Angelo Scola - eng vers » christ

The Patriarch’s message for the Epiphany

ufficiostampa — Wed, 06 Jan 2010 13:51:43 +0000

The Magi represent all men in search of God. Saint Paul annotes that «The pagans now share the same inheritance» (Eph 3,6). «Jesus Christ is not only relevant to Christians, or only to believers, but to all men and women. Christ, who is the centre of faith is also the foundation of hope. And every human being is constantly in need of hope» (Benedict XVI, Angelus 29th November 2009).

This is the source where Christians draw their passion to meet all men in every part of the earth and to share their life.

Human pain and Redeemer’s work: an abstract taken from the traditional Redeemer Address

ufficiostampa — Mon, 14 Sep 2009 08:48:48 +0000

From the 2009 Redeemer Address by Patriarch Card. A. Scola

1. Personally, I was provoked to choose pain and suffering as the topic for the Redeemer Address during the Pastoral Visitation, as I met in their homes people who were seriously sick or very ill. This issue has become more urgent to me, I would say unpostponable, because of the faces, the looks and the few but radical words that were addressed to me by them and by their loved ones. In the history of the human family, it seems that the aggression of pain and suffering never stops. Like all elementary realities that are part of universal human experience (knowledge, love and so on), also pain and suffering are difficult to explain. Here, we just want to reflect a little on the immense travail of pain and suffering that mankind as a whole — but always in the flesh of individuals — has to bear. If –- as St. Augustine said – every man is, as such, a great question, at the heart of the man-question lies the question on pain and suffering.

2. “The shelves of the human pharmacy:” with this colorful expression Balthasar describes the main human attempts to face the agonized question of pain and suffering. In his analysis he examines first of all two categories that are apparently opposed, but that in reality share the same attitude of resignation: “defeatism” and “rebellion.” “Defeatism” is objectively the foundation of the temptation to commit suicide, either carried out directly or “assisted.” This is a true “surrender in front of too much suffering, thinking that in this way one can free oneself from it” (Balthasar). The second position, “rebellion,” is self-contradictory: even if it can blame, in turn, God, mankind or radical evil, in reality it boils down to rebellion for the sake of rebellion, a challenge against suffering which is extreme as it is powerless, in the delusion of keeping it quiet. Nowadays, however, there is an ever more prevalent attitude which wants to mount a frontal attack on pain and suffering in the attempt to eliminate them. It is born out of scientific and technological power which, especially in the field of medicine, seems to make man the master of his own health and life, in the conviction that pain and suffering will be defeated, even in a not too distant future. From this perspective, tragedies like those in L’Aquila or Viareggio become a stumbling stone (scandal), because they reveal starkly that we remain powerless in front of the violence of some evils. In fact, the current obsession with health, which pursues only indefinite physical well-being, clashes with the elementary human experience of being “one in soul and body” (Gaudium et Spes 14). It then becomes abstract, if not unrealistic, to talk about health (and disease)if one does not identify a center to the I, a point of connection between the psyco-physical and spiritual dimensions. Health and disease always concern all of the I.

3. In the development of history pain and suffering keep rising again from their ashes in new forms, like a tragic phoenix. So much so that man is tempted to call God to task for the existence of pain in the world. Christian tradition, but also western thought, record repeated attempts to “justify” God in this regard. In order not to attribute evil to God himself, or in order not to regard it as an original principle independent of God, the traditional doctrine has stated that God allows evil for the sake of good. It does so in order to put man to the test, to purify him or even to make the beauty of good more evident and to express the whole richness of the cosmos. But, is the thesis that God allows evil enough for a man who experiences radical evil (Kant), unjustifiable evil (Nabert), innocent evil (Fr. Gnocchi)? Jesus Christ did not elaborate any theory to explain the existence of pain and suffering in the world. He learned “obedience from what he suffered, and made perfect” (Heb 5:8-9) he carried out a work of redemption by whose power every suffering receives light. In the opus Dei of Jesus Christ, the Son made man for us by dying nailed all evil, taking it directly upon himself. Not only did he experience terrible physical suffering, but he also went through an unrepeatable experience of moral pain: abandonment by the Father. Writing to the Corinthians, St. Paul uses extremely strong words: “He who had not known sin, God treated him as sin for our sake” ( 2Cor 5:21). What does this mean? It can only mean that Jesus experienced the most radical pain and suffering: the loss of Love. Sin indeed separates, destroys every relationship. We glimpse the abyss of the mysterious dialogue between the agonized question by the Son abandoned on the cross and the Father’s answer, made of silence. Now, “in the father’s silence on front of the question by the son is found the proper place of suffering.” Of every human suffering. Jesus lived this experience freely. His mission was not only the choice of God’s solidarity with suffering humanity, but also a choice made in our place. Not only with us, but for us (vicarious substitution). The suffering, death and resurrection of Jesus have the power to expiate all the sins of the world. We face the unfathomable mystery of the human sorrow of the Son of God, sorrow embraced by the human freedom of the divine Person of the Word. A few elements from experience help us understand it: for man it is impossible to accomplish worthy enterprises of any kind without a high dose of suffering; in every man’s life there is no genuine fecundity without pain; above all, a man who has committed injustice is restored to his dignity though expiation leading him back into the truth. The redeemer, by dying on the cross in our place, reveals all the fecundity of sorrow.

4. The work accomplished by the love of Christ is not confined to his individual person. It has the power to touch every human suffering in order to turn it into a work of love and hope. Human suffering, embraced by the love of the crucified one, also becomes fruitful. For those who adhere to Christ, explicitly or implicitly, the possibility of full (eternal) life is already realized. Here, in history, not only in the next life. Suffering is able to change the fortunes of personal and social history (see the little shepherds of Fatima) because it shares in the Redemption of Jesus. “Why have you abandoned me?”: a son’s question that receives as an answer the father’s silence. Not a question without answer, because also silence is an answer. Is this not the dominant experience that all of us have when we face somebody else’s suffering? To be quiet, not to know what to say. Well, such silence, in a seemingly paradoxical fashion, (as always in Christianity) brings us closer to God instead pushing us farther away.

The Redeemer did not try to erase pain through a more brilliant theory, but accomplished a work of total self-identification with suffering, shedding light on its deep meaning: collaboration to His redemption of the world. Even though speaking of expiation for the sins of the world may bother our post-modern sensitivity, we cannot deny this reality. Thus, the suffering of Christ is inclusive, that is it opens the way to other sufferings, which can expiate vicariously in union with his suffering. This awareness does not give up on the tireless effort to fight human suffering, but gives rise to a creativity which is not utopian.

5. Now I would like to let the logic of incarnation, which is proper to the Christian faith, lead me to consider our behavior in front of certain situations of extreme suffering, patients in a vegetative state and those terminally ill. They raise very delicate questions which, incidentally are being debated in parliament in these very days. Viewed in the context of the previous reflections, the experience of people tested by sickness and disability, together with the unavoidable burden of pain and suffering, sheds light also on medicine’s therapeutic action. The latter is authentic only if the intervention to alleviate suffering is offered within an integral image of the human being. It seems impossible to refute the conclusion reached by many experts that what is commonly called “vegetative state” is not a disease, but rather the most serious form of disability. Vegetative state does not require extraordinary devices to support the vital functions, but only action on the patient’s behalf to satisfy the needs he/she cannot fulfill independently any longer: hygiene, movement, nutrition (that is, food and water).

This is perhaps the most mysterious situation, very hard to diagnose, and it raises deep questions about the dignity of the human person and the mystery of our being. Care of somebody in this state means, then, simply taking care, with minimal technological content but a very intense human and nursing engagement. Even if aware of the very low likelihood of recovery, one can keep accompanying the patient, without falling into the opposite extremes of obstinacy or abandonment. According to the experts the case of so-called “terminal patients” is very different. It is precisely in this context that questions arise regarding putative therapeutic excesses and forms of euthanasia. When I was visiting some of these sick people, a question came to me: is it not us, the healthy ones, who ask for a “dignified death,” whereas those who are sick ask for a dignified life even with disease, a dignified life to the last instant, made of what characterizes man: the ability to love and to be loved? A precious and concrete example of what it means to take care of these sick people is given us by palliative treatments. The modern definition of such treatments, as given by the European Association for Palliative Care, says: “Palliative treatments respect life and regard dying as a natural process. Their goal is not to accelerate or postpone death, but rather to preserve the best possible quality of life till the end.” This definition shows great realism. It must be especially kept in mind by the care-givers, since quite a few studies have shown that requests for euthanasia or assisted suicide by terminal patients depend to a significant extent on the attitude that health workers and relatives have towards life, disease and especially the patient.

6. Among the factors that truly affect a person’s choices — both by forbidding practices and granting rights, and by helping shape a mentality –one must include a country’s laws. This why the legislator must be very careful to produce “objectively just laws.” Regarding the Dichiarazione anticipata di trattamento (DAT, a kind of living will), I feel the responsibility to invite the legislator to guarantee the essential principles that have been recalled several times by the Italian Bishops’ Conference. At the same time, the law promoting palliative treatments must be implemented as soon as possible and given all the necessary funding so that these treatments may be practiced everywhere in our country. Adequate funds must also be spent on conventional pain therapy.

7. The mystery of pain and suffering stands inexorable in front of each one of us, but its value is already kept safe in the burning core of trinitarian love. Thus, we have been given a light-filled road to face them. Under the condition that the freedom of each one of us must raise them up daily into the horizon of true love of God, of others and of oneself.

Let us taste and adore Christ present here and now: the inexhaustible fascination of Venice is marked by this new and eternal covenant with God

ufficiostampa — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 07:53:07 +0000

“On the stump of the ancient memorial Jesus grafts the radical novelty of his redemptive sacrifice: “This is my body… This is my blood” (Mk 14, 22 and 24). In the semitic language “Take, this is my body” (Mk 14,22) simply and paradoxically means “This is myself.” By operating the substantial transformation of the bread and the wine into his body made into a gift and his blood poured out, Jesus anticipates the glorious passion on Golgotha.

In the Eucharistic supper his disciples participate in it beforehand. but we also, two thousand years afterwards, have the immense gift of joining it. Let us taste and adore Christ present here and now, winner over time and space, master of the cosmos. The blood of the Redeemer circulates through the Eucharist as a vital lymph in the Church…”

Homely given by H.E. Angelo Card. Scola, Patriarch of Venice for the Corpus Domini Sunday.

Ex 24,3-8; Ps 115; Heb 9,11-15; Mk 14,12-16.22-26

1. After rising early in the morning, Moses builds an altar and, aided by “young men of the children of Israel” (Ex 24,5), draws from the sacrificial oxen the blood which, after having been poured into basins, he is going to sprinkle half on the altar and half on the people. The people, summoned for this purpose, listens to Moses reading the Book of the covenant. Above all, the people consents to it by shouting in one voice “All the commandments that the Lord has given, we will obey” (Ex 24,3).
Let us, in this moment, pull ourselves away from any possible distraction in order to immerse ourselves into this sacred scene. What does it express?
In the Old Testament blood is life and belongs to God. It signifies that, because of the covenant, from now on the same life is participated by God and by His “firstborn” Israel. God and his people belong to each other because, in a sense, what is created between them is a blood relation. Thus, we understand the concluding act of that most ancient liturgical action, which Moses brings to a close with a sober but solemn statement: “Behold the blood of the covenant, which the Lord has made with you based on all these words” (Ex 24,8).

2. “Not by means of the blood of goats and calves, but by means of his own blood” (Heb 9,12) Jesus places himself as “the mediator of the new covenant” (Heb 9,15). The life that springs from His blood is eternal life. The blood of Christ has the disarming power of reality. In order to expiate for man’s sin, for our sin, Christ offers His own life. This is why Christ’s redemption, unlike the ancient liberation, is not transitory and does not need to be continuously renewed, but rather is unique and definitive (“an eternal redemption” Heb 9,12). “This is thus the man who in himself alone offered all that he knew was necessary for the fulfillment of our redemption, he who is at the same time priest, sacrifice, God and temple: priest, through whom we are reconciled, sacrifice, which reconciles us, God, to whom we are reconciled, temple in which we are reconciled” (St. Fulgentius of Ruspe. from the treaty: On the faith in Peter).

3. The sublime prayer pronounced by Jesus when he institutes the Holy Eucharist reveals forcefully that his Covenant brings us the gift of unending life.
On the stump of the ancient memorial Jesus grafts the radical novelty of his redemptive sacrifice: “This is my body… This is my blood” (Mk 14, 22 and 24). In the semitic language “Take, this is my body” (Mk 14,22) simply and paradoxically means “This is myself.” By operating the substantial transformation of the bread and the wine into his body made into a gift and his blood poured out, Jesus anticipates the glorious passion on Golgotha. In the Eucharistic supper his disciples participate in it beforehand. but we also, two thousand years afterwards, have the immense gift of joining it. Let us taste and adore Christ present here and now, winner over time and space, master of the cosmos. The blood of the Redeemer circulates through the Eucharist as a vital lymph in the Church and gives us a foretaste of an intimacy with God without any shadows and any boundaries.
And we, through our full, aware and active participation in the Holy Mass, are progressively educated to that “worship fit for a human being” (“spiritual worship” Rm 12,1) which is the offering of our whole life. Thus, nothing of what we live is banal if we receive it from His hands, but everything – every circumstance and every relationship – is taken over by the same sacramental power as the Eucharistic act.

4. Let us ask ourselves with a contrite heart: are we worthy of such a great gift? Do we really desire above everything else that our life take this Eucharistic shape? (Benedict XVI, Sacramentum Caritatis, 70). Our way of participating in the Eucharist opens us up to share with our fellow human beings every aspect of life starting from the liberation that was inaugurated by the passion, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Let us begin by not forgetting the still enormous mass of people who do not have bread to eat.
In this solemn vesper, may these questions reach the heart of all the Christians of Venice, who by now have been engaged for five years in the Pastoral Visitation: let the Holy Eucharist make us rediscover the sweet Christ among us and in us.

5. Shortly we will carry in procession the sacramental Jesus in the heart of our city. We will do this so that His presence may bless our Venice, and Venetians and guests may adore God truly present in the Most Blessed Sacrament. With this gesture we want to remind visually Venetians and guests that the inexhaustible fascination of Venice is indelibly marked by this new and eternal covenant with God that lives and pulsates in the Eucharistic reality.
Venice, never forget your Lord, the Nicopeia Virgin, your saints!
Humbly proud of belonging to the new people of God that travels across history, we shall walk behind the white host certain that Jesus present and alive is the power that gives new strength to every human being. We too, the so-called post-secular and post-modern people, are pilgrims, more than ever. Why should we then forgo the Panis Angelorum, factus cibus viatorum? Amen.

English translation by Carlo Lanellotti

“Truth is not a doctrine, is this Man”. The Palm Sunday’s homily in Sain Mark

ufficiostampa — Sun, 05 Apr 2009 17:23:33 +0000

“The passion of Our Lord is not a myth, but it consumes itself «under Pontius Pilate» and standing on the solid base of history. However, in the same time, the manifestation of what sorrowfully accompanies the whole history of humanity from the beginning to the end: God is beaten and held in contempt while He humbles himself to the extreme level for us and to take over himself our sins (kenosis is the total emptying of oneself).
Let us therefore com-move ourselves and get involved in the life of this Man. Truth is not a doctrine, but it is first of all this Man, the Man of sorrows who for love experiences suffering….

The Palm Sunday’s homily of the Patriarch His Eminence cardinal Angelo Scola given in the Basilica of Saint Mark.

1. As we have often mentioned, Holy Week, starting with this solemn celebration, is the typical week: the events that our Mother the Church makes us live on today and during the Easter Triduum give sense to time and history, enlightening the existence of each one of us and of all men of every time.
The passion of Our Lord is not a myth, but it consumes itself «under Pontius Pilate» and standing on the solid base of history. However, in the same time, the manifestation of what sorrowfully accompanies the whole history of humanity from the beginning to the end: God is beaten and held in contempt while He humbles himself to the extreme level for us and to take over himself our sins (kenosis is the total emptying of oneself).
Let us therefore com-move ourselves and get involved in the life of this Man. Truth is not a doctrine, but it is first of all this Man, the Man of sorrows who for love experiences suffering.

2. The account of the Passion according to Mark is a kind of a transcript of the events. The evangelist offers us facts, an objective narration, highly dramatic, without any reference to feelings. Through violent actions and pressing dialogues is described the fight between good – yet this Man «did not cling to his equality with God but emptied himself to assume the condition of a slave, and became as men are, he was humbler yet, even to accepting death, death on a cross» (Phil 2: 6-8) – and evil without excluding the tremendous blows.

3. Mark is not afraid of scandalizing us with his strong expressions. In the Garden of Gethsemane Jesus is afraid («and a sudden fear came over him, and great distress» Mk 14: 33), he stagers exhausted («threw himself on the ground» Vs. 35). In the account of the arrest and in the pressing events one perceives the violent fury overwhelming over him: «Even while he was still speaking, Judas one of the Twelve, came up with a number of men armed with swords and clubs, sent by the chief priests and the scribes and the elders» (Vs. 43). In Mark’s narration, unlike that of the other synoptic Gospels, Jesus does not say anything to the traitor nor to the disciple hitting the servant of the high priest.
His silence impresses in front of the deafening clamour of evil («Several, indeed, brought false evidence against him» (Vs. 57); «And they all gave their verdict: he deserved to die. Some of »hem started spitting at him and, blindfolding him, began hitting him with their fists and shouting, “Play the prophet!” And the attendants rained blows on him» Vs. 64-65). Peter, after having followed him from a distance, terrified he persists in his betrayal («but he denied it saying: I do not know, I do not understand , what you are talking about» (Vs. 71). At the end of the scene Jesus is abandoned by all.

4. After the supplication of the Son of God crucified «My God, my God , why have you abandoned me?» (Mk 15:34), «But Jesus gave a loud cry and breathed his last» (Vs. 37): the life of the Saviour of the world ends with an appalling cry giving voice to the inconceivable and unspeakable injustice. Yet, it does not manage to detach Him from the relationship that connects him with the Father. Suffering, even dreadfully, which without Him is an inescapable principle of suspicion leading to hostility and separation, while with Jesus man recoups the possibility to open himself and to abandon himself totally. This firm certainty of God’s love is witnessed in the passage of Isaiah which we have just listened in the First Reading. The servant of Yahweh, prophecy of Christ the Lord – the Passion according to Mark is full of scripture quotations – is he who receives everything from the Father:- «The Lord has given me a disciple’s tongue. Each morning he wakes me to hear, to listen like a disciple. The Lord has opened my ear. For my part, I made no resistance, neither did I turn away… The Lord comes to my help» (Is 50; 4-7).

5. “Waste” is the measure of love. The whole Passion is under the sign of “auto-waste” of God’s love for man.
The woman anointing Jesus’ head is not called by her name. She does not pronounce one word. Her gesture speaks for her. And it was so loud that Jesus himself declares: «Truly I tell you, wherever the gospel is preached all over the world, what she has done will be told in memory of her» (Vs. 9).The expression «in memory of he» recalls the words pronounced in the Eucharistic Supper «Do this in memory of me» and seals the forever an essential component of love.

6. «The centurion, who was standing in front of him, had seen how he had died and he said: “In truth this man was a son of God”» (Mk 15:39).
In this moment of pitch dark Jesus’ mystery is fully revealed. The witness is he who has limpid eyes and a simple heart to recognize Him and proclaim Him to all.
We beseech the Holy Virgin to accompany us in following Jesus our beloved Saviour, in this Holy Week. Amen!

September 11: five years after. An op-ed by Cardinal Angelo Scola

ufficiostampa — Mon, 11 Sep 2006 09:39:11 +0000

Five years have passed since 11 September 2001, the day of the Twin Towers, the day when all of us, even the most lacking, even the most shallow, even the most distracted, were shocked and opened our eyes, with our hearts troubled. What is happening? What kind of a world is this? Nobody was able to avoid these questions and nobody, still today, can avoid them. Not that 11 September was an isolated explosion: a history preceded it, and a very long history. But perhaps we did not have the eyes or the energy or the desire to look at this history. However on that day something happened that had the force of a beginning, such was its terrifying drama, These are the thoughts and the questions that beset us when think again of what happened five years ago.

Nobody is able to weigh up the ‘balance’, even though many propose conclusions; nobody is able to provide comprehensive interpretations, even though many exhibit deductions and explanations, including ones that are about plots and behind the scenes activity.

Our contribution to the debate begins with a different assumption: the entry onto the scene of a subject who asks questions and reacts to the consequences of an extraordinary event. Christians and 11 September, this is the title, the subject, of this fourth edition of Oasis. That is to say: faced with a circumstance, even a circumstance with a terrible and disturbing face, we ask ourselves what God is asking of us through this circumstance, what he asks of we Christians. I believe that first and foremost the event of 11 September brings to the fore the question of evil in the world. This is a question which has always in an acute way besieged the mind of man. With Leibniz and the Teodicea, the West even transformed it into an objection: ‘If God exists why does evil exist in the world?’ And like a game of hide and seek, in looking for the responsibilities for evil different answers are attempted. Perhaps it is thought that God is not responsible for evil, but does not impede it and thus at the least He is quiet up there, in the heights of heaven. Or He is not responsible because simply He is not there and thus the curse of man is not to be redeemed in any way: nothing has meaning.

But in order to address the question of evil in an authentic way it is necessary first of all to go to the original experience of man. From there perhaps we will find some outline of an answer. ‘In the face of evil what am I? Am I able to eliminate evil?’ If a man is sincere, in front of his own evil and that of others, his first act is to recognise that he needs salvation, a salvation that he cannot alone give to himself. It is here that the message of Christ becomes dramatically evident: the possibility of the redemption of evil and thus of the salvation whose indispensability man perceives lies in One who did not engage in discourses about evil but proposed himself as liberation from evil; even though he had not sinned he allowed himself to be treated as a sinner; and as an innocent he allowed himself to be crucified for our sake. Salvation is not only the explanation of the constitutive enigma of man (‘what a strange being is a being that does not have in himself the foundation of his being? Who before did not exist and now does exist, and then will not be?’), but is even the concrete offer of Jesus himself as the Eucharistic way to life and truth. Thus the answer to the question of the Teodicea is not a theory about evil it is the person of Jesus who was crucified and rose again.

Now, this salvific key is offered to the freedom of every man. Balthasar says: ‘God in Jesus Christ ends the enigma of man but does not pre-decide his drama’. The meaning of this is that each one of us is always in action and must ratify with his ‘yes’ to Christ the path of his conversion, of his change, and of his victory over evil in faith. To those who listen to him Christ says: ‘you need to change, you must change, and you must always change’. This is the ‘convert!’ that gathers within it the whole of the great appeal of the Torah, of the Prophets, and of Wisdom, concentrated after a certain fashion in the appeal of the Baptist. ‘I beseech you, be reconciled with God’, says St. Paul. Thus 11 September pushes us deeply towards a great reflection on the enigma of man, on the enigma of evil, on the possibility of salvation from this enigma, on the possibility and responsibility that each individual man has in the construction of a personal and social ‘good life’.
Today, in Christians, all of this should bring about two approaches. First of all the depth of the question. ‘Are we in a position of confession? In our daily and communal lifestyle is the approach of confession, that is to say that of those who recognise that they are sinners and invoke the mercy of the cross, normal?’ Can we, instead, observe that we rarely enter the fray, rarely feel the urgent need for a question about our faithfulness to the Christian message. I believe, for example, that it is necessary to reflect on why in the East such a total confusion between Christianity and Western civilisation has been made possible. This confusion allows very many of our Islamic brethren to condemn both Christianity and the West as though they were the same thing, linked in the same decadence; we cannot confine ourselves to dismissing this as a simplistic criticism. I do not believe that Christians must throw a veil of negativity over the whole of the modern experience which so strongly marks the West, but it is certainly important to take on board ‘Eastern’ criticism so as to engage in courageous questions about the claim to reduce religion to a private fact, the intellectualistic and abstract claim of ‘democracies for export’, and the claim to an irrepressible freedom of conscience which, however, coincides with ‘it is forbidden to forbid’. To sum up, the formula of the Second Vatican Council is of great contemporary relevance: Christianity by its nature generates cultures but it is bound to no culture in particular.

Secondly, the energy of knowledge. To know Islam; to know the forms of Islam. And here the question of the subject involved returns. I would like to observe here the path followed by Oasis. We have made a proposal to the Christians of the West: to know Islam, to speak with Islam, through our Christian brethren of the East, through their millenarian experience, through their reality and their concerns as minorities. Through a created, concrete and present subject. This is a choice that is generating two very good consequences: it forces we Westerners to ‘de-intellectualise ourselves’ and leads our Eastern brethren to adopt this task within the universal Church. In this context we want to address the questions of a most general nature, that is to say of a social, economic and political nature, that this historical moment is bringing to the fore. Can we not today ask ourselves whether the great appeal launched by John Paul II against the war in Iraq was not a prophetic voice that should have been listened to? Can we reduce the problem of security in the West to mere technical and containing factors? How can Europe speak to the United States of America? Is it right to think that one must respond to human bombs with retaliation? In what sense can one prevent a threat? To what point should the use of force be taken?

Westerners believe that they have an explanation for everything, a reflex of the great European mind that has synthesised Alexandria, Jerusalem and Rome. But after losing the subjectivity that was behind it, this great culture has become one big building game: pieces to out together and take apart in a game that is increasingly abstract and rarefied. We produce theories that are always new and which lose sight of reality. And if one departs from real subjects, the purely scientific approach, the approach of study, is destined to be partial. From our wealth springs presumption, which easily becomes a superiority complex because within our mental system we can articulate very complete theories in relation to which, measured solely on the terrain of language, the developments that come from the East can appear overly primitive. However it is on the other side, specifically in the East, that we see a force, a belief in religio, in an explicit relationship with God, in relation to which, essentially, we are nostalgic, because by now we run the risk of being without fathers, the children of no one.

In this historical moment that began with 11 September, which is so dramatic and so dark, there is the possibility of a positive way. In the East and the West this passes by way of the community of Christians, the courage with which they themselves enter the fray, how they demonstrate that they are ‘confessing communities’, knowing how to adopt and make their own the request for salvation that beats in the heart of every man.