0120 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. 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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 FEBRUARY TITLES • Uzbekistan: A key to Central Asia • A Hundred Years After INDIVIDUAL SUBSCRIPTION Maximum Illud: The $49.95 FOR 12 MONTHS Missiological path of the Catholic Magisterium ● Ideal for Church leaders, theologians, scholars, seminarians etc • Nonverbal Communication ● Monthly editions available both in ePub and • Brotherhood in the Old Mobi Testament ● Subscriber gets unlimited online access • Cultural Anemia ● Access to Perspectives Series - Six Thematic • Václav Havel: "The power of Issues of the Journal the powerless" • Experience Being a Disciple: GROUP SUBSCRIPTION The letters of Pope Francis to $250 FOR TWELVE MONTHS priests ● Ideal for Catholic universities, libraries, • Defy The Apocalypse institutes, congregations etc. ● Multi-user, unlimited access for one year. • Anticipate China's Future: The legacy of the Jesuit Bishop ● Subscribers access unlimited logins in Jin Luxian different devices within the same IP address ● Monthly editions available both in ePub and Mobi ● Access to Perspectives Series - Six Thematic Issues of the Journal For educational and bulk rates, please email [email protected] SUBSCRIBE TODAY AT laciviltacattolica.com Live Your Faith from The Perspective of the End 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