are about to die. Although this perspective has been altered by the new rite, many have not yet understood it. It would be much easier to help African Christians understand the sacrament of the Anointing of the Sick while taking into account the traditional idea of sickness, healing and health. 4) Inculturation, like any development of life or thinking involving culture, usually does not occur according to plans or

15.Laurenti Magesa, Anatomy of Inculturation..., op. cit., 28. 16.Ibid., 73. MARCEL UWINEZA, SJ

theories. It happens when the people involved feel free to live and express themselves in terms that best respond to their experience, and their true feelings This applies to liturgy, ecclesiology, marriage, religious life and social justice. Culture is a reality that has a life of its own, continuing to grow, adapt and respond to new situations and environmental changes. Inculturation is a way of living in the wider context of what makes human life human. Therefore, the encounter between culture and faith is realized continuously and with mutual influence. 5) Inculturation presupposes an intellectual and spiritual grasp of the Christian faith, that is, that the fundamental and profound principles of the faith are correctly understood for what they are. This in turn implies that divine revelation and 72 revealed truths are appreciated for what they are, that is, as a gift from God, as self-revelation of God in the concrete person of Jesus Christ. Therefore, the prerequisite for undertaking the process of inculturation is that there be clarity regarding the sectors of culture that are useful for rooting the Christian faith in the lived experience of a given people. This gives an advantage when making the Gospel a people’s culture, and vice versa, without compromising the meaning of the Gospel itself. If it is true that the Good News is superior to any culture, it can and must be destined to become the Christian culture of a given people. 6) The fact that the liturgy is the principal means of sanctification of the people of God, and therefore the highest act of worship rendered to God through the sacrifice of his Son Jesus Christ, implies that it must be directed to God and not to ourselves. Jesus is the measure of worship because he gave his life as an act of love of the Father in expiation of our sins and, at the same time, he opened to us the wellspring of mercy and forgiveness. So the liturgy, which is an act of worship in and through Jesus Christ, must be pleasing to God. What does this mean for inculturation? It means that correct inculturation consists in subjecting our cultural values to the scrutiny of the Gospel, so that they are in tune with the revealed truths, and the Gospel becomes our culture. INCULTURATION IN AFRICA: CHALLENGES AND PROSPECTS

7) For the theologian and for the Church in various parts of Africa the challenge is to identify which cultural values can be useful for the service of the Gospel and for bringing salvation to African cultures. Here there is a demon to be exorcised: tribalism. It has the capacity to defeat the efforts that African Christians make to find themselves increasingly at home with the Christian faith. Moreover, with the demon of tribalism are associated those rituals associated with initiation, marriage and death, which tend to take over the minds of Christians in Africa because they have a strong cultural significance. Consequently, there is a tension between Christian truth and the cultural values linked to these dimensions of life. The Church must promote dialogue in order to find a solution to these questions. 73 8) The use of liturgical music and dance should be seen within the task of transforming – or possibly strengthening – human cultural values so that they may be at the service of the Gospel. Obviously, disciplinary questions must always be distinguished from doctrine, so that the two levels are not confused, which, moreover, must be part of the wider context of faith. Liturgical dances can easily lapse into religious entertainment or simply banal shows that do not contribute in any way to the understanding and penetration of faith in the lives of the faithful. On the one hand, there is no need to “manipulate” the liturgy by inserting gestures that have no real relevance to the comprehensive meaning of worship. On the other hand, dances, drumming and so on can be transformed into authentic and deeper ways in which our body becomes an expression of worship, as in the episode of David narrated in the Second Book of Samuel (cf. 2 Sam 6). In short, inculturation should concern the practical insertion or “incarnation” of real Gospel values that give Christian meaning to human life within a specific culture. It should go beyond appearance, toward meaning. If, however, it is reduced to or stops at liturgical performance, which is the fruitful encounter between the Gospel and culture, its very purpose is betrayed It is a meeting that aims to become not a competition, but a vital union, the realization of which may take a long time. MARCEL UWINEZA, SJ

9) The role played so far by African theologians, who continue to seek to make the Christian faith truly African, should be better appreciated. For theology in Africa their intellectual contribution will continue to be a pillar for many years to come. One thing African theologians are accused of is that they write little. African theologians of the caliber of Laurenti Magesa, John M. Waliggo, Teresa Okure, Charles Nyamiti, Bénézet Bujo and Jean-Marc Ela give concrete proof of the fact that, in order to have a well-founded African Christian faith, people are needed who ultimately give their lives so that Christianity may be established in Africa. These theologians are truly giants, and we rest on their shoulders. Another area that African theologians should explore is the 74 use of the media in promoting inculturation. 10) We are aware that syncretism continues to exist in Africa. People go back and forth between the Church and their traditional religions. The real question to ask is: does syncretism occur because people have not internalized and adopted the principles of the Christian faith? We firmly believe that inculturation can be a solution to the problem of syncretism.

* * *

Inculturation is a twofold process: first, it presupposes an understanding of faith and doctrine; second, it requires a shift from the traditional spiritual paradigm of faith to a practice of faith through the use of cultural values lived in the light of the Gospel. The expected result is the transformation of life in the service of the Gospel and the salvation of people within their respective cultures. From the Amazon River to the Tiber: Notes from a Special Synod

Victor Codina, SJ

Civilta Cattolica has already shared the experience of the Synod for the Amazon and its first fruit, the Final Document.1 Here we would like to add a few personal notes on some aspects of this important ecclesial event. 75 The first protagonists At the center of the Synod for the Panamazon Region were the indigenous people, the men and women of the Amazon. They were present both through numerous consultations – involving over 87,000 people in the preparation of the Instrumentum laboris – and through those men and women who participated personally in the synod. The presence of the indigenous people was felt with great clarity and gave substance to the reflection and debate among the synod fathers. The synod, therefore, did not limit itself to knowing the reality through pastoral experiences or sociological studies, but listened directly to the voice of the indigenous people present in the hall. This process was set in motion when Pope Francis went to meet indigenous peoples at Puerto Maldonado (Peru) in January 2018, telling them that he had come to listen to them and to defend their lives, their culture and their territory.2

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1.See A. Spadaro, “The Synod for the Amazon. A fresco for our common home” in Civ. Catt. En. https://www.laciviltacattolica.com/the-synod-for-the-ama- zon-a-fresco-for-our-common-home 2.See D. Fares - A. Spadaro, “Generating the future. Francis’ Apostolic Journey to Chile and Peru” in Civ. Catt. En. https://www.laciviltacattolica.com/ generating-future-francis-apostolic-journey-chile-peru VICTOR CODINA, SJ

This dimension of presence and listening gave shape to a “syn-hodos,” that is, to a journey made together, which was also physically and symbolically visible on Monday, October 7, the first day of the assembly, which was opened by a procession from St. Peter’s Basilica to the Paul VI Hall. This took place without hierarchical order, with the representatives of the original peoples advancing together with their pastors, with the flags of the Latin American saints, carrying a boat with their nets and oars, while they sang: “Put out into the deep water and let down your nets for a catch” (Luke 5:4). The pope walked with the people, standing in the middle, and not at the head or end of the procession. The Amazon entered St. Peter’s Basilica; the Amazon River joined spiritually to the Tiber. 76 In the Synod Hall, indigenous peoples, especially indigenous women, expressed their sorrows and hopes with great force and realism. They felt the Church was their ally. It is difficult to summarize in a few lines the import of so many speeches, but certainly it can be said that the indigenous people have demanded from the pastors an end to colonialist attitudes, appealing for the permanent presence of ministers in their communities on their land, not only in pastoral “visits.” They also asked for a manifest respect for their cultures, their symbols and their traditions: an Amazonian Church in which they want to be the protagonists. One indigenous woman asked the bishops to re-read chapter 25 of the Gospel of Matthew; another said she heard that the pope supports them and asked that the bishops “do not leave the pope in peace”; another recounted how some of his companions were recently killed during demonstrations; yet another read with great difficulty in Spanish the description of a Marian feast that was celebrated in previous days in his community, where people after the liturgy shared the food, and concluded with a song in their original language, to the applause of those present. The interventions of religious, indigenous and missionary people who work in the most remote places of the Amazon also had a great impact on the assembly. Women play a decisive role in Amazonian communities and pastoral care. The pope spent a FROM THE AMAZON RIVER TO THE TIBER: NOTES FROM A SPECIAL SYNOD long time with the indigenous group, and in the end one of the women blessed him in a traditional way. The synod confirmed Francis’ statement in Evangelii Gaudium that reality is more important than the idea (cf. Nos. 231-233). The synod, following the method favored by the meeting of the Latin American Church in Medellín (1968), heard the cry of the people, closely linked to the cry of the earth, our common home, which is wounded and bleeding. The synod is an example of a Church in movement, listening to the Spirit through the cry of the people. It was also a synod of victims. These and the indigenous peoples of the Amazon were its real protagonists.

Ancient wisdom 77 The Church, in her social doctrine, has declared the need for an option for the poor and the defense of justice, as true fruits of the Christian faith. But we must always remember that the Amazonian peoples, although poor from an economic point of view, are heirs to an ancestral, ancient wisdom, prior to Christianity. They are the defenders of “good living,” as an alternative to the modern “living better and better” but at the expense of the earth. “Good living” implies personal and communal harmony with mother earth and with the transcendent dimension. People, with all their lights and shadows, have learned how best to preserve nature and its remedies for the health and future of their community. There is not only justice to fight for, but also a cultural richness of which to be fully aware, hence the importance of knowledge of cultures and languages, inculturation and intercultural and interreligious dialogue. For this reason, the Final Document shows the desire for an Amazonian form of rite that includes not only different liturgical elements, but also different styles of male and female ministries that are native and proper to their culture and their concrete situation. Hence there is the desire for an inculturated formation of ministers, with indigenous seminaries located not far from their communities or from their work, with strong ties to, theologies in dialogue with their cultures and spirituality. VICTOR CODINA, SJ

It is in this socio-cultural context that we must frame what is stated in the Final Document on the possible priestly ordination of some married permanent deacons and on the search for new female ministries. A great deal of care must be taken with these issues, which were widely discussed in the media. Disconnecting these last two requests from the pastoral dimension and from the entire context – geography, poverty, different cultures – means extrapolating from the text, blurring the focus and manipulating the synod. The requests were born from a specific context, that of the Amazon, starting from the awareness of the needs of existing communities. An indigenous woman said so in the synod. Many anthropologists go to the Amazon to obtain their 78 doctorate, without taking into account or improving the lives of indigenous people. Many supporters of the fight against climate change forget the victims of climate change; they wear gold jewelry from the Amazon mines. For this reason it is necessary to be careful not to use the Church in the Amazon for the ecclesial interests of other contexts.

From the Tiber to the whole world The recently concluded synod was not only ecclesial, it was open to the planet. In line with Laudato Si’, it addressed a global problem: the defense and protection of the earth, the fight against the destruction and pollution of nature, climate change, the survival of humanity, and this starting from a specific region, the Amazon, a vital area for the future of the Earth because of the richness of its biome. Attacking the Amazon means putting the future of humankind at risk. The Amazon is like a symbol, a “sacrament,” pars pro toto, of all humanity. For this reason, the synod invited scientific experts, UN delegates, economists and specialists in water conservation and in Amazonian flora and fauna. It was an appeal to all humanity to change its behavior, to stop considering the Earth as a pure object of consumption and profit, not to be carried away by the selfishness ofthe technocratic paradigm, but to live a more sober and austere life, respecting the Earth and taking into account future generations. FROM THE AMAZON RIVER TO THE TIBER: NOTES FROM A SPECIAL SYNOD

The synod calls on the world authorities to take concrete action against climate change and the deterioration of the common home. And addressing believers, it speaks of “ecological sin,” that which through action or omission seriously destroys creation, the work of God, and harms the poorest. It is also clear that certain predatory economic interests were called into question during the synod. For this reason, already in its preparatory documents, the assembly of bishops was attacked – even by media that claim to call themselves “Catholic” – as heretical, pantheistic, absurd, biodegradable, backward. There were – and there still are – strong attempts to divert attention from global ecological issues. This is also the reason for the excessive polemical attention given to intra- ecclesial but secondary issues. 79 Instead, this has been – and will be even more so in its implementation phase – a synod for the whole world. It should not be forgotten that the pope and a group of synod participants, on October 3, in a brief and symbolic ceremony in the Vatican gardens, consecrated the synod to Francis of Assisi, the cantor of “brother sun and sister moon,” of “sister water and sister mother earth.”

A ‘theological place’ At the beginning of the synod, Francis affirmed that the authentic protagonist of the encounter would be the Holy Spirit, source of hope, novelty and joy. Our meeting on the Amazon has helped us to deepen our faith in the Holy Spirit. The Creator Spirit, who directs history from beginning to end; the Spirit of the Risen Crucified, who acts from below, from moments of chaos and suffering, from the depths of history, from the poor, from the victims, from women, from the indigenous, prepares the way of the Lord and gives wisdom to the people even before the arrival of the missionaries. After all, missionaries always arrive late. The Lord is always already at work in the world. Sometimes even those who go on mission cannot discern the presence of the Spirit in the cry of the people, in their cultures and religions. Thanks to this VICTOR CODINA, SJ

presence of the Spirit in the peoples, it is legitimate to discuss and reflect with careful discernment on the Indian theologies, on the possibility of Amazonian rites, and on the new ministerial structures to be created. Ultimately, to discuss and reflect on a Church with an Amazonian face, where the local Church enriches the universal Church, always in communion with the Bishop of Rome, guarantor of the ecclesial unity of faith in Jesus, the one Lord and Savior. The Amazon becomes a real “theological place,” where the ecclesial tradition of the Christian faith is manifested, renewed and updated. The canonization of John Henry Newman during the synod can be considered a symbolic model for the people of God who, starting from the sense of baptismal faith and in the 80 light of the Spirit, progresses in the knowledge and experience of the Christian mystery. The incarnation of the Son of God in Jesus of Nazareth establishes the inculturation of the Gospel in Amazonian cultures, in the evangelizing mission of the joyful proclamation of the Kingdom of God, in the work to free creation from the slavery of sin (Rom 8:20), to follow Jesus who came to give us life in abundance (John 10:10), beginning with the least, which is represented by bread, work and home for all, everything that is asked for in the apostolic exhortation, Evangelii Gaudium. From all this a Church emerges that goes forth, a Church that is Samaritan, Magdalen, multifaceted, in solidarity with the outcasts of history, with the victims of personal, structural and ecological sin. Laudato Si’ takes on a concrete face in the Amazon region. The synod for the Amazon took place at the confluence of these two great papal documents; it intertwined them in the open ground by means of another document of Francis: the apostolic constitution Episcopalis communio on synodality.

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At the end of the Second Vatican Council, on November 16, 1965, led by Dom Helder Camara and Bishop Manuel Larraín, 40 bishops went to the Catacombs of Santa Domitilla FROM THE AMAZON RIVER TO THE TIBER: NOTES FROM A SPECIAL SYNOD to pronounce a commitment in favor of a poor Church for the poor, as John XXIII had hoped for by means of the Council. This commitment is called the “Pact of the Catacombs.”3 On Sunday October 20, 2019, a group of bishops, religious and lay people – many of them indigenous – linked to the synod for the Amazon and led by Cardinal Claudio Hummes, returned to the Catacombs of Santa Domitilla to renew that pact from the perspective of the synod. The new pact of the Catacombs of Santa Domitilla can be understood to synthesize a synod that listened to the Spirit through the cry of the poor and the cry of the Earth, rooted in the ecclesial tradition of the Second Vatican Council. In conclusion, it can therefore be said that today the four famous rivers of Piazza Navona designed by Lorenzo Bernini – 81 the Nile, the Ganges, the Danube and the Rio de la Plata – are ideally joined by a fifth, the Amazon River, theological locus for the breath of the Church.

3.G. Pani, “Il Patto delle Catacombe” in Civ. Catt. 2015 IV 542-552. From Darkness to Light: ‘Ghosteen’ a new album from Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds

Claudio Zonta, SJ

Ghosteen, the new album by UK-based, Australian musician Nick Cave, is the result of a reinterpretation of his mourning for the death of his son Arthur, who died on July 15, 2015, after falling from a cliff in Ovingdean Gap, near Brighton, in 82 southern England. In 1992 the singer had already written a song dedicated to his first son Luke, almost foreshadowing the fragility of family affections. It was called “Papa Won’t Leave You, Henry”: Papa won’t leave you, Henry / Papa won’t leave you, Boy: a sentiment that was embedded in the chorus of this song-confession of Nick Cave’s life, between excesses and redemptions. To contemplate and overcome this tragedy, the Australian artist has plunged into writing, which has always been the way in which he can descend into the depths of his soul and reflect on pain and piety. As he himself comments: “A great gaping hole was blasted out of my world by the unexpected death of my father when I was nineteen years old. The way I learned to fill this hole, this void, was to write [...]. I found that language became a poultice to the wounds incurred by the death of my father. Language became a salve to longing.”1 If Nick Cave’s poetics have always been centered on gloomy, bloody colors, with moments of divine light,2 the literary style of the whole Ghosteen album seems to be aimed at the search for

La Civiltà Cattolica, En. Ed. Vol. 4, no. 01 art. 8, 0120: 10.32009/22072446.2001.8

1.N. Cave, Tutte le canzoni 1978-2001, Milan, Mondadori, 2003, 12f. 2.For the life and poetics of Nick Cave, see A. Spadaro, “Nick Cave’s religious obsession. The evolutions of the “cursed poet” of “rock”” in Civ. Catt. 2003 I 480-493. ‘GHOSTEEN’ A NEW ALBUM FROM NICK CAVE AND THE BAD SEEDS more diaphanous colors. There is an evident sense of a thought that the singer himself expressed regarding Mark’s Gospel: “The Gospel According to Mark has continued to inform my life as the root source of my spirituality, my religious sense. […] Christ came as a liberator. Christ understood that we as humans were for ever held to the ground by the pull of gravity – our ordinariness, our mediocrity – and it was through His example that He gave our imaginations the freedom to fly. In short, to be Christ-like.”3 If, in fact, in the previous albums by Nick Cave the idea of this weight that crushes the human being on earth is firmly present, not unlike the fate of Sisyphus in the myth who inexorably pushes the stone to the top of the mountain only to see it fall back to the base. Now the gaze is turned rather toward 83 a light that permeates every element of existence, even death.

From darkness to light Listening to Nick Cave’s last three albums, we can observe a musical and poetic continuum that begins with Push the Sky Away (2013), Skeleton Tree (2016) and Ghosteen (2019): musically, the use of electronics takes the place of electric guitars and rock sounds, while the lyrics are progressively oriented toward a search for the absolute.4 The album Push The Sky Away ends, in the title song, with the desire to push the sky away: You’ve got to just keep on pushing it / Keep on pushing it / Push the sky away. His next album, Skeleton Tree, opens with the song “Jesus Alone,” in which Jesus falls from the sky: You fell from the sky / crash landed in a field near the river Adur. The term “sky,” which is present in both songs, emphasizes opposition to being human, just as the descent to Earth is considered a fall by precipitation. The sky seems to be a distant element, which separates us from existence, as also shown by the song “Distant Sky” (2016): We can set out, we can set out for the distant skies / Watch the sun,

3.Gospel according to Mark, Introduction by Nick Cave, Turin, Einaudi, 2000, IX. 4.All lyrics and translations of the latest album Ghosteen are taken from the site NickCave.it CLAUDIO ZONTA, SJ

watch it rising in your eyes. But in “Galleon Ship” (2019), in the latest album Ghosteen, the sky is no longer so far away or, in any case, it starts to be a place of passage, and not an unbridgeable hiatus between life and death: For we are not alone, it seems, so many riders in the sky. Even the existential dimension seems to acquire a different brightness. From the darkness present in the song “I Need You” (2016), in which the echo of the death of his son already appears – Cause nothing really matters / On the night we wrecked like a train – we move to the splendor imbued with vitality of the song “Bright Horses” (2019): The bright horses have broken free from the fields / They are horses of love, their manes full of fire / They are parting the cities, those bright burning horses. 84 Light thus becomes a symbol of rebirth, of resurrection and, this time, it seems that it is not just a moment, a sudden lightning strike in the darkness, but an existential and lasting vision: And if we rise, my love / Oh my darling precious one / We’ll stand and watch the galleon ships / Circle around the morning sun (“Galleon Ship”). The light of the sun arrives and its saving power reaches to the depths, as Nick Cave sings in the final track of the album, “Leviathan”: And as the sun sinks into the water now. In biblical symbolism, Leviathan represents God’s enemies and lives in the depths of the sea, a place that evokes death. Perhaps in that sinking we can find an echo of the prophet Jonah, who, in the belly of the sea monster, cries out to God his anguish: “You cast me into the deep, into the heart of the seas, [...]; all your waves and your billows passed over me. The waters closed in over me; the deep surrounded me; weeds were wrapped around my head” (Jonah 2:3.5). However, the sun, symbol of divine power, descends into the evil sea, bringing back to life the profound meaning of love: I love my baby and my baby loves me, an action that recalls the passage from the Book of Revelation: “The sea returned the dead it guarded” (Rev 20:13).

Images of Christ Nick Cave is used to using a language rich in biblical images, combined with moments of dramatic everyday life, ‘GHOSTEEN’ A NEW ALBUM FROM NICK CAVE AND THE BAD SEEDS

as shown by the song “Night Raid” (2019): There’s a picture of Jesus lying in his mother’s arms / Shuttered windows, cars humming on the street below / The fountain throbbed in the lobby of the Grand Hotel / We checked into room thirty-three, well well / You were a runaway flake of snow / You were skinny and white as a wafer, yeah I know. The gesture of love, deep and imposing, expressed by the image of the Pieta, probably of Michelangelo – well known by Nick Cave from his early studies of art – is lived in a context of busy streets. The number thirty-three in the hotel room corresponds to the age of Christ at his death, a Christ who seems to be present, with Eucharistic whiteness and fragility, that “you” to whom the musician turns. Everything leads to the pain that Christ suffered, a suffering that is also lived intimately by the singer- 85 songwriter because of the death of his son. In the song “Sun Forest” (2019) the images of Christ reappear: And a man called Jesus, he promised he would leave us / With a word that would light up the night, oh the night / But the stars hang from threads and blink off one by one / And it isn’t any fun, no it isn’t any fun / To be standing here alone with nowhere to be / With a man mad with grief and on each side a thief. Nick Cave’s existential search continues in an unstable balance between the abyss of love and death, disbelief and faith. The verb in the conditional mood “he would leave us” emphasizes the uncertainty caused by the pain that tests the proper sense of the incarnation. The man “mad with grief” with “on each side a thief” expresses both the “ecce homo” of the fourth Gospel (John 19:5) and the soul of the singer-songwriter himself, torn apart and condemned by life itself to live with the laceration of thwarted affection. But the light of Christ penetrates the shadow, illuminates the darkness, even the most senseless, as Cave sings at the end of the song: Come on everyone, come on everyone / A spiral of children climbs up to the sun / To the sun, taking everyone. The first verse recalls both the Gospel of Matthew: “Come to me, all you who are weary and carrying heavy burdens” (Matt 11:28), responding forcefully to the doubt expressed above about the possibility of a word capable of illuminating the night, and CLAUDIO ZONTA, SJ

the expression contained in the Gospel of Mark: “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). Nick Cave’s song is not an easy answer to the death of the innocent; it is the expression of a path that must be followed, even on treacherous and sometimes seemingly senseless roads. The last verses express the goalof the journey, toward the light that illuminates the night and transforms people from solitary to relational: I am here beside you / Look for me in the sun / I am beside you, I am within / In the sunshine / In the sun. They are verses that express the intensity of the desire for relationship, with the second person personal pronoun expressed with insistence and continuity. 86 This “I am beside you”18 is also repeated in the song “Ghosteen,” while the final words of the album, in the song “Leviathan,” seal this path from darkness to light: I love my baby and my baby loves me, loves me.

Conclusion Returning to some thoughts on the meaning of writing, Nick Cave states: “Ultimately the love song exists to fill with language the silence between ourselves and God, to decrease the distance between the temporal and the divine.”5 The album Ghosteen is just that bridge over the darkness of pain that can only be crossed with the desire that love and pity are really the final words about human existence.

5.N. Cave, All Songs 1978-2001, op. cit., 18.