ConAltriOcchi blog – 以不同的眼光看世界-博客

"C'è un solo modo di vedere le cose finché qualcuno non ci mostra come guardare con altri occhi" – "There is only one way to see things, until someone shows us how to look at them with different eyes" (Picasso) – "人观察事物的方式只有一种，除非有人让我们学会怎样以不同的眼光看世界" (毕加索)

Category Archives: Conversion


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There are no enemies

Often our system, in order to continue standing, has to identify an enemy, it has to create one.  This is also true in children’s education.  Many of us in Italy will remember when our grandparents used the term “Austrian” in a derogatory manner: if you don’t behave properly I’ll call the Austrians, they used to say. Later we referred to “the Communists” and today, perhaps, the “Muslims.

One of the first teachings of the Gospel is that of the idea of the enemy: there are no enemies, there are men.  Even the Church has enemies – we have been taught – and therefore we must defend it from relativism, subjectivism, laicism etcetera, but Jesus never defended himself; and similarly neither did Peter and Paul. There is an entire history of enemies we have fought against while evil was in our midst: power, money, fear of losing our dominant position.

Thus, when Jesus says “«whosoever smiteth thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also»”, he is telling us to go beyond the enemy.  In the Gospel according to St. John, Jesus was slapped but he rendered it ineffective: “if I have spoken evil, bear witness of the evil: but if well, why smitest thou me?”

Jesus is asking us not to return violence for violence otherwise this will grow and turn into an interminable crescendo.

The logic of offering the other cheek, being stripped of one’s garments and dragged before the tribunal means recognizing violence, giving it a name and  “fighting it” like the sun conquers  the darkness which is gradually overcome by the expanding light.

We must begin to live this change by modifying the private spaces of our responsibility. Only men of the Beatitudes can build peace and integrate naturally into the great peace processes of history.  The powerful, the privileged, the lobbies will always be foreign bodies in the peace process and become, almost without realizing it, allies of war.

When I want to qualify nonviolence, I say justice, respect of diversity, peace, the common good.  I say the Beatitudes, words which give multiple names to this single truth of which Jesus was the first witness. Jesus is the witness of nonviolence, this nonviolence of the many names which are the beatitudes.

When someone has authority, a company, a position of leadership, or when a country owns resources, they should not defend them by the sword. Jesus said to Pilate: if my kingdom were of this world, my servants would fight. To fight with the sword is to kill, it is the violence which creates only defeats and no victors. In fact, our history is a river of blood spilt in the name of the principle that without a sword a kingdom cannot go on existing.  This is why we are always at war. «Put your sword back in its  place» said Jesus to Peter, otherwise right will always be with the strongest, the most violent, the cruellest and the best armed.

We must go back to the radical teaching of the Gospel, as St. Paul reminds us in his letter to the Corinthians.  The Corinthians criticized  Paul for his simplicity in announcing the Gospel not at their level of knowledge and culture. Paul answered by comparing the announcement of the Gospel to a building: the builders will be judged by whether they have placed Jesus Christ as the cornerstone,  not by their highly cultural discourses but empty of spiritual content. Let us make the crucifix the foundation of our life and not an aggressive tool of civil religion.

 

 


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Poor Lazarus reaches out to us. Reflection on Pope Francis’s Message for Lent 2017

Yesterday, the  Holy Father’s message for Lent was  published.   Lent is a favourable season for prayer,which will lead us to the Easter Triduum, the heart of the liturgical year.On Ash Wednesday,  the start of Lent, the Church performs a simple gesture which reminds us of the frailty of human nature, of being creatures. However, the fact of being created,  in the Christian  vision,does not mean to be reduced to a negative note, or lesser than the human being,  his nature and his potentialities. To be creatures assumes the existence of a  God, a Creator, who has loved us  “from our Mother’s womb” and takes care of us. God, Creator, yes, but even before that a Father. In fact, the Creed, , the symbol of the Christian faith, recites: “I believe in one God,Father Almighty, the Makerr of Heaven and Earth”.  The word almighty describes the  “role” of God as Father. God is a father who can do everything for his children by virtue of his love which binds him to them.  In this human creature, desired, loved and looked after by God , lives the Spirit, “who is the Lord and gives life”. The Spirit – the love which binds the Father to the Son – will be with us like a comforter, remaining with us all our days  “until the end of the world”. An eternal gift. In this year’s message, Pope Francis invites us to look after these gifts, two in particular.

 The Word is a gift. Other people are a gift. Is the title of Francis’ text which reflects on the biblical parable of the rich man and poor Lazarus.  (see  Luke 16,19- 31).

“Lazarus teaches us that other persons are a gift. A right relationship with people consists in gratefully recognizing their value. Even the poor person at the door of the rich is not a nuisance, but a summons to conversion and to change. The parable first invites us to open the doors of our heart to others because each person is a gift, whether it be our neighbour or an anonymous pauper”( Message for Lent 2017)

 To live the Eucharist is to participate in the gift of mercy which becomes Bread and Wine, i.e. the food of lifein regard to a fullness of life for all men of good will. Lent can be an appropriate time to ask the Lord to give us the will to renew our relationships, to pronounce not the words which win, but those which touch people’s hearts and which take care of all those like poor Lazarus crouching in front of our doors.

“The rich man’s real problem thus comes to the fore. At the root of all his ills was the failure to heed God’s word. As a result, he no longer loved God and grew to despise his neighbour. The word of God is alive and powerful, capable of converting hearts and leading them back to God. When we close our heart to the gift of God’s word, we end up closing our heart to the gift of our brothers and sisters.” ( Message for Lent 2017)

To understand properly what the Word of God says about the relationship between the Rich Men and the weak and the poor like Lazarus, it is essential to avoid living like the  «the complacent of Sion»  about whom the Prophet Amos talks and  create a system of justifications so that there could be tenthousand poor men like Lazarus in front of our doors and “the Richman” will not even know that they’re there. Our modern day glutton builds a house with gates, gives alms to the poor, makes a provision for the Third World, in order not to have the bother of Lazarus at his door.  

This papal message on Lent will be read in all the Catholic churches in the world  but tomorrow Lazarus will be like his today.  Nothing changes. And this because the Word and Pope Francis’ evangelical words risk becoming trapped in a system which wants to make them innocuous, without any efficacy on the level of reality. This is the abyss which some people wish to create.  Indeed, we can all see that the abyss between the poor men like Lazarus and the gluttons is becoming wider and wider. The gluttons decided centuries ago that they cannot allow promiscuity among those who are inside and those who are without.. Lazarus must stay outside the system, our cities.  The Bible uses the term Encampment.  Not only is Lazarus an outcast, he must also be convinced that this is normal, that it is just. Exclusion touches him within, in his conscience.

However, our society wishes to aspire to the great principles of Christianity and Enlightenment but finds itself making an impossible squaring of the circle. It pretends to include in its midst Lazarus, the outcast but doesn’t succeed because  it would be in contrast with its fundamental principles. The system excludes those who threaten its integrity.  Migrants are the Lazarus of the twenty-first century.

God however prefers Lazarus. In fact, God is Lazarus in this world. Jesus went out among the unclean to teach them to stop calling themselves unclean, to look at the encampment and discover that the encampment is unclean.. This is the revolution, the upheaval. The Beatitudes are made up of those like Lazarus. Jesus came to awaken  the consciences of the outcasts so that they stop considering themselves legitimately outcast, so that they know the future is in their hands. “The parable is unsparing in its description of the contradictions associated with the rich man (cf. v. 19). Unlike poor Lazarus, he does not have a name; he is simply called “a rich man”. His opulence was seen in his extravagant and expensive robes. Purple cloth was even more precious than silver and gold, and was thus reserved to divinities (cf. Jer 10:9) and kings (cf. Jg 8:26), while fine linen gave one an almost sacred character. The man was clearly ostentatious about his wealth, and in the habit of displaying it daily: “He feasted sumptuously every day” (v. 19). In him we can catch a dramatic glimpse of the corruption of sin, which progresses in three successive stages: love of money, vanity and pride (cf. Homily, 20 September 2013).”( Message for Lent 2017)

Many have tried to enroll Jesus as the guardian of the Encampment and have done everything they can to insert him in their own contexts, to make him an accommodating prophet, but Jesus did not accept. He never went into the Praetorium or the  Sanhedrin as a welcome guest, he represented a threat for these two structures, that of the political-religious power and the economic power. For this he was crucified like an unclean person.  «You hung him on the Cross like a criminal» said Peter, in his first sermon after Pentecost.   The future of the world is with those like Lazarus; they will inherit the earth as the Beatitudes say;  the poor will come towards us, not to destroy us  but to tell us the words of salvation.

Then let us live this period of Lent with hope, in reflection, meditation and prayer, remembering that we are frail creatures but above all loved and protected by God the Father. This will help us to live this journey not as a penitence for its own sake, both timorous and sterile, but as a reconciliation with God the Father and a conversion towards the poor like Lazarus whom we meet on our path. Return to the Lord with all your hearts, the Prophet Joel will say to us.  This means undertaking the path not to a  superficial or transitory conversion but rather a spiritual itinerary  involving the most intimate place in our person. The heart, in fact. It is the home of our feelings, the centre in which we develop our choices, our attitudes.  That  ‘come back to me with all your hearts’ does not only involve individuals but extends to the whole community.  It is a summons to everyone:“Get the people together, make the mass of the people holy, send for the old men, get together the children and babies at the breast : let the newly married man come out of his room and the bride from her tent.”(Joel 2,16)

 


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One died for all: the Ecumenical Path and the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity

This year marks 500 years since the Lutheran Reformation. At the end of October, Pope Francis went to Lund in Sweden to commemorate this important anniversary together with the World Lutheran Federation. In an interview with the Swedish Jesuit, Ulf Johnsson, published in the journal “CiviltàCattolica”, Pope Francis highlights the positive aspects of the Reformation, underlining in particular two words. “Scripture”,because Luther was the first to translate the Bible into the vernacular language and, said the Pope “ took a great step by putting the Word of God into the hands of the people”.  The other word is “reform”:“At the beginning, Luther’s was a gesture of reform at a difficult time for the Church”, added the Pope.  The Bishop of Rome underlined that Ecumenism must be a continuous “moving ahead, walking together! We must not stay closed in a rigid perspective because there is no possibility for reform in this”.

The Lutheran-Catholic Commission on Unity has done excellent work during these years in order to reach this commemoration together. Its report, “ From Conflict to Communion”  states that “both the traditions approach this anniversary in an ecumenical age, with the achievements of fifty years of active dialogue behind them and a renewed understanding of their history and theology”.Separating the controversial aspects, from the theological progress of the Reform, the Catholics gather the stimuli of Luther for the Church of today, recognizing him as a “witness of the Gospel” (From Conflict to Communion n. 29). For this reason, after many centuries of – even bloody – conflict, today, in 2017 for the first time in their history,  Lutheran and Catholic Christians will commemorate the inception of the Reform together.

Even with our Orthodox brothers, the path towards unity is living an historical Spring. In this new climate and with such concrete steps we are living the theme of the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity chosen for this year: “The love of Christ compels us towards reconciliation” (see 2 Corinthians 5, 14-20). This verse summarizes the text of the Second Letter to the Corinthians, the reference chosen for Common Prayer. The Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity and the  Commission on Faith and Order of the World Council of Churches have reflected and prayed together on these verses in order to get ready for these days – in particular – and the entire year of common prayer. The traditional days for living the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity are customarily from the 18th to the 25th January, the week  chosen and desired, since 1980, by Reverend Paul Watson because it included the Feast of the Chair of Saint Peter the Apostle and that of the Conversion of Saint Paul. No-one missed the symbolic force of this reference to the Apostles.  Peter was the first to profess his faith and Paul spread faith to the boundaries of the world.

We entrust this important week and the entire Ecumenical Path to Peter;  hewas a weak man who betrayed the Lord at the most important time, but it was because of the sincerity, the depth, the complete selflessness of his love thatthe Risen Christentrusted him to confirm his brothers and sisters in the faith.

Let us entrust ourselves also to Paul; in the past he had been a violent persecutor of Christians but he experienced the power of Christ’s tendernessand felt himself to be loved by Him right from his mother’s breast.

To love and to feel loved is the fundamental ecumenical choice which overcomes any weakness and relativizes all historical wounds, in a path towards complete unity which surely has more future than past.

Eight days

The text of 2 Corinthians 5, 14-20, scans the Eight Days of Prayer, where some of the theological themes of the individual verses are developed, as follows:

First

Day:

   Onedied for all
Second

Day:

   No longer live for oneself
Third

Day:

   No longer evaluate anyone with the criteria of this world
Fourth

Day:

   Old things  have passed
Fifth

Day:

   Everything is new
Sixth

Day:

   God has reconciled the world with him
Seventh

Day:

   Annunciation of the reconciliation
Eighth

Day:

   Reconcile yourself with God

 

 


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Replenish the Water of Baptism with a Word of Justice

The Feast of the Baptism of the Lord which concludes the Christmas period helps us to reflect on the profound sense of our baptism. Today, thanks to the Holy Spirit and Pope Francis, we find ourselves in the midst of a crisis, a crisis which does us a lot of good. We are passing from belonging to a Church of a sacred nature, in which the sacraments are like military ranks, that is they mark your level of belonging (from baptism onwards), to  a messianic vision of the Church, built on Jesus the servant of  man.This providential crisis is the reason why we must rethink the form, language and access times of the sacraments. For example, more room should be given to the Word of God in the liturgy of the sacraments.  If I pour a bit of water on the head of a child while I baptize him or her, I am performing a simple act;but if I say “I baptize you in the Name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit”, this is the Word of God which lets you be born again; we really must give the Word back to the water, to the oil, to the bread. Otherwise we risk becomingsacramentalized, listed in a dusty old register in the Sacristy.

To be baptized means to be sent forth; it means Church on the Move. To be baptized means to profess faith in Jesus and state publiclyI wish to live like Him, doing goodand freeing all men and women from slavery. Peter’s words in this regard are of paramount importance:” Of atruth I perceive that Godis no respecter of persons but accepts from every nation he who fears him and does what is right ”(Acts 10,34).

First of all we must realize that whoever loves justice is in the heart of God, he is already one of us marching towards the completeness which is the act of faith. The distinctions between near and far, believers and non-believers, come later, they are important but they all come later,  not only later, but they must remain within this common human solidarity; we must be men among men like Jesus who put himself in line with other men and certainly not in the first row.   Thus the Lord will say to each one of us:” You are my beloved son” not because we have performed sacred rites and marched in processions, but if we have done so while serving other men.

Jesus saw heaven open and the Spirit descending like a dove. Heaven opened say the Gospels. Asign of hope  for the world, heaven open forever, and not closed menacingly in any law or doctrine.  Let us ask the Lord for forgiveness for the times we have closed heaven in someone’s face imposing burdens which we do not even  touch with a finger, like Jesus said.

From this open heaven the Spirit comes like a dove, i.e.  the very life of God. It descends on you, loves you, stretches out its hand to you and will never leave you.  No obstacle, no difficulty, no human or superhuman force will prevent God from loving us forever.

 


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All Saints Day And The Remenbrance of our dead in Diocese of Natitingou

Fr Igor KASSAH, Parish Administrator 

Saint  Martin of Tours,

Natitingou

Every year the church invites us to celebrate on the 1st and 2nd November, the mystery of our Redemption by means of the festivity of All Saints  (1st November) and the Commemoration of All Faithful Departed (2nd November).  By means of these devout celebrations, the liturgy opens our eyes to the church and its triple theological dimension: the Church Militant, the Church Suffering and the Church Triumphant.  During these celebrations, God’s people, still in pilgrimage on this earth, lift their prayers to the Lord on behalf of all the faithful departed in order to praise Him and invoke His mercy.

The church of the Diocese of Natitingou, tigether with the universal Church, has not failed to celebrate these different feast days. It recalled, in addition to all the recognized saints, all its Christian sisters and brothers who have led an exemplary life of faith based on the Gospel.  Among the latter, we can surely mention the many missionaries of the Society of African Missions (S.M.A) thanks to whom we received the first evangelical announcement, those priests, those brothers and sisters, those catechists  who devoted their life to ensure the deeply rooted establishment of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.  Many of them, by means of their pastoral activities, also devoted themselves to peace, to the fight against poverty, to the fight against the extreme poverty still present in certain villages and towns, to the fight against the exploitation of children. Many are those who have sought to protect and assist  married couples often threatened by masonic ideologies.  All those who make up the procession of saints whom we call  «our anonymous saints» who also, indubitably, intercede forcefully for us as they experienced our human condition.

On the afternoon of 1st November, all the  faithful from the parishes of the city  assembled at the Catholic cemetery to pray during the commemoration of the departed and blessing of the tombs. With this gesture, we recommend all our Christian departed to the Divine Mercy.

On 2nd November, devoted to the commemoration of the departed, the faithful formulated their requests which were all read out before the Holy Communion; in order to avoid that the reading of the long list of request prolong the duration of the Holy Mass,  we  started the celebration earlier (by about 15 to 30 minutes).

In my Parish, Saint Martin of Tours, there is a prayer group which goes to the homes of the faithful who so wish; this group prays with the families and implores the intercession of the Virgin Mary, our Lady of Sorrows, that God may save the souls in Purgatory.

In Christ


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Contemplate this Holy Year, by starting from the Cross

On Mount Calvary, in front of the Cross, it is better not to talk or to cry out but only to contemplate.    Let us contemplate the Cross as a synthesis of all those who give their lives for love.  Let us also contemplate this Holy Year which has ended, by starting from the Cross; let us contemplate it, not by referring to numbers, or to major events but only to the Mystery of the Cross.   I would also like to say let us contemplate the Evangelii Gaudium, Laudato Sì, Amoris Laetitia, Pope Francis’s three great documents as well, starting here, from a Pope who just like Jesus wishes to give his life for  the human family he so loves and who tells the Church “You must do this too” as he tells each and everyone of us.  We have received with joy  Pope Francis’s  Apostolic Letter  “Misericordia et Misera” in order to listen to the final words of the Bishop of Rome on the Holy Year of Mercy.

Meanwhile let us contemplate the Cross. ”Ecce Homo”.  Whoever sees this man on the cross sees God, our faith tells us.  It is Jesus on the Cross not Caifa . This point is very important.   We have to be careful of the Politics which wants to defend religion.   How often do we hear that such and such a politician or party defends  Catholic values? We must be careful because there is the risk of turning God’s house into a market or a cavern of thieves;  indeed, it is not a risk but almost a certainty. We must rather ask  Politics, the kingdoms of this world that is,  with force to defend the dignity and freedom of men and women, of all men and women and especially, today, migrants and all minorities.  Let us therefore ask Trump and Putin and other world leaders, to make peace but real peace. Not only do we have to fear when the Mighty make war but also when they make peace.  Jesus was nailed to the Cross when Pilate and Herod made peace over Him, on His suffering.

Let us pray for a peace which will never again be shouldered by the poor.   For example, a peace made  when brandishing arms is not true peace.    Nor can peace between people who in private are immoral or amoral  be called peace.

Let us pray then to Jesus with his two biblical titles.  Let us pray today to Christ the King of Peace.  A kingdom which is freeing itself of all the cloaks and crowns of Constantine as a result of the enormous missionary efforts made by Pope Francis; the kingdom of Christ  is Peace and Mercy.   Let us pray to Christ the King of Peace and Mercy. Let us then pray to the Son of Man who, even though he was the son learned obedience from the things he suffered: Jesus King of Peace and Mercy suffered the violence of Power which rebelled against him;  power, also causes the Pope to suffer, but just like Jesus, he doesn’t answer. 

It might appear that by dying on the Cross, Jesus lost;  it might appear that the Church of Mercy is destined to lose;  so mighty is Power. Instead, Christ has already won, the Pope of Mercy has already won, because mercy is not only in the hands of certain holy people whom we meet throughout history but also in the hands of Our Father who is in Heaven.

That cross, that Son of Man, was resurrected by the Father who made him the Lord!  Where? On which throne? Not on any throne. This King’s throne is the conscience of those men and women who believe in mercy, peace, dialogue, ecumenism and universal brotherhood and are prepared to give their life for this faith.   This is why the Church of Mercy has already won.   For the other worldly things, we may have many teachers but when we enter the sphere of pain and death, there is no teacher;  all voices fall silent.  Only from this Pulpit which is the Cross, can the suffering experienced by so many poor people teach us to listen and to contemplate a love  which is even greater than death.   Only a Church of Mercy is the Church of Christ.


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Escape from wolves. Pope Francis Good Shepherd

«I now realize how true it is that God shows no partiality, rather in every nation whoever fears him and acts uprightly is acceptable to him. .»(Acts 10,34). In this text of the Acts, Peter uses the verb αγαπάω which means to welcome with affection, love with tenderness; it is repeated many times in the Gospels and the Acts. In John’s letter, the same word is repeated ten times. “He that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love”(1Jn 4,8).
To transmit faith means to show the same love for our brothers, indeed for all mankind. When Peter met the pagan, Cornelius the centurion and his family, he was conquered by a revelation of the Spirit, not by his own reasoning. It was revealed to Peter that the love of God does not let itself be limited by the laws or traditions of any doctrine whatsoever and does not, because of this, become do-goodism or relativism.

These simple quotations from the Scriptures seem to us sufficient to dismantle the basis of those objections from some parts which see the Catholic Church during the Pontificate of Francis on the brink of descending into relativism, delivered into the arms of a world, depicted, who knows why, in a prejudiced manner as being totally hostile to the Church.
We will try to answer some of these concerns:
1) The Pope has been accused of speaking little and badly about our Christian roots as a foundation of our freedom, as opposed to his predecessors.
The answer that can be given is twofold; first and foremost the “foundations of our freedom”, are not, strictly speaking, our Christian roots, but Christ himself and this makes the difference. The foundations are Christ himself who also respected other roots, first and foremost Judaic roots, and who, if he claimed any primacy, let us say, of foundation, it was only the primacy of love and service; Christians are the salt of the earth and the yeast in the dough and do not claim any dominant or exclusive position which would even be contrary to the Gospel.
In fact, the real problem, especially in some national churches, is that they talked, on the contrary, about Christian roots too much and badly, particularly the so-called devout atheists and conservative Catholics, who defended hanging the crucifix on walls and in their writings but whose lifestyle often contradicted the message of the crucifix in a blatant manner or theorized separation between public and private morality. To forget this is unacceptable. This certainly does not mean putting the so-called European roots before all else.
“Jesus of Nazareth, Him ye have taken and nailed to the cross “(Acts 2,23) says Peter; the devout atheists and conservative Catholics have seen fit to take him down from the wooden cross, that is to say from the humility and simplicity and from the suffering of so many poor people who carry the cross every day, in order to hang him on the walls of cheap politics and even on the shields of armies, thus depriving the crucifix of its profound meaning. Pope Francis talks about Christian roots when it is necessary and in an appropriate manner, not in an ideological way or by making sterile assertions but asks us to rediscover and truly live those roots today. In this regard, we wish to recall the long speech he made during his pontificate to the European Parliament in Strasbourg on 25th November 2014, in which he quoted many passages from John Paul II and made them his own.
2) The contribution of Christianity to any culture is that of Christ with the Washing of Feet, said Pope Francis to La Croix during an interview. According to some, the Pope had forgotten to evoke the Sermon on the Mount and The Beatitudes, the basis for the Washing of Feet.
Here, we will be very brief since it is obvious that such objections are prejudiced. It is clear that the Pope places the foundations of the Gospel on Love without any ambiguousness in his actions and speeches. One of many is when he reminds us that the church is not a NGO and emphasizes the primacy of Charity in his mandate – incidentally, totally in line with Pope Benedict XVI. Moreover, we cannot, naturally, read the Gospels only with the before-and-after principle. It is clear for all to see that Pope Francis is the Pope of the Beatitudes, since he talks and writes so much about them and above all tries to live them.
3) The Pope sustains that there is no fear of Islam as such but of ISIS and its war of conquest and, the Pope continues:” it is true that the idea of conquest is inherent in the soul of Islam but it is also possible to interpret the objective in Matthew’s Gospel where Jesus sends his disciples forth to all nations, in terms of the same idea of conquest”. It would appear that some people have interpreted this “provocation” of Pope Francis literally, as in so many old and new fundamentalisms, as if the Pope was putting the Gospel’s message on the same level as fundamentalist violence. This is clearly another striking attempt to twist the facts. They are attributing to the Pope – and not in a particularly efficient way, expressions and convictions which clearly do not belong to him. These prophets of doom refer to Benedict XVI’s Regensburg speech in 2006 in which he sustained that Islam had a problem with violence of a religious origin and state that today instead Francis is affirming that Christianity and Islam reflect each other on the problem of religious violence. In support of this bizarre theory, they have not quoted any words used by Pope Francis other than those already mentioned. They haven’t quoted them because they simply don’t exist.
To accuse Pope Francis of putting religious violence in Christianity and Islamic fundamentalism on the same level is misleading and incorrect. The true problem in our opinion concerns those who do not wish to dialogue with Islam, those who are incapable of seeking the common ground for confrontation and who are not even able to recognize the great cultural tradition of the Arab World (let it suffice to think just of Avicenna and Averroes). To wind back the clock of history to a climate of war among religions is very dangerous and counterproductive. All the popes knew this very well and have always been careful never to refer to a scenario or a risk of this kind.
On the other hand, referring back to his previous teaching, Benedict XVI had affirmed in his Apostolic Exhortation “The Church in the Middle East”, signed in The Lebanon during his apostolic journey in 2012, that fundamentalism: “afflicts all religious communities and denies their long-standing tradition of co-existence”. He then exhorted the Lebanese young people to be:“servants of peace and reconciliation is an urgent need to make a commitment for building together a free and humane society ” (Address to the Young People of The Lebanon 2012). We know today, just how dangerous a slide there is in several Christian groups towards forms of fundamentalism in expressing their faith, above all in the more recent ones.
Let us also recall the famous words of Imam Mohammad Mehdi Chamseddine, Head of the Sciite Islamic Council in The Lebanon from 1994 to 2001 ; he declared that “ the Christians of The Lebanon are the responsibility of the Muslims”, meaning their right to exist and express themselves.
We feel that instead of exploiting the pontificates by comparing one to the other and attributing them with the presumed licence of Defenders of the Faith or of relativists, or fomenting religious fears and divisions, it would be better and more evangelical to contribute to dialogue and better knowledge between Islam and Christianity. We can take an example, in fact, from the great testimony to this proposal of the Maronite Church in the Lebanon, by sustaining also the greatest strengths existing in Islam. And we should look at ourselves and strive to be better Christians , individually and as nations and societies which profess to be coherent Christians, without merely using a facade of banner waving and revendications. Let us look at the problem of the migrants, for example. What are so many Nations in “Christian Europe” replying?
4) In Amoris Laetitia, according to some people, the logic of the et et is being replaced by that of the non solum sed etiam. In short there is a bit of everything and also its opposite in order to keep everybody happy. Let us quote as an example number 308 of the document: “the Church’s Pastors, in proposing to the faithful the full idea of the Gospel and the Church’s teaching, must also help them to treat the weak with compassion, avoiding aggravations or unduly harsh and hasty judgements”. Must we therefore deduce, comments one famous journalist that:“ the most efficient way to be compassionate is not exactly that of proposing the full ideal of the Gospel?”.
First of all, let us ask ourselves what is meant by the Gospel. In our opinion, this question does not take into account Francis’ logic of inclusion which is, naturally, fully evangelical and in the Tradition of the Church. John Paul II, when addressing the Italian bishops after the Convention of Palermo in 1995, already affirmed that:”Jesus Christ is the Truth of God which is Love and the truth of men and women who are called upon to live, together with God, in charity”. Amoris Laetitia  is a great contribution to the Church which Pope Francis made on St. Joseph’s Day on 19th March last. At the heart of the document is the Pope’s desire to :”bring help and encouragement to families in their daily commitments and challenges” (AL 4). Furthermore, we must not forget that we are in the midst of the Holy Year of Mercy and we are all called upon in a special way to be the sign and instrument of Grace. It is not the weaknesses of men and women, or their inability to carry out their mission perfectly which are at the centre of Christianity , nor is it the past with its load of good and evil done. What counts is our profession of faith, to profess like Peter in front of Jesus: you are the son of the living God. As soon as we do so, that is by saying with conviction to Jesus: you are Christ, the Saviour, we discover, like Peter, the greatness of God’s project with each one of us. Whoever is used to relating to situations, happenings and people, on the basis of traditions and laws, cannot understand the face of a God who is Love.
In our parishes, we can touch the fruits of mercy with our hands, in particular for the many Zaccheos we meet. Zaccheo felt himself to be loved, like Peter and Paul felt it, as the adulteress and the man blind from birth felt it and many others as told in the Bible and in our daily life. To feel loved by God is the true beginning of any conversion which has a foundation in Christ. The “conversions” founded on rules or on moral principles result in fanaticism, inflexibility and elitist forms of pseudo Christianity.
5 ) During a visit to the Lutheran Church in Rome, in answer to a question about the possibility of taking holy communion together with a Catholic, a journalist said that the Pope assumed an ambiguous position, moreover on a crucial issue.
Rereading the Pope’s reply, we can easily see that Francis is starting from Baptism which is common to the faith of both Catholics and Lutherans, and was only and simply auguring that we continue to march at the head of which is the Holy Spirit who will guide us towards the complete truth. No-one’s conscience may be left out of this truth. The Pope doesn’t want to create divisions, nor does he want to place barriers against the Holy Spirit. There isn’t perhaps a definitive word now to define why we are marching. But we trust in the Spirit and how Christians, Catholics and Lutherans, march together, questioning each other and trying to understand the will of God for us. Anyone who knows and frequents our Lutheran brothers knows from direct experience that in dialogue we have more future than past and that the Sensus fidei of God’s People is not a marginal accessory. In this regard, we suggest reading the document issued by the International Theological Commission entitled “ il Sensus Fidei in the Life of the Church” published in 2014. And the ecumenical celebration on 31 October – 1 November last in Lund is already history overcoming by far any hysteria and misleading interpretations.
To conclude, some people are recounting that our parishes are being besieged by people who expect to be godfathers and godmothers, to take Holy Communion or to enrol their children in summer camps without having the necessary requisites. All this is happening, they say, because of the confusion into which Pope Francis has thrown us. In the past, no-one has ever berated situations where we have seen VIP’s without the basic requisites get married in church, even with “top level” celebrants, or the very bad habit, also widespread in our Church of Rome, of getting married in a “beautiful church” with exorbitant costs for flowers and decorations, far removed from a serious and coherent path towards faith.
We know many parishes, including our own, and we can affirm that today it is not the People of God who are confused, they only ask to be respected and valued, but rather the remaining devout atheists and Catholics who sit in the front pews of the Church and still, after many years, do not want to accept a Church that has made a strong 360 degree return to the Gospel and which is seeking to implement the Council (always praised at first but then often forgotten in reality, walking alongside today’s men and women, guiding them in the trustworthy company of the Church).
It is these defenders of an old church which no longer exists who are in confusion today, who have given it exclusive space for too many years, ignoring sensitivity and different voices. Many pseudo lay Catholics and clerics who behind the backs of John Paul II and Benedict XVI, reduced the Church to a cavern of thieves during their pontificates, taking care of their own interests with the current powers-that-be, selling the Gospel for a handful of coins, scheming in both the gay and financial lobbies, putting any evangelizing activities in the hands of ecclesiastic movements, humiliating parishes and the people of God; pseudo Catholics defending principles they do not follow and and making judgements on the tragedies of people to whom they don’t listen.
Worn out by an exhausting battle, Pope Benedict XVI resigned, performing an extraordinary evangelic action. Many lay and clerical lobbyists are still in their places and this is why the People of God no longer believe them and follow the good shepherds and the Gospel: : “a stranger will they not follow but will flee from him”(Gv10,5).
Thank you, Pope Francis, Good Shepherd following in Christ’s footsteps. We will always continue to pray for you.


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The king is dead, long live the king!

Donald Trump will be the 45th President of the United States of America. The new president will swear his oath of office on the Bible; a private ceremony will be heldin the White House Blue Room, followed by a public ceremony on 20 January, traditionally held before Midday, when the President’s term officially begins. The oath of office of the President of the United States of America is traditionally taken before the chief justice of the US Supreme Court and reads“I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States”.

The president will take the oath on the Bible. Traditionally, this is not just a formal act but has a profound meaning. Trump is also a very wealthy man. In the Bible, Jesus considers wealth merely a tool and warns us that it often becomes evil because men use it as an instrument of power and domination, even as a means  for exterminating the poor. We can all see how, worldwide,there is a planned and conscious effort to exterminate the poor. We have invested huge sums of money in producing weapons, as a result of which millions of people are killed. Regarding wealth, it is our responsibility to do what we can to transform it into an instrument for liberating mankind.

This is the biblical meaning of the love of God. Not empty words, but actual facts and solid commitment to achieve economic solidarity, social policies and an inclusive – not exclusive – welfare system, the awareness that the United States is a great country belonging to a global world, where there is urgent need for the globalisation of solidarity, not of indifference.

Let us pray for the United States of America and its new president that he may fulfil the Word of God, on which, in a certain sense, the entire American people take the oath, and live up to the Constitution and history of that country.


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A blessed crisis

We are pleased to publish the afterword of the recent book by the Vatican journalist of Rai 1 Italian television channel Aldo Maria Valli, titled “C’era una volta la confessione” (Once was Confession), published by Ancora. It is a reflection on the Sacrament of Confession at the time of Pope Francis and has also been published in the March 10 edition of L’Osservatore Romano, at page 7 .  This is our translation from the  original in Italian Language. We remain at disposal for promptly removing this post if it is not appreciated by the right owners.

Fr. Francesco Pesce

I belong to a generation that was educated to fear God, rather than to love him; during seminary, a new sense of duty was required, in the face of which it proved hard to remain free and joyful. I can still see this fear and twisted sense of duty today in many people who approach the Sacrament of Confession. Fear of God, fear of themselves, fear of others and their judgement. Confession as an obligation, not as a desired meeting with our Father, who is always willing to forgive us. I must confess that I was surprised to hear Pope Francis, in preparation for the Jubilee, speak of the «missionaries of mercy». I asked myself: but aren’t priests by definition missionaries of mercy? Isn’t forgiveness a very hallmark, so to speak, of the priest? Then I remembered that I had seen with my own eyes, in some confessionals, the Book of Canon Law, ready for use, like in a law court, and I also remembered the accounts of several penitents, injured by some priests who had been very harsh. And this helped me understand Francis’ idea. My experience as a confessor, in fact, has taught me that the advent of Pope Francis has blown away the old sense of fear and duty, and replaced it with the desire to meet a merciful Father. Not only have confessions increased exponentially, but the quality has improved too. Nowadays, many people enter the confessional holding a copy of the Gospels, having adopted his suggestion to read at least one passage every day. And so they confess themselves based on what they read. This fills me with a great joy. It is a true miracle worked by this man, Francis, sent to us by God. I can see that, thanks to God, people do not feel more sinful (I think that there are already too many people oppressed and humiliated by their sins), they now feel that their Father is more merciful. I wish to add that I see rather clearly, if I may say so, that when a person feels welcomed, respected, encouraged, then he or she can better understand his or her sins and ask for forgiveness. Indeed, he or she can understand that his or her sin, in a certain sense, has already been forgiven, that he or she is inside the confessional to accept the forgiveness that has already been granted, because God is love, in the brief, yet sublime, words of John the Evangelist. This is also why I believe that to speak of a crisis of the sacrament of confession is a contradiction in terms; it is the way in which the priestly ministry is practised, if anything, that is undergoing a crisis. Because this priesthood is confined to the sacristies, rather than lived out in the streets, it is a priesthood that prefers the smell of incense, and money, rather than that of the flock of sheep. Therefore, I see it as a “blessing crisis”. My experience has taught me that men and women come to confession in equal numbers. But two things do strike me, although I find them hardly surprising. The first is that the confessions of those who appear closest to the Church, who ways attend, are more predictable, matter-of-fact, and soulless; sometimes they even expect a good punishment rather than forgiveness. They are also those who don’t very much like Pope Francis, precisely because, they say, he’s «a communist, a pauperist, too predictable», plus other nonsense disseminated by the 21st century crusaders and by some very godless and hardly devout atheists.

I would like to give you an example: I have been a priest for sixteen years and I still have to struggle enormously to explain to catechists (who are otherwise saintly persons) that teaching children «Dear God, I repent and regret my sins, because by sinning I have deserved your punishment» is not the best thing. This should at least be better explained and replaced with other biblical acts of contrition. I also wish to mention those who find it absolutely necessary to confess themselves on a given day, otherwise they feel they have broken their devotional service and have to start all over again? Is this not an obsession rather than devotion?

The other thing that strikes me are the confessions of the members of certain ecclesial movements, and of one in particular, which is also quite widespread. These confessions all seem to be the same, as if part of a stock repertoire, totally lacking the sense of thanksgiving for the good there is out there. To these I always say: «Excuse me, but something nice and good must have happened to you since you last confessed, or is everything just sin?».

I would like to conclude by saying that I find it disheartening to see confession hours put up in churches. As much as I understand the need for planning and organisation, but the church is not a post office. My experience has taught me (I work as a parish priest in the centre of Rome) that priests should be available primarily at lunchtime and in the evenings, after the evening Mass, to meet the needs of working people. Of course, this can only be done if we keep our church doors wide open, like God’s heart, who we call upon as «Our Father, who is in heaven», not «Our Judge and Master, who lives in the confessionals».