Gerry O’Connell speaks to the Patriarch of Venice, Cardinal Angelo Scola – son of a socialist truck driver and a profoundly Catholic mother. He is also a leading intellectual in the Italian Bishops’ Conference and one of the more creative and original thinkers in the College of Cardinals.

Q. What do you see as the main challenges facing the Catholic Church today? 

A. I think the principal challenge, which the Church shares with every other social subject in the field, is the interpretation of the post-modern. The question is; have we, or have we not entered the post-modern world? Certainly the collapse of the Berlin Wall has marked a rather radical mutation that can be seen in certain macroscopic phenomena.

Indeed, what is happening in the Middle East is like a second phase of what happened in 1989. There is obviously a strong desire for freedom on the part of peoples on the world stage, and that comes with an urgent demand for real participation. 

This has complicated even more that which I call the process of the mixing of civilizations and cultures; that is, a process of movement and displacement of peoples which will become even more radical in the coming decades. All this has made it made more urgent for us in Europe to gain a deeper knowledge of Islam. 

Then there is the question of the progress of techno-sciences, especially in bio-engineering, cloning, bio-convergence, informatics, biology, molecular physics, neuroscience and so on. All these phenomena are producing a different kind of man and so the challenge for the Church is the same as for all humanity: What kind of man does the man of the third millennium wish to be?

Q. What is your view on this? 

A. Some 10 years ago when I was in Munich I bought a copy of Die Welt and there was an entire page written by this young German philosopher of science named Jongen under the banner headline Man is only his own experiment! 

It is clear that we are faced here with a framework that is radically different from that which prevailed up to the 1980s, and it seems to me that the Church, in this context, has to insist on the fact that the ‘I’ does not exist without relations. This is the point. Because it is from the ‘I’ that the dynamism of the truth, the good and the beautiful is documented within the human family and, in my view, this fact is irrepressible. 

I think that we must value with much realism all the positive things that emerge from these major shifts and discoveries, while accepting the elements of contradiction that are found in every passage of civilization. 

The challenges are at the anthropological, social, cosmological and ecological levels, and since the Church of Christ is the presence of a God who became incarnate and who has engaged, and continues to be involved with humankind, it has to respond to these challenges of humanity. The risk is that man thinks of himself as freed from every bond, and so as ‘a self-made man’. 

This nullifies the exchange between the generations, it nullifies education in the proper sense of the term, and leads to many phenomena that we see in the anthropological transformations and ways of understanding sexuality, love, parenthood, work and so on. 

It seems to me that in this context, the mission of the Church is more relevant than ever. Indeed, I believe that the Christian proposal is particularly relevant now, because if we read the Gospel we see it revolves around the theme of happiness and freedom. Jesus said that if you wish to be happy, come and follow me, and he who follows me will be truly free. It inserts the dynamic of truth, goodness and beauty within the horizon of happiness and freedom. 

So when the Christian proposal is freed from the many things that weigh it down because of the contradictions and sins in the men and women of the Church, and is re-proposed in its youthful simplicity as an encounter with a humanity made whole by Christ, then it is more relevant than ever.

Q. What do you see as the strengths and weaknesses of the Church as it faces these challenges? 

A. They are those which Benedict XVI has formulated at the beginning of his first encyclical – Deus Caritas Est – namely, that the nature of Christianity is a personal encounter with Christ. We see this clearly in those people who have encountered him and witness to the beauty of a humanity that has succeeded. 

The weakness is the continuing existence of that which Paul VI denounced; the dualism between faith and life. This is evident when one does not experience how the relation with Christ impacts on one’s daily life, or how Church life is relevant to all this, and so one tends to conclude that the practice of the Christian life is useless, and one tends to put it aside. 

The paramount task of the Church is to announce Christ in all the settings of human existence and to simplify the life of the Christian community in the parishes and dioceses so that they may be better suited to people today, especially to the young, to the people who have a family and work. It’s a substantial problem to regain the link between faith and life, to understand how the faith is relevant to my life. This requires the way of relations; it cannot be done by oneself alone, it requires a living community of people who can communicate their experience.

Q. You have visited many Churches in the southern hemisphere and described them as “beacons of hope”. What do you mean? 

A. These are Churches of the first evangelisation, and they maintain a vitality and freshness in which the primacy of life renewed by Christ is palpable. 

Then, too, one sees a spirit of joyfulness in all the African Churches, where the liturgy is often positively incarnated, and where the depth of fraternal relations in Christ is tangible, notwithstanding the problems and contradictions that all people have. It is particularly striking to see how the experience of the mystery is an experience of joy.

I have seen this many times in Africa, I have seen it in Asia, in the Philippines, in Brazil and other parts of Latin America, although these situations are quite different. 

So I consider these Churches as signs of hope because I think they can rejuvenate the entire fabric of the Catholic Church. But it remains to be seen how the themes we have spoken about earlier will impact on them.

Q. Many of these Churches face the problem of how to relate to other religions. You have given much attention to this question. Do you think the Church has grasped this problem sufficiently? 

A. The Catholic Church, in my view, particularly since the Second Vatican Council and also because it has given a very high importance to the practice of ecumenism, is facing the question of inter-religious dialogue with great realism. But it takes time to find a proper balance.

I recall an affirmation of the then Cardinal Ratzinger which was more or less this; inter-religious dialogue is an intrinsic experience of the Christian Church, it is not something contingent, imposed from outside. It is not imposed by the fact that today we have 15 million Muslims in Europe, though this makes it more urgent for us to engage in inter-religious dialogue. 

An effective dialogue requires that I engage my faith in a dynamic way. It implies an identity, but a dynamic identity, and so we return to what we spoke about earlier: What is Christianity? The event of Christ, by which he gives himself as a gift to mankind to be the way, the truth and the life, is open to dialogue at 360 degrees. But if I reduce Christianity to a question of doctrine only, then I reduce it to a dialogue of a purely speculative kind. 

Certainly, Christianity implies a doctrine and a moral teaching, but they are incarnated in the life of a person and in the life of a community. Therefore, if I practice the Christian life for what it is – ‘the good life’ which the Gospel documents and witnesses to, then I can go and dialogue with everyone.

It’s sufficient to go to India where there are many mixed marriages between Hindus and Christians and there, one sees how people practice inter-religious dialogue in daily life, for example, in the way husband and wife love each other, or in the way they educate their children. 

On the other hand, it is also necessary to have reflection of a theological and cultural kind such as is happening, indeed flourishing, in many places today. One example of this is the small Oasis experience which we started here in Venice which is dedicated above all to the reciprocal knowledge. 

The first step in dialogue is knowledge, getting to know the other. This is fundamental because, as it is evident today, if one asks an Italian or European Catholic “what is Islam?”, more than 90 per cent would not know how to answer. I’m sure the same would be true vice versa for Muslims, if we question them about Christianity. 

It seems to me that, generally speaking, as Christians we are well on the way in terms of inter-religious dialogue, but it is an epochal question and requires a lot of time.

Q. In Rome many people – in the Vatican and outside – are saying that after the Polish and German popes, and all the crises of this pontificate, we need an Italian pope once again to put order in the Church. 

A. Well, we’ll see. First of all, the Holy Father is very well and is doing his task in a formidable way, giving us a teaching of the highest level that is arousing enormous and impassioned dialogue throughout the whole world. Second, he is renewing the pastoral work of the Church through rooting it in the liturgy and the sacraments. 

I do not at all agree with those who say that this is a papacy which has generated crises. There have been moments when he has had to take on his own shoulders great problems of other men of the Church, and he did so by taking the lead, without ever pulling back.

Benedict XVI will beatify John Paul II on Sunday, the day that JPII himself wanted to call the Day of Divine Mercy and that will be marked by a large celebration of the faith. “I think that Wojtyla was the Pope of freedom and the Saint of freedom” said Angelo Scola, the Patriarch of Venice about John Paul II. “A freedom that, however, continuously needs to be freed”. And only faith in Christ can free it. This faith, Scola explains in this interview with ilsussidiario.net, “became, in the arc of his life, his primary factor of knowledge of himself, others and God”.

Your eminence, what personal memories do you have of John Paul II?

The first time I went up on the altar with him, in 1979, I was struck by the way he celebrated. John Paul II was a “mystic” Pope. He lived a relationship of extraordinary immediacy with God. It is not surprising that people called for his sainthood starting the day he died. It was enough to see him pray. When we went to lunch with him, we went first to the chapel to say the Angelus. All of us thought that it would take about thirty seconds. Instead, sometimes it took so long that we could no longer remain on our knees on the floor. The Pope was truly immersed in prayer, and for him space and time no longer existed. You could see it by the movement of his lips. In his prayers I perceived—I could see—a profound dialogue with God, uninterrupted. Like a breath, the Pope let out sounds like the gurgles of a river that never ends. It was amazing. 

“They try to understand me from the outside, but I can only be understood from within”, Karol Wojtyla said. What unifies the philosopher, the poet, the priest and the man, in one of the richest personalities of the 20th century, the Pope?

Certainly his faith. His intense, in the fullest sense, faith, as the total reliance on Christ Jesus that opened him up to a full understanding of the human person. John Paul II’s personality, his various life experiences, and his versatility (he was in fact a poet, philosopher, theologian) fed him from his infancy through liturgy, prayer, his passionate sense for relationships, his openness and curiosity about reality, and his total gift of self. This faith, which he breathed from his parents, became, in the arc of his life, his primary factor of knowledge of himself, others and God. Everything began within for him and, after passing through basically all of reality, returned, strengthened, to his heart.

How did you draw near the personality of Karol Wojtyla, and how did your encounter with the teachings of John Paul II deepen over time?

I had the opportunity to meet Karol Wojtyla briefly in the international editing circle for Communio, but our relationship deepened after his election to the papacy. As I told you earlier, the first time I met him as Pope was when I concelebrated mass with him, as well as with Monsignor Giussani and Monsignor Camisasca in February 1979 in his private chapel, followed by breakfast. We later collaborated mostly because I was teaching in the John Paul II Institute for the Study of Matrimony and Family, as a Consultant to the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith and as the Rector of the Pontifical Lateran University, known as the University of the Pope. I was thus able to deepen his teaching in the celebrated catechism on man-woman and the human body, in Mulieris Dignitatem, and more generally about the problems of matrimony and the family. This led me to study Wojtyla’s philosophical and anthropological works (especially Persona e atto) and to compare them to the masterpiece Love and Responsibility and with the celebrated volume Alle fonti del Rinnovamento. My work on Wojtyla’s thought continued with the encyclicals on the Trinity, with his moral and social teachings. I concentrated my debt to him, which is human before being doctrinal, in the work Elementary Experience, published a few years ago.

One of the most diffuse clichés about John Paul II is that he was the “Great Communicator” (just as Benedict XVI is thought of as the theologian, the guardian of orthodoxy, as if Wojtyla was not). Do you think that behind the partial truth of that hasty simplification there is sometimes an ideology working?

Every man falls into ideology, whether he wants to or not. Because of this, we  need to free ourselves by turning to self-criticism, in the same way that we need to free ourselves from inevitable prejudices. The simplification you referred to is, as a simplification, ideological. We must get rid of it. It is true that there is a difference between the personalities and carisms of John Paul II and Benedict XVI, but on the other hand, there is the profound unity and continuity in their exercise of the ministry of Peter. A point of view that is free and purified of ideology, cannot but recognize this unity and greet the originalities of these two Popes as a great gift for the Church.

Experience plays a fundamental role in the philosophical and pastoral method and teachings of Wojtyla, as well as in his writings. Can you explain what the centrality of experience consists in? 

It consists in the fact that every man in every time and place, culture and religion participates in a “common experience” the same as everyone else. Wojtyla deeply reflected on this common experience. There is a decisive passage in Persona e atto, from which all of his actions were inspired. In this passage, he strongly affirms that beyond the great diversity that characterizes men and beyond the opposing philosophical and cultural visions that characterize thought, there is a common experience that every person has upon which one can build both a method for a good life and adequate philosophical and religious reflection. In fact, theology is nothing more than the systematic and critical reflection on the experience of faith in the Christian community. Obviously the history of thought shows that the category of experience is very delicate and should be treated with particular care. 

“Man’s redeemer, Jesus Christ, is the center of the cosmos and of history”. What did this announcement, which opened the first encyclical of John Paul II in 1979, mean for the Church and for contemporary man?

I will talk about what it meant for the world starting from the situation in Italy at the time. We were just coming out from the distressing year of 1978, with the tragedy of Moro and the death of Paul VI. With that decisive affirmation “Jesus Christ in the center of the cosmos and of history”, John Paul II gave content to the extraordinary cry which opened humanity up to hope on the first day of his papacy: “Do not be afraid”.

John Paul II bet a lot on the lay faithful, the baptized, to make Christ contemporary for today’s man. In fact, in 1998 he spoke of the coessentiality of movements and institutions to the mission of the Church. What did this directive mean for life in the Church?

Certainly the Pope, who had been a student, worker, actor, ardent friend to Jews, energetic and intelligent objector both to the Nazi and Marxist utopias, as well as extraordinary teacher and priest, lived a fullness of humanity. Meeting him, one immediately perceived that he was first of all a man and this highlighted even more the priestly dimension of his person. This kind of Pope was, therefore, able to perceive the decisiveness of vocation and mission in the lay faithful.  It must be underlined that, in Christifideles laici, the Pope does not speak about just “lay” people, but “lay faithful”. This means a Christian who is called, in every area of human existence, to make the renewing beauty of the encounter with Christ visible in his face.

And the movements?

The question of movements and institutions needs much more space to reach a conclusion. One thing I can say is that the two essential things in the Church are the institutional gifts and the charismatic gifts. The first (the Eucharist illuminated by the Word of God, the teachings of the Apostles, Communion) are those that Jesus established as indispensable foundations for the existence of the Church. The second expresses the fantasy with which the Holy Spirit “persuades” man in every era to cling to the Church as the place for the fullness of human life. Obviously both are gifts of grace. Any opposition between the institutional gifts and the charismatic gifts is without foundation.

John Paul II was devoted to Mary. What does this devotion teach the Church of our time?

It is a font of beneficial humility for every Christian. In fact, Mary is the most powerful expression of the Immaculate Church and teaches all of the faithful, men and women, that Christ the Bridegroom is the incomparable gift for the Church Bride. With Him, everyone is first and foremost “passive”, in that we receive. Also, Mary, the paradigm of maternity, is the one who, in every circumstance, even the most unfortunate, walks with Jesus. She is virgin and mother. Because of this, I love to define Mary as “the woman”.

The last part of the papacy of John Paul II was marked by a difficult, inwardly hard-fought, relationship with the truth (and with the leadership of the Church), especially because of his sickness. The giant who so deeply left his mark on the history of the world was not afraid to show himself in all his limits. What can the Blessed Wojtyla teach us as a man and as the successor of Peter?

In the last phase of the life of John Paul II, he incarnated the great Pauline affirmation “When I am weak, then I am strong”. “Your grace is enough”, says Paul in the Second Letter to the Corinthians. The way that John Paul II wore his suffering exalted the Petrine ministry because it showed that the power of governing the Church—but not only for the Church—is never at the mercy of the one who possesses it. It comes only and always from God.  We must pray every day that those who are responsible for leading the Church live this way.

How is John Paul II a contemporary saint? To what profound human question does his sanctity of life respond?

In my opinion, his sanctity is visible in a luminous way in his passionate commitment to freedom. I think Wojtyla was the Pope of freedom and the Saint of freedom. A freedom that, however, continuously needs to be freed. As the Gospel of John says, those who follow Jesus “will be truly free”.

(Federico Ferraù)

march, 30th 2011

At the Angelus yesterday, Benedict XVI made an appeal “to those who have political and military responsibilities for the immediate initiation of a dialogue, which suspends the use of weapons.” “May peace return as soon as possible for these people and further tragedies be stopped”,  Cardinal Angelo Scola, Patriarch of Venice, tells ilsussidiario.net , “means to object strongly that every death is one too many. But peace is not an automatic utopia, it is necessary to build it every day in reality.” “We in Europe,” Scola explains, “are victims of a strong presumption. We think we know how to evaluate and solve problems without taking into account the testimony of those who live in these situations.” Starting with the Christians in those lands. And there is not only the important issue of participation and democracy, but also of the transformation of Islam.  This is a challenge which involves the spiritual contours of European identity, and of Italy in particular, the hinge between north and south.

“I ask God to obtain that a horizon of peace and concord may dawn as soon as possible on Libya and on the entire region of North Africa,” Benedict XVI said at the Angelus on Sunday, March 20. In what sense can one speak of peace when the policy is to take direct action to save the people from tyranny?

To speak of peace in these circumstances means, of course, to demand that armed violence, even in this case, would end and give way to negotiation, that peace return as soon as possible for these people and to halt further tragedies; to object strongly means that every death is one too many. But peace is not an automatic utopia;  it is necessary to build it every day in reality. Therefore, to obtain peace, prayer arises, against all skepticism, as an effective tool.

On closer inspection, the gears of realpolitik never seem to respond well to commands.  Why is this?  Is it a lack of “strategy” or a cultural deficit or lacking foresight of some kind?

I am not an expert.  What I can observe is that we Europeans are often victims of a strong presumption. We think we know how to evaluate and solve problems without taking account of the testimony of those who live in these situations. This often prevents us from considering all the factors in play. Many collaborators of Oasis who live in these places these days invite us to make a careful distinction:  the situation in North Africa is different from that of the Middle East, although both of the areas are in turmoil. What is happening is largely an unexpected phenomenon or not foreseen in this way, but it has very different connotations from country to country:  Libya is not Egypt, we know very little about Libya, just as this is radically different from what has happened in Tunisia.  Also what is happening in Syria is different.

And what do you think about Libya, specifically, Your Eminence?

As to the current war in Libya, I would like to recall the opinion of Cardinal Angelo Bagnasco, who speaks for all of us Italian bishops.  This seems a realistic assessment: you cannot stand still when so many lives are at stake and the civil society itself. What then becomes complex is to determine what this intervention should consist in.   So it becomes essential to listen very carefully to the voice of people like the bishop of Tripoli who has been there for years and knows the situation from the inside.

If we step back for a moment from the events related to the Libyan crisis, we see that across the Mediterranean–since the attacks on Christians at the end of last year, then by the Egyptian crisis, etc. — we are going through a phase of unprecedented instability. What is changing?

I believe that, as always in human affairs, it is only in time that a process, especially one so explosive and complex, can be understood. We must have the patience to let all the factors come to the surface. Certainly one cannot underestimate the strong demand for freedom, for the dignity of life, for democracy, and for work that emerges from these movements, but there are other aspects that we cannot see yet and that we must, however, try to understand  carefully.  For example:  what evolution may occur within the diversity of Islam starting from these events?  At the same time, there is the advance in the process that I call the “hybridization of cultures and civilizations”, an historical process, which is partly violent, partly unpredictable and also hopeful, and which does not ask permission to happen, but which we can at least try to accompany, and to govern.

How concerned should we be about the plight of Christians in the Middle East?  Can we still speak–given the paucity of their presence– of a particular “task” they have in the face of these circumstances?

The situation of our fellow Christians in the Middle and Far East is very painful. We cannot afford to remain passive, to not to listen to their voices and their cry for help. The Church of Venice, on the path of the pastoral visit that has involved the entire diocese, has been able to work with two remarkable people: Bishop Luigi Padovese, murdered in Turkey, and Shahbaz Bhatti, the  Pakistani Christian Minister who was the victim of a recent attack. Their testimony is forcing us to act for the freedom of the Church, which is threatened in some predominantly Muslim countries. Their martyrdom documents that what it means to live authentically as Christians is to live the desire to follow Jesus, to find a place–as Bhatti wrote in his spiritual testament –at the foot of his cross to participate in his resurrection.

Almost all agree in recognizing that a major humanitarian crisis is upon us. What must the government and the society do to rise to the task? 

One thing is the impetus to welcome, which must be immediate toward those who find themselves in a difficult situation which is so burdensome. Another thing is that the policy must be orderly and organic, even in a case of a grave emergency like this.  The problem is that everybody should assume responsibility: the whole of Europe is called upon to respond to this situation. Our country must prepare itself to face realistically the fact that tens of thousands of people will present themselves at our doors. Of course, we need to have a vigilant eye and a far-sighted vision: the tragedies that mark North Africa and more generally the beginning of the third millennium are a formidable challenge from Providence toward the man of the future. What kind of man do we want to be? An “I-in-relationship”? Or a man who, of course, can have amazing techno-scientific means available, but who tends to fossilize into an individual identity and thus deteriorates?

Do you think the crisis at hand is also a “yardstick” of European unity?

This uneasiness demonstrates that Europe cannot be held together only by the cement of the euro, but needs a clear identity, a sound economic and foreign policy, and with ample breadth. But this is impossible, I repeat, unless Europeans as individuals and nations respond to a huge question: “Who will be the man of the third millennium?” Perhaps the tragedy of the migration of large numbers of men and women from Africa, if we are all more generous, can be the glue for the construction of a peaceful Europe because it is capable of opening itself, with an intelligent availability, to those in need. A Europe that becomes a tangible expression of that sharing between people which is essential for the present and the future and that we Europeans, who are a bit comfortable and sedentary, have not been able to make the stable project of the good life.

From the very beginning of  your mandate, you have focused your mission as pastor on the status of the Church of Venice as a bridge of dialogue between East and West. Is there is a particular task that it can play in this historic moment?

At this very time, when throughout the Northeast we are preparing to welcome the Holy Father on his imminent visit to Aquileia and Venice, we are opening our eyes to a new challenge for Venice and the entire Northeast: to find the original function of the link between peoples and cultures again, and not only between East and West, but also between North and South. Looking at a map of the area, what catches the eye is how the Adriatic is the vertex of the Mediterranean which, here in our area, opens to the heart of old Europe. The circumstances are inviting us to ask ourselves what this “new” and needed Northeast will be, which, as in the days of the splendor of Aquileia, from which 57 churches were born, could cover Croatia, Slovenia, Austria, Bavaria, Hungary. In a word, the Adria Alps region.

(interview by Federico Ferraù, translation by Sharon Mollerus)

Yesterday twenty-one red roses, twenty-one ‘rosebuds’, were offered to the altar of the Nicopeia Madonna in St. Mark’s  Basilica at the end of the mass held by the Patriarch, Cardinal Angelo Scola. A special gesture to remember the martyrdom of the Christians in the world and the massacre of 21 people which has hit the Coptic community of Alexandria in Egypt, a church that is particularly close to that of Venice, since both were born from the preaching of Mark the Evangelist.

Cardinal Scola, in an interview with the Corriere  the imam El Tayeb, head of the al-Azhar mosque, asked the Pope for a sign in order to re-establish trust. You have been involved in the presence of the Christians in the Middle East for decades now through the Oasis Foundation. What do you think of El Tayeb’s words?

“First of all we must bear in mind that we still know little about each other. This is shown by the fact that no practising Christian would recognise himself in the image of his faith which is current among Muslims and vice versa. There is also an urgent need to face the big problem of the relationship between truth and freedom. It is a question of a balance that must always  be regained, since without truth man loses his way, but without freedom man is a slave. Violence is  born from this too”.

But the Christians have never threatened anyone, but are rather the victims of those who in the name of religion carry out massacres and spread fear and death.

“Unfortunately  perceptions are radically different between one side and the another of the Mediterranean. In the West many feel under attack from Islam, while in the East many consider that it is Islam that is being attacked. The media are responsible for this too. However, we must keep to the facts: it is not the first time that  terrorists, claiming to act in the name of Islam, have carried out  abominable suicide attacks in a church where a group of Christian faithful had gathered to pray”.

Benedict XVI has asked for protection for all Christians. How do you explain that this position has been labelled as interference?

“The Pope is not asking for any special treatment for Christians. He asks for the respect of the fundamental rights of every man, among which there is obviously the right to live, to publicly profess a religion and to not  be driven out of one’s own country. As in the attacks in Alexandria, like in Baghdad in October and Nag Hammadi a year ago,  in Pakistan very frequently and in India or in China, it is the Christians that are hit, the Pope, who bears the responsibility of over one billion faithful, considered it his duty to call the world’s attention to the problem of the persecution of the Christians”.  

What is Europe’s role?

“Europe must act in a more clear-cut way for the respect of fundamental rights, and have the courage to not subordinate them to economic interests. Moreover, Europe can promote, through facts, a model of plural society in which the different members recognise each other starting with the practical good of being together. This is an idea on which the lay and the believers of the various religions can find a meeting point. An idea which, in the medium term, can be a paradigm for all countries”.

On the very same day as the terrorist attack in Cairo, the Pope had announced that he will take part in the interreligious meeting in Assisi in October…

“The meeting in Assisi has exactly this meaning: terrorism, even before being a problem of security and intelligence, raises an issue of experience and culture. There exists a violence that is perpetrated in the name of God. Religions must remove all legitimacy from these criminal acts. We must not only say it is wrong, but also why it is wrong”

The Islamic kamikaze terrorists consider themselves martyrs. For Christians too, martyrs are called upon to bear witness to Christ in the highest and most definitive way. What difference is there?

“The difference between a martyr and a suicide terrorist is radical. In his offering the first embraces his own persecutor beforehand. His prior forgiveness thus wins over an unjustifiable evil. The suicide terrorist prepares to die, but his gesture is aimed at the destruction of others. For this reason it is intrinsically an evil, a negation of the human”.

In the past centuries Christians and Jews were forced to live like ‘dhimmi’, subjugated, under Islam. Is this inevitable?

“Absolutely not. The words of the imam El Tayeb  in the interview that you mention were  quite clear. And to tell the truth, the imam had already expressed his position also in other circumstances, for example in an interview to the Lebanese newspaper an-Nahar some months ago. I was able to read a preview of it prepared for the next Oasis newsletter. In the Muslim world a battle of ideas is going on, next to that of arms which  everyone can see: anyone who thinks that nothing is moving would be wrong”. 

(M. Antonietta Calabrò)

Card. Angelo Scola

Patriarch of Venice

1. «The Word was made flesh, he lived among us» (Jn 1:14, Day Mass). «Today in the town of David a saviour has been born to you; he is Christ the Lord. And here is a sign for you: you will find a baby wrapped in swaddling clothes and lying in a manger» (Lk 2:11-12, Midnight Mass).

The incarnation is the process of the new creation which the Lord has come to establish in the world as well as in history. It is the process of salvation for all men («all the ends of the earth shall see the salvation of our God» Is 52:10, Day Mass) which includes the prospect of right, justice, and peace («Wide is his dominion in a peace that has no end, for the throne of David and for his royal power, which he establishes and makes secure in justice and integrity» Is 9:6, Midnight Mass). 

2. «He lies in a manger, but embodies the whole universe; he is wrapped in swaddling clothes, but he clothes us with immortality; he does not find shelter in an inn, but he builds his own temple in the heart of every faithful. In order to strengthen weakness, the stronghold  took the form of weakness» (St. Augustine, Sermon 190).

The central feature of Christianity is paradox: the Son of God – He whom the Father «has appointed to inherit everything and through whom he made everything there is» (Heb 1:2, Day Mass), without whom «not one thing had its being but through him» (Jn 1:2, Day Mass) – is born, as any other son of man, through a young woman, in an obscure angle of the earth, he is wrapped in swaddling clothes and laid «in a manger because there was no room for them at the inn» (Lk 2:7, Midnight Mass). He leaves behind him his glory and embodies the human form of a tender and fragile child. God comes down  from heaven to earth to such an extent that in the last tract of his descent we can no longer  follow him [«Who, though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as something to be  exploited, but he emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness. And being found in human form, he humbles himself and became obedient to the point of death – even death on a cross» (Phil 2:6-8)]. 

3. The liturgy of the Mass of the Day offers us the most profound message of Christmas. The readings change the narrative form inviting us to draw our attention from the characters of the event to the Protagonist: who is the newly born-child? He is the Word of God made flesh: «At various time in the past and in various different ways, God spoke to our ancestors through the prophets; but in our own time, the last days, he spoke to us through his Son, the Son that he has appointed to inherit everything and through whom he made everything there is. He is the radiant light of God’s glory and the perfect copy of his nature, sustaining the universe by his powerful command» (Heb 1:2-3 Day Mass).

For there is a child born for us, the son, as the prophet Isaiah proclaimed; He is the only one to  reveal to us the face of God the Father for ever (cfr Is 9:5, Midnight Mass) and He opens to us the opportunity to become sons in the Son: «To all who did accept him he gave the power to become children of God» Jn 1:12, Day Mass). 

4. Therefore, the retelling us again who we are, to whom do we belong and towards whom we are tending suggests the necessity of good relations which constitute us. In this perspective, the mystery of the Birth of Christ the Lord opens to us the way to those virtuous practices which allow us to share in the needs, the difficulties and the solitudes of others and to contribute to the building of  good life.

The newly established humanity brought forth through the mystery of Christmas encourages us to make ours the suffering of those who have no work and this fact serves to highlight the primacy of the dignity of the working subject also regarding the fair-profit; to participate to the anxieties of the young generations who have the sensation that their future lacks reliable hopes; to feel ours the pain of those who pass these festivities in a sick-bed in hospital and making ours also the sorrow of the separated families, very often, hurt in their affections; to assume our duty to activate in society, everyone according to his own specific vocation, a constructive contribution to recover from the situation of crises which marks economy and policy; to make ours the fear of the Christians and of all those who are persecuted violently for their faith in certain Counties where the free practice of religion does not exist; we should not forget the great number of men, especially in the Southern part of the planet, who suffer hunger and live in miserable conditions.

If we men and women overwhelmed by a frenetic routine of life, live this Christmas only as a break from our activities we would betray the essential invitation which Christmas proclaims; therefore it is necessary to make space to God in our life, to belong completely to Him and to open ourselves to others. «He sacrificed himself for us in order to set us free from all wickedness and to purify a people so that it could be his very own and would have no ambition except to do good» (Tit 2:14, Midnight Mass). 

5. «He came to his own domain, and his own people did not accept him» (Jn 1:11, Day Mass): even today we are faced with this terrible challenge. And yet the condition to recognize him is not difficult, it is not impossible, on the contrary it is easy to reach. It is called simplicity, the same simplicity with which the shepherds, after the extraordinary announcement received by the angels, without any hesitation said to one another: «Let us go to Bethlehem and see this thing that had happened which the lord has made known to us’» (Lk 2:15, Dawn Mass).

Only amazement acknowledges (Gregory of Nyssa) and amazement leads to adoration.May the Blessed Virgin Mary and her  husband Joseph open – on this Christmas – our hearts to a new birth!

Happy Christmas!

(trad. Léonard Azzopardi)

Card. Angelo Scola

Patriarch of Venice

This is an answer to those who ask whether a desire for God is still present in our times – whether it is reasonable for someone in the Third Millennium to believe in God, to recognize Him as familiar. 

I believe that the worldwide success of the film on the Tibhirine monks reflects a burning desire in the men and women of any latitude to meet the face of God; it therefore reflects the real need we all feel for authentic witnesses who may help us keep our gazes focused upwards. 

Authentic witness is, in fact, not limited to “giving a good example”. It shines in all its wholeness as a method for practically knowing reality and communicating truth. It is a primary value, standing above any other form of knowledge and communication – scientific, philosophical, theological, artistic, etc.

A luminous example of this method is offered by the very words which Fr Christian de Chergé, prior of the Trappist monastery of Notre-Dame de l’Atlas in Tibhirine, Algeria, wrote in his spiritual will, a good three years before he was massacred with his monks: «When the time comes, I would like to be able to have an instant of lucidity that would allow me to ask for the pardon of God and that of men, my brothers, while forgiving with all my heart those who may have hit me… I cannot see how I could, in fact, rejoice in that this people I love could be accused of my assassination. It would amount to paying too high a price for what might be called “the grace of martyrdom”, to owe it to an Algerian, whoever this might be, especially if he should claim to have acted in faithfulness to what he believes Islam is […] after all, I would have been liberated from the most piercing curiosity I carry inside me: to plunge my gaze into that of the Father in order to see His Islamic children the way He sees them: all lit by the glory of Christ, they too as the fruit of His Passion, invested with the gift of the Spirit, whose secret joy will be that of re-establishing communion and similarity by playing with differences. For this lost life of mine, totally mine and totally theirs, I thank God who seems to have wanted it whole just for this joy, contrary to all and despite all. And you too, my last-moment friend, who will not know what you would be doing, also for you I want to say my thanks, this à-Dieu [literally: “until we meet in God”], as I contemplate you in God’s face. That it may be given us to meet again, two thieves overwhelmed with joy, in Heaven, if that may please God, our Father, Father of us both».

What is one of the most beautiful pages ever written in the twentieth century gives us a full grasp of how Christian martyrdom contains the fulfilled expression of God’s account of Himself, the one He allows us to give about Him and in His name.

Martyrdom, a grace that God concedes to the helpless and that no one can demand, is an insuperable act of unity and mercy. It is the defeat of any eclipse of God, it is His return in fullness through His children’s offer of their lives. This self-surrender defeats evil, even the so-called “unjustifiable” evil, because it restores unity even with its perpetrator.

Just as Jesus takes our evil on Himself by forgiving us beforehand, so the martyr, like Fr Christian, embraces his murderer beforehand in the name of God’s own gift of love, recognized by everyone as at least absolute and transcendent.

Only a witness that is worthy of faith can move the other’s freedom and sternly invite him or her to make a decision. As Benedict XVI has effectively remembered, we become witnesses only when «through our actions, words and way of being, an Other appears and communicates His own Self».

The Thibirine monks provoke and move us because in their witness «God is exposed, so to speak, to the risk of man’s freedom».

X Jubilee Conference on:

The role of the Catholic Church in the process of European integration

The Christian contribution to the European Integration Process

Cracow, 10-11 September 2010

Introductory remarks

Card. Angelo Scola Patriarch of Venices

1. European identity and integration

If we are to attempt to respond as concisely as possible to the topic proposed – the contribution of Christians to the process of European integration – while avoiding abstraction and rhetoric, we need to begin with a recognition of the sudden and often violent transformations that have manifested in all their fullness in the first decade of the twenty-first century that we have just been traversing : the process (I emphasise process and not prescriptive programme) of “hybridisation of civilisations”, the problems of terrorism, the energy and climate crises, the economic crisis. Not to speak of the change in the European religious panorama. As Jenkins[1] has observed, who could have predicted the marked decline in Christian pratice in Europe[2]? Who would have imagined such a significant Islamic presence in Rome and Madrid, let alone Paris and London? Not to speak of the urgent questions more closely connected with the present political and institutional structures of the European Union, from the financial crisis with its worrying repercussions on the single European currency, to the adjustment of equilibria between the organs of the European institutions, to the growing euroscepticism that has recently developed in many countries of the area, to the uncertainty into which the whole unification process seems to be falling. Among other things, it is struggling to keep watch “outside the house”, in particular on the so-called MENA area (Middle East and Nord Africa) which in 2030 will have 600 million inhabitants.

Alongside these questions there is the broader one of the general climate that is seeimg the rapid diminution of the conviction that for centuries has sustained western civilisation, a conviction ultimately founded in the vision of man as person, integral subject of rights and duties that are harmoniously embodied in a system of laws. Against the background of a notable in-difference with regard to the various religious creeds that inhabit our societies, typical of what Taylor identified as phase three of secularisation[3], a phenomenon stands out lastly that involves Christians more directly in their public life. I am referring to a hostility towards the Christian faith and in particular to the faith of the Catholic Church which is beginning to be translated into certain juridical ordinances and concrete normative formulations.[4]

Although the context may appear discouraging from certain points of view, we need to take great care not to read the travails of today in such a way that we let ourselves be carried away by a sense of bitterness. History is made of processes, and Christians are immersed in them like everyone else. The great resource of faith in God the Father which guides the human family and history in Jesus Christ, conqueror of sin and death, does not spare our freedom the dramatic dimension of life together with our fellow men. Christian truth, alive and personal, plays out in history and history is not deducible a priori. Like every one else, Christians reckon with this datum. Indeed they are called, in accord with the virtue of hope, to examine the signs of the times for the benefit of all.

Of course European identity has always presented paradoxical traits. On the one hand, the history of our continent has demonstrated a shared sense of belonging, on the other, it is equally evident that for many centuries the shared patrimony has always manifested in such a plurality of forms, cultures, and languages as to make it seem, to the superficial eye, as if a reference to some kind of original unity is unjustified. To reflect today on European identity after the sixty years of journeying that, as Schuman had foreseen «would not be completed overnight», requires us on the one hand to acknowledge that, given the complexity of the processes that are under way, no national state can cope with them on its own, so that Europe is not an option but a real necessity; on the other hand to refuse to abandon an ideal of identity which functions in some way as a unificatory principle. In this sense I believe that the reading put forward by Cardinal Lustiger in his day of the origins of the ECSC (European Coal and Steel Community) points us to the method by which, even in the radically transformed contemporary scenario, European unity needs to be pursued. This method involves starting from reality in all its pressing concreteness and allowing the ideal to emerge. The ideal, not a utopia. The ideal is in fact the truth inherent in the real, while utopia is, as its etymon says, the unreal. Just as in those days there seemed to be a disproportion between the instruments (common production of coal and steel) and the ideals of peace and prosperity for the entire continent (coal and steel as the raw materials of the war industry) so also today great realism and so great ideals fill the bill[5].

From this point of view it is not enough, even though it is necessary, to study the roots of Europe that we know so well. Beyond the multitude of undeniable contributions that over the centuries have helped mould its face – I am thinking of Jerusalem, Athens, and Rome, down to the modern concern with the significance of the subject and the Enlightenment emphasis on equality – it seems to me that crucial elements of these roots can be objectively traced in the nucleus of Christianity understood according to the criterion of secondariness which, according to Rémi Brague represents the realistic form in which to pursue European unity. The Roman attitude which received, preserved, and transmitted as its own patrimony the Hellenistic synthesis of Athens and Jerusalem was secondary. Secondary too is Christianity, for it knows it is second with respect to the First Covenant. Hence the singular critical capacity of Europe in respect of all civilisations and cultures because it avoids conceiving itself as the foundation of itself[6].

Without taking account of the anthropological, social, and cultural implications of the Trinitarian revelation – from the particular vision of the dignity of the person, to the conception of liberty and of its relationship with truth, and up to the salutary distinction between civil society and the religious dimension and to the acknowledgement of the value of subsidiarity and of solidarity – it is difficult to explain what we are saying when we utter the word Europe.

In the end, all the ethnic, national, linguistic, and religious differences consolidate rather than corroding a shared patrimony in the etymological sense of the term. And yet it is not sufficient to consider the roots if we are to meet the challenge of today’s historical reality.

To contribute to a plural Europe Christians ought to demonstrate the importance of the filial relation with God the Father, inconceivable before the Christian revelation. Benedict XVI himself stressed the quaerere Deum in his lectio magistralis at the Collège des Bernardins. Neither the Greek polis, nor the Roman civitas – with the sensational development of rights achieved by the latter – had ever understood society as family and as home. In both, the dignity of man and his liberty were subordinate to the recognition of his status as citizen. The reference to that transcendent and personal origin that constantly generates unity between the sons and constantly regenerates their freedom was absent. It is with Christianity that the notion of citizen is integrated with that of person, opening up to man his full identity. Of course in certain periods of history the idea that the unity of Europe was rooted in God was lived more naturally (we need only think of the role of the first universities in the formation of a shared European consciousness). In the course of the centuries this kind of certainty seems to have been progressively weakened. And yet the men who in the Nineteen-Fifties were in a position to reweave the broken threads of the Continent after the devastation of two tremendous wars did so in projects whose realism was laden with ideals, taking as a basis precisely their shared origin, Origin with a capital “O”. Their action demonstrated that Christianity is credible both in itself and in its public and social significance.

Taking our cue from this interpretative approach, it is evident that the process of European integration does not stand as one possibility among others, but rather possesses in a certain sense the force of a destiny that European men have the mission to fulfil. To betray it [It. tradirlo – translator’s note] would mean for our Continent a rejection of its own traditio, as well as probably representing, in the globalised world of today, a political suicide with unimaginable consequences.

2. The task for Christians

In this situation, how can Christians contribute to the process of European integration? What can the Christians of today do, not only for the sake of the affirmation of their roots, but by virtue of their presence in the here and now of history, to deepen the process begun sixty years ago while showing themselves at one and the same time faithful to the original principles and able to rise to the new challenges of our age? What has the Christian inheritance and indeed Christianity as lived today got to do with Europe?

In order to reply to these questions, a significant datum needs to be stressed, which summarises the phenomena referred to briefly just now: we live in an ever-more plural society. The presence of an ever-increasing variety of religious expressions and world visions seems to exclude the possibility of identifying a shared Weltanschauung as a way to make our shared life flourish. If this applies within each one of our western societies (for all their local variations), the situation is further complicated on the European level by the plurality of cultures and juridical and political traditions that characterises our continent.

Nonetheless Christians are surely well equipped to face up to that inevitable tension between identity and difference, between unity and plurality, which is in reality proper to each historical epoch. It is in fact in the mystery of the Trinity that resides par excellence the principle of difference in unity. And this principle, by virtue of the incarnation of Jesus Christ, becomes a criterion of comprehension and evaluation of every difference, from those constitutive of soul-body, of man-woman, of person-community and of individual-society, to all the ethnic, cultural, and religious diversities.  Historical events in Europe show this quite clearly. Obviously it does not automatically follow that Europe can painlessly reach easy accommodations between so many actors, state and non-state, personal and communal, in the field. Christians however certainly have at their disposition instruments that enable them to respond to the challenge of plurality.

Concretely, the task that they must take on will be that of rethinking the axioms on which our procedural democracies are based and the principle of secularity on which they aim to govern themselves. In a plural society, by its nature tending to be very conflictual, secularity prevails only if conditions are created that guarantee the narration and the content of all the personal and social subjects that inhabit it with a view to mutual recognition (Ricoeur[7]). Today Europe requires a new secularity valuing all the subjects that are actors in the plural society, guaranteeing the public expression of their deepest convictions.

For example if I believe in the value of the family based on publicly-recognised marriage that is faithful and open to life, but fail to back it in public debate, on the assumption that only by being quiet will I respect the ideas and values of others, I in fact take something away from the life of the community, I censor in advance the account of an experience that can enrich debates and discussions within the community.

This attempt to propose my experience to (but not to impose it on) the shared community narrative and the desire to convince others of the goodness of my proposition are the opposite of relativism.

Europe today needs a new secularism which values all subjects who act in the plural society and guarantees the public expression of their deepest convictions.

Only thus will it be possible to have a cohabitation harmonious in tendency that produces a good life. To pursue this complex harmony there needs to be a practical acknowledgement – I emphasise practical acknowledgement – of the material and spiritual goods to be shared: as Maritain argued in 1947 at UNESCO it is not a question of formulating in the abstract a theoretical accord between different worldviews. It is necessary, through agreed procedures, to confer political value on the primary social good of a practical nature: the fact of living together. This social datum must be elevated to the level of political good by all and promoted by institutions. There will not then need to be any preliminary accord about its foundation. Within this space, guaranteed to all, the dynamism of mutual dialogical recognition between the subjects about the individual contents of value can operate, in a close but always open debate between diverse worldviews. From this point of view, the practical political good of being in society could constituite that political universal which the process of secularisation has lost sight of all through modernity[8].

In this way the difference (sometimes acute) between common political action and the various cultural identities ceases, at least in principle, to be conflictual. The various identity-subjects must obviously live together under the guidance of the public establishment, while the latter, to carry out its sensitive regulatory role, must be aconfessional and impartial towards all, without however taking up neutralist positions. It can do this by guaranteeing the two constitutive levels of the political: the acknowledgement of the value of the practical-social common good of being together and the acknowledgement of those specific values that continuous negotiation will gradually recognise as such – according to the criterion formulated by Rawls of the overlapping consensus[9] – in an ongoing quest as occasion demands for a noble com-promise on specific goods of an ethical, social, cultural, economic, and political nature with all the other “inhabitants” of the plural society. 

The context that explains this further is defined by the principle of the inevitability of the cultural interpretation of faith: each faith is always subjected to a public cultural interpretation.  As John Paul II wrote, “a faith that does not become cultural would not be fully accepted, nor entirely thought out, nor faithfully lived”. In fact faith – the Judaic and the Christian – being the fruit of a God who has involved himself with history, has inevitably to do with the concreteness of life and death, of love and suffering, of work and rest and civic action.  If faith becomes culture then it is inevitable that its historical emergence generates an interpretation of faith itself.  The faith-culture relationship is circular.

In this phase of postmodernity in our plural societies, two particular cultural interpretations of Christianity are in evidence that are not far from being polar opposites.

The first is one that treats Christianity as a civil religion, a mere ethical cement, capable of functioning as social glue for our democracies.  If a position like this is plausible for the unbeliever, its structural insufficiency must be evident to the believer.

The other, more subtle, is one that tends to reduce Christianity to the proclamation of the pure and simple Cross for the salvation of ‘every other’.  To be concerned for example with bioethics or biopolitics would distract from the authentic message Christ’s mercy.  As if this message were in itself ahistorical and did not possess anthropological, social, and cosmological implications.

An attitude like this produces a dispersion of Christians in society and ends up hiding the human significance of faith as such.

Neither of these two cultural interpretations succeeds however in expressing in an adequate manner the true nature of Christianity and of its action in civil society:  the first since it reduces it to its secular dimension, separating it from the natural strength of the Christian subject, gift of the encounter with the personal advent of Jesus Christ in the Church;  the second since it deprives faith of its incarnational force.

I believe that another cultural interpretation is more respectful of the nature of man and of the fact that he exists in relation.  This is one that runs along the boundary line that separates civil religion from the crypto-diaspora and maintains the advent of Jesus Christ in all its integrity, proclaiming all the mysteries of faith and all the aspects and implications with which these mysteries are replete.

In this interpretation of the faith a central role is played by the style of testimony, which is counterposed to that of militancy or hegemony.  Testimony understood as method of knowledge and communication.  Nothing can be alien to this view of things, this curiosity and passion, nothing of that which forms part of the daily life of men and women of today, as well as politics and economics.

3. Religious freedom

With regard to the more specific contents of the action of Christians in the area of European integration, I would like to dwell only on one crucial point: religious freedom.

It is much more than mere prediction to state that religions are called to play a role in the future of Europe, for it is in fact a conclusion that anyone can draw from the simple observation of current circumstances. The presence of diverse religious realities -and I am thinking in the first place of Islam – has moreover contributed very substantially to disprove the predictions made only a few decades ago of the coming of “a secular world”. Of course, the multiplication of religious subjects and visions sometimes radically different from each other and the appearance on the scene of new actors has aroused the suspicion of many. But we cannot forget the fact that in European history religious, cultural, and socio-political events have manifested (beyond the necessary distinctions) as so interwoven as to be inseparable in reality. In this connection a far from negligible difference is observable between the two shores of the Atlantic. From the United States to various areas of Africa, to Latin America, from the Middle to the furthest East the presence of Methodist, Baptist, Pentecostal Christians is growing markedly. Leaving aside any judgement that may be passed on these new realities, what matters here is to note that they combine their strong “missionary” thrust and faith with an active participation in public life. In Europe, on the contrary, there prevails an attitude tending to assert that public debate must prescind from the religious root of personal convictions. But this ultimately means obliging believers to behave as if they were atheists, which ends up depriving society of important resources. However some prominent thinkers – I have in mind for example Habermas[10], Böckenförde[11], and Rawls[12] – have begun to acknowledge in religious traditions, and in Christianity initially, the expression of a cognitive potential and a reference to a civil commitment which simply cannot be ignored.

Religions in fact possess the capacity to represent the universal in a concrete way. Contrary to what European culture has ended up postulating in the course of modernity, values are never given in the abstract (the Charter of fundamental rights itself comes close to being a pure and simple list of formal propositions), but only within lived traditions. And indeed some axioms that are fundamental to our societies – I think for exemple of the idea of freedom or of the idea of equality – can derive fresh energy from the testimony of the faithful who live them within their own communal experience. The recognition of this ought to involve an acknowledgement on the part of the political power of the public subjectivity of religions[13]. Hence the necessity that public institutions not only recognise but actively promote an effective religious freedom. In the course of some of my visits to Middle Eastern countries I have been able to encounter a reality in which Christians and Muslims, on the basis of certain shared visions – for example the dignity of the human being – combine their energies in cultural and social works with surprising results. I think of the work on behalf of great numbers of differently-abled persons (handicapped) carried on by the Association Our Lady of Peace Centre for Individuals with Special Needs (composed of Muslims and Christians) in Jordan. And all this in contexts in which religious liberty is certainly not encouraged.  I can only imagine what could happen in Europe, what potential could be released if the climate were to grow more favourable to mutual discussion. Obviously that is possible on condition that religions abandon self-interpretations of a private nature on the one hand or of a fundamentalistic variety on the other to create a space for mutual debate between themselves and with all the other cultures.

The idea of possessing a universal mission has always been dear to Europeans, but this task has been complicated and in part obscured by the phenomenon of European colonialism, which has often trasformed the mission into a project for conquest and oppression.

From the beginning of his Pontificate John Paul II gave a new slant to the conception of Europe, formulating, with a courage unheard of in those days, the vision of a continent capable of breathing with two lungs and united from the Atlantic to the Urals.

How then to rehabilitate a universal vision capable of making Europe a significant actor in globalisation and at the same time to preserve her from the tempation to engulf other realities of the planet with her culture? To reply to this question we must refer to the singular relationship with those anthropological, social, and ecological goods involved in the Christian revelation and which possess a universal value. I have recently had occasion to reread a very brief essay by Romano Guardini with the significant title Il significato del dogma del Dio trinitario per la vita etica della comunità[14], where the great German thinker points out a crucial social implication of the Trinitarian mystery. Precisely because Europe received these goods freely she cannot claim ownership of them. They are offered by the plan of a Father who guides the history of all the human family. No reality, however much it be developed and perfected, can ever claim to exhaust the totality of the real. In this connection what Etienne Gilson wrote in 1952 precisely with reference to Europe is highly apposite: «She will be learned but she will not be Science. She will be fruitful in beauty, but she will not be Art. She will be just, but she will not be Law. And we hope that she will be Christian, but she will not be Christendom»^[15]. (Elle sera savante, mais elle ne sera pas la Science. Elle saura enfanter dans la beauté, mais elle ne sera pas l’Art. Elle sera juste, mais elle ne sera pas le Droit. Et nous espérons qu’elle sera Chrétienne, mais elle ne sera pas la Chrétienté). Her task remains that of offering to the world what she has received, of showing the world (to use another expression of Cardinal Lustiger’s), «un nouvel art de vivre» (a new art of living). If we want to have recourse to a Christian category, we can say that the proper mission of the Europeans is, in dialogue and in constant debate with other cultures, to bear testimony to the pursuit, personal and communal, of that good life, made up as Aristotle said of philìa, which cannot fail to be at the foundation of the construction of the polis.

If kept within these parameters, the European contribution to the constitution of a new world order, as foretold for some time by the social Magisterium of the Church, can be as important as has already been the case at the noblest moments of her history. Europe’s offering can involve all the continents in the pratice of a free cohabitation of citizens, of intermediate bodies, and of nations that will give life to a civil society capable not of sacrificing differences but of exalting them – and without them disrupting the ever – more urgent unity between the peoples of the planet.

Studium Generale Marcianum Venezia

ASSET – Alta Scuola Società Economia Teologia  

International Summer School/ Venice, September 6th-10th 2010 

THE “NEW RIGHTS” IN THE EUROPEAN AND AMERICAN PUBLIC SPACE

 Rethinking Rights in a Plural Society 

+ Angelo Card. Scola

Patriarch of Venice 

1. The Summer School as an occasion and the role of Asset

The Summer School is a particularly important and prestigious event in the programme of research and teaching carried out at Asset, l’Alta Scuola di Società Economia e Teologia. Asset developed out of the Studium Generale Marcianum and it was conceived as a means of fostering contemporary interpretative frameworks for the study of today’s socio-cultural reality, viewed in terms of the rise of the “plural society”. This is a project that Asset plans to develop by the utilisation of methods of transdisciplinary comparison, through research on significant issues, such as discussion of the current forms of reason and “public reason” in particular and the elucidation of crucial anthropological and social issues from the diagnostic and critical-propositional point of view.

The transdisciplinary ethos that Asset aims to foster, making connections between the domains of legal science, economics, philosophy, and religion, is a necessity if we are to capture and comprehend reality as it is, namely as rooted in history. Economic globalisation, the civilisation of the internet, migration on an epochal scale, the spread of an education and schooling that are international in character – all these phenomena penetrate everywhere in the structures of contemporary societies. Therefore in pursuit of the unity of knowledge – the raison d’être of the Studium generale Marcianum, along with its concern for the unity of the subject of knowledge – we cannot fail to take up the invitation to the unity of the object of knowledge which is implied in the frequent projects of the transdisciplinary era today under way in various fields of research.

Theology too is of course not exempt from this commitment. The new cultural and social phenomena challenge it to the core; and it has the choice either of interacting with the other disciplines, or submitting to the consequences of too much self-referentiality. Theological pratice is called on for help in the guidance of study and formation by reflecting on the experience of the faith of the Christian community, the place out of which authentic and critical encounter with cultures is born.

Asset is not a study centre, but it aspires to become a School capable of articulating the Christian cultural patrimony in the context of the plural society. 

2. Why legal studies?

Now that the subject proposed has been identified, the decision to opt for a starting point in the terrain of legal studies can be seen to make sense. Law now constitutes the lingua franca of peoples and cultures[1], as can be seen on two levels. In the first place, legal issues represent a privileged level of exchange, comparison, and relationship between the various traditions and peoples.[2] This becomes evident if we turn our minds to human rights in particular, or in other words to those that are defined as “fundamental rights”. The drive for amendments to rights in a country often arises from the reception of the law or praxis prevalent in another state, or of solutions received and relaunched by international treaties.[3] What happens elsewhere, then, has importance for the legal experience of each country.

In the second place, rights have a specific role in each society: a role that is now no longer only regulative, in the normalization of relations. The idea of social change, of evolution within a given society seems almost inevitably to assume juridical connotations. When we speak of change, we almost always– and perhaps above all – draw on legal experience. It seems that when a society judges itself, or another community, it searches for parameters of judgement in juridical instruments. Law has become, as it were, one of the languages in which the universal speaks.

This imposing expansion of the horizon and the role of law points us to the rationale for, and the scope of, this Summer School. It does not intend to limit itself to being a mere survey of the phenomenon, but expects in addition to examine the critical aspects of it. 

3. The new rights and the conception of man

Today’s session opens – and not by accident – with a reflection on the new rights and on the conception of man that they suggest by implication; we shall be returning to this subject on several occasions in the course of the coming week.

The ever more insistent and widespread preoccupation with human dignity in our day does not shield us from doubts about what kind of idea of man is involved in the new rights. The debate on the subject has made it sufficiently clear that the catalogue of fundamental rights has been persistently modified in recent decades, both on the international level and within each country. Two modes of interpretation, which may perhaps be incompatible, have become established in this connection: on the one hand a gradualistic idea of human dignity, that values and protects life differently depending on the circumstances[4] in which the individual is placed; on the other hand, a vision of man as individual subject prescinding from the context in which he belongs[5]. These new conceptions of rights are grafted onto the old Lockean root of liberalism, promoting a new stage of legal individualism: they have features that are largely novel in respect of those with which traditional liberalism had made us acquainted.

To summarise with the greatest possible brevity, legal experience, especially on the American model[6], today seems to locate the individual at the centre of the order of things, breaking the social bonds by which his actual concrete life is held. This aspect of the situation is not lacking in ambiguity and indeed it has considerable importance, given the influence that for some decades Anglosaxon and American legal culture has been acquiring on the Continent and especially in Italy[7].

The ambiguity of the frame of reference within which the new rights are being developed, centred as it is on the individual, ultimately affects the relationship between society and state. If the task of law is to make possible the mere contiguity of individuals who move along parallel tracks, life in society disappears from the horizon of law. If the subject is detached conceptually from the social context of reference and deprived of bonds and relations, or if there is merely a failure to recognise the crucial role that society possesses in the affirmation of the personality of each individual, this has fundamental implications. It is in fact an approach that impoverishes the role of civil society and attributes the task of the protection and care of individuals to political authority alone. We are confronted with the paradoxical affirmation of a massive centrality of the state at the very moment when social arrangements are giving scope, formally at least, to the principle of subsidiarity. 

4. The sustainability of rights

In addition to the new physiognomy of rights, we shall be considering their sustainability. There are highly complex issues involved in the circulation of rights, the transmission from one country to another of legal solutions or decisions taken by the European Union. If the range of rights and duties grows wider while the social horizon becomes ever more complex, this cannot fail to cause disturbances to the equilibrium of each state. The widening of the duty of protection or the addition of new duties has inevitable and almost immediate repercussions on the economic, productive and social levels. It is not realistic to separate the question of rights and duties from that of social and economic requirements, except at the price of creating rights that are not concretely exercisable or even that are destructive for the future of society.[8]

A perspective that does not take account of the social and economic implications of rights is not simply myopic but narrow from the start. The opposition between the requirements of protection of the person and economic exigencies, which may sometimes certainly exist in pratice, is not always necessarily present. To posit the relationship between rights and economy in oppositional terms means to replicate that individualistic anthropology, this time Hobbesian in character, which separates the subject from the social requirements of the context in which he lives. When the hypertrophy of rights suffocates economic life, it reveals by that very fact radical and intrinsic defects. 

5. The challenge of legal modernity: the case of Islam

 An individualistic anthropological model is not even a good common ground for facing up to processes of migration either, given that it is not easily assimilable by non-western cultures. This is in fact a non-secondary aspect of the phenomenon of the globalisation of rights, which applies precisely to the field of immigration and to countries in which the religious tradition plays a legally very important role.

The dramatic emergence everywhere of a plural society, in which is clearly discernible a process of “hybridisation” – a term that I use to indicate the process of constant interaction between identities[9], cannot fail to have repercussions on legal experience both in the countries of immigration, and in those of emigration. The so-called rights of new generations cannot but reckon with this prospect: the “new rights” must inevitably come to terms with a “new society”.

There is another aspect of the problem to be considered. Legal experience can reasonably be transmitted and become established if it fits with some existing pattern in the culture to which it is relating[10]. This represents a challenge that current legal reflection cannot avoid. The export of legal culture which is developing in our countries can be interpreted in two diametrically opposed ways. It may consist in what amounts to an unacknowleged replay of colonialism, so that an alien practice is imposed on another culture; or, on the contrary, it may be the sincere advocacy of a value so that another social order acknowledges it: an advocacy solicitous in its turn to receive the good pratices that the other order suggests.

This applies above all to Islamic societies and to the important Islamic presence in western societies. The capacity of the present order of things to control social phenomena, to give them an outlet and a prospect, to integrate them into the framework of a normality of relations, is put to the test by a religious presence, variegated and yet endowed with a strong internal cohesion, that asserts itself on a collective level.

The persistent replay of the logic of the Enlightenment, which aims at cohabitation by playing on the separation between the public arena and the private space and between the religious and secular spheres, does not seem to work in favour of this normalisation of relations[11]. It cannot be a fear of the Islamic presence that leads to advocacy of a model already in crisis within the traditional European context, a model which legal doctrine has repeatedly stigmatised[12] because it excludes from social life precisely those things that religious persons hold most dear[13]. A clear separation between the secular and religious spheres does not seem to help cohabitation, rather it deprives it of justifications. 

6. The background

The question that involves philosophy and theology most directly has up to now remained in the background of our reflection. Soon after the felicitous conclusion to the drafting of the Universal Declaration of the Rights of Man (1948), Maritain claimed that agreement could be reached on it only by prescinding from the question of the foundation of the rights themselves. Basically, the various subjects had agreed on the content of the Declaration, each on the basis of their own religious, philosophical, ideological and cultural presuppositions, without finding a theoretical common ground for a shared understanding.

The most discerning political philosophy of today, reflecting on the plural nature of democracy, has seen the positive aspect of this choice, developing organically what was then a simple factual given. It is necessary, through agreed procedures, to confer political value on the primary social good of a practical nature: the fact of living together. It is a social datum that needs to be elevated to the level of a political good by all and promoted by institutions, and it will not require any preliminary agreement as to its foundation. Within such a space that is guaranteed to all, the dynamism of dialogical acknowledgement of individual contents of value between the subjects can operate, in a close but always open comparison between the different world views. From this point of view, the practical political good of being in society could constitute the political universal that the secularisation process has lost sight of throughout modernity[14].

In this way the difference, which is at times acute, between shared political action and the various cultural identities ceases, at least in principle, to be conflictual. The various subjects in question ought obviously to live together under the guidance of the public institution, while this latter, if it is to accomplish its sensitive regulatory role, ought to be non-confessional and impartial towards all, without however taking up neutralist positions. It will be able to act in this way by guaranteeing the two constitutive levels of the political: an acknowledgement of the value of the practical-social common good of being together and an acknowledgement of those specific values that ongoing negotiation will recognise gradually as such, according to the criterion formulated by Rawls of the overlapping consensus[15], in the continuing quest, from time to time, for a noble compromise on specific goods of an ethical, social, cultural, economic, and political nature with all the others “inhabiting” the plural society.

On the basis of these points we can see that the theme of the foundation, which will of necessity become axiomatic in plural societies, will inevitably be an ongoing part of the debate between subjects.

The fact that often the broadening of rights makes more likely the progressive elimination of the philosophical, ideological, and theological presuppositions that would limit their expansion, does not prevent the problem of axioms being reflected in the actual content of the rights: liberty, life, and human dignity acquire new meanings and unprecedented forms precisely because the relevant philosophical context has been lost to view. The context is not discussed, it is simply forgotten. As the correlative of this, the specific content of each right fades away. Concepts wander beyond their natural or at least initial borders. Such for example is the case with human dignity. Developed as a useful tool for the protection of minorities and vulnerable individuals, it is now utilised to configure a person’s right to terminate his own life.

This is an example of the profound variations in the orientation of contemporary rights, whereby the redefinition of fundamental concepts as imposed by the plural society[16], mainly taking as its basis a concept of liberty understood in a purely subjective way, often ends up overturning their traditional meaning.

We are thus faced with a paradox: a hitherto unprecedented circulation and expansion of rights in tandem with a degree of vagueness about their content. 

7. The task

Here is the point of entry for the contribution of the Marcianum – the specific role of the theological dimension and of the social doctrine of the Church. The point at issue is not about putting “new wine into other wineskins”, but about making clearer the true face of these rights. This operation brings into question the whole horizon of the human and theological sciences. Looked at from one side, any catalogue of rights has formidable economic and social implications, but in truth it is itself the product of a certain view of man which is always I-in-relation. To recover the true face of rights it is indispensable to engage with their anthropological and social dimensions: an objective on which the various sciences and disciplines converge, each with its own specificity but in a perspective which increasingly requires a transdisciplinary dimension.

Dialoghi di San Giorgio – Inaugural Event – Venice, 13 September 2010

Protecting nature or saving creation?

Ecological conflicts and religious passions

  Card. Angelo Scola

Patriarch of Venice

1. A cue from Mahler

“O Schönheit! O ewigen Liebens, Lebens trunk’ne Welt!”: “O beauty, O world drunk with eternal love and life!” These words that Mahler added to the text of the last movement of Das Lied von der Erde (1907-1909) arguably sum up the whole spirit of the work. They are fundamental concepts shaping the structure of the composition.

First, beauty. According to Prince Myshkin’s celebrated claim in Dostoevsky’s The Idiot, “Beauty will save the world.”[1] But beauty, if separated from good and truth would, to use Dostoevsky’s words again, this time pronounced by Dmitri Karamazov, be “terrible because it has not been fathomed and never can be fathomed, for God sets us nothing but riddles… The awful thing is that beauty is mysterious as well as terrible. God and the devil are fighting there and the battlefield is the heart of man.”[2] And yet, as the great St Augustine asks, significantly in De musica: “Tell me, I beg you, what else can one love if not beautiful things?”[3]

The second key concept in Mahler’s phrase is the world, seen as the whole of reality. In this connection his reference to drunkenness requires close scrutiny. It is not meant as an allusion to the “third eye of the poet” pointing the way to other worlds, which the so-called poètes maudits in late 19th-century Paris (Baudelaire, Verlaine, Rimbaud, Mallarmé…) sought by drinking absinthe. It is an opening up to fullness, overabundance and even the longing for. This brings us to love, the power which “moves the sun and the stars”[4], and often becomes solace in life. And lastly, life and eternity. Both because life is unquenchable thirst for eternity and because in every life there is something eternal. 

2. Taking in the real

Like all musical geniuses, Mahler alludes to an irreducible state of affairs. Reality speaks to man and man is able to take in reality. Indeed, there may well be an intimate correspondence between the two.

But where does the possibility of the relationship between man and the outside world come from? To come ex abrupto to the theme of this meeting: is this relationship the involvement –  albeit at qualitatively different levels – of all beings in a single nature, or the relationship that both have with a Creator? Before attempting to answer this question, we must mention an important factor. Although the question concerning the relationship between man and the world is as old as humanity itself, today it has taken on an urgent new relevance. Unlike what happened up to the age of Kant, it now seems inconceivable that anthropological and ethical questions might come from cosmology. Considerations about the Earth no longer provide a picture in which man must find a place (anthropology); nor do they constitute an example to be followed[5] or to which man must or can refer in some way. Man now appears literally to be im-mondo (“not of the world” or “unclean” and excluded from the sacred). The Earth often appears only to be a kind of inconsequential ornament. People confidently go about their affairs but their affairs owe nothing at all to the cosmos. They are extraneous to it: “We no longer know in what way it is morally good that there are humans beings in the world; and, for example, why it is good that they continue to be there. Is their existence worth the sacrifices that it costs? To the biosphere, to their parents, to themselves?”[6].

Precisely on these grounds, deciding what kind of relationship man has with the Earth is an urgent crucial issue. 

3. Man and the Earth

An initial suggestion as to what our position in the surrounding environment is comes from the Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I of Constantinople: “It is a fact that the term ‘environment’ presupposes someone encompassed by it. The two realities involved include, on the one hand, human beings as the ones encompassed, and, on the other hand, the natural creation as the one that encompasses… we must clearly retain this distinction between nature as constituting the environment and humanity as encompassed by it”[7]. Besides providing an essential initial description of the relationship between man and the environment, Bartholomew’s remarks illustrate how this relationship belongs to the shared experience of life. Man experiences a living exchange with the created world and at the same time cannot avoid wondering about the meaning of being immersed in nature: where is that experience grounded?

In the Bible the environment in which man is created is represented by the figure of a garden (the Greek parádeisos), a place of beauty in which man’s constituent relations – with self, with God and all other living beings – are harmonious. Moreover, the “environment” itself has been created for man, who is called on to cultivated and care for it (Gen 2:15). He is also given the task of naming the living creatures (Gen 2:19).

Starting from theological thinking about creation, we realise how God’s creative action is manifested not only in making the world exist, but also in making human beings free and therefore responsible for the whole of creation. The narrative of the Fall of man and woman is meant to signify that from the first instant of creation, man’s freedom is at stake. We cannot think of man separately from his freedom. And the Earth exists for man so much that the Church identifies the root of the environmental issue in original sin. John Paul II described the issue in exquisitely anthropological terms: “In his desire to have and to enjoy rather than to be and to grow, man consumes the resources of the earth and his own life in an excessive and disordered way. At the root of the senseless destruction of the natural environment lies an anthropological error, which un fortunately is widespread in our day. Man, who discovers his capacity to transform and, in a certain sense, create the world through his own work, forgets that this is always based on God’s prior and original gift of the things that are. Man thinks that he can make arbitrary use of the Earth, subjecting it without restraint to his will, as though the Earth did not have its own requisites and a prior God given purpose, which man can indeed develop but must not betray. Instead of carrying out his role as a co-operator with God in the work of the creation, man sets himself up in place of God and thus ends up provoking a rebellion on the part of nature, which is more tyrannized than governed by him”[8]. This is why, as the Revelation still teaches us, the man-environment relation must be seen from the point of view of Redemption.

Christ’s resurrection ushers in a new stage in which the relationship between man and creation is set under the sign of birth or “labour”, which is painful but positive because intended for the good in life. And this is above all anthropological labour, which affects however, as St Paul points out, the whole of creation: “For creation awaits with eager expectation the revelation of the children of God; for creation was made subject to futility, not of its own accord but because of the one who subjected it, in hope that creation itself would be set free from slavery to corruption and share in the glorious freedom of the children of God. We know that all creation is groaning in labour pains even until now; and not only that, but we ourselves, who have the first-fruits of the Spirit, we also groan within ourselves as we wait for adoption, the redemption of our bodies. For in hope we were saved” (Rom 8: 19-24). In this way anthropological labour and cosmological labour are interlocked in the ineluctable eschatological perspective. Thus in the second coming – already initiated on the path of the human family – what is already complete in Christ will be completed in us and in the world through the resurrection of our mortal body in our true body, in the new heavens and the new Earth. According to the Christian point of view, in this light we can look at the first creation and the new creation not as two separate realities which succeed each other mechanically, but as two moments which reciprocally embrace each other. The second assumes the first and gives its full meaning. The first in itself would inevitably remain incomplete and not adequately intelligible. Moreover, the historic-salvific path develops according to a plan conceived “before the foundation of the world” (Eph 1:4), which will be realised in “the fullness of times” (Eph 1:10).

With the new creation, Christ is revealed as the Head of creation itself:[9] the foundation of Christ’s caring for all men until his death and his resurrection for us lies in the creation of all men in Christ[10].

With thus grasp the literal meaning of creation in Christianity as the primordial relationship between God and the human person in the world: Why did God create man and the world when he has no need of them? This question can be couched in the terms of modernity as: Why is there being rather than nothingness?

Creation is the gift that God makes of Himself. Through it, he freely brings into being and maintains creatures in life, who, although radically distinct from Him, bear His indelible mark. 

4. Two reductive versions of the man-nature relationship

This vision of existence enables us to eschew two inadequate conceptions – inadequate because basically incapable of fully accounting for human experience – of the man-environment relationship.

On one hand, an extreme anthropocentrism, whereby man is the absolute master of the cosmos. We know that some ecological thinkers base this line of reasoning on the precedence that the Bible accords to man over the created world[11]. The argument comes from the first version of the Genesis narrative of creation, which takes the form of an order given to man: “Be fertile and multiply; fill the earth and subdue it. Have dominion over the fish of the sea, the birds of the air, and all the living things that move on the earth” (Gen 1:28). Without entering into a detailed reply to this critique, we can simply refer to the “second narrative” of creation (Gen 2:41-3:24), in which the Biblical teaching is formulated as follows: “The Lord God then took the man and settled him in the garden of Eden, to cultivate and care for it” (Gen 2:15). Here there are not only two protagonists in the man-creation relationship – the human community and creation – but three, given that the relationship originates with the Creator. This leads to a further consideration. If man cannot rise to be the omnipotent master of the cosmos, nor can he delude himself that he can save it from disaster only through his own efforts, even when resorting to the remarkable discoveries and applications of science and technology.

Moreover, this prevents us from naively accepting a biocentrism or ecocentrism which sets out to “eliminate the ontological and axiological difference between man and other living beings, since the biosphere is considered a biotic unity with undifferentiated value”[12]. Accordingly, “man’s superior responsibility can be eliminated in favour of an egalitarian consideration of the ‘dignity’ of all living beings”[13]. But this view impoverishes both the value of man, who is ultimately denied the status of a free agent participating in the activities of the Creator, and the value of the earth, which is stripped of all meaning that is not its own pure conservation. In fact as Pope Benedict XVI writes: “Human salvation cannot come from nature alone, understood in a purely naturalistic sense”[14].

If the cosmos is reduced to nature in which we are absorbed, our relationship with it can at most be aesthetical, but not ethical (Kierkegaard). Nature, however, is not only “a set of ‘things’ but also of ‘meanings’”[15], through which human freedom is called on to realise its own original vocation in the search for the face of the Creator. 

5. Environmental conflicts as an anthropological issue

After this brief survey of the Christian vision of the relationship between man and creation, we can ask –  in line with the objectives of the organisers of this event – if and how this conception, and similarly those of the other great religions, can still effectively interact with a way of perceiving and tackling the current intense ecological conflicts.

It is obviously not up to me, nor am I competent in the field, even to attempt to answer the question which will be discussed by the experts during the Dialogue. It may roughly be framed in the following terms: are religions, as demonstrated by their influence in other fields in the past, able to mobilise energies to contribute to a thorough-going ecological conversion? This would require a kind of radical eschatology, as Latour argues[16], i.e. a long slow change affecting many areas of life referring to an enormous quantity of details and, most importantly, dependent on an infinite number of actions which, and this is the difficult part, demand that billions of people change their outlook. Can religious passions come to the aid of the low energy levels which seem to characterise the many ecological conflicts today?

This question contains a fairly overt invitation to frame in a radically new way the relationship between eco-logy and theo-logy in order to tackle openly the internal conflicts in these two worlds. I will only make a generic kind of suggestion.

I do not wish to go into the debate on the concept of nature. Almost everyone, in both the scientific and theological fields, now believes nature is doomed and considers this situation to be responsible for almost all the ills afflicting humanity. Personally, I believe that since something given is always given to someone, an ultimate ineffable element is ineliminable. And from Aristotle on, what has fysis been, if not this multiple, dynamic actuality?

But we must bear in mind, and especially as far as Christianity is concerned, that we cannot speak of nature other than in the terms of creation. And it is effective thinking on creation that paves the way to reconsidering the relationship between ecology and theology. Creation brings the relationship into the picture. Post-modern man is faced with a painful alternative. Having left behind the age of utopias and the pitch darkness it cast on the last century, post-modern anthropology has taken on a strongly Pascalian character. It is pursuing the meaningful wager of a radical alternative; does third-millennium man only wish to be the experiment of himself or does he wish to be a self-in-relation?[17] To face up to this challenge, anthropology must be dramatic. It must accept that the insuperable one, of which the self consists, is always present in a twofold way. I am one, that is why I can say “I”, but I am always one of two: one of body-soul; one of man-woman; one of individual-community, and one of man-cosmos. Hence otherness makes me an internal dimension of self, which on these grounds cannot exist other than in a relationship. It is the self which openly demonstrates this dramatic or polarized character. This is why the correct way of referring to the self is as the self-in-relation.

The interlocking of constituent polarities reveals the authentic relationship of creation as the permanent loving relationship of He who summons into being all reality (cf. Rom 1:20) and continues to accompany it. According to the Jewish and Christian traditions, God made the relationship of love the reason for his compromise with the human family throughout its history. For the Jewish people and for Christians, he is God with us, and the us brings into play all the constituent polarities-relationships that I mentioned earlier. The ever polar relationship of self with oneself, with others, with the cosmos and with God is the inevitable route by which we can say “I” in a humanly satisfactory way.

We inevitably see in this perspective the urgent task of inscribing the good relationship with creation in the intersecting circles of the other constituent relations.

I realise that what I am suggesting is too general not to run the risk of being obvious. But I feel it does show that there is a bridge between ecology and theology. And the more judicious scientists are also building this bridge today, having abandoned an ecologist vulgate based on a mythical return to a good and innocent nature. Baudelaire’s exclamation – Pan has come back! – is empty. And we have even less reason for crediting Assmann when he describes Moses as an Egyptian. The way for the urgent, collaborative convergence between ecology and theology is to continue the logic of creation with love. This logic is scientific, religious and political all in one. And consequently it is the logic of justice and of the complete development of humanity.

Religions can have something important to say on environmental issues when they are expressed through individual and social players willing to narrate the fullness of human experience and committed to putting forward valid arguments on its behalf.

Mahler himself bears witness to this when he says: “My heart is eternally devoured by a torment: my immense yearning for you”[18]. Or when he feels he is prey to the questions that inexorably arise from experience common to all people: “Where have we come from? Where are we going to? Is it true, as Schopenhauer says, that I really desired to live before being conceived? If I was created free, why does my personality imprison me? What is all this suffering for? How can cruelty and evil be the work of a merciful God? In the end, will death reveal the meaning of life to us?”[19]

As he was to tell his faithful disciple, Bruno Walter, on looking back on life when death already had a hand on his shoulder: “There are many – too many – things that I could say about myself; I cannot even begin. I’ve suffered so much in these last eighteen months [after his daughter’s death and his own illness] that I can barely tell you about them. How could I try and describe such a terrible crisis? I see everything in a completely new light; I have undergone such an incredible transformation that it wouldn’t surprise me to find myself in a new body (like Faust in the last scene). I’m more eager than ever to live and I find ‘the habit of living’ sweeter than ever.” He ends with a magnificent and particularly meaningful statement: “ It is strange that when I hear music, even when I myself am conducting I find very precise replies to all my questions and everything is perfectly clear and obvious to me. Or rather, what I feel that I perceive with such clarity is that they are not questions at all”[20].

In short, after so many thoughts, desires and struggles, Mahler finds true solace for his suffering in music – a real opening to the Mystery. The realm of music is very close to that of faith.

It is an opening inviting us to cross the whole of creation.

Conference program:

THE CHRISTIANS’ CONTRIBUTION TO THE EUROPEAN INTEGRATION PROCESS

Cracow, September 10-11,  2010