"All: Humanity on the Way" is the name of the first exhibition in the new exhibition hall of the Vatican Apostolic Library, which was inaugurated by Pope Francis and will allow anyone who wishes to visit this space, hitherto reserved for academics.
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Cardinal Angelo Scola celebrates his 80th birthday
The cardinal ceases to be a cardinal elector, thus losing the right to vote in the event of a conclave. Scola was a close collaborator of John Paul II, he was in charge of the chair of Anthropology at the Pontifical Institute John Paul II for studies on marriage and the family. He was linked to the Communion and Liberation movement. He was Patriarch Emeritus of Venice and Archbishop Emeritus of Milan.
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To understand what the Synod is about
On October 17, the diocesan phase of the Synod of Bishops, which Pope Francis had initiated in Rome for the universal Church a week earlier, began. Readers already know that this is a unique convocation, conceived as a three-year process, which will go through several phases; and that, unlike previous Synods, it will not focus on the discussion or study of a particular theme. Its main intention is that each of the baptized may know that he or she is responsible for the Church to which he or she belongs, and that both he or she and the Church itself may embrace with enthusiasm its evangelizing mission.
Monsignor Luis Marin de San Martin, Undersecretary of the Synod of Bishops, explains this in detail in an interview for this issue of Omnes. His statements make explicit the content of recent interventions of Pope Francis, specifically the address to the faithful of the Diocese of Rome in September; the speech inaugurating the synodal process on October 9, as well as the homily delivered at the opening Mass of the Synod on October 10.
In addition to the synodal journey just begun, we would like to highlight other topics in this issue of Omnes. One is the article in the At the roots of our TraditionThe book, centered on the apocryphal gospels, is a collection of writings that have attracted the attention of many in recent times. These are writings that have attracted the attention of many in recent times, and are certainly relevant testimonies of the life of the Church between the second and fifth centuries.
Continuing Omnes' attention to contemporary theology, in this issue we offer the article on Gustave Thils in the series conducted by Juan Luis Lorda; and we explain elsewhere the work of the Joseph Ratzinger-Benedict XVI Vatican Foundation. This foundation awards its prizes each year to renowned theologians. In 2021 the winners were the Germans Hanna-Barbara Gerl-Falkovitz and Ludger Schwienhorst-Schönberger, the former of whom will participate in an Omnes Forum next December. Already in the spring of this year, we held an Omnes Forum with Tracey Rowland, a 2020 award winner together with Jean-Luc Marion. All four will receive the award from the Pope on November 13.
The interview with MEP Jaime Mayor Oreja is very illustrative of the cultural moment of Catholics in Europe and the social context that they must help to shape. On the cultural horizon, pro-life initiatives are also moving, such as the annual marches that have spread in many cities. We now report on the first pro-life march that has taken place in Finland.
Finally, we highlight information on the Jubilee Year to mark the first 250 years since St. Junipero Serra founded Mission San Gabriel Arcangel, the first church in what is now the Archdiocese of Los Angeles, and other celebrations related to those key milestones in the first proclamation of the Gospel in the lands of North America.
The authorOmnes
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Commentary on the readings for the Solemnity of All Saints (B)
Andrea Mardegan comments on the All Saints readings and Luis Herrera offers a brief video homily.
On the Solemnity of All Saints we read in the Apocalypse: "After this, in the vision, there appeared a great multitude, which no one could number, of all nations, tribes, peoples, and tongues, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes, and with palm branches in their hands. And they cried out with a loud voice, 'Salvation comes from our God, who sits on the throne, and from the Lamb!'" Consoling vision of the saints in heaven, normal men and women who will not have the process of beatification, those of the "next door".
The grandfather; the grandmother; the high school teacher; the baker; the cab driver. The homeless man who slept under the porch; the prudent mountain guide; the magistrate who does justice despite the pressures of the powerful; the businesswoman who climbed a failure because she did not pay bribes. The mother overwhelmed by work at home and with the children, never a day off. The daughter-in-law patient with the mother-in-law; the priest who ended up in jail but was innocent; the politician who had to resign because of the journalistic campaign against him, but had done nothing wrong. The lady who didn't listen to her friends' gossip on park benches, but put a positive spin on speeches. The baker with the exact right beacon and rich cakes. The soccer player who didn't hurt his opponents and applauded them when they played well. The soldiers who dialogued and helped the poor populations and never exploited them, but promoted them. The employee whose days were all the same, but who was happy at home. The journalist who always told the truth. The singer-songwriter who sang the wonder of life and love, and filled people with emotion with his music of sublime beauty. The nun who was smiling and loving even when the day was hard. The one to whom everything went wrong but who offered it to God. The bishop who was truly a father. The confessor who always put you in front of Christ and his love. The husband who loved his wife as she wanted to be loved. The father who at night forgot his tiredness and played with the children. The student who studied and in her free time helped the poor.
All had washed their robes in the blood of the Lamb. They are blessed in heaven because in order to do good they have lived poverty of spirit. They have wept, they have been meek. They have desired justice. They have been merciful. They have been pure of heart, detached from themselves, with the same gaze of God on creatures. They have brought peace around them. They have been persecuted for Christ's sake, and received insults and all manner of evil. Now they rejoice and exult, because they enjoy a great reward in heaven. And we with them. They give us hope.
The homily on the readings of the Solemnity of All Saints
The priest Luis Herrera Campo offers its nanomiliaa small one-minute reflection for these readings.
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40 days for life: "Our presence is a reminder that there are alternatives to abortion".
40 days that have saved more than a hundred lives. From the beginning of the campaign, on September 22 until October 31, dozens of people have gathered in front of clinics where abortions are performed with one purpose: to pray for the women who go to these centers and, whenever they decide to approach, to offer them resources and possibilities to carry their pregnancy and be able to have their son or daughter.
The campaign of 40 days for life is over, but the work of these volunteers and associations is never finished. Marcos and Nayeli, coordinators of 40 days for life in our country emphasize that "praying in front of an abortion is to be on the last line of battle" and demand information on the alternatives and aid available to many of these mothers who seek abortions for "economic or emotional reasons, insecurity with an unexpected pregnancy and how to fit this circumstance into their personal and/or professional projection".
-How are you living these days for life from the inside?
Humanly speaking, we have experienced times of worry thinking about the shifts that were still to be filled and to our surprise there were people who had not signed up and were there praying. So as organizers it has taught us to put our trust in God. We have witnessed how God works and makes this initiative his own and how he transforms hearts. Everything we have experienced during these days as organizers has also helped us to grow in our relationship with God. He always exceeds our expectations.
- There are those who accuse you of "harassing" mothers, how do you approach mothers, do they approach you more, do they appreciate it?
Our role is to pray, we do not approach mothers. Our presence is a reminder that there are other alternatives and if they approach us, we reach out to them. There are women who thank us, and one of them has even told us that she wished we had been there the day she went in for her abortion.
-In this time of 40 days, more than a hundred children have been saved, what are the causes that lead these mothers to want to kill their children, how are they accompanied afterwards?
The causes are very diverse: economic, emotional, insecurity with an unexpected pregnancy and how to fit this circumstance into their personal and/or professional projection... The important thing is that they are committed to defending the life they carry inside. The people who accompany them establish personal bonds that go beyond a mere physical presence up to the moment of delivery and that last after that moment. Often, the same
Mothers who once thought of having an abortion and finally decided to go ahead, establish groups among themselves and get together. Sometimes, they are also helped by offering them assistance in entering the labor market, with
specific training or support for the homologation of qualifications obtained in other countries.
The important thing would be that before a woman has an abortion, she should know that there are other alternatives and that their dissemination should be more transparent.
Marcos / Nayeli
-How can you continue to support this campaign?
Saying yes to participate in future campaigns. Although, ideally, no campaign would be necessary. Praying in front of an abortion clinic is to be in the last line of battle... The important thing would be that before the woman gets there, she knows that there are other alternatives and that their diffusion would be more transparent. Legally, it is regulated that information must be offered before an unwanted pregnancy, but in practice, the information offered is not complete and only goes in one direction, which is precisely the one that leads us to pray in front of the clinics.
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Moral dimensions of climate change
Between November 31 and 12, 2021, the following will take place at Glasgow A new conference of the parties (COP) to the United Nations treaty on Climate Change, in this case the 26th. This is a key opportunity to show the real commitment of the signatory countries of the Paris treaty to climate change mitigation.
The post-pandemic recovery is already becoming evident in many countries, but it needs to have a different sign: we cannot continue with the past energy model if we want to stabilize the planet's temperature at the 1.5◦ limit recommended by scientists. To this end, the world's major economies must stop being net emitters of greenhouse gases (GHG): this means, in short, that our economy must stop depending on fossil fuels (coal, oil, natural gas...) and start relying on low-emission energies, mainly renewable (hydro, biomass, solar, wind, geothermal) and, as long as a solid alternative is not possible, nuclear.
The latest report of the intergovernmental panel on climate change, published this summer, makes clear what the global warming trends are, observable not only in thermal records, but also in the massive melting of sea and continental ice masses (especially in the Northern Hemisphere), the reduction of glaciers, or the increasing presence of extreme anomalies (floods, fires, droughts...).
After several decades of scientific debate, it seems to me that it makes no sense to continue discussing aspects on which science has found enormous convergence. With the uncertainties that all scientific knowledge carries with it, it is necessary to move on to action, to turn more or less rhetorical statements into concrete facts and provisions. That is why I believe it is time to focus on the ethical aspects of climate change, because that is where we are encountering the main barriers to adopting the commitments that the seriousness of the problem requires.
Science has already done its job, although it obviously needs to continue to understand the problem better and help us adapt, and now we need to move on to moral commitments, to be translated into tangible and effective objectives. What are the ethical bases for action on climate change? I will summarize those that seem to me to be the most salient:
The first is an elementary precautionary principleThis leads us to avoid anything that could have serious effects, even if we were not certain that they would occur. A reasonable degree of knowledge is enough to avoid crossing lines that could lead to catastrophes. In the Earth Charter, approved at the UN in 1982, it was clearly indicated that: "Those activities that are likely to involve a risk to nature should be preceded by thorough verification; their proponents should ensure that the expected benefits far outweigh the potential harm they may generate, and when these effects are not fully understood, such activities should not be carried out" (United Nations, World Charter for Nature, Resolution 37/7, 1982, 11.b).
In short, to review the stakes and avoid actions that may cause considerable damage, even if such damage is only likely, it is an elementary principle of human behavior. Future warming scenarios carry with them sufficiently serious threats for us to take whatever action is necessary now to avoid them. We know that these models pose probabilistic simulations, but they are the best we have for action. It makes no sense to delay decisions because we are not sure what will happen. In that way, we would not have car or home or travel insurance, we would not have civil protection systems for catastrophes, we would not plan for the future, and we all do it in one way or another.
The second ethical principle is that of responsibility. Obviously, decisions to avoid an impact should be taken by those who have caused it. In the case of climate change, this means that responsibilities are global, since all countries have caused it in one way or another, but obviously they are differentiated, because most of the GHGs that now enhance the greenhouse effect in the atmosphere have been emitted by the most industrialized countries.
It is necessary to consider cumulative emissions, where industrialized countries obviously have the main weight. (see figure). This means that we cannot ask the same degree of sacrifice from countries that have just joined the group of net emitters (such as China or India) as from those of us who have been net emitters for many decades.
Pope Francis also mentioned this idea of differentiated responsibility in Laudato si: "For this reason, we must clearly maintain the awareness that in climate change there are diversified responsibilities, (...) There are no borders or political or social barriers that allow us to isolate ourselves, and for this very reason there is no room for the globalization of indifference" (Pope Francis, Laudato si, 2015, n. 52). In this sense, that the U.S. federal government has refused to contribute to climate change mitigation - disregarding what its own scientific community indicates - seems to me to be a deeply irresponsible attitude, although, it is also fair to say, the country as a whole has reduced its emissions over 1990 levels, mainly due to the action of state and local governments. Undoubtedly, the attitude of the U.S. will be one of the keys to the success of COP26, hoping that it will lead its own emission reduction commitments and the momentum for developing countries.
Responsibility also refers to the capacity to respond. It is precisely the industrialized countries that have the greatest capacity to make the necessary changes in our energy model and to help others to do so. This is another manifestation of shared responsibilities. Poor or developing economies cannot be asked to make the same effort as those that have a high standard of living, perhaps as a result of past emissions. In this regard, it is also worth considering per capita emissions as a key factor in the assumption of responsibilities. China is currently the leading GHG emitter, but its per capita rate is lower than that of the US, Canada or Australia. Moreover, in this ethical dimension, we have to consider that China, India or Brazil are emitting more for our own consumption. National emission balances take into account production, but not consumption. If each country were assigned the carbon footprint of the goods it consumes, ours would undoubtedly still be much higher than that of the emerging countries.
The third ethical dimension is intergenerational solidarity. Undoubtedly the most interesting element of the movement initiated by Greta Thunberg is to underline precisely this factor. We are heirs of those who came before us and we enjoy assets that are largely the fruit of their labor. We cannot now capriciously benefit from resources and energy that will be needed by those who will continue to live on this planet after our departure. It would be profoundly unfair.
It is precisely the industrialized countries that have the greatest capacity to make the necessary changes to our energy model.
Emilio Chuvieco
Although it is very difficult to estimate the economic impacts of future climate change scenarios, some economists have carried out this exercise based on the best climate models. The estimate shown in the figure assumes that most of the most vulnerable countries (tropical and temperate countries in the southern hemisphere) will be the hardest hit by the foreseeable changes (Fig. 2). Again, environmental justice requires more decisive action to prevent these effects from occurring.
Finally, it seems to me necessary to recover the impact of Aristotle's virtue ethics on this debate. Climate action can have many motivations: ethical responsibility or fear of catastrophe seem to be the most frequently invoked. It seems to me, however, that the most important is to appeal to the values that make us better.
We need to lead a more austere life because that will make us happier, knowing that we are sharing resources and energy with those who need it, with the most vulnerable people, with other forms of life and with future generations. Having more, consuming superfluously does not make us happier and also has negative impacts on other people and on ecosystems, which are necessary for our own existence. "The emptier a person's heart is, the more he or she needs objects to buy, possess and consume," Pope Francis reminded us in Laudato Si. It is not only a question of responding to a crisis, but above all of redirecting the values that guide our society, of generating a model of progress that places human beings, families and relationships between people at the center. I believe that deep down we all realize that the things that are really worthwhile in this life cannot be bought, and that a more frugal, closer model of life will not only help the environment, but also our own inner balance.
We have to lead a more austere life because that will make us happier, knowing that we are sharing resources and energy with those who need it, with the most vulnerable people, with other forms of life and with future generations.
Emilio Chuvieco
The authorEmilio Chuvieco
Professor of Geography at the University of Alcalá.
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Western Australia's challenge to the Church over the secrecy of confession
The Archbishop of Perth, capital of the State of Western Australia, Most Reverend Timothy Costelloe SDB, has expressed his opposition to the recent law that forces priests to breach the seal of confession to report sexual abuse of minors, and break what he calls "the confidentiality of the confessional".
Western Australia's parliament last week passed a bill known as the Community and Family Services Amendment Bill 2021The law eliminates civil law protections for the confidentiality of the seal or secrecy of confession, and obliges priests to report sexual abuse of minors, even if it is manifested under the seal of confession.
A press release from the Australian state government states that "there will be no excuse for failing to make a mandatory disclosure," even if the chaplain received the information during a confession. In addition to priests, religious or chaplains, the changes extend mandatory reporting laws to early childhood workers, out-of-home care workers, registered psychologists, school counselors and juvenile justice workers.
A few days ago, the Archbishop of Perth, Timothy Costelloe, a Salesian, in a pastoral letter that you can read here heresaid that "the recent passage of legislation by the state legislature that removes civil law protections around confessional confidentiality has deeply disappointed and troubled me, as it has no doubt troubled many of you as well."
In his view, "not only does this decision by the state legislature potentially criminalize fidelity to an essential dimension of the practice of our Catholic faith by our priests, but it also carries with it no guarantee that any child will be better protected from abuse because of this decision."
The archbishop is "equally concerned that little or no attention seems to have been paid to the testimony of [victim] survivors of sexual abuse, who have spoken of the importance of the confidentiality of the confessional in providing them with a safe place to share their stories and seek information. support and counseling. Why does their experience seem to have no relevance or credibility?" he asks. According to sources cited by Die TagespostAs the portal Mercatornet reports, abolishing the confessional seal "will re-traumatize victims of abuse. The confessional was a safe space where victims can participate in the healing process. No more."
Decision contrary to the legislative committee
Moreover, adds the Archbishop of Perth, "it is particularly worrying that the majority opinion of the legislative committee set up by the government to investigate this matter has not been accepted by parliament."
"In a 3-2 majority decision, this committee recommended that disclosures made in the context of a religious denomination should not be subject to the new mandatory reporting laws," Archbishop Costelloe has explained, Melbourne native, who is a member of the Standing Committee, the Bishops' Commission on Doctrine and Morals and the Bishops' Commission on Catholic Education in the Australian Conference of Catholic Bishops.
About Perth, which is the fourth city of the State, with 2.12 million inhabitants, it does not hurt to look at the map and find out that the nearest city with a population of more than one million people is Adelaide, 2,100 kilometers away, which makes Perth the most isolated city with more than one million inhabitants in the world. As for its archbishop, he was appointed by Pope Benedict XVI in 2012, after several years as auxiliary bishop of Melbourne.
"The priest provides support and accompaniment."
Archbishop Costelloe goes on to say, as Jamie O'Brien summarizes on the website of the archdioceseSome people seem to have formed the opinion that if a person discloses during confession that he has been abused, the priest cannot and will not do anything. "This is an ignorant or deliberately misleading presentation of the way confession is practiced in the Catholic Church. A priest will do everything possible to provide counseling, support and accompaniment if the person making the disclosure is open to this," he notes.
"All that person needs to do is to agree to share his story with the priest outside the context of confession. However, the priest, according to Catholic teaching, must not betray the trust of the person who comes to him in the confessional," the Archbishop points out.
"The experience of confession is a personal encounter between that person and Christ. In Catholic teaching, the priest acts in the person of Christ in this encounter. In a very real sense, the revelation is made to Christ who, in the person of the priest, listens, counsels, encourages and helps that person in every possible way. He does not betray that person's trust."
These are the same ideas that he picked up a few days ago. Omnes by Cardinal Mauro Piacenza, Major Penitentiary of the Church. "The penitent does not speak to the man confessor but to God. To take possession of what belongs to God would be sacrilege. Access to the same sacrament, instituted by Christ, to be a safe harbor of salvation for all sinners, is protected." However, he clarified, "this does not prevent the confessor from strongly recommending that the minor himself denounce the abuse to his parents, educators and the police".
Now the possibility of convincing him is lost
The priest will do everything in his power to convince the confessed abuser that he must turn himself in to the police, the Australian archbishop also stresses. "While it may seem unlikely that an abuser would agree to this, at least the possibility exists. However, with the passage of this law it is almost inconceivable that a perpetrator would put himself at risk of being caught."
"Therefore," Archbishop Costelloe adds, "any admittedly small chance a priest might have had of trying to convince a perpetrator of the evil of his actions and encouraging or ordering that person to go to the police would be lost. And, of course, if a perpetrator risked confession, he would surely go to a priest who could not identify him. and who confessed in an environment that guaranteed anonymity."
Consequently, according to the archbishop, "it is legitimate to ask about the feasibility and enforceability of the legislative change, and this, of course, begs the question of why this legislation was allowed to pass through our parliament in the first place. Surely a key test of the adequacy of a law must be its enforceability."
Data, and reaction
Jamie O'Brien reports that other states, such as Queensland and Victoria, have also implemented similar legislation. The issue has been a hot topic in the Australian states after the Royal Commission on Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse to publish its final report at the end of 2017. It noted that "36 percent of abuse survivors who came forward reported abuse in Catholic institutions," O'Brien says.
"Many people will criticize me and the Catholic Church in general for their opposition to this legislative change. They will seek to paint the Church as indifferent to the horror of the sexual abuse crisis within the Church. This is inaccurate and unfair," the Archbishop of Perth asserts. For "the Catholic Church across the country, and certainly here in the Archdiocese of Perth and in Western Australia generally, has taken many constructive steps to address this terrible reality in the Church's history."
His archdiocese was the first diocese in the world to launch a Safeguarding Office in 2015, with more than 250 trained Safeguarding Officers in more than 105 parishes, he states categorically. "Those of you who have children or young people in our schools will be aware of the seriousness with which our local schools, and the Catholic Education office that works with them, approach the issue of child safety," he says.
"The priests will remain at your service."
Monsignor Timothy Costelloe concludes his letter by reaffirming "three things". That his "commitment to the safety and well-being of our children and youth is unwavering." That "we will continue to respond with candor, compassion and generosity to those who have been victims and are now survivors of the terrible crime and sin of sexual abuse by persons associated with the Catholic Church." "And thirdly, that our priests will continue to place themselves at your service seeking as best they can to be living and effective signs bearers of the presence of the Good Shepherd among you."
"The Lord is calling us to live this out through our prayer for one another, our support for one another, our encouragement and understanding of one another, and through our determination to eradicate the scourge of sexual abuse from any of our Catholic environments. Together we can accomplish great things for God, for God's people and for our society. Let us not be discouraged by those who seek only to tear down, criticize and undermine the good works of the Church," he concludes.
A few days ago, we talked about the seal or secret of confession in the Church, and the abuse of minors in France. We have yet to comment on what the French Prime Minister, Jean Castex, said to the Pope, and what Francis called the sacrament of Pardon during his recent apostolic trip to Slovakia. That will be another day.
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November: month to pray for the deceased and gain indulgences
The month of November is a month dedicated to pray especially for the deceased. The Holy See has established that during the whole month of November plenary indulgences can be earned.
Related
The faithful will be able to gain plenary indulgence throughout NovemberCardinal Piacenza: Let us go to the confessional these days!
The faithful will be able to gain plenary indulgence throughout NovemberCardinal Piacenza: Let us go to the confessional these days!The Holy See, as happened last year because of the pandemic, has established by means of a decree issued by the Apostolic Penitentiary the extension to the whole month of November of the Plenary Indulgences for the faithful departed. As is known, the Church grants indulgences to those who, in the 8 days following the Solemnity of All Saints, visit cemeteries praying for the deceased, and on November 2, in particular, visit a church or oratory praying the Our Father and the Creed.
The Cardinal Major Penitentiary, Mauro Piacenza, commented in an interview that this is a "very heartfelt form of devotion, which is expressed by participating in Mass and visiting the cemeteries", and therefore, so that people can dilute their visits without creating a crowd, "it has been decided to dilute in time the possibility of using the indulgences, and so during the whole month of November it will be possible to acquire what is planned for the first 8 days of November".
"The Apostolic Penitentiary," reads the decree, "having heard the various requests recently received from various Sacred Pastors of the Church, because of the current state of the pandemic, confirms and extends for the entire month of November 2021 all the spiritual benefits already granted on October 22, 2020, by Decree Prot. N. 791/20/I with which, because of the Covid-19 pandemic, Plenary Indulgences for the faithful departed were extended for the entire month of November 2020."
The decree also affirms that "from the renewed generosity of the Church, the faithful will certainly draw pious intentions and spiritual vigor to direct their lives according to the evangelical law, in filial communion and devotion to the Supreme Pontiff, visible foundation and Pastor of the Catholic Church".
According to the Catechism of the Catholic Church, the indulgence is "the remission before God of the temporal punishment for sins, already forgiven, as far as guilt is concerned, which a faithful person willing and fulfilling certain conditions obtains through the mediation of the Church, which, as the administrator of redemption, distributes and applies with authority the treasure of the satisfactions of Christ and the saints.".
God forgives their sins to those who, after having committed a sin, repent through the sacrament of confession. However, there remains a "pending responsibility" for the consequences that the sin has had for the same person or for others, or even for society in general. This consequence is called "temporal punishment" and is a debt that persists and must be paid either in this life or in Purgatory.
It is then that the Church, the administrator of redemption, can grant indulgences that can fully or partially suppress (depending on whether it is a plenary or partial indulgence) this temporal punishment for sins committed and confessed up to that moment.
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America: Eucharistic challenges beyond the "Biden controversy".
Catholics in the United States await a statement on the Eucharist that may resolve concerns raised in recent months. In addition, the bishops are promoting a "Eucharistic revitalization" that will culminate in 2024 with a national gathering.
Bishop Kevin Rhoades of the Diocese of Fort Wayne-South Bend, Indiana, is a busy man. As chairman of the U.S. Bishops' Committee on Doctrine, he oversees the drafting of one of the most debated and watched documents of recent years. Titled The mystery of the Eucharist in the life of the ChurchThe Eucharist is expected to be a statement of several thousand words intended to help Catholics understand more deeply the Eucharist and its importance for their faith. The draft text has not yet been published.
The statement, which will be voted on at the November meeting of the U.S. bishops in Baltimore, grew out of two separate concerns. The first was a 2019 Pew study that suggested that 70 % of U.S. Catholics do not understand the Church's teaching that the Eucharist is the Body and Blood of Christ. While the wording of the survey was questioned, the bishops were alarmed by the finding and began planning a "Eucharistic revitalization" to respond.
Then, in 2020, Joe Biden became president and a controversy arose over the suitability of Catholics in public office to receive Communion if they do not support the Church's teaching on abortion.
Fifty years after abortion was legalized nationwide, the United States remains deeply divided on the issue. President Biden's abandonment of his previous position restricting government funding of abortion, as well as his rhetoric during the 2020 campaign, caused great concern among some bishops about his election, leading to a proposal to issue a statement addressing "Eucharistic coherence."
Joe Biden became president and a controversy arose over the suitability of Catholics in public office to receive Communion if they do not support the Church's teaching on abortion.
Greg Erlandson
But despite the wishes of some, the statement currently being drafted is not presented as an anti-Biden document. Instead, it is being presented as a "launching pad" for a three-year campaign called Eucharistic Revitalization.
According to Bishop Rhoades, the statement will focus on. "the Eucharist as our greatest treasure". and emphasize what Catholics should do once they understand the Eucharist.
It is unknown whether consideration of the statement in November will lead to another debate, but what is clear is that the U.S. bishops remain extremely concerned about how their people have been catechized regarding the "source and summit" of Catholic life.
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Solzhenitsyn's prophecy
On June 8, 1978, Russian Nobel laureate Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn gave a memorable speech at Harvard University in which he denounced some of the problems of Western civilization that have only become more acute since then.
With the courage and moral prestige that his condition as a dissident and victim of the Soviet Union gave him, he described the features of the so-called free world that had to be rectified in order not to fall into an unstoppable decadence. More than forty years after those words were uttered, the lucidity and accuracy of his analysis is astonishing.
After receiving the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1970, Harvard University invited the Russian dissident Aleksander Solzhenitsyn to deliver the inaugural lecture at the ancient and illustrious American university on June 8, 1978. Taking advantage of Harvard's motto ("Veritas"), the famous writer allowed himself to utter some truths before this select audience.
He began by talking about the division into pieces of the world at that time. To the two confronting worlds of the cold war, polarized around the United States of America and the USSR, he added the countries of the so-called Third World and probably more worlds. And he quoted the Bible as saying that a kingdom divided against itself cannot stand and warning against the belief in the inherent superiority of the West over other civilizations.
Taking advantage of the fact that he was addressing a Western audience, Solzhenitsyn broke down certain aspects of the West at the time that I think have sharpened into the current state of decadence. The first would be the decline of courage which manifested itself in a general cowardice in society, making inflexibility with weak governments or discredited currents, incapable of offering any resistance, compatible with silence and paralysis in the face of powerful governments and threatening or terrorist forces.
The second aspect would be the excess welfare and the desire to possess more and more things and to have a higher standard of living, which paradoxically produces in many Westerners anxiety and depression. The climate of tense and active competition dominates all human thinking and does not open any path to free spiritual development. In such an environment, who would risk his comfortable life in the defense of the common good in the event that the security of the nation itself had to be defended?
Another feature of the Western way of life would be what the Russian thinker calls the "Western way of life". the "legalistic" life. The boundaries of propriety and human rights are determined in a system of laws with very broad limits. The law is used, interpreted and manipulated with great skill. The important thing is to be covered legally and it is secondary whether one is really right or what one is doing is good or just. Solzhenitsyn states that living under a communist regime without an objective legal framework is terrible but so is living in a society with no other scale than the legal one.
The orientation of freedom in Western countries has in turn proved to be misguided. Our societies have been left with few defenses against the abyss of human decadence. All moral wrongs are considered an integral part of freedom. There has been a bias of freedom towards evil.
At another point in his speech, Solzhenitsyn also speaks lucidly about the orientation of the press and the media in general. What responsibility does a newspaper journalist have towards his readers and towards history? Precipitation and superficiality are the psychic disease of the 20th century, and this prevents deep analysis of problems.
Without any censorship in the West, fashionable trends in thought and ideas are separated from those that are not fashionable, the latter having very little chance of being reflected in newspapers or books or even of being heard in our universities. These aspects have a great impact on important aspects of a nation's life, such as education, both elementary and advanced in the arts and humanities.
We have to rise to the height of a new vision, a new level of life. It is nothing less than a climb to the next anthropological stage. No one in the whole world has a way out except one way: up.
Santiago Leyra Curiá
At the same time, many people living in the West are dissatisfied with their own society and are inclined toward socialism, which is a false and dangerous alternative. For socialism, Solzhenitsyn claims, leads to the total destruction of the human spirit and the leveling of humanity in death. But neither is the present Western society a good model for anyone. The human personality in the West has been greatly weakened while the hardships suffered in the East have produced stronger personalities.
The greatest problem of the West is the loss of will, a symptom of a society that has reached the end of its development. The origin of this decadence is found by the Russian thinker in anthropocentrism, in the forgetfulness of the human being as a creature of God, the basis of all human rights. This is the common kinship between Marxist materialism and Western materialism.
In the face of this ominous picture, which more than forty years later has proven extraordinarily lucid and accurate, the end of Solzhenitsyn's speech at Harvard University offers the solution to our problems, to rekindle our spiritual fire. We have to rise to the height of a new vision, a new level of life, where our physical nature will not be anathematized as in the Middle Ages nor our spiritual being trampled upon as in the Modern Age. It is neither more nor less than an escalation to the next anthropological stage. No one in the whole world has any way out but up.
The authorSantiago Leyra Curiá
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Homeless people and organizations denounce the obstacles to leaving homelessness
The 29th edition of the Homelessness Campaign has focused on the many barriers that homeless people face in getting out of homelessness and accessing social assistance.
Related"On the street you don't know what to do, or where to go.""Thanks to Caritas, I not only have a home, but a family."
"On the street you don't know what to do, or where to go.""Thanks to Caritas, I not only have a home, but a family."The arrival of November and the cold weather once again brings the terrible situation of the homeless before our eyes. This year, with the slogan "No way out? Lost in a social protection system that does not protect".The associations and services participating in the Homeless Day in Madrid, which is coordinated by the FACIAM Network, have joined together to publicly present the Homelessness Campaign 2021.
Approximately 40,000 people in Spain are without a home in which to live. To this must be added 2,500,000 people in a situation of extreme vulnerability that exist today in our country as a result of the effects of the crisis.
The press conference that Caritas has convened in Madrid to denounce this situation has counted with the testimonies of Carlos, who went from a good economic situation to live in his car or Maria Jesus, a homeless woman who came to a shelter after suffering a stroke, after having lived for years on the street and in hostels.
In addition to the insecurity and insalubrity of homelessness, the lives of these people add other obstacles, such as difficulties in accessing the health system, employment or decent housing, or administrative barriers to regularize their situation or access to a guaranteed income or other social services. Hence the slogan and image of this year's campaign, which depicts a person in a seemingly dead-end labyrinth.
Your requests: Effective policies and societal empathy
Organizations and people experiencing homelessness emphasize the need to make homelessness visible and to highlight the barriers they face in order to get out of this situation of social exclusion. They also denounce that the current system of social protection is not sufficient. In this sense, as pointed out by the head of the Homelessness Campaign in Cáritas Española, Enrique Domínguez, "more than 700,000 people accompanied by Cáritas do not have money to pay for housing or supplies, and 20% of the families assisted have been forced to change their homes". That is why he has asked to address the situation "strengthened public policies, adequate and focused on the most vulnerable people".
Likewise, both the organizations and the people who find themselves in this situation ask, once again, that citizens, in addition to knowing the reality of the homeless, show solidarity, empathize with them and unite their voices to demand justice and build a society where all people count.
Among the actions developed for this day, which is celebrated in the Spanish Church on October 31, on the morning of October 28 homeless people, accompanied by a large number of entities have gathered in a march from the Plaza de Callao to Puerta del Sol in Madrid where they have concentrated for the reading of a manifesto.Also, in social networks have been created the hashtags #DigamosBasta #NadieSinHogar #SinHogarSinSalida to follow the development of the day.
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Santa Maria de los Angeles
This painting of the Virgin and Child and the Seven Archangels is located in the apse of the presbytery of the church. Santa Maria degli Angeli e dei Martiri. The image has a marble frame with other angels and an inscription that translates as "What was an idol is now a temple of the Virgin. The author is Pope Pius - devils, flee!"
The authorJohannes Grohe
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Spanish religious men and women to elect their new presidency
– Supernatural Spanish Conference of Religious (CONFER) is holding its XXVII General Assembly next week to elect a new president and vice-president.
SLord, what do you want from us today? With this question as their motto, the superiors of the different religious institutes belonging to CONFER will meet on November 3, 4 and 5 in Madrid for their XXVII General Assembly.
CONFER hopes that this meeting will be an opportunity for reflection and a common search for the mission of religious life today, especially after the hardest moments of the CIVID pandemic that has seriously affected many religious orders, both through the death or illness of their members, as well as in many of their forms of sustenance.
These days will combine lectures, dialogues in the Assembly and in small groups, and spaces for prayer and celebration.
Msgr. Luis Ángel de las Heraspresident of the Episcopal Commission for Consecrated Life will be in charge of opening the conference with a talk entitled "Lord, what do you want from us today?
José Rodríguez Carballo (Secretary of the CIVCSVA), who will give a talk on synodality, and who will also preside at the closing Eucharist.
One of the important points of this Assembly will be the election of the new Presidency composed of President and Vice-President, as well as the renewal of several elected members of the General Council: 1 female member and 3 male members. In addition, during the Assembly, the Project of Institutional Strengthening of CONFER, a reality that started last year, will be discussed.
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Commentary on the readings for Sunday, 31st Sunday (B): God's love urges us to be brothers and sisters
Andrea Mardegan comments on the readings for the 31st Sunday in Ordinary Time and Luis Herrera offers a brief video homily.
The dialogue of the scribe who asks Jesus which is the most important commandment, in both Mark and Matthew, takes place after the dispute with the Pharisees and the Herodians, who wanted to trap him. But only Mark notes the scribe's astonishment: "One of the scribes, who had heard the discussion, came up and, seeing how well he had answered them, asked him.". He is conquered by the wisdom of Jesus, by the truth revealed with clarity and gentleness to those who want to put him to the test: Jesus always tries to win his interlocutors for the good.
He asks: "Which is the first of all the commandments?". In his response, Jesus makes a revolution: he takes the precept of loving God above all things from the Shema 'Isra'elwhich the pious Israelite repeated three times a day, and links it with the precept "you shall love your neighbor as yourself", of Leviticus. The question was which is the first of the commandments, and the answer is that the first... there are two. Love of God is forever merged with love of neighbor. In John's gospel, the love of God is in how Jesus loves us and becomes the measure of brotherly love: "As I have loved you, so also love one another."When we love one another truly and "to the end," as he loved us, we make present the love of God. Jesus thus avoids the possible spiritualistic error of those who think that it is enough to love God, but without loving our brothers and sisters. "He who does not love his brother, whom he sees, cannot love God, whom he does not see. This is the commandment we received from him: whoever loves God, let him also love his brother." (1 Jn 4:20-21). The heart of our faith is the love of God and neighbor, always united. To love God alone is not enough. The love of God always pushes us towards our brothers and sisters, and the love of our brothers and sisters makes us discover the love of God among us: "No one has seen God, but if we love each other, God remains in us and his love reaches its perfection in us." (1 Jn 4:12).
The words of Leviticus, which Jesus rephrases, contain a third commandment linked to the first two: self-love. "Self-love constitutes a fundamental principle of morality." (Catechism of the Catholic Church, n. 2264). It is necessary to love how God has created us, to love our way of being, our uniqueness, and to respect it in others. To have self-esteem and to believe in the mission that each of us received from God when we were thought of and placed in the world. Thus, by loving ourselves and God's plan for us and the path of sanctification that the Holy Spirit works in us in a unique way, we will be able to love others in their uniqueness of creation and sanctification, where the Holy Spirit is never repeated.
Homily on the readings of Sunday XXXI
The priest Luis Herrera Campo offers its nanomiliaa small one-minute reflection for these readings.
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The missionary fervor of young Pauline Jaricot, soon to be Blessed
Although the celebration of the 95th World Mission Day has just ended for the whole Church, we are already looking ahead to next year, when several anniversaries linked to the missionary world will be celebrated.
RelatedJohn Paul I, on his way to the altars, with a program that took him to heaven"Faithful to missionary sending": the EEC's guidelines for 2021-2025
John Paul I, on his way to the altars, with a program that took him to heaven"Faithful to missionary sending": the EEC's guidelines for 2021-2025First of all, the 400th anniversary of the Congregation of Propaganda Fide, whose creation is traced back to Pope Gregory XV on June 22, 1622. But, by happy coincidence, we will also celebrate the 200th anniversary of the foundation of the first missionary work, called "for the Propagation of the Faith" and founded as an Association on May 3, 1822 on the initiative of a young woman from Lyon, Pauline Marie Jaricot. One hundred years later, Pope Pius XI declared it a "Pontifical Work".
After the persecutions
The missionary fervor of the young Lyonnaise was born in the context of a Church that was emerging from the harsh persecution of the French Revolution. After a well-to-do life, in 1816 Pauline took a vow of chastity and chose as the motivation of her life devotion to the Eucharist and in reparation for the offenses committed against the Sacred Heart of Jesus.
Nine young women factory workers initially gathered around her and, as a first action, committed themselves to finding ten other people who would pray and donate a penny a week for the Missions, a project that inflamed many hearts and spread rapidly.
The spirit with which Pauline animated this project meant that, at the same time that the seed of evangelization was taken to "distant" lands, the opportunities for evangelization of "nearby" people were promoted.
Living Rosary
Passionate about spreading the Kingdom of God, she was firmly convinced that missionary work did not derive its effectiveness from human resources, but exclusively from God. In 1826, she founded the "Living Rosary" movement: groups of people who are entrusted each month, after a Eucharist, with a Mystery of the Rosary to pray for the missions. His life was marked by the cross, and he spent the last period of his life in absolute poverty.
From that first seed were born, therefore, the famous Works that today are recognized as the driving force of missionary formation and animation throughout the world, which through prayer and sacrifice contribute to spreading the Word of God, Eucharistic Adoration and the missionary Rosary, especially in those lands that are often difficult to reach, also because of material impracticality or a shortage of baptized people. Practically, those mission lands that are under the jurisdiction of the Congregation for the Propagation of the Faith, which each local Church is called to support annually, also financially.
The beatification
Also next year, on May 22, 2022, Pauline Jaricot will be beatified in Lyon. She was declared Venerable by John XXIII on February 25, 1963. The miracle recognized through her intercession concerned the healing of little Mayline, who was a victim of asphyxia in 2012, aged only three and a half years.
After several weeks in coma and with a prognosis declared irreversible by the doctors, who also wanted to disconnect life support, Mayline began to show signs of improvement until she was completely cured. A fact declared as "inexplicable" by the medical committee that evaluated her.
However, while she was in a coma, fifteen days after the accident, the parents of the school Mayline attended decided to pray a novena to the Venerable Pauline Jaricot together with the then archbishop of the diocese of Lyon, which at the time was celebrating the 150th anniversary of the young missionary's birth.
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Conscientious objection. A right against euthanasia
In view of the approval in Spain of the new law regulating euthanasia, a fundamental right that guarantees the religious freedom of individuals is once again of paramount importance: conscientious objection.
Related"Denying institutional conscientious objection is against the Constitution."Notes for reflection and argument on the euthanasia law
"Denying institutional conscientious objection is against the Constitution."Notes for reflection and argument on the euthanasia lawThe law regulating euthanasia, approved by the current parliamentary majority a few months ago, which modifies Organic Law 10/1995, of November 23, 1995, of the Penal Code, with the aim of decriminalizing all euthanasic behavior in the cases and conditions established by the new law, came into force on June 25. Likewise, the Ministry of Health and the autonomous communities approved the Manual of Good Practices on Euthanasia at the Interterritorial Council of the National Health System.
The recently approved regulation legalizes, for the first time, active euthanasia in Spain, that which is the direct consequence of the action of a third person. It thus becomes the seventh country in the world to do so, after Holland, Belgium, Luxembourg, Canada, Colombia (through the Constitutional Court), New Zealand, and some states of Australia.
The new law introduces the "aid in dying benefit"This can be produced in two different ways: either through the direct administration of a substance to the patient by a health professional, or through the prescription or supply of a substance, so that the patient can self-administer it to cause his or her own death, which is a kind of assisted suicide, although the regulation does not mention it in these terms.
On this issue, Omnes was able to speak with Federico de Montalvo Jaaskelainen, professor of law at Comillas Icade and president of the Spanish Bioethics Committee, an advisory body to the government's Ministries of Health and Science. A interview by Rafael Miner and which can be read in its entirety on our website www.omnesmag.com.
In that conversation, de Montalvo points out that there is no right to die based on dignity, but there is a right not to suffer. That what would have been congruent would have been a law on the end of life, where this right not to suffer, which derives from article 15 of the Spanish Constitution when it states that "everyone has the right to life and to physical and moral integrity, without under any circumstances being subjected to torture or to inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment".but that the most extreme alternative of the end of life has been chosen. Medicine does not respond to the criteria that society wants at any given moment, as happened in the national-socialist and communist regimes, but has to combine the interests of society and the values that it anthropologically and historically defends.
"Everyone has the right to life and to physical and moral integrity, without, in any case, being subjected to torture or to inhuman or degrading punishment or treatment."
Article 15 of the Spanish Constitution
Likewise, the professor believes that the solution to the end of life involves alternatives to euthanasia: palliative care or any form of sedation. He also defends institutional conscientious objection, and argues for it.
There is no right to die
One issue highlighted by the president of the Spanish Bioethics Committee and which serves as a premise for us to raise the issue is that in Spain the euthanasia law was going to be processed by means of a bill, which would mean that it could be approved without the participation of any consultative body, such as the General Council of the Judiciary, the Public Prosecutor's Council, the Council of State.... And not even the Bioethics Committee, when all over Europe, when a law has been considered, or at least the debate on euthanasia has been considered, there is a report from the National Bioethics Committee. There is one in Portugal, in Italy, in the United Kingdom, in France, in Sweden, in Austria, in Germany...
It is mainly for this reason that the Committee drew up a report on the parliamentary procedure for the regulation of euthanasia. A report that could be summarized in three ideas: firstly, the Committee states in this report that there is no right to die. It is a contradiction in itself. And, in fact, "the rationale on which the law has been based is contradictory."says de Montalvo. Contradictory, because it is based on dignity, and then limited to some people - as if only the chronic and terminal ones were dignified. "If legislation is based on a right to die in dignity, it must be recognized for all individuals, because we are all dignified. Therefore, it was a contradiction in itself. That is why we said that there is no right to die based on dignity. Because it would mean that any citizen can ask the State to end his or her life. In this way, the State loses its essential function of guaranteeing life and becomes the executor of the right to die.", he adds.
"There is no right to die based on dignity. Because it would mean that any citizen can ask the state to end his or her life."
Federico de Montalvo JaaskelainenPresident of the Spanish Bioethics Committee
Secondly, the Committee raised in the report an existing error in the processing of the law. Because it was based on a presumed freedom, when in reality the person requesting euthanasia is not really asking to die. The patient assumes death as the only way to end his or her suffering. What the person really wants is not to suffer, to make the suffering he or she is undergoing pass. And to resolve the right not to suffer in Spain, the full development of alternatives is still lacking.
Finally, this report suggests that, instead of a legal solution, which is what the law proposes, medical solutions should be explored. Medical solutions also in chronicity, that is to say, also in situations of chronic, non-terminal patients, where there is the possibility of palliative sedation.
Pablo Requena, professor of Moral Theology and Bioethics and Vatican delegate to the World Medical Association, assures that euthanasia should not be part of medicine precisely because it goes against its purpose, methods and practice. "It would be a way of forcing the figure of the physician back to the time of pre-scientific medicine, when the physician could cure the disease or cause death.".
A fundamental right
This legislative situation presents a particular and not very optimistic situation in this regard. "It is true that euthanasia"de Montalvo assured Omnes, "is the extreme or very exceptional measure. Even for those in favor of it. What does not seem very congruent is to pass a law on that measure. The euthanasia law is not an end-of-life law, it is a euthanasia-only law. It does not address the end of life, it addresses the most extreme alternative at the end of life.".
In this context, therefore, a fundamental right comes into play: conscientious objection. It is a right that is not in the hands of the legislator. What is in their hands is to decide how it is exercised. The new law recognizes it in article 16, stating that "health professionals directly involved in the provision of aid in dying may exercise their right to conscientious objection.".
In general, conscientious objection is understood as the attitude of a person who refuses to obey an order from an authority or a legal mandate, invoking the existence, in his or her inner self, of a contradiction between moral duty and legal duty, due to a rule that prevents him or her from assuming the prescribed behavior. Along these lines, Rafael Navarro-Valls, professor of law and vice-president of the Royal Academy of Jurisprudence and Legislation of Spain, points out that "the law of the law is not a legal duty.conscientious objection is an exercise in health and democratic maturity".
Conscientious objection, therefore, pursues the exception of a certain legal duty for the objector, because the fulfillment of the same conflicts with his own conscience. It cannot be affirmed that it is directed neither against the normative set nor against certain legal institutions, which would result in other different typifications such as resistance or civil disobedience. It is, therefore, an active or omissive behavior in the face of the obligatory nature of the norm for the objector himself.
Conscientious objection is particularly noteworthy and current when it refers to the medical field, since it is understood as the refusal of the health professional to perform, for ethical and religious reasons, certain acts that are ordered or tolerated by the authority; and such a position expresses an attitude of great ethical dignity when the reasons given by the physician are serious, sincere and constant, and refer to serious and fundamental issues, as stated in article 18 of the European Medical Ethics Guide, and in article 32 of the Spanish Code of Medical Ethics and Deontology: "Recognition of physicians' conscientious objection is an essential prerequisite for guaranteeing the freedom and independence of their professional practice.".
De Montalvo strongly defends it, and also defends the conscientious objection of institutions or organizations as a whole. In the same conversation with Omnes he affirms that "Conscientious objection is a guarantee, an expression of religious freedom, and the Constitution itself recognizes religious freedom in the communities (it says so expressly), then, if conscientious objection is religious freedom, and religious freedom is not only of individuals, but also of organizations, communities, why is institutional conscientious objection not allowed?".
"The recognition of conscientious objection by physicians is an essential prerequisite for guaranteeing the freedom and independence of their professional practice."
Article 32 Spanish Code of Medical Ethics and Deontology
In the new law, the refusal of institutional conscientious objection is tacitly implied, because the law states that conscientious objection will be individual, when it declares in the paragraph f) of article 3 on Definitionsthat the "conscientious objection to health care is the individual right of health care professionals not to meet those health care demands regulated in this Law that are incompatible with their own convictions.". The law, therefore, does not expressly exclude it, but it is understood that, implicitly, by referring to the individual sphere, it excludes it. "That's not that it's right or wrong."says the president of the Bioethics Committee, ".Why do the Jewish people have the right to honor and the commercial companies have the right to honor, and for example a religious organization does not have the right to conscientious objection? It is religious freedom, and the Constitution speaks of communities. It seems to me a contradiction".
In addition, legal entities are entitled to all rights (honor, privacy), and even criminal liability, since according to Article 16 of the Constitution, "the ideological, religious and worship freedom of individuals and communities is guaranteed without any limitation in its manifestations other than that necessary for the maintenance of public order protected by law."and in its paragraph number 2, it states that "no one may be compelled to testify about their ideology, religion or beliefs.". Therefore, says de Montalvo, "Do we now deny them conscientious objection, which is a guarantee of a right expressly recognized by Article 16 of the Constitution? I think there is no need for further arguments".
Faced with this situation, it is worth continuing to reflect on these issues, even if one has a well-defined idea about their morality. Moreover, healthcare professionals are at a crossroads that generates conflict in their personal, professional and moral spheres. Professor Requena states that it is a priority to debate these issues, euthanasia and conscientious objection. "I have witnessed serious, serene and enriching debates at meetings of the World Medical Association. Sometimes heated dialogues, but where reasoning and argumentation have outweighed ironic and contemptuous commentary.".
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Finding God on the Camino de Santiago
"The Way of St. James: an encounter with God" is the book with which the priest Javier Peño wants to bring pilgrims closer to how the Way of St. James speaks to you about God.
AhNow you can enjoy a 20% discount on your subscription to Rome Reports Premiumthe international news agency specializing in the activities of the Pope and the Vatican.
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The Via Francigena, also by bicycle
A group of cyclists rest after arriving in St. Peter's Square at the Vatican on October 21, 2021, after traveling from Pisa, Italy. The group has followed the Via Francigena pilgrimage route, arriving in Rome as their final destination.
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Cloud storage services
The possibilities of working in the "cloud" facilitate many tasks, especially those we have to perform in organizations and teams. We present the main tools and some tips.
Working in the "cloud" can provide the Church with a significant productivity boost. The "cloud computing enables users to communicate more effectively, share their knowledge, organize optimally, and store and find information very quickly.
Today the Church, schools, delegations, congregations, archives, etc... have at their disposal from complete IT infrastructure services, such as Google Apps or Microsoft 365, to applications such as Dropbox that are committed to interactivity and, above all, to shared work and information, as a principle of efficiency.
Incorporating work in the "cloud" can lead to significant savings by replacing high infrastructure costs (e.g. installation and maintenance of hardware, purchase of software and its updates, technicians, etc.) with the variable costs resulting from subscribing to a service provider of the so-called "cloud". cloud computing.
Here are some of the most useful tools:
1.- Google Apps. The versatility of Google Apps allows companies and individuals to communicate, organize and collaborate among users from any place or device connected to the Internet. In a single interface it is possible to communicate easily with other members, through email, messaging, or a phone call or videoconference.
Google Calendar enables co-workers to share their agendas and view each other's, making it easier to plan and organize tasks or meetings.
Google Docs, the most popular of these apps, is an office suite in which users create and process work together and, if desired, simultaneously. The information is accessible at all times and backed up in the cloud. It is compatible with all operating systems (PC, Mac and Linux) and formats (doc, xls, ppt and pdf).
In addition, through Google Market Place it is possible to incorporate very useful applications that are integrated into the Google Apps account, such as translators, accounting and finance tools, client, project and document managers, etc.
2.- Microsoft office 365 (Onedrive). It is the most recognized collaboration and productivity tool in all areas. The vast majority of dioceses in Spain use it with a "nonprofit" Office 365 account.
It also has e-mail, calendar and contacts, etc., managed from Microsoft Exchange Online. For team work, it has the online versions of Office (Word, Excel, PowerPoint and OneNote).
To communicate, there is Microsoft Teams, which has instant messaging, calls, video calls or conferences. While Microsoft SharePoint Online functions as a hub for sharing documents and information between co-workers and other members of our work environment, as well as collaborating on projects and proposals in real time.
3.- Dropbox. It is an application in which the user, after creating an account, uploads files to a virtual 'box' which can be accessed later from any device connected to the Internet. It also has the possibility of sharing them with others, without the need of external memories.
For companies, there is a version premium 1 Tb of memory. Despite the price, today's work needs (mobility, use of different devices, etc.) make Dropbox a very useful tool.
4.- Apple's Icloud. ICloud is Apple's cloud storage service, which keeps photos, files, notes and other content always up to date and available anytime, anywhere. We could say, therefore, that it is the equivalent of Google Drive (with free plan and payment options included) but, unlike the latter, it does not have an app for Android.
Fortunately, since a few months ago, the iCloud.com web service already has support for phones and tablets with Google's operating system, so that we can now access our files from a computer or an iOS and Android device.
This spectacular Apple service has become in recent years one of the main reasons why many prefer to buy an iPhone, iPad or Mac. It offers us a fairly complete service that allows us to do many things and enjoy your devices to the fullest. In addition, it is quite practical, for personal or professional life, so learning to use it can even help you in your daily tasks, to optimize many of the tasks you perform and have greater productivity.
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David Shlomo Rosen: "Religion must not become a political entity".
Omnes has interviewed Rabbi David Rosen, International Director of Interfaith Affairs for the American Jewish Committee on interfaith dialogue, peace and religious identity.
RelatedKiko Argüello and David Shlomo Rosen, "honoris causa" of the Francisco de Vitoria University.
Kiko Argüello and David Shlomo Rosen, "honoris causa" of the Francisco de Vitoria University.Francisco José Gómez de Argüello and Rabbi David Shlomo Rosen are the new doctors honoris causa by the Francisco de Vitoria University. A recognition of the contribution of both in the path of interreligious dialogue, especially Catholic-Jewish.
On this occasion, Omnes interviewed Rabbi David Rosen, former Chief Rabbi of Ireland, International Director of Interreligious Affairs for the American Jewish Committee and Director of the American Jewish Committee's Heilbrunn Institute for International Interreligious Understanding.
A tireless advocate of interreligious dialogue and the search for peace in the Holy Land, David Rosen is a former President of the International Jewish Committee for Interreligious Consultations and one of the International Presidents of the World Conference of Religions for Peace. In November 2005, Pope Benedict XVI named him a Knight of the Pontifical Equestrian Order of St. Gregory the Great for his work for reconciliation between Catholics and Jews.
- What does it mean for you to receive this honorary doctorate together with Kiko Argüello?
The honor bestowed on me by the Francisco de Vitoria University is even greater for me to be associated with the extraordinary Kiko Arguello. Few people have been gifted with as many talents as he has.
Kiko has been blessed by the Creator and the movement he has created is a magnificent testimony of them. Today he is one of the most important Catholic realities in promoting a renewed brotherhood between the Church and the Jewish people.
- Do you think there is a good relationship between the Catholic community and the Jewish community?
I can say that the relationship has never been better. This is not to say that there is not still a lot of work to be done. There is still a lot of ignorance and prejudice to overcome.
- You defend the role of religious beliefs in the construction of a society of progress and peace. However, there is no shortage of voices that argue that religions should refrain from intervening or influencing the social or political sphere. What do you think of this?
There is a profound difference between a "marriage" between religion and politics, and religion playing a constructive role in political life. When religion becomes a partisan political entity or dependent on political interests, it often compromises its values and even becomes corrupted as a result. Indeed, terrible things have been done and continue to be done in the name of religion.
However, our religions call us to live according to clear values and ethics. We are obliged to pursue them for the betterment of society, and politics is an essential vehicle in this regard. In other words, religion must not become a political entity in itself, but must engage in a creative tension with politics.
There is a profound difference between a "marriage" between religion and politics, and religion playing a constructive role in political life.
David Shlomo Rosen
- In recent years, have proposals for interreligious and social dialogue, such as those you advocate, regressed or advanced?
Interreligious dialogue and collaboration have advanced by leaps and bounds in recent decades and we can even speak of a golden age of interreligious engagement. However, it is still far from having an impact on the lives of most people.
- How do the internal divisions of the communities themselves, whether religious or social, influence this path of dialogue?
We can say that, nowadays, the divisions are more inside of the religions that on religions. A more open and expansive approach from within our religions is opposed by those who fear losing their own authenticity. This is understandable, but we must not capitulate to this approach which, in the end, diminishes the power and message of our religious traditions.
At the same time, we must be careful not to allow interreligious dialogue to reduce our religious identities to the lowest common denominator, but to engage with each other precisely from the authenticity of our own religious identities.
We cannot allow interreligious dialogue to reduce our religious identities to the lowest common denominator.
David Shlomo Rosen
- You have in-depth knowledge of Europe and the Middle East. In the case of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, do you believe that a lasting peace agreement will be reached or is it a "hopeless case"? What premises are necessary to make progress in the pacification of this land?
Religious people do not believe in "hopeless cases". Truly religious people always have hope because God's mercy is unlimited and there are always new possibilities.
I believe that the "Abraham Accords" that Israel signed with the UAE, Bahrain, Morocco and Sudan offer a new horizon. Even if the Palestinians feel at the moment that they are being put off by them, I believe that they will also serve to build new bridges precisely between Israelis and Palestinians.
I believe that peace among the latter now depends on a regional framework, which in many respects is more possible today than ever before.
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What happens to students who do not choose the subject of Religion?
One of the aspects that are not yet defined in the LOMLOE is what subject will occupy the time of the subject of Religion for those who do not choose religious formation.
RelatedHow does the Religion class look like in the LOMLOE?Religion in the LOMLOE: this is the proposal of the EEC
How does the Religion class look like in the LOMLOE?Religion in the LOMLOE: this is the proposal of the EECOne aspect that is always a cause of debate in the processing of an educational law is the one that affects the Religion class and, more specifically, the activities carried out by students who do not choose this subject. In this regard, we are learning the details of the Royal Decrees in which the LOMLOE is specified and which give us clues as to where the management of the Ministry of Pilar Alegria is going to go.
In the LOE of Zapatero's government, students who did not take the subject of Religion had Educational Attention Measures (MAE). This formula did not work, since in reality it was an empty educational space without any kind of curricular content. And even in the higher grades, in Bachillerato, the final result was that the students who did not choose Religion went home an hour earlier or entered the center an hour later, since the management teams, in order not to have students in the center without doing anything, organized the schedules in this way. This was a complete disaster, which ended up weakening the subject of Religion and was detrimental to the whole educational system.
The following law, the LOMCE of Minister Wert, created the subject of 'Values', which had curricular content, for these students. A regulation which, there is no doubt, has worked quite well, but which from the very first moment, was rejected by Sánchez and his then Minister of Education, Isabel Celaá. The clear position was that there should be no 'mirror subject' to the Religion class. The LOMLOE would return, therefore, to Zapatero's model.
Although not exactly. Because, although it is true that the law did not propose a mirror subject for students who do not take Religion, what we are learning from the Royal Decrees does not leave it as much in the air as the LOE did. This is exactly what the draft of the Royal Decree says in this regard:
The educational centers will provide the organizational measures so that students whose parents or guardians have not opted for them to take religious education receive the appropriate educational attention. This attention will be planned and programmed by the centers in such a way that they are directed to the development of transversal competencies through the realization of meaningful projects for the students and collaborative problem solving, reinforcing self-esteem, autonomy, reflection and responsibility. In any case, the proposed activities will be aimed at reinforcing the most transversal aspects of the curriculum, favoring interdisciplinarity and the connection between different knowledge.
The activities referred to in this section will in no case involve the learning of curricular content associated with knowledge of religion or any area of the stage.
Perhaps it is my pathological optimism, but I would like to see in this provision a possibility to organize these students who do not choose Religion and create a coherent educational space.
From the outset, it points out that this learning must be planned and programmed. And, indeed, like everything that is done in education, they must be evaluated, I would add. It will be the centers that will have to do this programming, although it would obviously be ideal if the Administration were the one to do it. But in any case, it is pointed out that each center, each management team, must program and plan this teaching-learning moment. This is not a trivial matter, if we take it seriously.
And it gives the keys to this. We must work on transversal competencies, favor interdisciplinarity and the connection of knowledge, and do so through projects that influence the growth and maturity of the student in aspects such as problem solving, self-esteem, reflection and responsibility.
If one takes this approach seriously, one could generate a subject that develops many of the aspects that we also propose in the subject of Religion and that, in fact, the new curriculum of the Spanish Episcopal Conference has wanted to reinforce. We are facing the challenge of educating mature people, in all aspects of their personality, and that they have an overall vision -not compartmentalized- of the different knowledge. And this is good for all students, for those of Religion and for those who do not choose this area. Indeed, this type of learning is part of what we propose in the area of Religion when we speak of providing a Christian worldview of reality, of faith-culture dialogue, or the need for an integral education that embraces all the dimensions of the person.
If the Autonomous Communities and the educational centers themselves wish, the development of these indications could fix what is undoubtedly not well regulated by the Government in the law.
Let us do our best and always work for the best.
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John Paul I, on his way to the altars, with a program that took him to heaven
Pope Francis has recognized a miracle attributed to the intercession of Pope Luciani, John Paul I, opening the way for his beatification. Professors Onésimo Díaz and Enrique de la Lama review significant facts of his life, of his 33 days as Pope, and a program that he could only outline.
The year 1978 was somewhat turbulent for the Church. There were three Popes, and this had happened only thirteen times in the two thousand year history of the Church, although it was surpassed by 1276, the year in which there were four Roman Pontiffs. The last year that the Catholic Church had three Popes was 1605, four centuries ago.
Italian priest and writer Mauro Leonardia collaborator of Omnes, told this portal a few days ago that he had the good fortune to be present at the first audience of John Paul I, the Pope of the "33 days" who will soon be beatified. He spent the month of August 1978 in Rome and was thus able to be present at the funeral of St. Paul VI, who died on the 6th of that month, and at the announcement of the election of the Patriarch of Venice, Albino Lucianiwhich took place on August 26.
"The activity in which I participated ended at the beginning of September, so I was able to attend the first General Audience, which was held on September 6," he recalled. "Although his pontificate was very short-lived, he made it clear that, among many other things, it would be necessary to give the figure of the Pope a dimension closer to the people. This was the path, already undertaken by Paul VI and John XXIII, which was later strongly adopted by John Paul II", all of them canonized by Pope Francis.
The surprising fact in that first Audience of John Paul I was the sudden decision to call a child, an altar boy, to dialogue with him. You can read 'With the Pope of the 33 days'.The anecdote recounted by Mauro Leonardi reflects, in his opinion, that "God wanted not only to 'be' closer to men, but also to 'seem' closer to them".
He could not even write an encyclical
"John Paul I has gone down in history for the brevity of his pontificate, for his smile and for being the last Italian pope for more than four centuries to date. The Patriarch of Venice, Albino Luciani (1912-1978), was a simple man, formed in a Christian and humble family, the eldest of four brothers. Following in the footsteps of St. John XXIII and St. Paul VI, he joined their names as a sign of continuity with his two predecessors," he explains. Onésimo Díazauthor of History of the Popes in the 20th century, Base, Barcelona, 2017, and professor at the University of Navarra.
"John Paul I did not have time to write an encyclical, or even to move his books and things to the Vatican. The 'Pope of the Smile' died suddenly on September 29, 1978," says the researcher. Onésimo Díazwhich tells of the following initiative of the patriarch of Venice. "Out of his catechetical zeal, he embarked on the enterprise of publishing a monthly letter, the addressee of which was a famous personage of the past, such as the writers Chesterton, Dickens, Gogol and Péguy. This peculiar collection of letters was published under the title Distinguished Gentlemen. Letters from the Patriarch of Venice (Madrid, BAC, 1978)".
Undoubtedly the boldest and most profound letter was addressed to Jesus Christ, which ended thus: 'I have never felt so discontented in writing as on this occasion. It seems to me that I have omitted most of the things that could have been said about You and that I have said badly what I should have said much better. I am consoled only by this: the important thing is not that one should write about Christ, but that many should love and imitate Christ'. And, fortunately - in spite of everything - this continues to happen even today", says Professor Diaz.
Metropolitan of Leningrad dies
"We do not know what would have become the fruitfulness of that gentle rain, which was the gentle doctrine and sweet disposition of the new pope," he wrote. Enrique de la LamaBut in that brief period of time important things had happened, some of them pathetically beautiful and full of meaning.
For example, on September 5, two days after his solemn enthronement, Metropolitan Nikodim of Leningrad, who had come to Rome to attend the funeral of Paul VI and to meet the newly elected Pontiff, was received in audience by John Paul I in his private library. Professor De la Lama recounts: "The noble metropolitan, who was about 50 years old, died suddenly a few minutes after the beginning of the conversation:
Two days ago - the Holy Father [Pope Luciani] confided to the clergy of Rome - Metropolitan Nikodim of Leningrad died in my arms. I was responding to his greeting. I assure you that never in my life I have heard so beautiful words for the Church as those he has just pronounced; I cannot say them, they remain secret. I am truly impressed: Orthodox, but how he loves the Church! And I believe that he has suffered much for the Church, doing so much for the union'".
The program he came to outline
"Those were intense days for him."Enrique de la Lama continues, detailing some of his activities during those days, part of that "program that he could not fulfill": "In four weeks, in addition to the traditional inaugural audiences to the Diplomatic Corps, to the representatives of the 'media', to the special missions arriving for the solemn enthronement and liturgical imposition of the 'primacial pallium', he spoke on successive days to the Roman clergy, received the episcopate of the United States and spoke to them on the greatness and holiness of the Christian family, spoke to the Filipino bishops on evangelization, insisted on the option for the poor, taught on the nature of episcopal authority, deplored liturgical irregularities and cried out against violence".
"He would also have liked to give a strong impetus to the juridical solution of Opus Dei and in fact he had approved a letter in order to initiate the corresponding deliberations: but he did not sign it", revealed Professor De la Lama (see John Paul I and John Paul II on the threshold of the third millenniumYearbook of Church History, 6 (1997): 189-218). As is well known, the configuration of Opus Dei as a personal prelature of universal scope of the Catholic Church was carried out by St. John Paul II, after a broad consultation with the world episcopate, in 1982.
"Seeking God in everyday work".
The Cardinal Luciani had already written about Opus Dei. In fact, a few weeks before he was elected pontiff, he published an article on Opus Dei in a Venetian magazine, titled "Seeking God in everyday work". (Gazzetino of VeniceJuly 25, 1978), in which the patriarch recalled that "Escriva speaks directly of 'materializing' - in a good sense - sanctification. For him, it is the material work itself that must be transformed into prayer and holiness," said Onésimo Díaz.
The researcher Diaz points out that the writings and the captivating smile" of Patriarch Luciani, then John Paul I for 33 days, "transmit the image of a man of God, that we will see very soon on the altars, like his predecessor St. Paul VI and his continuator St. John Paul II. For the time being, in the next few months he will be proclaimed Blessed".
"Evangelization, the first duty"
On the other hand, De la Lama recalls in his letter the initial statement of the newly elected Pope John Paul I about his future work: "Our program will be to continue his (that of Paul VI). [...] We wish to remind the whole Church that her first duty remains evangelization, the main lines of which our predecessor Paul VI condensed in a memorable document. We wish to continue the ecumenical effort, which we consider to be the last will of our two immediate predecessors. We want to continue with patience and firmness in that serene and constructive dialogue which the never sufficiently mourned Paul VI placed as the foundation and program of his pastoral action, describing its main lines in the great Encyclical Ecclesiamsuam. Finally, we want to support all praiseworthy and good initiatives that can protect and increase peace in the troubled world: for which we ask the collaboration of all good, just, honest, upright and upright-hearted men".
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"The most important gesture about Medjugorje is from Pope Francis".
Medjugorje, the film has been in theaters for two and a half weeks and has already been seen by thirty thousand people. The most important gesture about Medjugorje has been from Pope Francis, says its director, Jesús García Colomer. Three of the six Bosnian visionaries assure that Our Lady appears to them every day, and the conversions are innumerable.
The attraction that Medjugorje exerts on millions of people is unquestionable. The apparitions of the Virgin Mary that have taken place in this small place in Bosnia Herzegovina are thousands, "because since June 24, 1981, when they began, until today, they have not ceased, according to the testimony of the visionaries. There are three of them [the visionaries are six], who claim to have apparitions every day," says the director of the documentary, Jesús García Colomer.
It is said that St. John Paul II said privately that he did not go to Medjugorje because he was the Pope and could not, but that if he were not the Pope he would go there to hear confessions. Benedict XVI set up a commission of inquiry, and "the most important gesture was made by Pope Francis when he removed the power from the bishop of the place, and it fell on a direct envoy of his. And then there is the authorization of the pilgrimages", synthesizes this writer, scriptwriter and audiovisual producer, to whom Medjugorje changed his life.
Jesús García, husband and father of a family, got to know Medjugorje in 2006, when he was sent to make a report. He knew then "the greatest story that could be told today". His story cannot be understood without Medjugorje, and for years, together with another communication professional, Borja Martínez-Echevarría, he wanted to make this report. documentarywhich today is a reality. The film features characters such as Nando Parrado, Tamara Falcó, María Vallejo-Nágera, and many others. "The main message of Medjugorje is conversion," he says. With Jesús García, 'Suso for friends, we chat.
̶ On October 1, 2010, the first Medjugorje, the filmWhat will viewers see in the film?
It is an informative tool, a documentary, about a historical event, and at the same time contemporary, because it started 40 years ago, but the phenomena of Medjugorje continue. The film contains interviews with the protagonists, three of the visionaries, Father Jozo, who was the parish priest of Medjugorje in 1981, and who has an impressive testimony, because as a result of all this the communists imprisoned him, he spent a year and a half in jail. He is now 80 years old and we were able to interview him. The documentary also includes testimonies of people who have gone to Medjugorje, and they tell stories that they have lived there.
̶ How did the premiere go? Can we still see the film?
The premiere has gone super well. In two and a half weeks it has made thirty thousand spectators, which is a barbarity, and it is being a box office surprise, it is becoming a phenomenon, so to speak. It can still be seen. On the website of the movie we update the cinemas throughout Spain where it is still being screened.
̶ Is it true that millions of people have already visited this site, located in Bosnia-Herzegovina?
Yes, it is true. Before the pandemic, there were an estimated one to two million pilgrims from all over the world, with 2019 figures, pre-pandemic, every year. This has been going on for 40 years, there have already been millions of people going every year, and from all over the world.
̶ What is your main message?
The main message of Medjugorje is conversion. But conversion not seen for the non-Catholic, non-Christian, the bad guy, the murderer who converts, or something like that, but a call to conversion to baptized Christians who at some point in their life have left the faith and the life of the Church.
̶ What impression did it make on you and people you know? You have even commented that Medjugorje changed your life..., and from what we have seen, that of many people.
For me it was definitive. It was a turning point. I began a new life in the Church. It is true that it was not my conversion as such, but it was the end of a two-year process of conversion. And from then on, it was definitive. And in people I know, the same thing. It was a conversion. The word conversion made sense to me. When they talk to you about conversion, you don't know what they are talking about, but when you live it, I know what they are talking about. And it changed my life.
̶ Can you tell a couple of ideas you wish to convey with the film?
To begin with, it is simply an informative interest, like any documentary. But the idea that transcends is: God exists, God is true. If this is happening, as conveyed in the documentary, the only possibility is that God is true, that God exists,
̶ Does the film add anything to what we have been able to read in your book about Medjugorje?
It includes new testimonies and updates the Church's position, which I will comment on later.
̶ The climate is one of prayer and penitence, according to the film....
There was an afternoon, walking around there, when I counted 207 priests confessing, in the street. Next to the parish, they put themselves on folding chairs, on stools, they put a little sign of the language in which they confess, I think there are priests confessing in more than thirty languages, and I counted 207. Talking to them, I thought that day there were between 8,000 and 10,000 people confessing, in a single afternoon, on a summer day.
̶ What have been the main decisions of the Holy See regarding the alleged apparitions of the Virgin Mary in these lands of the former communist Yugoslavia since 1981?
Above all, three things are noteworthy. In 2010, Benedict XVI set up a commission of inquiry for Medjugorje. That commission, presided over by Cardinal Camillo Ruini, finished its work in 2014, and issued a report, which is secret to this day. The content of this report has never been revealed. While it is true that in 2017 Rome sends an apostolic visitator who takes command of Medjugorje, taking that power away from the local bishopric, which is the bishopric of Mostar, and from the Franciscans, because it is a parish administered by Franciscans. It no longer depends neither on the Franciscans nor on the bishop, and in 2017 it begins to depend directly on Rome, through this apostolic visitator.
And in 2019, by order of this apostolic visitator, Rome authorizes official pilgrimages. This means that it allows dioceses, parishes, movements or congregations to organize their own pilgrimages.
The three gestures cannot be separated, there is an investigation, years later an apostolic visitor is sent, and two years later pilgrimages are authorized. Everything has to do with it, obviously. And it is positive.
̶How many Marian apparitions have taken place since then?
Thousands. Because since June 24, 1981, when they began, until today, they have not ceased, according to the testimony of the visionaries. There are three of them (there are six visionaries), who claim to have apparitions every day.
̶ Can you summarize the position of the last Popes before Medjugorje?
Many things are said about John Paul II. One of them is that he said privately that he did not go to Medjugorje because he was the Pope and could not, but that if he were not the Pope he would go there to confess. Pope Benedict set up this commission of inquiry, and the most important gesture was made by Pope Francis when he took the power away from the bishop of the place and gave it to a direct envoy of his. That is the most important gesture. And then the authorization of pilgrimages.
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The temptation to divinize the universe
The universe has always been, since ancient times, the subject of debate about the affirmation or denial of God.
Since ancient times, the consideration of the universe has served as a prelude to the affirmation of God... or his denial. The opportunity or the conflict certainly did not arise among the Greeks nor in any of the cultures that preceded them, because the idea that everything visible (the Earth, the Sun, the Moon and the stars) could have been created by a divinity very rarely occurred to our most remote grandparents. The main difficulty was not in admitting that such an immense thing could have been taken from the Earth, but in admitting that it could have been created by a divinity. from scratchbut that Something or Someone, however exalted it might be, could be located beyond its borders.
Although some of the early philosophers were accused of impiety and atheism, it was certainly not because they denied the existence and power of God, but rather because they challenged the dominant beliefs. Their defiance was not surprising, since Greek religion had declined after centuries of syncretic recasting. Having lost confidence in traditions that had become unacceptable, these men relied on the staff of reason to rebuild a creed that did not violate the intelligence of the true or the conscience of the just.
A philosophical religion
Thus, they created what Varron called a philosophical religionThe first one, as opposed to the forms of devotion known up to then: the mythical and the civil. The extraordinary thing about this story is that, faced with the need to choose between these three alternatives, St. Augustine did not hesitate to place the Christian alternative next to that of the philosophers, as the then Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger recalled in his investiture speech as Doctor of Philosophy. honoris cause by the University of Navarra. Therefore, the strategy that Hecataeus, Xenophanes, Anaxagoras or Plato chose to search for the true religion, the only one capable of quenching the thirst for God that all men have, was not so bad.
The mortgage that conditioned the attempt of the Greek philosophers was that the notions they handled were not enough. The one that was probably the most burdened by their way of thinking was that of spirit. To conceive both God and the human soul, they resorted to clumsy semi-corporeal imitations, such as puffs of air, fatuous fires, faint simulacra and the like.
After many battles, in which the first Christian philosophers occupied a glorious vanguard position, things began to become clear: God was not a star, nor the immanent principle that moves the cosmos, nor is his "sky" the one traveled by the planets. He was beyond time and space, beyond the wheres and wheres, and his reality went far beyond what can be touched, seen, smelled or heard. It was another matter that his vast wisdom and power, as well as his extraordinary goodness, found the means to make his elided presence tangible in the world we inhabit, the only one with which we are familiar.
Paradoxically, it could be said that the physical universe could only begin to be conceived as such, as a physical world without more, from the very moment that the last Greek philosophers, already Christianized, took God out of it, and began to conceive it only as their work, their creation, endowed with its own consistency, solid, perfectly regulated and knowable.
The disenchantment of the world
At first sight paradoxical, nothing could be more logical: cosmology only became possible as a science when God ceased to be conceived as a tenant of the cosmos to be recognized as its author. The disenchantment of the physical world forced to stop looking for souls and elves everywhere, to investigate instead the facts and laws that manifest the action of a powerful, wise and good Cause outside the universe itself.
However, the temptation to fall back into confusion has been constant ever since. To return to identifying God with nature was always the great temptation, in which poets and philosophers fell again and again, especially since Benedict of Spinoza became its most representative spokesman. The elementary consideration that such an overflowing Presence would not be overwhelming only for creatures, but also for cosmic reality itself, was disregarded again and again. It did not matter to have to sacrifice man's freedom or to convert into mere appearances the evils and limitations that appear everywhere.
When the cosmologist Lemaître pointed out to Einstein that an expanding universe (thus resulting from a physical singularity) was much more consistent with his theory of relativity, he could only reply: "No, not that! That is too much like creation!".Leaving aside the details of this debate and others that followed (such as the attempts to preserve temporal eternity in stationary universe models, or spatial infinity in multiverse speculations) the goal has always been the same: to adorn worldly reality with some divine feature, even at the cost of sacrificing its harmony, beauty, or even rendering it rigorously inconceivable. It would seem that it is not only the Jewish people who are stiff-necked; it seems that it is the whole of mankind who persists in continuing to kick against the goads.
The authorJuan Arana
Professor of Philosophy at the University of Seville, full member of the Royal Academy of Moral and Political Sciences, visiting professor in Mainz, Münster and Paris VI -La Sorbonne-, director of the philosophy journal Nature and Freedom and author of numerous books, articles and collaborations in collective works.
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"Today, those who do not renounce their convictions are considered revolutionaries."
María Bueno, a lawyer, is part of the organizing team of the St. Josemaría Symposium, a meeting that this year celebrates its tenth edition and will bring together dozens of people in Jaén on November 19 and 20 to reflect on "Freedom and Commitment".
On November 19 and 20, the 10th St. Josemaría Symposium will take place at the Jaén Conference Center. Two days of debate and reflection on freedom in today's world, with a special focus on young people.
The Symposium, organized by the Catalina Mir Foundation, a non-profit organization that promotes welfare and guidance activities in favor of the family and young people, will count among its speakers the participation of the former Minister of the Interior, Jaime Mayor Oreja, the Professor of State Ecclesiastical Law at the Complutense University and collaborator of Omnes, Rafael Palomino or Teresa and Antonio, an engaged couple who speak naturally of their Christian life in networks.
Maria Buenoone of its organizers, has granted an interview to Omnes on the occasion of this Congress.
- Why was the theme of Freedom and Commitment chosen for the 10th St. Josemaría Symposium?
The aim of the St. Josemaría Symposium is none other than to make known his message, his teachings. And if there are some themes that St. Josemaría was passionate about, it was personal freedom, his own and that of others, and commitment and dedication. He spent a lot of time speaking and writing about them. To give just one example, in his book "Friends of God," which contains some of his homilies, there is one entitled "Freedom, a gift of God," in which he says forcefully, "I would like to engrave in each one of us: freedom and dedication are not contradictory; they mutually sustain each other.
The importance of this clear message of St. Josemaría is so great, and so vital for the person and society of today, that it seemed to us of great interest to dedicate this Symposium to deepening and reflecting on the theme.
- Is freedom hijacked by ideology in today's world?
I would not say as much as kidnapped, but very limited. Freedom is very strong, and at the same time very sensitive and suffers from any attack. And since ideologies usually have a reductionist background, they imprison decisions, taking away the freshness of freedom, which naturally tends to be loose.
Today it is striking the force of political correctness, which sometimes forces a hard exercise of maturity and reflection in making many decisions, which we are not always willing to make.
It even goes so far that a decision taken against the majority criterion prevailing in society is considered an attack on it. Today it is considered revolutionary not the one who wants to transform society by adapting it to his preconceptions, but the one who, against the dominant ideology, does not renounce to defend his own convictions, no matter how old-fashioned the majority of society may consider them. Look, for example, if it does not seem revolutionary today to go against abortion!
However, speaking the truth, speaking coherently and living as we think leads us to be freer every day, and the opposite coerces us.
- Do you think that, as some thinkers have said, we have fallen into the slavery of the "simple conquest" of freedoms that basically bind us, such as the choice of sex, interruption of pregnancy, etc.?
Sometimes we do not understand that the true meaning of freedom does not lie in "doing whatever I want" at all times, but in knowing well and choosing well what makes us better people, and what brings us closer to our fulfillment. In this sense, having the freedom to do more things does not necessarily make us freer. And this is the case of these conquests falsely qualified as freedoms, which, when confronted squarely with human nature itself, end up limiting the possibilities of personal development and, therefore, true freedom.
- During Covid there is a lot of talk about the lack of freedoms or the use of the pandemic to restrict individual freedoms, do you think there has been that backlash?
Your question is highlighting the topicality of the Symposium's theme.
Individual freedom is a fundamental aspect of the individual that has been under constant attack since time immemorial and in all periods of history, and this pandemic situation that we are living through is no exception.
The Symposium will address different aspects of freedom, and will present testimonies of people who have lived and are living their personal freedom in a committed way, and with a radical commitment, also in these circumstances, and in some cases, precisely because of these difficult circumstances we have gone through.
Therefore, I would like to invite your readers to participate in the Symposium, directly, and if that is not possible, telematically, as it will surely make us reflect on these important issues in our lives.
- Does commitment expand freedom or limit it?
It seems that in our time, commitment and freedom are antagonistic concepts, that it is difficult to conceive the word freedom within a concept of commitment.
However, it is curious that freedom can be conceived without commitment, when every day, to some extent, we commit ourselves to something, to a lifestyle, to a career, to a partner, to a sport..., even when we have to choose, and we don't, we are already choosing.
Freedom can be understood as a set of apparent benefits, of total independence, of not being tied to anything or anyone, of not having to account for words or actions, etc., and commitment, as a perpetual chain, which does not allow changes or progress, but, on the contrary, fixes our feet on a stone that stops us in our tracks.
On the contrary, I believe that to commit oneself to something, we must first educate ourselves, know the possibilities we have within our reach to carry it out, make knowledge an intelligent way of comparison, and once the reasons for our decision are clear, we will be able to fulfill our commitments freely, and our commitment will always be free, even if sometimes it is difficult for us to carry it out.
St. Josemaría, in Friends of God, wrote: "Nothing is more false than to oppose freedom to surrender, because surrender comes as a consequence of freedom".
- In the program there is a section dedicated to young people who are accused of shying away from commitment - do you want to show another face of youth?
Indeed, if we watch the news and listen to the news, it seems that young people only think about parties and drinking binges. But that is only a part of the youth.
However, there is another kind of youth, fortunately the majority, although it is less in the news, who are willing to commit themselves daily to the defense of very different causes, such as social, environmental, political or religious issues. The St. Josemaría Symposium, in addition to showing the world another face of youth, aims to present to young people, through people of their own age, exciting projects that they can make their own lives, and for which it is worthwhile to commit oneself freely.
- Do you think that today's young people have, however, greater freedom to express or live their beliefs and convictions?
It is evident that young people have great freedom to express and live according to their convictions, and that they have a great capacity for commitment.
A very concrete example is a HARAMBEE project, which they called KAZUCA, which started from the young people in the VIII edition of the Symposium, in 2016. Young Andalusians and Africans came together for education in Africa. They set out to raise funds to provide scholarships for the university studies of two young people without resources, who excelled in their studies, Violet and Jeff, from the slum Kibera, a very poor neighborhood of Nairobi. It was a dream for everyone and ... the dream has come true. Violet and Jeff have just graduated, started working and are happily raising their family and their environment. They will, in a way, be with us at this Symposium.
- What is the balance of these ten editions?
Very positive. Throughout these editions a wide variety of topics have been addressed, and thousands of people have been shown the teachings of St. Josemaría on each of these subjects. Many speakers have passed through Jaén, all of them of great stature, who have enlightened us on the subjects of teaching, the family, the role of Christians in society in the 21st century, communication, service, dialogue... On these subjects, life testimonies have been presented, which have helped us to have a better perspective of the world around us, literary novelties have been presented on the figure of St. Josemaría.... All this has meant that our Symposium, which was born small but with a vocation to grow, is becoming more important with each edition, and is now considered "international," reaching more and more people every day.
- What are the prospects for the future?
Throughout his life, St. Josemaría dealt in depth with many topics that are still very topical today and that this Symposium intends to continue to make known.
In addition to the people who have participated in person in the sessions, in the last editions we have reached, through internet connections, all the corners of the world. From now on, with more experience and more means in this type of participation, due to the circumstances of the pandemic we are all aware of, we are very excited that our Symposium will serve as a loudspeaker so that the message of St. Josemaría reaches every corner of the world.
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Elvira Casas. Pregnancy support
Elvira presides over an association that helps women during pregnancy and the baby's first year, basing its actions on two fundamental pillars: maternity assistance and evangelization.
"It is worth giving a big yes to life but not with a simple slogan but taking care of the protagonists.". Today I talk to Elvira Casas, president of the association. Mary's HomeThe program, which helps women throughout their pregnancy and the first year of their baby's life, is a one-to-one relationship, without coldness, entering into the intimacy of the mothers. Here, it is a nuclear treatment you to you, without coldness, entering into the core of the intimacy of the mothers. They see them weekly to get to know them and get close to them. The time they spend at the association contributes to a strong bond with the coordinator. And most importantly, the mothers become friends. Therein lies the quidbecause they discover that they have many things in common. Friends at a turning point in their lives. Friends who are pulling up. This is the best way to help them. The secret is not in moralizing talks but in making them feel loved and encouraged.
The proposal includes numerous alternatives. There are workshops or activities on different themes. "If a volunteer comes in, he/she is asked what he/she knows how to do and is asked to do what he/she is most experienced in."Elvira tells me. There are also talks nicknamed "spiritual touches"Some weeks we talk about virtues, others we comment on a passage from the Gospel, or even explain a sacrament to them. They accept all mothers of any religion and seek to provide them with formation. They are given the option of attending catechesis to receive a sacrament or to get closer to God. Each week they are given a talk on maternity issues, such as pregnancy, health or how to raise a baby. They are given a batch of what they call maternity productswhether diapers or baby food. small. All thanks to the benefactors who make the collaborations.
This association has two pillars: maternity assistance and evangelization. It is a project entrusted to the Virgin Mary. The association has 11 sites and more will be opened soon. "We serve 180 moms, although since 2014, which is when it was founded, more than 1000 moms with their babies have passed through. There are many collaborators and volunteers. Some help sporadically and others commit on a weekly basis. We have more than 200 collaborators who help in one way or another. Sometimes they are in person at the headquarters and other times they are companies that collaborate with products or financially. All funding is private.", they tell us.
Elvira tells us how God's hand is especially noticeable in some stories: "a woman who came to the home alone, without housing, without a job, without papers, with her family in another country. She was eight weeks pregnant. She had decided to have an abortion. She found our brochure that someone had left there in the waiting room of the abortion clinic. It was very spectacular, totally providential. When a new mother arrives, she is told that Our Lady has brought her here. They told her that she was not alone, that they were going to accompany her. They are usually assigned an angel, who is a person who is one hundred percent dedicated to them, like a sister, a support so that they do not feel alone and are very aware of their casuistry. They talk to their social worker. They worked on it to improve their situation and the arrival of the baby.".
Mothers are also sometimes given psychological support through referrals to professionals. "We feel that we are God's means to help each one of these women."The president confesses that she has often felt overwhelmed by the power of the Holy Spirit when faced with a complicated conversation that was beyond her strength.I give thanks for each one of these mothers, who are examples of brave women, who fight and move forward with everything against them. Saying yes to life is for the brave and for those in love.".
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Leopoldo Abadía and Joan Folch discuss the relationship between young people and the elderly
Leopoldo Abadía and Joan Folch emphasized, at the Omnes-CARF meeting held this afternoon, that the conversation between elders and young people is important.
RelatedJacques Philippe: "The time of pandemic is also an invitation to follow Jesus Christ".Bishop Arrieta, on the reform of the Code: "Now the crimes, the penalties and the way to apply them are well determined".
Jacques Philippe: "The time of pandemic is also an invitation to follow Jesus Christ".Bishop Arrieta, on the reform of the Code: "Now the crimes, the penalties and the way to apply them are well determined".On the afternoon of Wednesday, October 20, the writer, professor and economist Leopoldo Abadía and the influencer Joan Folch, held an interesting discussion on the relationship between young and old.
Leopoldo Abadía, born in Zaragoza, 88 years old, has been married to his wife for 61 years and is the father of 12 children, grandfather of 49 grandchildren and great-grandfather. His work in recent years as a writer is outstanding, after a long career as an economist and professor. He also holds a doctorate in industrial engineering. Talking with him has been Joan Folch, 22 years old, student of the Faculty of Economics at the University of Navarra and influencer, with tens of thousands of followers on Instagram (@jfolchh).
In Spain there are some 9.5 million people over the age of 65, or 20% of the population. Of these, more than two million live alone. Alongside this reality, we find a young population that communicates, mainly through technology and digital media.
If there have been communication gaps in all generations, in recent years, this gap seems to have become more pronounced. How do the old and the young relate to each other? Do we really have such different concepts of life? Is the so-called intergenerational connection possible? Do we speak the same language?
These are some of the issues addressed in this dialogue between Leopoldo Abadía and Joan Folch. The meeting, organized by Omnes and the Centro Académico Romano Foundation, has been broadcast live on YouTube via the Omnes Youtube channel.
Leopoldo began by graciously commenting on his relationship with his grandchildren. "At the beginning, he used to say, the grandchildren should be brought up by their father. But as they got older they would invite me to breakfast, but with the little ones I have a different relationship". He also stressed the need for friendship between young and old, between grandparents and grandchildren, etc. In turn, Joan supported him by commenting that "young people are losing the habit of asking for advice from their elders, resorting more easily to Google". For this reason, both of them claimed the need for a better relationship between both generations, a relationship that can become a friendship.
Along the same lines, Joan commented that young people tend to look for ideal models without paying attention to the voice of experience. And that is why he claimed the importance of going to the elders to learn from them. Leopoldo wanted to emphasize that "the obligatory thing is to have friends. Young, old, whatever they are. But you have to have friends.
After this interesting discussion, the meeting gave way to a question-and-answer session, which arrived via the Omnes WhatsApp number and YouTube.
Among very good questions, in relation to one in particular about the role that young people play in the care of the elderly, Joan assured that young people play a very important role, and that it is a correspondence for all that the elderly have given us. Leopoldo, for his part, stressed that "we live in a selfish society, and that the messages we receive are sometimes totally selfish". In this sense, he said, "sometimes it is necessary to resort to a residence to take care of the elderly, but a priority for young people is to take care of their elders, their parents and grandparents".
At the end of the meeting, Leopoldo emphasized an attitude that he recommended to all those who listened to him: the vital attitude of smiling. An attitude that implies welcoming, loving, respecting.
You can watch the complete meeting by clicking here here.
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Bishop García Beltrán calls for "personal and pastoral conversion" to evangelize
The Bishop of Getafe, Msgr. Ginés García Beltrán, prayed for "the evangelizing mission of the Church in Spain", and outlined its main features, challenges and difficulties, in a prayer vigil and Adoration, and Holy Mass celebrated over the weekend next to the image of the Heart of Jesus, in the Basilica of Cerro de los Ángeles.
After recalling some words of Benedict XVI in his first encyclical letter, Deus Caritas est, García Beltrán stressed in his homily that "evangelization is the proclamation of a Name, the only Name that can save: Jesus Christ. There is no true evangelization if man does not encounter Christ, if Christ does not reach the heart and change it, transform it, envelop it with his love, only in this way will this experience be manifested in daily existence".
"Evangelization," he added, "is not a human initiative that the Church has seconded over the centuries; evangelization obeys Jesus' missionary mandate: 'Go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you' (Mt 28:19-20).
On this point, he recalled Pope Francis, when quoting St. Paul, he pointed out: "It is what Paul tells us here: 'I do not do it to boast' - and he adds - 'on the contrary, it is for me an imperative necessity'. A Christian has the obligation, with this force, as a necessity, to bear the name of Jesus, from his very heart" (Homily at Santa Marta, 9/09/2016). Witnesses evangelize".
"This mandate took root in our land, Spain, from the very dawn of Christianity, more than twenty centuries of evangelizing work that have given many fruits of holiness, and we ask that it continues to give them, so this afternoon we pray for the evangelization of Spain," continued Bishop García Beltrán, who is also a member of the Executive and Permanent Commissions of the Spanish Episcopal Conference, before numerous people and families convened by the communication network EWTN Spain.
"Unity with the See of Peter".
In the pastoral orientations for the coming years, the prelate continued, "the bishops of Spain ask ourselves, how can we evangelize in today's Spanish society? The evangelizing mission of the Church in Spain encounters two types of difficulties: some come from outside the environmental culture; others come from within, from internal secularization, lack of communion or missionary daring".
To respond to these challenges, Bishop García Beltrán encouraged us to return "to the elements that throughout history have given foundation to our faith. He cited five in particular: "a Church of confessors and martyrs, a Church always united to the See of Peter, a missionary Church, a Samaritan Church, and a Marian Church. A synthesis of each aspect can be useful, without prejudice to accessing the integral homily.
1) "A Church of Confessors and Martyrs. Evangelization today demands from us personal and pastoral conversion, revitalization of the faith, commitment in its transmission, a clear identity, and a great capacity to reach the people of our time; it is necessary that we become aware that evangelization is the work of the Holy Spirit with whom we want to collaborate in trust and docility".
2) "A Church always united to the See of Peter. The communion of faith with the successors of the Apostle Peter, and the adhesion and love to his person and magisterium have identified our Christianity. For this reason, the evangelization of Spain also at this time must have this sign of identity; we must evangelize in communion with the Pope and his magisterium, to which we must unite our sincere and filial affection; we can hardly evangelize from disaffection with the Successor of Peter and the questioning of his teachings".
3) "A missionary Church. Spain has always been a Church in missionary outreach; sons of this land have taken the Gospel to every corner of the world, and continue to do so. Francis Xavier and thousands of names with him write some of the most beautiful pages of our Christianity, at the same time that they show us the way of the mission as the essence of faith; but there will be no mission if there is no true Christian life, if we do not cultivate the interior life, if we do not awaken the passion for Christ, already from the family".
4) "A Samaritan Church. Everyone will recognize that we are Christ's disciples if we love one another, which is why charity is also an essential element of our Church. We have evangelized through charity, and we continue to do so. The credibility of faith comes through charity, through love for others, especially the poorest. We will continue to evangelize if we continue to live the charity of Christ, because charity is evangelizing, and if we allow ourselves to be evangelized by the poor".
5) "Finally, we are a Marian Church. Mary is the fundamental foundation of the Church, and she has been the foundation of our land. We are a Marian Church, as St. John Paul II liked to say: "Spain, land of Mary".
EWTN
The event was attended by hundreds of people convened by EWTN Spainwhich is presided over by José Carlos González Hurtado, and which began its TV broadcasts in our country a few months ago. According to the group, almost 90,000 people from all over the world followed the Adoration and the Mass at the Cerro de los Ángeles through Facebook alone. If we add those who watched it on Instagram, television (in Spain and Latin America), and on the web itself, the organizers estimate "at least as many".
At the end of the homily, the Bishop of Getafe invited "those of you who are here at the Cerro de los Angeles, and those who follow us through the EWTN TV channel, to continue praying unwaveringly so that Jesus Christ may be known, loved and followed, with the conviction that He is by far the best; therefore, evangelization is the best work of love for our brothers and sisters".
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The Pope erects the Amazon Ecclesial Conference
Motivated by the request for the creation of this Conference, the Pope canonically erected it with the purpose of promoting the joint pastoral action of the ecclesiastical circumscriptions of the Amazon region and fostering a greater inculturation of the faith in that territory.
Through a note, Pope Francis has canonically erected the Ecclesial Conference of the Amazon (CEAMA). As the note says, "the Final Document of the Synod on Amazonia, No. 115, proposed the creation of a 'permanent and representative episcopal body to promote synodality in the Amazon region'. During an Assembly held from June 26-29, 2020, the Presidents concerned decided to request the Holy See for the permanent creation of the Ecclesial Conference of the Amazon".
And this is what the Pontiff has done. "Well disposed to favor this initiative, which emerged from the Synodal Assembly, Pope Francis charged the Congregation for Bishops to follow and closely accompany the process, lending all possible assistance to give the organism a suitable physiognomy."
In the Audience of October 9 granted to the Prefect of the Congregation for Bishops, the Holy Father canonically erected the Ecclesial Conference of Amazonia as a public ecclesiastical juridical person, giving it the purpose of promoting the joint pastoral action of the ecclesiastical circumscriptions of Amazonia and fostering a greater inculturation of the faith in that territory.
The Statutes of the new organization will be submitted to the Holy Father for the necessary approval at the end of its study.
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"If freedom is not at the service of the good, it runs the risk of being sterile and not bearing fruit."
In his catechesis on Wednesday, Pope Francis emphasized that "we are free in serving; we find ourselves fully in the measure in which we give ourselves; we possess life if we lose it". In addition, a child surprised the Pontiff during the audience, climbing onto the podium and taking an interest in his solideo.
RelatedConfession secrecy and abuse in FranceKeys and risks of a Synod that aims to involve the whole Church
Confession secrecy and abuse in FranceKeys and risks of a Synod that aims to involve the whole ChurchPope Francis reflected on the core of freedom according to the Apostle Paul in his catechesis at the General Audience on Wednesday, October 20. "The Apostle Paul, with his Letter to the Galatians, little by little introduces us to the great newness of faith. It is truly a great newness, because it does not just renew some aspect of life, but brings us into that "new life" that we have received through Baptism. There, the greatest gift has been poured out upon us, that of being children of God. Reborn in Christ, we have passed from a religiosity made up of precepts to a living faith, which has its center in communion with God and with our brothers and sisters. We have passed from the slavery of fear and sin to the freedom of the children of God.
"Today," the Pontiff began, "we will try to understand better what is for the Apostle the heart of this freedom. Paul affirms that freedom is far from being "a pretext for the flesh" (Gal 5,13): freedom is not a libertine living, according to the flesh or according to instinct, individual desires or one's own selfish impulses; on the contrary, the freedom of Jesus leads us to be - writes the apostle - "at the service of one another" (ibid.). True freedom, in other words, is fully expressed in charity. Once again we find ourselves before the paradox of the Gospel: we are free in serving; we find ourselves fully in the measure in which we give ourselves; we possess life if we lose it (cfr. Mc 8,35)".
"But how is this paradox explained?" asked Francis rhetorically. "The apostle's answer is as simple as it is engaging: 'through love'" (Gal 5,13). It is the love of Christ that has set us free and it is still the love that frees us from the worst slavery, that of our self; that is why freedom grows with love. But beware: not with intimate, soap opera love, not with the passion that seeks simply what we fancy and what we like, but with the love that we see in Christ, charity: this is the truly free and liberating love. It is the love that shines in gratuitous service, modeled on that of Jesus, who washes the feet of his disciples and says: "For I have given you an example, that you also should do as I have done for you" (Jn 13,15)".
"For Paul, freedom is not "doing what I feel like doing and what I like". This kind of freedom, without an end and without references, would be an empty freedom. And in fact it leaves an emptiness inside: how many times, after having followed instinct alone, we realize that we are left with a great emptiness inside and have misused the treasure of our freedom, the beauty of being able to choose the true good for ourselves and for others. Only this freedom is full, concrete, and inserts us in the real life of every day".
"In another letter, the first to the Corinthians, the apostle responds to those who hold a wrong idea of freedom. "All things are lawful," say these. "But all things are not expedient," Paul replies. "Everything is lawful" - "But not everything edifies," replies the apostle. And he adds, "Let no one look out for his own interests, but only for the interests of others" (1 Cor 10,23-24). To those who are tempted to reduce freedom only to their own tastes, Paul places before them the requirement of love. Freedom guided by love is the only freedom that makes others and ourselves free, that knows how to listen without imposing, that knows how to love without forcing, that builds up and does not destroy, that does not exploit others for its own convenience and does good to them without seeking its own benefit. In short, if freedom is not at the service of the good, it runs the risk of being sterile and not bearing fruit. However, freedom animated by love leads to the poor, recognizing in their faces the face of Christ. This is why the service of one another allows Paul, writing to the Galatians, to emphasize something by no means secondary: speaking of the freedom that the other apostles gave him to evangelize, he stresses that they advised him to do only one thing: to remember the poor (cfr. Gal 2,10)".
"We know however that one of the most widespread modern conceptions of freedom is this: 'my freedom ends where yours begins.' But here the relationship is missing! It is an individualistic vision. However, those who have received the gift of liberation worked by Jesus cannot think that freedom consists in being far from others, feeling them as a nuisance, cannot see the human being as being incarnated in himself, but always included in a community. The social dimension is fundamental for Christians, and allows them to look to the common good and not to private interests".
"Especially in this historical moment," the Pope concluded, "we need to rediscover the communitarian, not individualistic, dimension of freedom: the pandemic has taught us that we need one another, but it is not enough to know it, it is necessary to choose it concretely every day. We say and believe that others are not an obstacle to my freedom, but the possibility to realize it fully. Because our freedom is born of the love of God and grows in charity".
A particular event occurred when, during the audience, a child climbed up to the podium of the Paul VI Hall and approached to greet the Pope. The Pontiff, as he usually does on these occasions, encouraged him to remain seated in a chair next to him. The boy seemed interested in Francis' skullcap. Finally, after a while on the dais, he went back down to his seat.
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Jean Mouroux and the Christian Sense of Man (1943)
The work of Jean Mouroux Christian sense of manThe original and panoramic presentation of the Christian image of the human being was a breakthrough in the presentation of the Christian image of the human being. Gaudium et spesand maintains its validity and interest.
Jean Mouroux signed the foreword to this book in Dijon on October 3, 1943. He probably did it in the seminary where he was trained, taught for many years (1928-1967) and died (1973). Practically his whole life was devoted to the seminary, except for a two-year bachelor of arts degree in Lyon, which was very enriching for him because he met De Lubac and established a long-lasting relationship. In fact, this book, like others of his, was published in the collection Theology (Aubier), directed by the Jesuits of Fourvière, under number 6. It was translated into Spanish and republished by Palabra (Madrid 2001), edition that we use.
The date also deserves attention, because in 1943 France was occupied by German troops and in the midst of the world war. But Jean Mouroux, like De Lubac and others, was convinced that the most profound remedy for that terrible crisis was Christian renewal. And that gave him the courage to work.
A consistent work
From his position as a seminary professor in a "provincial" city (as they still say in Paris), he knew how to create a consistent work. Choosing his readings well and procuring the best (also with the advice of De Lubac), preparing his classes very well and writing with a stupendous style and an astonishing capacity for synthesis. He combined hard and persevering work, an unquestionable theological talent, and also a deep love for the Lord that is evident in his works.
Christian sense of man is the first and most important of the eight books he wrote. But others are also "important" because they address central issues, were widely read and continue to inspire: I believe in you. Personal structure of faith (1949), The Christian experience (1952), The mystery of time (1962) y Christian freedom (1968), which develops themes already dealt with in Christian sense.
The Christian Sense of Man (1943)
The first thing that can be said about this book is that, in reality, nothing like it existed before. It is a novel and happy Christian idea of the human being. It has a double merit; it integrates many materials that we could call "personalist", which were emerging at the time, and gives them a natural order.
It was a real leap in quality and has not lost interest. When it was being put together Gaudium et spesThe book, which was intended to describe the Christian idea of the human being, was the most complete book of reference. And, in fact, he was called to collaborate, although his already weak health only allowed him a short stay in Rome (1965).
"Around us there is the conviction that Christianity is a doctrine foreign to man and his problems, impotent in the face of his tragic condition, uninterested in his misery and his greatness. The following pages would like to show that the Christian mystery springs solely from the divine friendship with man, which perfectly explains his misery and his greatness, which is capable of healing his wounds and saving him by divinizing him." (p. 21).
It has ten chapters, divided into three parts: time values (I), carnal values (II) and spiritual values (III). Time values refers to the insertion of the human being in the temporal (also in the temporal city and the human world) and to his place in a marvelous universe that is divine creation. Carnal values (although in Spanish they have preferred to translate it as "corporeal") are the values of the body itself with its greatness and miseries, and with the admirable and definitive fact of the Incarnation. At Spiritual valuesThe book, which is a journey through three dimensions of the human spirit: to be a person (a personal being), to have freedom (with its miseries and greatness) and to be fulfilled in love (with the perfection of charity). Great architecture.
Time values
The first thing that is striking is Mouroux's positive awareness of the temporal as a place of realization of the human vocation: "What is the Christian's attitude in the face of this marvelous reality? The answer seems very simple: joyful acceptance and enthusiastic collaboration." (32)... which does not mean naive, precisely because the Christian knows that there is sin. It is a love "positive" (34), "oriented" (37) with the proper order of values, and, with God's help, "redeemer" (42). The Christian should seek to look at the things of this world "with pure eyes, use them with upright will and redirect them to God by worship and thanksgiving." (43).
For its part, the universe is "an immense, vital and inexhaustible book where things manifest themselves to us and manifest God to us." (48). The human being forms with nature an organic whole and, at the same time, "only he alone can with full consciousness, with knowledge and love, bring the world to God, giving him glory." (51). But this is done in the "tragic ambiguity" (52) that sin has inserted into man's relationship with nature. The last point deals with the "Perfection of the world by Christian action", and parallels Chapter 3 of the first part of Gaudium et spes (1965).
Carnal" values
From the outset, it is necessary to start from "The dignity of the body".created by God. But "few subjects cause more misunderstandings, even among Christians [...]. We can affirm of him the most contradictory things." (73). He proposes to study the greatness and misery of the human body. "showing that Christ came to heal their misery and exalt their dignity." (73). Certainly, the greatness-misery scheme is an obvious echo of the Thoughts of Pascal.
The body, positively, is the instrument of the soul, the means by which it expresses and communicates itself, and forms with it the fullness of the person, which cannot be conceived without it. And this is the Christian meaning of the final resurrection of the body, anticipated in Christ, first fruits, promise and means.
Certainly, the imprint of sin produces dysfunction, which is expressed in resistance, difficulty in spiritual life and relationship: "The body is also a veil. It is opaque. Two souls can never understand each other directly." (98). And the conflict between the flesh and the spirit is raised: "The body, besides being resistant and opaque, is a dangerous matter." (102). Body and spirit are made to live in unity, but they also contrast by nature and fight for sin: "The human body is not now the body God intended. It is a wounded and defeated body like man himself." (114). These curious dysfunctions, natural and due to sin, are manifested above all in affectivity. But, in the economy of salvation, the same unsatisfactory situation, the mark of sin, becomes an itinerary of salvation, giving a new meaning to bodily misery.
By becoming incarnate, the Lord shows the value of the body and its destiny. "In its relationship to Christ, the human body - a mystery of dignity and misery - finds its definitive explanation and its total perfection. The body was created to be assumed by the Word of God." (119). The Body of Christ becomes, on the one hand, a revelation of God, a means of expression that reaches us in our language and at our level. On the other hand, it becomes a means of redemption. Not only in the cross, but in all the Lord's human activity.
"Thirty years of mortal life offered at once for the salvation of the world. Thus, all the activities carried out by means of the body constitute the beginning of the Redemption. The carpenter's work during the hidden life, the evangelization of the poor with his preaching [...]. Prayer on the roads..." (126-127).
Christ's redemption of our body begins with Baptism: "Henceforth, the purified body, anointed and marked with the cross, is consecrated to God as a holy mansion, as a precious instrument, as the companion of the soul, evangelized and initially converted [...]. This consecration is so real that to stain the body directly by impurity is a special profanation." (133). There is a path of purification and identification with Christ (also in the body and in pain) that lasts a lifetime. It leads to our final resurrection in him.
Spiritual values
The third part, with its five chapters, is the largest and occupies almost half of the book. With a beautiful chapter dedicated to the person and its aspects: incarnated spirit, subsistent in itself and, at the same time, open to reality and to others, person understood as a vocation to God, but in the world. It also studies "the person in his relation to the first and second Adam".The Christian life consists in this journey from one to the other, from the situation of the created and fallen to the situation of the redeemed and fulfilled in Christ.
There follow two consistent chapters devoted to human freedom. The first studies freedom as the most characteristic act of the human spirit, with its implication of intelligence and will. With an ultimate sense of human happiness and fulfillment that the Christian knows to be in God. And with the limitations that appear in real life, amidst illnesses and conditioning of all kinds.
On this more or less phenomenological description, the Christian faith, in addition to clearly showing the meaning of freedom, discovers its state of slavery, because it is bound by sin and in need of grace. It is not prevented from doing the most normal and "earthly" things, but precisely in order to be able to love God and neighbor as is our vocation. She needs grace and thus Christian freedom, so beautifully illustrated by St. Augustine, is given. These themes will be expanded in his 1968 book (Christian freedom).
But the person and his freedom would be frustrated if it were not for another dimension, which is also illuminated by the Christian faith: love. First study the "Christian sense of love".which can be directed to God (fontal love and origin of all true love), to others, and also be "nuptial" love, with its own characteristics that faith illuminates.
This third part closes this chapter dedicated to charity: "We would like to give a glimpse of the mystery of charity. And to achieve this, to discover and rethink its essential features, as presented to us by the word of God, which is love." (395).
It shows itself first as an absolute gift (self-giving), an act of service and obedience, and of sacrifice; which, after God, is realized in authentic fraternal love. Moreover, "Charity is, at the same time, a love of desire and a love of self-giving [...]. It would be an attack on the condition of the creature to want to eliminate the radical indigence that desire engenders or the substantial dignity that self-giving provides. It would be, at the same time, to be unfaithful to the demands of this supernatural vocation that calls us to possess God and to give ourselves to Him." (331).
Res sacra homo
This is the title of the conclusion: "The more we delve into man, the more he reveals himself to us as a paradoxical, mysterious, and, to put it all, sacred being, since his inner paradoxes and mysteries always rest on a new relationship with God." (339). A great deal is at stake in preserving the sense of "sacred", underlines Mouroux still with the uncertainty of the outcome of World War II. Man is a "mystery", "immersed in the flesh, but structured by the spirit; inclined towards matter and, at the same time, attracted by God". (340). "He plays out his adventure amidst the swirls of the flesh and the world. This is the drama we all live." (341). "The essential of the human being is his relationship with God; therefore, his vocation." (342).
Fallen, altered and redeemed. With a concupiscence, but also with a call to Truth and Love. Sacred by its origin and destiny in God, sacred by its salvation in Him. His fall is not so serious in the material or carnal aspect as in the spiritual, in his remoteness from God. That is why, in a materialistic culture, perhaps it is not so noticeable what is missing when its dignity is lowered to exist in the temporal.
By contrast, there is the wonder of Christian living in the Trinity. Thus there is a triple dignity of man by his resemblance to God (image), his vocation to meet him and his filiation. "We understand, then, the close relationship that exists between the human and the sacred, since, indeed, the sacred is nothing other than the noblest appellation and the deepest truth of the human." (347). And that full truth of the human being and his vocation has been shown especially in Mary. And it encourages the best in us.
In Spain, Professor Juan Alonso has devoted particular attention to Mouroux, has a prologue to the book we cited and has several studies that can be found online. In this series we also dedicate a general article to Mouroux: Jean Mouroux or the theology of the seminary.
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Confession secrecy and abuse in France
The estimate of more than 200,000 victims of child abuse by clergy in France between 1950 and 2020 has led members of the French government to question the sacramental secrecy of confession. A secrecy that the bishops defend as "stronger than the laws of the Republic".
Related"Sexual abuse is a bombshell in French society."Pope's sorrowful plea for forgiveness for abuses
"Sexual abuse is a bombshell in French society."Pope's sorrowful plea for forgiveness for abusesThe report of the Independent Commission on Sexual Abuse in the Church (Ciase), composed of about twenty experts and chaired by Jean Marc Sauvé, has ruled a few days ago that in France 216,000 minors were victims of sexual abuse by priests, religious men and women over a period of 70 years (1950-2020).
The study has been promoted by the Catholic Church in France, and Sauvé has described "sexual violence" as "a fragmentation bomb in our society". Immediately, Pope Francis stated from Rome his "sadness and pain for the victims", added that "unfortunately, the numbers are considerable", without going into details, and asked that "dramas like this not be repeated".
Even if there had been only one case, we must share the pain, sadness and even disgust for this drama of abuse. However, it is worth remembering that the figure is "a statistical estimate", the result of an investigation by the National Institute of Health and Medical Research (Inserm), based on a survey conducted by Ifop (a benchmark institute for surveys and market research). And that only 1.25 % of the victims have expressed themselves to the Ciase. Now, the Church in France has been working on the prevention of sexual abuse since 1990, and with greater intensity since 2010.
State-Church clash?
The work of the Sauvé Commission and the sexual abuse of minors in countries such as Australia, Belgium, Holland, Chile, the United States, Ireland or the United Kingdom, also in Spain, committed or covered up by members of the clergy, have produced two movements: 1) on the part of the Church, "zero tolerance", with norms and guidelines to prosecute crimes and collaborate with state authorities, issued by Pope Francis and the Catholic Church; and 2) on the part of some administrative authorities, recommendations, and even pressure for members of the clergy to become mandatory denouncers of these abuses, violating the sacramental secrecy of the confession, under penalty of sanction.
This is what Professor Rafael Palomino has analyzed in Ius Canonicumwho in 2019 was already reporting regulations in Australia and other countries that eliminate the legal protection of the secrecy of confession, and which presaged a clash, even head-on, between state laws and canonical norms of the Church regarding the confidentiality of confession.
The same thing has just happened in France, where the Archbishop of Reims and president of the Episcopal Conference, Monsignor Éric de Moulins-Beaufort, told the radio station France Info that "we are bound by the secret of confession and, in this sense, it is stronger than the laws of the Republic". It was not long before the French President, Emmanuel Macron, asked Archbishop Eric de Moulins-Beaufort for explanations, and the Minister of the Interior, Gérald Darmanin ("nothing is above the laws of the Republic"), summoned him this week to clarify his words.
To get an idea of Archbishop Moulins-Beaufort's profile, some of his first words as president of the French Bishops' Conference, in 2019, were the following: "We will never go back to the village society of 1965, where people went to Mass out of duty. Today it is the pursuit of pleasure that governs social relations, and this is the world we must evangelize."
The sacrament of confession
In the background of this controversy, not only beats a certain pulse of a State of secular fabric with the Church, which was already reflected in the limitations of capacity in the temples during the pandemic, but perhaps a lack of knowledge of the sacrament of Penance in the Catholic faith.
This sacrament was instituted by Jesus Christ when on Easter evening he showed himself to the apostles and said to them, "Receive the Holy Spirit. Whose sins you forgive, they are forgiven; whose sins you retain, they are retained" (Jn 20:22-23).
Jesus illustrated God's forgiveness, for example, with the parable of the prodigal son, where God waits for us with outstretched arms, even though we do not deserve it, as reflected in the well-known canvases of Rembrandt or Murillo. These are the actual words of absolution pronounced by the priest: "God, merciful Father, who reconciled the world to himself by the death and resurrection of his Son and poured out the Holy Spirit for the remission of sins, grant you, through the ministry of the Church, pardon and peace. And I absolve you from your sins in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit". It is God who forgives, who never tires of forgiving, it is we who tire of asking for forgiveness, said Pope Francis in his first Angelus (2013).
This most personal encounter with God, confession, takes place in absolute secrecy, the so-called sacramental secrecy. It is "a particular type of secrecy that obliges the confessor never to reveal, for any reason whatsoever and without exception, to the penitent the sins that he has manifested to him in the sacrament of confession".
Sacramental secrecy is "a particular type of secrecy that obliges the confessor never to reveal, for any reason and without exception, to the penitent the sins that he has manifested to him in the sacrament of confession".
"What is heard in God's own sphere must always remain in God's own sphere. There can never be any reason, not even the gravest, that permits the manifestation in the human sphere of the sins that the penitent has confessed to God in the sacramental sphere. This is why it is an inviolable secret. And it is not an ecclesiastical human law, but a divine law, in such a way that it cannot be dispensed," say Professors Otaduy, Viana and Sedano, citing the doctrine on the sacrament of Penance in the General Dictionary of Canon Law.
Cardinal Piacenza: "Only for God".
Cardinal Mauro Piacenza, Major Penitentiary of the Church, has recently expressed these same ideas: "The penitent does not speak to the confessor, but to God. To take possession of what belongs to God would be sacrilege. Access to the same sacrament, instituted by Christ to be a safe harbor of salvation for all sinners, is protected".
"Everything that is said in confession, from the moment this act of worship begins, with the sign of the cross, until the moment it ends with absolution or with the denial of absolution, is under absolutely inviolable secrecy," he said in ACI Stampa. Even in the specific case in which "during confession, a minor reveals, for example, having suffered abuse, the dialogue must always remain, by its nature, under secrecy," the cardinal stressed.
However, he clarified, "this does not prevent the confessor from strongly recommending that the minor himself denounce the abuse to his parents, educators and the police". According to the cardinal, "the approach to confession, on the part of the faithful, could collapse if confidence in confidentiality is lost, with very serious damage to souls and to the whole work of evangelization".
Arguments of a controversy
Faced with these considerations, alerting of a case of pederasty is an "imperative obligation" even for priests, argued the French Minister of Justice, Éric Dupond-Moretti. And if he does not do so, he added on the channel LCIcan be condemned for it. "It's called not preventing a crime or offense," he stressed.
However, in an interview granted to the French magazine L'Incorrectquoted by Die TagespostThe bishop of Bayonne, Marc Aillet, has come out against the responses of several ministers, and has appealed to the religious sphere, which is fundamentally separate from the State, which has no authority over the Church.
The priest does not have the upper hand in this relationship of conscience of the person who turns to God in his request for forgiveness. Therefore, he cannot be touched, says Bishop Aillet. The priest is not the master in this relationship; he is the servant, the instrument of this very special relationship of man with God.
The priest does not have the upper hand in this relationship of conscience of the person who turns to God in his request for forgiveness.
Bishop Aillet recalled that the French Republic has always respected the secrecy of confession, which "affects freedom of conscience". This is the same argument put forward by Professor Rafael Palomino. In his opinion, "it is through the fundamental right of religious freedom that one can provide a foundation and also a weighty argument for an eventual evaluation, whether in jurisprudence or legislative policy, in the face of state restrictions that are based on the crime of omission of the duty to denounce abuses".
Bishop Aillet stressed, on the other hand, according to Die TagespostIn an increasingly secular society, most people no longer understand what a religious fact is: "The report on abuse creates a stir in which people no longer understand the principle of the secrecy of confession, which they associate with the law of silence or that of the 'family secret', and believe that the Church is still trying to hide things, when it is the Church that has commissioned this report".
Two things remain to be added: "the widespread and historically demonstrated fidelity of the Catholic clergy to the confidentiality of confession," notes Rafael Palomino, and the Pope's audience with the French Prime Minister, Jean Castex, with his wife, precisely this October 18.
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Commentary on the readings for Sunday XXX (B): Lord, may I see again!
Andrea Mardegan comments on the readings of the XXX Sunday in Ordinary Time and Luis Herrera offers a brief video homily.
He admired the color of the sky at dawn and dusk, the twinkling of the moon and stars at night, the color of the eyes of loved ones. He could look at the ground he walked on and measured the objects he worked with his hands. Then, progressive eye disease robbed Bartimaeus of colors, perspective, beauty of creatures. No longer able to earn his bread, he was forced to beg.
All day long sitting by the side of that road from Jericho to Jerusalem. Listening to the news that came along the road. He heard about Jesus the Nazarene restoring sight to the blind, as the prophecies about the Messiah said. His father Timaeus encouraged him: "He will pass this way to go to Jerusalem. You will see: he often quotes Jericho in his parables. You will ask him to heal you. He is the Son of David, the Messiah. Many will want to see and hear him. Do not let him escape you.
He had developed very fine ears. He immediately noticed the crowd shouting, and his heart leapt: who is coming, who is it? It is Jesus of Nazareth! Bartimaeus began to cry out with all the strength of those years of darkness. He cries out his need, his poverty united to his faith in Jesus. During the months of waiting, he prayed: "Lord of heaven and earth, you have given me my sight and taken it from me, if it is so that we may know that your Messiah has come, I promise you that, if he heals me, I will follow him to the end of the world". This desire gives an uncontainable force to his voice.
Those who surround Jesus and are in charge of the Master's security give orders to those who crowd around him. In an attempt to stop the noise he makes, they scold him: you are blind and there will be a reason, stay down begging! They do not remember that Jesus came for sinners and restored sight to many blind people.
They are the first blind men whom Jesus heals, saying to them, "Call him. At these words they change the way they look at him and try to imitate the Master: "Cheer up!". They say to him: "Get up, he's calling you!". That call and the opportunity to speak with Jesus sends Bartimaeus leaping to his feet. It doesn't matter if he flings off his cloak. He runs to Jesus in the night of his eyes. And the Master anticipates him: what do you want me to do to you? For Jesus, the desire and the prayer of Bartimaeus is important. The many who told the blind man to be quiet are silent. Bartimaeus answers: My Master, may he see again! Jesus sees the light of faith in his heart and rewards him: Go, your faith has saved you! The Master's eyes and his smile are the first things his new eyes see. The colors shine again. Jesus did not invite him to follow him, he told him: go, you are free to go back to living your old life. But Bartimaeus, faithful to his promise, follows him down the street full of joy.
The homily on the readings of Sunday XXX
The priest Luis Herrera Campo offers its nanomiliaa small one-minute reflection for these readings.
The authorAndrea Mardegan / Luis Herrera
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Chile: years of decisions
With new elections approaching to elect the country's president, and the presentation of the draft of a new Constitution, Chile has to decide on key issues for life and society, such as the regulation of abortion or euthanasia.
RelatedChile: "It is necessary to promote Christian values in the new Fundamental Charter".Chile: triumph for religious freedom
Chile: "It is necessary to promote Christian values in the new Fundamental Charter".Chile: triumph for religious freedomIn Chile, 37,476 people have died from the COVID virus. A massive vaccination program began in 2020 and by the end of September 74 % of the population had received two doses of the vaccine. The level of infections, serious hospitalizations and deaths has decreased significantly in the last two months, which has prompted the government to reduce the restrictive measures on work, movement, meetings, etc.
The end of September marked the fourth anniversary of the enactment of the abortion law on three grounds: life-threatening illness of the mother, illness of the embryo/fetus incompatible with life and in case of rape. In this period (September 2017-June 2021) a total of 2,556 abortions were performed in the country.
Unfortunately, the Chamber of Deputies, also in September, approved an abortion bill without grounds up to the 14th week of pregnancy by a narrow margin: 75 votes against 68 and 2 abstentions. It will pass to the Senate, which will probably vote on it next year.
In 2016 and 2017 there was a large mobilization of the bishops and laity of this country rejecting abortion on three grounds. It was also rejected by many other Christian communities. Surprisingly, this time the Episcopal Conference did not make any statement on this project prior to its vote. A few Catholic bishops spoke on the issue. The Episcopal Conference issued a statement of rejection the day after the approval of the deputies.
It is a big issue on which the candidates for the Presidency of the Republic have indicated their positions. Only one candidate, José Antonio Kast, has expressed his absolute rejection to abortion. The other three candidates -Gabriel Boric of the left, Yasna Provoste of the Christian Democracy and Sebastián Sichel of the center right- are absolutely in favor of free abortion.
In April, deputies approved a bill that would allow euthanasia. It will be studied and voted by the senators, probably next year. In July the Senate approved a homosexual "marriage" bill, which must be studied and voted on by the Chamber of Deputies, probably in 2022.
As can be seen, this 2021 has been a disastrous year for the traditional values that have been lived in Chile. But the last word has not yet been said, as the three aforementioned projects must be voted by the other Chamber, which will change its composition with the next parliamentary elections.
Next November, the future President of the country, all 155 deputies and half of the senators, i.e. 25, will be elected. The presidential election will probably require a second round in December, in which the first two majorities will compete.
Since last July, the 155-member Constituent Convention has been in operation. They were elected in last May's election. They have a maximum term of 12 months to draft a new Constitution that must be approved with 2/3 of their votes. Sixty days later (year 2022) it would be submitted to a mandatory plebiscite. If the majority of Chileans approve it, the Chilean Congress will enact it. On the other hand, if the majority (50 % +1) rejects it, the previous Constitution would remain in force.
Every September 18, Chile celebrates its National Day. Since 1811 the Catholic Church prays a Te Deum The thanksgiving ceremony is held in all the dioceses. In the Cathedral of Santiago, the civil authorities of the country attend: the President of the Republic, presidents of the Senate and Deputies, Supreme Court, Commanders-in-Chief of national defense institutions, etc. Since 1970, representatives of other religious denominations are also invited. On this occasion, the homily delivered by the Archbishop is relevant.
This year Cardinal Celestino Aós thanked God for the many good things in our country, but also expressed his concern for the dangers for the democratic coexistence of Chileans in a year marked by political antagonisms. In part of his homily he expressed, "We give thanks for all those who seek to respect and protect non-negotiable values: respect and defense of human life from its conception to its natural end, the family founded on marriage between man and woman, the freedom of parents to choose the model and establishment of education for their children, the promotion of the common good in all its forms and the subsidiarity of the State that respects the autonomy of organizations and collaborates with them."
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Mónica Marín: "The mission transforms me day by day".
Next Sunday, the Church celebrates World Mission Sunday, DOMUND. José Luis Mumbiela and the young Mónica Marín participated in its presentation. Both, from different perspectives and experiences, emphasized that the mission is an essential part of the Church and that all Christians are missionaries by their own baptism.
The DOMUND is not a day to support concrete projects, it is "the day in which Christians become aware that the universal Church depends on us". This was affirmed by José María CalderónThe National Director of OMP in Spain at the beginning of the presentation of this year's DOMUND that we will celebrate next Sunday, October 24.
This universal vocation to the mission by virtue of the baptism received was the transversal line of the interventions of the two testimonies that, this year, accompanied Calderón in the presentation of the Day.
"The Holy Spirit acts before we arrive."
Msgr. José Luis MumbielaThe Bishop of Almaty began by thanking the Spaniards for their collaboration with the needs of the Church in Kazakhstan. This house," he said, referring to the headquarters of the Pontifical Mission Societies, "reflects the catholicity of the Church, because if the Catholic Church does not have a missionary dimension, it cannot be Catholic.
Mumbiela described the reality of the Church in this area of Central Asia: "we are a poor and small Church" but, despite its lack of means, it also collaborates in these days with the universal Church: "These days are also held in mission areas, this comes from Baptism, it is not a matter of the rich helping the poor. It is part of our Christian vocation".
What I have seen in Kazakhstan, said Mumbiela, "is that the same Holy Spirit that acts in countries where the Church is very developed acts there even before we arrive" and he showed with examples how God "moves before us because he wants to be there", like that Tatar woman who, during the pandemic, traveled 700 km by bus to Almaty in the hope of hearing Mass or people who ask to be baptized without having had previous contact with someone who speaks to them about God. With a very current simile, Mumbiela pointed out that the Church has to "arrive before the pandemic, not after. There are always viruses and we have to get there before. Because we have the solution, faith.
"In mission I have discovered a fresh way of being Church."
If anything marks this year's DOMUND campaign, it is the testimonies of young people who, in fact, give testimony of what they have "seen and heard" in different missionary experiences" As José María Calderón wanted to point out, this year "the protagonists are not the young people, they are the missionaries through the eyes of young people".
Mónica Marin was the young woman who, in this presentation, shared her experience in the mission, outside and inside her hometown, Madrid. "There is an urgency and the urgency is to be Church. Be aware of what you have been baptized for," she emphasized at the beginning of her words. This young woman stressed that "the moment you feel that Jesus is counting on you, you can tell what you have seen and heard. In the mission I have discovered a fresh and different way of being Church and transmitting that message".
After several mission experiences, Monica created the association JATARI (Quechua for "get up"), with which she aims to facilitate the missionary experience in Spain and abroad for young people. "It's no use going on missions if you don't do anything in your day-to-day life," she said. "The mission transforms me day by day and that's why I want people to have this opportunity.
2022 key year for PMOs
In addition to the presentation of the this year's eventIn addition, some data from last year's campaign have been released.
José María Calderón did not want to miss the opportunity to thank the Spanish people for their generosity since, despite the crisis and the pandemic, our country contributed 11,105,000 euros on the day of the DOMUND that went to 504 projects, most of which, as highlighted by the director of OMP Spain, "are translated into the ordinary fund that the Church makes available to the bishops for the maintenance of the diocese.
At present, there are some 7180 active Spanish missionaries. "The Church has to be committed to mission," said Calderón, "because the Church was born for mission.
Likewise, the director of the Pontifical Mission Societies pointed out that the coming year will be very significant for the Pontifical Mission Societies family. On May 22, Pauline Jariqot, founder of the Work of the Propagation of the Faith, will be beatified and the IV centenary of the creation of the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples, the II centenary of the creation of the Propagation of the Faith by Jariqot will also be celebrated, as well as the 100th anniversary of the elevation to Pontifical Work of the Propagation of the Faith, Missionary Childhood and St. Peter the Apostle being instituted as pontifical missionary works and, in Spain, the 1st centenary of the magazine Iluminare.
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The family, key to sustainability
A clear sign that there is a genuine desire for political regeneration should be shown by putting aside ideological and party interests, to seriously address the real problems of a sustainable society, which wishes to have a future.
I have just attended the IV International Summit on Demography, held in Budapest under this suggestive and challenging title. We find ourselves in the context of an unprecedented demographic winter across Europe, the background of which is not only a change of values in our society, but also a clear mismatch in women's employment policies and work-family reconciliation measures across the continent.
There are those who try to convince us that "sustainability means not having children". However, as Pope Francis affirms in the encyclical Laudato si', population growth is fully compatible with integral development and solidarity; so that blaming the problems of sustainability on population growth and not on the extreme and selective consumerism of some, is a way of not facing the problems (n. 50).
The growing consumerist mentality of the West sees children as a complication to be avoided at all costs, in order to enjoy life to the fullest. The so-called "dinkis" (double income no kids) are trend-setters, while families with children - especially if there are more than two - are viewed with apprehension and distrust, as if they were irresponsible. However, there are many couples who would like to have children, but in fact do not have them, or do not have the children they would like to have. We must ask ourselves why this decision is postponed indefinitely and implement measures aimed at removing these obstacles.
It makes no sense to strive to create a better, more just, more humane society if we are not thinking of those who can inhabit it.
Montserrat Gas
Hungary has been setting an example for more than a decade that it is possible to implement effective family policies, with real support for the stability of family life (with interesting housing and work-life balance policies) and that are achieving an increase in the birth rate, which is the real path to the sustainability of a society. This country has managed, according to 2020 data, to improve employment indicators and, at the same time, fertility rates, reaching 1.55 children (in clear contrast with the Spanish average of 1.18). The secret in our opinion is none other than to listen to the real needs of young couples and to respond to the reasons for the enormous gap between actual and desired fertility.
It makes no sense to strive to create a better, more just, more humane society if we are not thinking of those who can inhabit it. A society without children is a society without a future. In Spain, and in most of Europe, our governments have been ignoring this truism for decades. It is very striking that this growing trend towards infertility has not been the subject of a rigorous analysis in order to implement effective public policies. A clear sign that there is a genuine desire for political regeneration should be shown by putting aside ideological and party interests, to seriously address the real problems of a sustainable society, which wishes to have a future.
The authorMontserrat Gas Aixendri
Professor at the Faculty of Law of the International University of Catalonia and director of the Institute for Advanced Family Studies. She directs the Chair on Intergenerational Solidarity in the Family (IsFamily Santander Chair) and the Childcare and Family Policies Chair of the Joaquim Molins Figueras Foundation. She is also Vice-Dean of the Faculty of Law at UIC Barcelona.
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Dioceses begin the journey of the listening synod
During the weekend, the local Churches have experienced the opening of the diocesan phase of the synod of bishops The theme of the meeting is "For a Synodal Church: communion, participation and mission", which aims to bring together the entire Catholic Church, and even those who are not part of it, to discern the challenges and keys of the Church at this time.
RelatedKeys and risks of a Synod that aims to involve the whole ChurchPreparatory document for the Synod of Bishops is presented
Keys and risks of a Synod that aims to involve the whole ChurchPreparatory document for the Synod of Bishops is presentedThe so-called "Synod on Synodality" is already a reality. This weekend, the Spanish dioceses, as well as those of the rest of the world, celebrated the opening of the first phase of this synodal itinerary that will culminate in October 2023, with the celebration in Rome of the XVI Ordinary General Assembly of the Synod of Bishops.
Listening to God first
If there is one thing that can summarize this synodal process, it is listening. An attitude that, in the first place, has to be towards God, as Bishop Santiago Gómez, Bishop of Huelva, pointed out at the opening of the synod in his diocese: "Before speaking about God, we have to listen to his Word, to learn as disciples of the Word made flesh, disciples of the Lord Jesus. This synodal process invites us to listen to one another, but first the disciples must listen to the Word. The synodal journey that we undertake invites us to dialogue with everyone, but it is necessary to start from a dialogue with God.
The Bishop of Cartagena-Murcia, Bishop Lorca Planes, expressed himself in the same way: "The Holy Father asks us something simple, to recognize and update our essence, to return to the origins with intensity and, for this, it is necessary to listen to the Word of God, because it will always serve us as orientation in life; also that we hear the voice of the Holy Spirit, who will enlighten us so that we can walk as brothers and sisters". The Bishop of Malaga also referred in the opening of his diocese to the need for renewal "under the action of the Spirit and listening to the Word".
Carlos Escribano, Archbishop of Saragossa stressed that "Our task is to discover that Jesus walks beside us. We have to be experts in the encounter: to give space for adoration. The synodal journey will only be such if we encounter Christ and, with him, our brothers and sisters".
Baptism: source of our communion and participation
Another sign of this Synod is communion. Demetrio Fernandez, who asked the faithful to work united and in communion "to participate in the construction of the Church and in the witness that the Church is called to give in the world". Similarly, Archbishop Sainz Meneses of Seville pointed out that "by virtue of our Baptism we are all called to participate actively in the life of the Church. We are all invited to prayer, to encounter, to dialogue, to listen to one another, so that we can grasp the impulses of the Holy Spirit, who comes to our aid to guide our human efforts, and leads us to a deeper communion and a more effective mission in the world".
The Cardinal Archbishop of Madrid also referred to unity, pointing out that "For the whole Church, the starting point cannot be other than Baptism, which is our source of life; with different ministries and charisms, we are all called to participate in the life and mission of the Church". Likewise, Msgr. Osoro recalled that, with this synod "we are not opening a parliament nor are we going to survey opinions", but "the whole universal Church is setting out" and, through each particular Church, initiates a consultation in which the first protagonist is the Holy Spirit".
This idea marked several of the bishops' homilies at this opening, such as that of the Archbishop of Tarragona who stressed that "As Pope Francis affirmed, the Synod is not a parliament, nor is it a survey of opinions. It is rather an ecclesial moment. The synodal method invites us to make of this Synod a magnificent occasion of profound dialogue, of humble listening, of sincere discernment of the signs of the times, where the real subject is, because it is, all the holy people of God". Also Msgr. Barrio Barrio also wanted to emphasize that this synod is a search for truth, which implies recognizing and appreciating the richness and variety of gifts and charisms; and that it should serve to regenerate Christian relationships with social groups and communities of other confessions and religions.
The support of the Episcopal Conference
Once this first phase of the Synod is open, before March 31 of next year, the dioceses will have to send their conclusions to the Episcopal Conference, which will coordinate the elaboration of a synthesis of the contributions, in which the Episcopal Conference responsible for the synodal process and his team will also participate, as well as the representatives elected to participate in the Ordinary General Assembly of the Synod in Rome, once ratified by the Holy Father. This synthesis will be sent to the General Secretariat of the Synod together with the contributions of each of the particular Churches.
The Spanish Episcopal Conference has set up an web space The Synod's website provides information on the synodal journey and contains documents related to the process, questions and answers, activities and agenda, etc. One of the appointments foreseen in this first phase, from the Episcopal Commission for the Laity, Family and Life of the Episcopal Conference is the presentation that the undersecretary of the Synod of Bishops, the Spanish Augustinian Bishop Luis Marín de San Martín, will give on Saturday, October 23 from 10:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. and which can be followed online.
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"My son with Down syndrome and leukemia transforms hearts."
Teresa Robles, a mother of a large family with seven children, the latest, José María, with Down syndrome and leukemia, and another son with ASD, Ignacio, manages the Instagram account @ponundownentuvida, with more than 40,000 followers. He talks to Omnes about the transformative effect of people with this syndrome, and about when strength fails.
Every year in October, the Down syndrome awareness month, in order to direct the gaze of society towards people with this syndrome, making their dignity and abilities visible.
Omnes has been giving more and more space to these people, to trisomic people, with several reports on the father of modern genetics, Jerôme Lejeune, the latest in March.
Today we interview Mª Teresa Roblesa mother of a large family, with seven children. José María is the last one, he was born with Down syndrome and also has leukemia with a serious immunological problem. Teresa speaks of the transforming effect of her son, of children with Down syndrome and of how "you have to transform society to reach doctors".
Founder of the association Together Against Childhood Cancer (JCCI)Teresa is known for her Instagram account @ponundownentuvidawhich has a whopping 40,000 followers. And he tells anecdotes. For example, two Muslim girls "who were going to pray for José María because they were praying to the same God, because we are asking the same God. That touched me very much. Teresa speaks of the power of prayer, "which is physically noticeable", of "the best social network, the Communion of Saints", of her husband and children, of Opus Dei.
̶ Before talking about José María, tell us something about Ignacio....
We have another son with a disability, the fourth, Ignacio, with a mild intellectual disability, who also has ASD, autism spectrum disorder. Sometimes these children are more difficult to see. They are the forgotten ones, because physically they are not seen, as is the case with a child with Down syndrome, and they are less understood. Sometimes you suffer more with them than with a person with Down syndrome.
̶ How is José María now? His battle against leukemia...
He is stable right now. We are on an experimental treatment, since 2018, and his autoimmune system is malfunctioning. He doesn't have viral defenses, he doesn't generate them. We have been taught to put gamma globulins, his defenses, at home once a week. Once a month we have to go to him for analysis and tests. And then we have to touch up the immunological part to give him the needs of his autoimmune system. He is treated at the Hospital del Niño Jesús for oncological issues, and at La Paz for immunological issues.
̶ Teresa, you have ever spoken about the transforming power of José María, can you explain it?
I call it the José María effect. It is a brutal effect that it has, and I think that all people who have Down syndrome have it. When we are around them, without creating violence, without violating anyone, without judging, they are transforming their hearts, they are transforming their looks, and with it their hearts.
Let me give you an example. We were on our way to the hospital, in the back, where oncology usually goes in, so as not to meet a lot of people. And the cars and delivery trucks were coming out. And one of them was coming very fast for a hospital area where people pass through. I looked at him with a 'murderer' face, he looked at me with a 'murderer' face [M. Teresa laughs as she tells the story], we challenged each other with our eyes, and suddenly I realized that he was looking at José María, and his face changed.
José María was smiling from ear to ear, and waving at him, as if he was the most important thing in the world. He was very amused, as I was. It completely transformed him, he waved at him, rolled down the window. The boy left so happy, and the man left so happy. And I thought: what a guy, he completely changed our morning. We were angry each in our own way, and we left so happy. He transformed his morning and he transformed mine. He made our day. There's nothing like starting the day cheerful. It's an effect we generate all around us.
Without violating anyone, without judging, they are transforming hearts, they are transforming their looks, and with it their hearts.
Mª Teresa Robles
̶ How is that account on Instagram? How did it come about?
The truth is that I had never been interested in social networks. When José María relapsed, there were two possibilities: to go to palliative care or a bone marrow transplant. Palliative care is already known, and we were advised not to take the bone marrow transplant, because he was not going to find a one hundred percent compatible donor, he would relapse, if he got it he was going to die in the transplant, and death is very cruel. Everything was going to be very painful.
We bet on life. We realized that in the background there were some thoughts like: "he has already lived enough, we have done enough, being a person with Down syndrome we are not going to make him suffer more"... There was no malice in what was being said, but we did not appreciate much value for the life of a person with a disability. They encouraged us several times, and told us that if it was their child they would go to palliative care, that they would not make him suffer more. But we said yes to life and bet on it again. The "no" we already have. If we go to palliative care, he will die in two months, if we go to transplant we will accompany him on his way, and we will see what God wants.
In that situation, that night, I thought: what can I do in this situation? What can we do? We are going to start a bone marrow transplant, but nobody believes in it. And it occurred to me that, in order to transform society, which is what we are always in, society has to take charge of what is happening to José María, the doctors too. I believe that society has to change in order to reach the doctors. This was one of my goals. And the second one, to get bone marrow for José María, bone marrow for everyone, because bone marrow surgery is universal, it is not for one person.
̶ And it ended up being called @ponundownentuvida....
Then I thought "I'm going to launch it on the networks, and the more people there are"... We were told that it was going to be almost impossible for us to find a donor. Then I remembered some words from a daughter of mine, who was after me to open an Instagram account, and I thought: it's time to do it. My daughter said "mom, download the app", and I said "what name should I give it?" And my daughter commented: "mom, you spend all day saying that if you want to be happy, put a Down in your life". And I said "it's true", so @Ponundownentuvida.
I opened the account, people poured in., It was the year (2017) in which there have been more donations in I don't know how long, they had to open the schedules of the hospitals where bone marrow is donated because they couldn't keep up. José María started with cancer in 16, in 17 he had the relapse, in September we started the marrow thing, they told us that they found multiple donors one hundred percent compatible (according to them it was impossible), although they could not tell us how many, but they insisted on the "multiple".
So, José María became resistant to receive it. For a bone marrow transplant, the marrow has to be clean, and they give you chemotherapy. And Jose Maria's cells were so smart that they became resistant to chemotherapy. And they told us he couldn't go for a transplant. But I already had an army praying on Instagram, there were at least ten thousand people (now there are more than 40,000).
̶ Do you know anything about that praying army?
Imagine ten thousand people somewhere - that's a lot! I don't gather them in my living room. Well, all of them praying. There are even people who wrote to us: look, I am not Catholic, I do not believe in God, but I prayed when I was a child, but I will pray every night for your son, to the God you believe in. During the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity, called by the Pope in January, two Muslim girls wrote to me to tell me that, since it was the same God, they were going to pray for José María because they were praying to the same God, because we are asking the same God. That touched me very much.
And a few days later, while we were assimilating the news, because we had not yet told the news at home, because we did not have the strength, the oncologist told us that there was a clinical trial in Barcelona, which we do not know how it is going to work. It is working very well, but José María would be the first child with Down's syndrome in Europe to receive it, we do not know how it is going to go, but... And we said: Where should we sign? We moved to Barcelona, we spent two months living there, and receiving the treatment, which was very hard, he was in the ICU for a few days, and we came to Madrid with the treatment, and a follow-up with which we have to go once a year to Barcelona. The day-to-day follow-up is done here, at the Niño Jesús. But they give all the information to the Hospital Sant Joan de Déu. In Barcelona he was very serious for a few days, but he came through, the treatment took effect, and we have been giving him a gift for three years.
Two Muslim girls wrote to me to tell me that they were going to pray for José María because they prayed to the same God.
Mª Teresa Robles
̶ This is very personal. How has the Christian faith, the Catholic faith, and the message of Opus Dei helped you? Where does your strength come from?
I am going to tell you what happens in such a big process, as is the oncological process of a child. When a child's life is at stake, it is unnatural. Strengths often waver. There are many peaks, when you get bad news and good news. Bad news is like burning cartridges, one less chance that your child will survive. Of course, that is very difficult to assume. I am a person of faith, I am lucky..., that is a gift, I realize in this process that it was a gift that God gave me, it is not something that you do, well, I am going to have faith, but it is something that God gives you because he wants to.
̶ It is a gift, a gift.
Yes, but you never realize it more than when you really need it. In all that process, God was my support, but during many moments, I could neither pray nor pray. I am lucky to be a member of the Work, and then my group, my family in Opus Dei told me, when I told them that I couldn't pray, "Don't worry, we will pray for you. That touched me. At that moment, I felt part of a family, I felt loved, and I really felt the power of prayer.
It is true that maybe I was not able to pray in those moments. When I was asking people through social networks to pray for me, when they told me that I could not go to the transplant, it was one of the hardest moments of my life. I thought: my son is dying. There is nothing more I can do. I have already done everything I could, the doctors too. At that moment when you think you are dying, I put out a message right there: I got everyone praying, my whatsapp groups, my Instagram groups, everyone. People turned so much, that after a while I noticed a superhuman strength. Are we superwomen? No, the power of prayer is physically noticeable. There are moments when you feel it not only morally, but also physically. It makes you get up, move forward, and with renewed strength.
It is true that we all have like a lion inside us, that we were born to fight. And it is true that your strength is multiplied by two when you put it in the Lord. This is a reality and an advantage that we have over the rest. I have lived this in my flesh, and I have experienced it physically.
Some who do not believe in God fight like me, like lionesses, but it is true that it seems easier for me when God leads me, when I put everything in Him. Many times I have not even been able to pray. I say this because there are people who get overwhelmed thinking that they cannot pray and, if I do not pray, God will not cure my son. That is not a problem. There are many people who already pray for you. God is not watching to see when you don't pray.
The best social network is the Communion of Saints. The biggest and best social network. I say it everywhere I go. People have to keep hearing it, what the Communion of Saints is all about, it's awesome.
̶ Perhaps the time has come to talk about other people in your family. The brothers of José María...
When there is an oncological process of a sibling, the family turns around. Normally, there is a lot of fear, but also a lot of pain and suffering, which each one experiences in a completely different way. And you also have to be very delicate with each one, because there can be incomprehension because of the way someone in the family expresses this pain. I think we have to respect each other a lot, and we have to love each other a lot in those moments, to let each one express themselves in the way they need to.
My husband. Let's see. I have been my son's secretary in social networks. I'm not the protagonist. I always say I'm the secretary of a large account right now, with more than 40,000 followers [on Instagram], and I give lectures, but because I talk about my son, it's not personal.
In the family it is necessary to be very delicate with each one, because there can be incomprehension because of the way someone of the family expresses himself/herself in this pain.
Mª Teresa Robles
̶ You are the spokesperson...
Now they call it community manager. I am the secretary, as they used to say. José María's mission is to change people's eyes, to change people's hearts. To make a better world. And the only thing I do is to transfer it.
̶ Your husband.
My husband's role is fundamental, because if my husband were not behind me, I would not be able to keep the account or do what I am doing. It is true that he had neither the strength nor the will to carry out this; it is a reality, we are not all in the same role in the family. I believe that everyone has a role to play and they are all very important. My husband is a key piece in my son's recovery, my son adores his father. It is true that maybe I don't mention him so much, because he doesn't like it. We have to respect him. I take him out in the pictures, because he is an example, and I am proud of his role as a father and as a husband. He is not an activist of the account, because he is not attracted to social networks, but he sees the good that is done and supports it one hundred percent.
- Your children suffer...
My children have suffered a lot. We thought we had it all under control, because there was always one at home. When I was in the hospital, my husband was here, and vice versa. But the reality is that we were little, because logically we were in the hospital a lot, and the one who was here, with his head there. Although we thought we were aware, in reality they have lived two years taking care of themselves and the house. Then we have to recover those children, heal those wounds that each one has, and clean until the pus comes out. And to give that form of family that the rest of the people have. And that is difficult, it takes time, dedication, a lot of love, a lot of patience.
̶ Two years of pandemic - have you passed the virus?
I went through it, very seriously, and then my son José María was in the ICU as well. José María doesn't miss a thing [he says with good humor].
- Anything else you would like to add?
Yes, I immediately began directing a radio program for the disabled on Radio Maria. It's called 'Dale la vuelta', and it's a program about disabilities. I start on the 25th, to see if it works. It will be on Mondays at 11:00 a.m., but every two weeks.
José María's mission is to change people's eyes, to change people's hearts. To make a better world. All I do is move it.
Mª Teresa Robles
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A good wine is like a prayer of praise addressed to God.
French Benedictine monks from the Abbey of Saint Madeleine du Barroux, in Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur, have teamed up with local winegrowers to produce the wines Via Caritatiswith deep meaning. The pandemic has hit them hard, and they are asking for help.
As the president of the French Wine Academy, Jean-Robert Pitte, points out, the history of good wine in Christian Europe is deeply linked to monastic life. "Since the High Middle Ages, communities have wanted to pay homage to God through the splendor and delicacy of their wine, as well as through architecture, liturgical chant, calligraphy and illumination."
The Benedictine Abbey of Barroux is one of the few French monastic communities that have chosen viticulture as manual labor. "It is the spirit of charity that is at the origin of these wines, insofar as the monks became aware of the difficulties faced by the region's winegrowers; and moved by a spirit of charity, in the sense of the evangelical 'agape', they came to the aid of the winegrowers," explains in this interview with Omnes the director of Development at Via CaritatisGabriel Teissier. However, the pandemic has negatively affected the activity of Via Caritatis, which is launching a special sales operation, adds Teissier.
Jean Robert Pitte refers to the Gospel episode of the wedding at Cana, and writes: "As he demonstrated at Cana, Jesus loved good wine to the point of making it, the day before his death, together with the bread, one of the species of the Eucharist. The countless references to the vine and wine that mark the Bible demonstrate quite well that a good wine is like a prayer of praise addressed to God."
"This is the reason," he adds, "why 'Moines du Barroux' decided to join forces with Caritatis winemakers and excellent professionals to advance its wines and participate in the march towards excellence of the beautiful Ventoux appellation. Its magnificent high altitude terroirs allow the production of noble and lively wines".
Gabriel Teissier talks to Omnes about the history of these papal vineyards at their origin, the spirit of charity that surrounds Via Caritatis wines ("God chose wine as a sign of his love for men"), and the help they seek to move forward and support winegrowers.
̶ ¿How and when did the monks of the Abbey of Saint Madeleine de Barroux choose viticulture as a manual work?
The history dates back to 1309, when Pope Clement V decided to plant the first papal vineyard, in the Benedictine abbey of Groseau, on the slopes of Mont Ventoux. The monks ceded their abbey to the Pope and settled in the neighboring abbey of Sainte Madeleine.
In 1970, more than 600 years later, Benedictine monks returned to the region and rebuilt an abbey of Saint Madeleine in Barroux, very close to the old abbey.
Dom Gérard, the founder of Barroux Abbey, wanted the monks to have a life rooted in working the land. Therefore, they bought agricultural land around the new abbey and began to cultivate it. The main crops in the region are vines and olives, the monks became winegrowers but they also cultivated olives and made a mill to make oil.
Faithful to the tradition of monastic vineyards, the monks cultivate their vineyards with great care and develop a great expertise. In 1986, the nuns moved to Barroux, near the monastery of men, and took over a wine estate. Their land completes the monastic domain with very qualitative terroirs.
The history dates back to 1309, when Pope Clement V decided to plant the first papal vineyard at the Benedictine abbey of Groseau.
Gabriel Teissier. Via Caritatis Development Director
After 40 years of "haute couture" work, the monks have succeeded in revealing the exceptional potential of their high-altitude terroir. Many wine lovers ask them to increase their production and develop their distribution.
̶ Then they joined the neighboring winegrowers...
Indeed. At the same time, the monks witness the great difficulties of neighboring winegrowers who share the same mountain terroirs as they do, and who often do very high quality work but cannot make a good living from their work because of the high production costs and low selling prices for Ventoux appellation wines.
Then, the monks suggest to the neighboring winegrowers to join forces to make great wines together, under the direction of Philippe Cambie, named best winemaker in the world in 2010 by Robert Parker. These are the wines Via Caritatis.
Why have you chosen the spirit of charity as the message of the Caritatis wines? It is a beautiful thing.
It is the spirit of charity that is at the origin of these wines, insofar as the monks, as we say, became aware of the difficulties suffered by the winegrowers of the region. And moved by a spirit of charity, in the sense of the evangelical agape, they came to the aid of the winegrowers.
St. John, in his first letter, says: "If I see my brother in need and close my heart to him, how would the love of God be in me" (cf. 1 John 3:17). Charity comes from God, God is charity. And contemplating the goodness of God every day in prayer, the monks naturally wanted to make it shine around them.
Beyond the fruits of the vine itself, transformed into high quality wines, the monks see true fruits of conversion in the hearts of men. The message of Charity is also the very symbol of wine. In fact, God chose wine as a sign of his love for mankind.
The monks became aware of the difficulties faced by the region's winegrowers and came to their rescue
Gabriel Teissier. Via Caritatis Development Director
̶ The monks want to help the people and communities that have suffered from the Covid 19 pandemic and seek to enhance the activity of Via Caritatis. Is this true?
The activity of Via Caritatis has been particularly affected by the pandemic, and more particularly by the long periods of confinement, which have drastically slowed sales.
We have therefore launched a "special sales operation" to enable us to compensate for all the sales that could not be made due to the numerous confinements, in particular to the restaurants that were closed, which make up the majority of our customers.
This operation is still ongoing, and we need everyone's help to support this project that combines excellence and charity. You can watch this video, for example, at Frenchand also in English.
̶ Can you tell us about the wines, do you export to other markets?
Our wines are typical of the Rhône Valley, with lots of crisp and sweet-toothed fruit, and grape varieties typical of the Southern Rhône Valley such as Grenache, Syrah or Cardigan for the reds or Clairette and La Rousanne in blanc, but also has a lot of freshness due to the altitude of our vineyard. This freshness is really characteristic of our terroir even though we are only a few kilometers from Gigondas and Châteauneuf-du-Pape.
We export wines to almost all continents, especially Europe, the United States and even Asia. On the other hand, we are still poorly represented in Spain and South American countries. Therefore, we are looking for good importers in these regions to promote the charity's wines!
We conclude the conversation with Gabriel Teissier, Development Director of Via Caritatis. In their institutional message, they underline that "Caritatis wines want to be ambassadors of the best that the history, wine and terroir of Provence have to offer. Above all, they want to participate in the diffusion of a Spirit of Charity which is the true land of their birth".
As Amaury Bertier, from the administration area, says, "unfortunately we don't have a salesman in Spain, but if your article can raise vocations, it would be a blessing! If anyone would like to purchase wines now, you can go to the website of the monastery".
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The Brotherhoods and Confraternities, relics of the past?
Among the purposes of the brotherhoods are the formation of their members, the worship of God, the promotion of charity and the improvement of society, sanctifying it from within,
There are those who believe that the brotherhoods are anachronistic, relics of the past that only interest some Catholics, perhaps the least cultivated, and that their interest is no more than purely ethnographic or as a tourist attraction.
Those who think this way start from an incorrect premise, the consideration of the brotherhoods as entities exclusively in charge of organizing more or less spectacular processional parades, accompanied by devotees -some think "extras"- strangely attired, with lighted torches. But the brotherhoods do not have that mission, they are public associations of the faithful of the Catholic Church, which entrusts them, among other purposes, the formation of their brothers or associates, to worship God, promote charity and improve society, sanctifying it from within, because the associates of the brotherhoods, the brothers, are society, they are part of it.
To focus the analysis of the brotherhoods only on the processions, acts of external and public worship, is reductive and leads to false conclusions. All the purposes of the brotherhoods are indispensable and support each other forming an indivisible whole.
The purpose of the brotherhoods is to collaborate in the mission of the Church, which is to give glory to God in its worship services; that Christ may reign, sanctifying society; to build up the Church, evangelizing.
Good internists know that the first thing they must do is to recognize the patient and identify the symptoms he or she presents in order to establish a diagnosis based on them and then propose the appropriate treatment. In more precise words, Francis explained it in his speech to the European Parliament: "It is important not to remain anecdotal; attack the causes, not the symptoms. To be aware of one's own identity in order to dialogue in a proactive way". This is how brotherhoods should proceed in their efforts to improve society, which today shows symptoms of a disease that can endanger our freedom. It is a matter of identifying the symptoms, establishing the diagnosis and initiating treatment.
These symptoms include manipulation of language, with the conviction that by changing the name of realities, they are transformed; realities are transformed microutopiesThe great utopia of class struggle is replaced by that of identity collectives with their particular list of demands; the culture woke, on permanent alert to alleged racial or social discrimination; the post-truthThe new name for what has always been called a lie; the "lie". cancellation culturewhich leads to excluding and ignoring those who do not conform to the politically correct, one that expresses itself in a way that does not imply rejection of any collective, which leads to self-censorship. All this leads to the construction of new mental frameworks for the interpretation of reality that end up being profoundly totalitarian.
What in principle are cultural trends or proposals then move on to the political sphere and from there to the legislative, thus completing the cycle of the disease, the diagnosis: relativismrelativism, which does not recognize anything as absolute and leaves the self and its whims as the ultimate measure, thus preventing the possibility of delimiting common values on which to build coexistence. Relativism is the crisis of truth when considering that the human being is not capable of knowing it; but if it is the truth that makes us free, the impossibility of knowing the truth makes man a slave.
Once diagnosed, we go to the treatment, which is contained in the mission of the brotherhoods. The celebration of worship to give glory to God is usually quite careful in the brotherhoods. Now we must focus our efforts on Christ's reign, on sanctification from within society, on building a society of free people, capable of directing their own existence, of choosing and wanting to be free. Wellto discover the most profound meaning of freedom, which is to contemplate God, the Truththus coming into possession of the Beauty.
This is not a corporate task, of the brotherhood, but of the brothers, free persons, each one acting under his personal responsibility. The brotherhood must facilitate formation so that each one lives that freedom that sustains in the strength of Faith, security in Hope and constancy in Charity.
Processions are more than a spectacle. The Crucified One in the street is a proclamation of love and freedom: "When on Calvary they shouted to him "if you are the Son of God, come down from the Cross", Christ demonstrated his freedom precisely by remaining on that scaffold to fulfill to the full the merciful will of the Father" (B.XVI).
These are the basis for analyzing the brotherhoods, which are not anachronistic but are essential for the recovery of society.
The authorIgnacio Valduérteles
D. in Business Administration. Director of the Instituto de Investigación Aplicada a la Pyme. Eldest Brother (2017-2020) of the Brotherhood of the Soledad de San Lorenzo, in Seville. He has published several books, monographs and articles on brotherhoods.
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With the Pope of the 33 days
In view of the beatification of John Paul I, the author recalls an episode of his first general audience that would anticipate the attitude he wanted to adopt in his pontificate, and that marked in some way that of his successor, John Paul II.
By those little coincidences of life, I was fortunate to be present at the first audience of John Paul I, the Pope of the "33 days" who will soon be beatified. I spent the month of August 1978 in Rome and so I was able to be present at the funeral of St. Paul VI, who died on the 6th of that month, and at the announcement of the election of Albino Luciani, which took place on the same August 26th.
The activity in which I participated ended at the beginning of September, so I was able to attend the first General Audience, which was held on September 6. Although his pontificate was very short-lived, he made it clear that, among many other things, it would be necessary to give the figure of the Pope a dimension closer to the people. This was the path already taken by Paul VI and John XXIII, which was later adopted with force by John Paul II.
The surprising fact was the sudden decision to call a child, an altar boy, to dialogue with him. The decision was sudden and the process, as is often the case with children, did not unfold according to the expected canons. The Pope, like any good priest, asked the child questions, expecting the obvious answer that would allow him to continue the discourse according to his expectations. But this was not the case.
"They tell me," he said, "that there are altar boys from Malta here. Come one, please... The altar boys from Malta, who served at St. Peter's for a month. So, what's your name? - James. - James. And, listen, have you ever been sick, you? No. Oh, never? - No. You've never been sick? - No. Not even a fever? - No. Oh, lucky you."
The boy, perhaps moved, said that he had never been sick in his life, and the Pope, not at all disturbed, joked about it and continued without resentment.
It seems little, but it was a revolution. We all understood that, with the election of "father Luciani", God wanted not only "to be" closer to men, but also "to seem" it.
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Francisco Garfias. Through the paths of the soul
He had his moment of splendor in Spanish lyric poetry: the second half of the twentieth century, now, on the occasion of the centenary of his birth, he is vindicated as a fundamental Spanish poet, of enormous and intense poetic breath, capable of turning his literary experience into a way of approaching God.
According to those who knew him, Francisco Garfias was a kind and accessible man, not haughty at all. In addition, during his lifetime he enjoyed an admirable lyrical reputation, standing out with a poetry that was very open to a wide variety of themes.
All poetry seeks God
However, her deepest verse, the one in which she reached her best literary level, was always marked by her relationship with God. In fact, those who have known and disseminated the religious lyric of the twentieth century, have kept it in mind in their works, including Ernestina de Champourcín herself, who in the third edition of her mythical collection -God in today's poetrypublished by the Biblioteca de Autores Cristianos (the BAC), did not want to do without him, a poet who, already in the Anthology of religious poetry by Leopoldo de Luis, made his poetics very clear: "If poetry is not religious, it is not poetry. All poetry (directly or indirectly) seeks God". An idea that, although it is very common in many authors, in Garfias it has the appearance of a falsehood or guiding thread in his vital and creative trajectory, even in his first book in his twenties, Interior roads, in which he reveals a constant scrutinizing orientation that, from now on, will characterize him, but which, above all, will be noticeable in his three most inspired collections of poems: Doubt, I write loneliness y Double elegy.
In his inquisitive eagerness, the presence of God is glimpsed as a continuous pulse that keeps him on tenterhooks in the face of vital questions. Thus, in his first book, the most emblematic of all, DoubtThe initial quotations from St. Paul and Unamuno, respectively, are evidence of his marked thirst for divinity and show that his is a poetry full of questions, of deep uneasiness embodied in those overwhelming verses in which he expresses his most vivid battle, after realizing that his childlike faith is slipping away like water: "Now, through the throbbing valley / of memory, hands, eyes, forehead / seek the face that one, the burning bush. But the water is not there", which is found to be: "Suddenly, without anyone noticing, / without preceding a shout or a flash of lightning, / this other light has broken my joy. / My joy has dried up. It has / clouded my hope. / Suddenly, hands, eyes, forehead, / heart and silence / have been left without God.". In this balance between faith (one light) and reason (another light), it seems as if God disappears from his life. It is, therefore, a thought-out faith that traces Garfias' personal existence; a thought-out faith that unfolds in a "subway crossing / that goes back and forth, Lord, to you, from you." and that has as a synthesis of all his religious thought the verses that close the book Doubt: "I have an unspeakable fear of turning / My faith on its back. I have a horrible fear. / Horrible, I assure you. / And through my wild night I seek, / I seek again, I repeat the call, / I stumble at God, I raise his banners, / I struggle and fall defeated in his lap. / It is that God who now / is the size of my doubt.".
Tense and confident tone
Although it may give the impression that his poetry remains there, in uncertainty, in perplexity, in an agonizing way of understanding reality, and, in the end, is that of a person searching for God in the fog, in the words of Antonio Machado, it is positive that at no time does it become incredulous or fall into a deep uprooting, but it develops permanently in a tense tone, especially because the poet, resorting to poetic images of his time - that of the "dog", for example, was already in Sons of wrathby Dámaso Alonso- expresses his most authentic inner anxieties as can be read in Sore bouqueta meaningful sonnet that is worth reproducing: "Because you wound me, I believe in you. I love Thee / Because Thou art a wavering shadow / I seek Thee for wandering and discordant / Because Thou answerest me not, I call Thee / I, wounded dog beside Thee. You, the Master / I, the bewildered and the questioning / You, the spoiler, the bewildering / I, painful branch, burning branch / You, whip hanging in my crack / Stinging in the eyes that imprison me / Living salt for my chest without bonanza / Oh, master of my being and my agony / Christ, clinging to my cross, to the candles / of my faith, of my love and my hope". And, at the same time that it is tensional, it is poetry that arises from a determined trust in God, from an enormous desire to clarify the inner situation in which the poet often finds himself. As Psalm 130 announces, Garfias' poetry is poetry that comes from the depths, like a cry, in a persevering request for grace. Thus it is understandable that he turns his verses into a constant claim when he implores divine favor: "Give me thy hand Thou if thou art still / In my amazements poured out". or sensibly insist on reaching for the light of faith, more than ever before. "when the light goes out".
After Doubt (1971), the poet publishes I write loneliness (1974), dedicated to his sister, his great confidant, who had just died. In both books, Garfias presents a lyrical and oratorical touch that, as we pointed out at the beginning, constitutes, together with Double elegy (1983), the most inspired of his poetic production. A quote from St. Augustine opens it: "In the end it is always loneliness, but behind the loneliness is God." and, then, a bouquet of compositions with a family flavor is generated in which there is room for both the gaze of the mother, her other confidant, always attentive to the performances of her children, and the reunion with her childhood and her town, Moguer. In the face of these affections -especially those of her mother and sister-, she has a special place for her children's performances. "the answer, at last, I find it again / in love, definitely".
Openness to other realities
"Let not the mighty river rest, / The dove of love, the light, the song." are verses that prelude the end of that inner process. From this point on, the poetic work of Garfias -always with unequaled skill and fluidity- becomes less clamorous, less passionate, more calm, more inclined to the celebration of contemplative landscapes found in painting or in specific places in the Spanish territory. It will be poetry that looks outside of itself, that which ceases to scrutinize the inextricable labyrinths in which the poet was involved until then, and opens up to other apparently less disturbing realities. Of course, he will still have the emotional and poetic strength of one who has left his life - as Garfias wrote in one of his first published poems - along the paths of the soul.
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The Church has female doctors
St. Teresa of Jesus, St. Catherine of Siena, St. Therese of Lisieux and St. Hildegard of Bingen are the four women doctors out of a total of 36 who make up the complete list of those who have been recognized as "eminent teachers of the faith for the faithful of all times."
On this feast of St. Teresa of Jesus it is good to remember that it was St. Paul VI who proclaimed her Doctor of the Church in 1970, being the first woman to be distinguished with this title by the Catholic Church. Then (just a week later) would come St. Catherine of Siena and, later, St. Therese of Lisieux (1997); and St. Hildegard of Bingen (2012).
There are, therefore, four women doctors out of a total of 36 who make up the complete list of those who have been recognized as "eminent teachers of the faith for the faithful of all times".
In his homily on the occasion of the doctorate of the saint of Avila, Pope Montini emphasized the particularity of this event: the first woman to be proclaimed doctor was "not without recalling the stern words of St. Paul: 'Let women keep silent in the assemblies' (1 Cor 14:34), which means even today that women are not destined to have hierarchical functions of magisterium and ministry in the Church. Has the apostolic precept been violated then? We can answer clearly: no. It is not really a question of a title that entails hierarchical magisterial functions, but at the same time we must point out that this fact in no way implies a belittling of the sublime mission of women in the bosom of the People of God. On the contrary, since she is incorporated into the Church through baptism, she participates in the common priesthood of the faithful, which enables and obliges her to "confess before men the faith which she has received from God through the Church" (Lumen Gentium 2:11). And in this confession of faith many women have reached the highest heights".
It was also Paul VI who, a few years earlier, in 1965, and curiously also on the feast of St. Teresa of Jesus, instituted the Synod of Bishops by means of the motu proprio "Apostolica Sollicitudo". It was a way of perpetuating the torrent of grace that had been the Second Vatican Council, thus providing the Church with a permanent organ of consultation that would perpetuate the spirit of the Council.
This same spirit will flutter this weekend during the opening in all our dioceses of the diocesan phase of the Synod of Bishops 2021, a synod dedicated precisely to synodality, and which, over three years will make us walk together in this "process of healing guided by the Spirit", as Pope Francis has defined it, in which we will try to free ourselves from what is worldly and from our closures, and question ourselves about what God wants from us. It will be a process in which the voice of women will be heard more than ever. Not only because on this occasion we have a woman Undersecretary of the Synod of Bishops, the French nun Nathalie Becquart; not only because we have the Spaniard Maria Luisa Berzosa as a consultant to the General Secretariat of the Synod; not only because another Spaniard, the theologian Nathalie Becquart, will be a consultant to the General Secretariat of the Synod; not only because another Spaniard, the lay theologian Cristina Inogés, was chosen to lead the reflection prior to the Pope's words at the opening of the Synod -with a speech, by the way, bold and full of love for the Church- but also because this Synod has opened its consultation, in a capillary way, to all the People of God and it is women who make up the majority of its members.
We need to listen to women. If it wants to be faithful to Jesus' command, the Church needs to listen to the Spirit who speaks through every baptized person, "when there is no longer Jew and Greek, slave and free, male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus" (Gal 3:27-28).
The recovery of a more incisive female presence in the ecclesial sphere will be a long road, but, as St. Teresa taught us, "patience achieves all things". And the Church has many female doctors!
The authorAntonio Moreno
Journalist. Graduate in Communication Sciences and Bachelor in Religious Sciences. He works in the Diocesan Delegation of Media in Malaga. His numerous "threads" on Twitter about faith and daily life have a great popularity.
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Leopoldo Abadía and Joan Folch to speak on intergenerational connection
How do the elderly and the young relate to each other? Do we really have such different concepts of life? Do we speak the same language? This is the topic that will be the focus of the Omnes - CARF meeting on Wednesday, October 20.
In Spain there are some 9.5 million people over the age of 65, or 20% of the population. Of these, more than two million live alone. Alongside this reality, we find a young population that communicates, mainly through technology.
If in all generations there have been communication leaps, in recent years, this gap seems to have become abysmal.
How do the old and the young relate to each other? Do we really have such different concepts of life? Is the so-called intergenerational connection possible? Do we speak the same language?
These questions will be some of those addressed in an interesting and surely entertaining dialogue between Leopoldo Abadía and Joan Folch. The meeting, organized by Omnes and the Centro Académico Romano Foundation, will be broadcasted live on YouTube on the following day. Wednesday, October 20 from 7:30 p.m. onwards.
Leopoldo Abadía
Leopoldo Abadía, born in Zaragoza, 88 years old, has been married to his wife for 61 years and is the father of 12 children, grandfather of 49 grandchildren and great-grandfather. Writer, economist and industrial engineer doctor.
Joan Folch
Joan Folch, 22 years old, student of the Faculty of Economics at the University of Navarra and influencer, with tens of thousands of followers on instagram.
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The papal pharmacy in Rome
The "Ancient Pesci Pharmacy" has witnessed the history of Rome since 1552. This pharmacy, located in Piazza Trevi was born almost 500 years ago by papal order as a spice shop, an ancient pharmacy for the poor people who were in this area.
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Kiko Argüello and David Shlomo Rosen, "honoris causa" of the Francisco de Vitoria University.
This recognition, granted by the Francisco de Vitoria University, aims to highlight the contribution that these two Christian and Jewish personalities have made in the field of dialogue between the two religions.
Francisco José Gómez de Argüello and Rabbi David Shlomo Rosen will be invested as doctors. honoris causa on Monday, October 25, in a solemn ceremony that will take place at the Francisco de Vitoria University. With this investiture, the University wishes to recognize the contribution of the new doctors to the dialogue between Jews and Christians. Argüello andShlomo Rosen "have placed their friendship at the service of goodness and beauty" states the note in which this investiture was announced.
Among other things, it highlights the joint work that resulted in the symphony "The Suffering of the Innocents", composed by Argüello himself to pay a moving tribute to the innocents of the Shoah, and performed in 2012 at the Avery Fisher Hall in New York before the main representatives of the international Jewish community.
The new "honorary" doctors
Kiko Argüello is the initiator, together with Carmen Hernández He founded the Neocatechumenal Way in 1964, one of the most important realities of the Catholic Church in the last century. He is also a painter, writer, architect, sculptor and musician. At present, the Way has more than 21,000 communities and more than one million members present in 135 nations of the five continents and is acquiring a special presence and relevance in the university world to which it has contributed hundreds of professors.
In 1993 John Paul II appointed him as consultor to the Pontifical Council for the Laity, and confirmed him for the rest of his pontificate. The same decision was made by Popes Benedict XVI and Francis, the latter in 2014. Added to this is his appointment as consultor to the Pontifical Council for Promoting the New Evangelization in 2011 and auditor of the XIII Ordinary General Assembly of the Synod of Bishops ("The New Evangelization for the Transmission of the Christian Faith") in 2012.
The Rabbi David RosenThe current International Director of Interfaith Affairs for the American Jewish Committee is one of the foremost Jewish leaders in this field. He was Chief Rabbi of Ireland and Chief Rabbi of the largest Orthodox Jewish congregation in South Africa. In November 2005, Pope Benedict XVI named him a Knight of the Order of St. Gregory the Great for his contribution to promoting reconciliation between Catholics and Jews.
Among other awards, in 2016, the Archbishop of Canterbury presented him with the Hubert Walter Award for Reconciliation and Interfaith Cooperation "for his commitment and contribution to the work of interfaith relations, in particular, the Jewish and Catholic faiths."
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Priest Saints: St. John Bosco
A great pedagogue, a great teacher of the spiritual life and the apostle of devotion to Mary. Auxilium Christianorum. The life and legacy of St. John Bosco is a guide for thousands of people today.
RelatedPriest Saints: St. Vincent de PaulHoly priests: St. Francis de SalesPriest Saints: St. John Mary Vianney, the Holy Curé of Ars
Priest Saints: St. Vincent de PaulHoly priests: St. Francis de SalesPriest Saints: St. John Mary Vianney, the Holy Curé of ArsYour life
St. John Bosco was born on August 16, 1815 in Castelnuovo d'Asti, a small town near Turin, into a poor and very Christian peasant family. His father died when he was less than two years old, so he was raised exclusively by his saintly mother, Margherita Occhiena.
On October 30, 1835, he entered the Seminary of Chieri. He was ordained a priest on June 5, 1841 in Turin, where he exercised his priestly ministry in prisons, on the streets and in workplaces. He soon gathered around him a group of young people, whom he placed under the patronage of St. Francis de Sales. In 1846 he rented premises in Valdocco, a suburb north of Turin, which constituted the first stable nucleus of his work with young people.
St. John Bosco clearly understood that, when the new industrial world was born, the youth had to be prepared for life, not only morally, but also professionally, so he founded the first professional schools and subsequently numerous other schools. On December 28, 1859, with 17 young people, he founded the Society of St. Francis de Sales, so its members are called "Salesians". Its Constitutions were definitively approved by the Holy See on April 3, 1874. On August 5, 1872, he founded the female branch, the Congregation of the "Daughters of Mary Help of Christians".
He died on January 31, 1888, at the age of 72. He was beatified by Pius XI on June 2, 1929, and canonized by the same Pope on April 1, 1934. On May 24, 1989, he was proclaimed Patron Saint of Youth by St. John Paul II.
His works
St. John Bosco wrote many works, but not systematic treatises, but rather of a pastoral nature, always moved by the circumstances of his life and apostolate. They can be classified into the following genres: pedagogical writings, entertainment, theatrical, hagiographical, biographical, autobiographical, religious instruction, prayer, government documents and epistolary.
His teachings
St. John Bosco was above all a great pedagogue, who advocated in his schools the so-called "preventive system", which consisted in preventing faults, at a time when the educational system was still "repressive", consisting in repressing and punishing the mistakes made by the students.
He was also a great teacher of the spiritual life, which he based on a solid sacramental piety. Frequent reception of the sacraments was an essential element in his pedagogy to lead young people towards holiness, and was the key to his educational project: frequent Communion and Confession, daily Mass.
He taught that frequent Communion is highly recommended, because the Eucharist is both medicine and nourishment for the soul: "Some say that in order to receive Communion frequently, one must be a saint. This is not true. This is a deception. Communion is for those who wish to become saints, not for saints; medicine is given to the sick, nourishment is given to the weak". Communion, therefore, is necessary for all Christians: "All have need of Communion: the good to remain good, the bad to become good: and so, young people, you will acquire the true wisdom that comes from the Lord".
St. John Bosco insisted much on the need for mental prayer. A personal recollection of Blessed Philip Rinaldi, who in 1922 became the Rector Major of the Salesian Society, and who treated his founder during the last years of the latter's life, shows the importance he gave to meditation: "Going to confession with him during the last month of his life, I told him: "You must not tire yourself, you must not speak, I will speak; you will say only one word to me at the end". The good Father, after listening to me, said only one word: Meditation! He added no more, no explanation or comment. Just one word: Meditation! But that word was worth more to me than a long speech."
St. John Bosco's spirituality was eminently Marian. He said that, together with Holy Communion, Mary is the other pillar on which the world rests. He also affirmed: "Mary Most Holy is the foundress and the one who sustains our works". For this reason, he had the image of the Virgin Mary placed in every corner of the Salesian houses, so that she could be invoked and honored as the inspiration and protector of the Salesian Society. He did not hesitate to say and to assure: "The multiplication and spread of the Salesian Society can be said to be due to Mary Most Holy".
St. John Bosco was the apostle of devotion to Mary. Auxilium Christianorumbut he ended up preferring this title to that of Mary Help of Christians. In December 1862 he communicated his decision to build a church in Turin under the patronage of Mary Help of Christians, whose foundation stone was laid on April 27, 1865.
However, on her deathbed it was not the invocation "Auxiliatrix" that came from her lips, but that of "Mother", for she died saying: "In manus tuas, Domine, commendo spiritum meum...Mother...Mother, open to me the gates of Paradise".
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Brazil celebrates the feast of Aparecida
Faithful devotees light candles at the celebration of the feast of Our Lady of Aparecida, patroness of Brazil, at the Basilica of the National Shrine of Our Lady of Aparecida in São Paulo, on October 12, 2021.
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"In Angola, the Church is helping to rebuild a country after years of war."
Thanks to a scholarship from the Centro Academico Romano Foundation, this Angolan priest can study Institutional Communication at the Pontifical University of the Holy Cross in Rome.
RelatedA Romanian Orthodox priest at a Catholic university"In Indonesia we are few Catholics, but with ardent faith.""We Christians in Pakistan have hope for a better future."
A Romanian Orthodox priest at a Catholic university"In Indonesia we are few Catholics, but with ardent faith.""We Christians in Pakistan have hope for a better future."Father Queirós Figueras was born in Angola 42 years ago. He studies Institutional Communication at the Pontifical University of the Holy Cross in Rome. As a child he endured the sufferings of war in his country. And as a priest, he has seen the disaster in terms of poverty and lack of development. "Unfortunately, the almost thirty years of military conflict in Angola have caused not only victims and refugees, but also losses of physical and economic capital," he says.
Like most children of his generation, he had to flee the war. "I was born in a village called Utende, in the municipality of Kibala, but I had to move with my family to the city of Luanda, where I grew up on the outskirts of the capital with my parents and siblings, being the second child of seven siblings. We had to flee because of the civil war the country was going through at the time, in 1983," he says.
The faith and support of his family helped him to fight the fear of conflict. He was ordained a priest on November 21, 2010 in the Diocese of Viana, by Monsignor Joaquim Ferreira Lopes, the first bishop of the same diocese.
The reunification of families separated by the war is one of Angola's priorities. "After the war, the Angolan governments launched a strategy to fight poverty that affected rural areas the most, as the war limited the population's access to farming areas and markets, and destroyed the resources of the peasants," says Father Queirós.
The Catholic Church, in particular through its missionaries, continues to try to assist the government in rebuilding the social fabric, in providing the population with food, education and vocational training, as well as health care in the fight against AIDS.
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Commentary on Sunday's readings: The glory of Jesus will be to lay down his life
Commentary on the readings for the 29th Sunday in Ordinary Time (Cycle B) and a brief one-minute homily.
The episode of James and John asking the Master to allow them to sit on his left and right hand. "in his glory" is best understood in its context: it takes place immediately after Jesus explained for the third time to his disciples what would happen to him in Jerusalem: "They were on their way up to Jerusalem. Jesus went before them, and they were amazed; those who followed him were afraid. He took the twelve with him again and began to tell them what was going to happen to him: 'Look, we are going up to Jerusalem, and the Son of Man will be handed over to the chief priests and the scribes; they will condemn him to death and hand him over to the Gentiles; they will mock him, spit on him, scourge him and kill him, but after three days he will rise again.
To the first announcement of his cross and resurrection, Peter reacted by opposing it; to the second announcement, they began to argue among themselves about who was the greatest; after the third announcement, James and John ask to receive the best seats next to him.
The two brothers are among Jesus' favorites: the Lord's predilection is not linked to the understanding of his message; on the contrary, he seems to prefer those who understand less, perhaps those who need him most. John will explain in his Gospel the passion of Christ as glorification, but at this moment, like James, he understands nothing. His question is an affirmation: "we want you to do what we ask you to do".
We admire the patience of Jesus, who makes them speak: what is it all about? The two are no better than the rich young man; at least the rich young man asked what he should do; they pretend to tell Jesus what he should do. Yes, they have left their home, their work and their loved ones, but they cling to the glory they can get for the privilege of being among those who follow Jesus, and they want to use their calling for the glory of themselves and their family. They do not understand that the glory of Jesus will be to give their life for love.
But Jesus does not quench their desire, but tries to direct it: Can you drink the cup that I drink? "We can"they reply. We do not know to what extent they understand the nature of the cup that Jesus will ask the Father to take away from him (cf. Mk 14:36), but he assures them that they will drink it. James will be the first of the twelve to die a martyr's death, and John will drink it under the cross of Jesus. But at Jesus' right and left will be, "in his glory," two unsuspecting thieves.
The other ten are indignant at the risk of having their seats stolen. Jesus with patience and surprising optimism says: the mighty of the nations dominate and oppress, but "among you it is not so"! Whoever wants to be great among you must serve and give his life for love, like the Son of Man.
The Homily in one minute
The priest Luis Herrera Campo offers its nanohomiliaa short one-minute reflection for these readings
The authorAndrea Mardegan / Luis Herrera
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