Notes for a debate
Player I fear not, I do not have a swelled head. I know that great men in recent decades, especially since the turbulent '68, wrote the text entitled Why are still in the Church (Joseph Ratzinger, Queriniana 1971), Why stay in the Church Firm points , Rusconi 1971), Why rest in the Church (Hans Kueng, the first chapter of volume Keep hope , Rizzoli 1990), Why stay? (Timothy Radcliffe, in "La Croix" of March 31, 2009). I do not dream of saying better, but I feel I have to say my own words. (Hans Urs von Balthasar, the last chapter of the book
As if one were to ask me because "I still love" my wife
Indeed, the initiative was not mine. I never had the temptation of abandoning. It is not my attitude of those who say "despite everything else inside." I like it even the expression "this Church", as if I could think of another. As for me the act of loving the church is totally spontaneous. Quell ' still the same question and it sounds provocative, as if one were to ask me because "I still love" my wife.
But I know that there is who no longer loves his wife and know many who do not like the Church: they are disaffected, literally. More to love again but with a love of all head, tired and weary. I am interested in, press, talk to them. It is not enough that I say "read Von Balthasar." If you barely see them interested to know of my love, I tell him.
E 'di Torino happened that a parish - the parish where the auxiliary bishop Guido Fiandino, a paste of a man - I have called for a debate entitled Why still love this Church, which was held on November '11, with Roberto and Alberto Melloni Repole, moderator Mr Francesco Antonioli. I prepared the appointment when the magazine Communio - he was working on a dossier titled I Ecclesiam (October-December 2010) - asked me to tell stories of conversion in which both the Church to exert an attractive, or thrust or challenge to the faith.
So I put together the two works here and I give an account of the minimum, referring to the issue of Communio who wants to know the stories of conversion. Putting together the results of two surveys, I say I love the Church for the double reason of the news of God's love for humanity that I send - in response to which I have (become or remain) a Christian - and the signs of God's love for men that carries me and that helps me to recognize.
I say again that these signs - not all of her posts, but to which the midwife educator and interpreter serves - are the only attraction that the community of believers can now exercise over non-believers. Add these signs - which we also call "facts of the Gospel" - are common today as ever, and still more numerous than we can grasp, and then today, as always, the Church can be loved. Here is the heart of my answer, the question being centered between loving "Yet".
I say finally that this argument for the Church I mean all believers in the God of Jesus Christ, the Christian encounters - symbolically - whenever two or three are gathered in His name. I actually met one or two, symbolically meets them all: all the baptized, every family and confession and even those who feel they belong to no church.
signs of God in humanity today
At this point I should play the theme categories for exemplifying the signs of God in humanity today, touching at least some of the specific claims of our time: the martyrdom disarmed by the warmth of life of single women and women are threatened by serious illness (the first line of defense of life is always the heart of the mothers), the forgiveness of the killers relatives, the acceptance of his son maimed and crippled the choice of the child for adoption, the reaction to handicap the handicapped and the recognized role in the Church, the Church's celebration of his death, recognition of marital love and missionary couples, the genius of charity in every new frontier of humanity, the gospel announced to them (drugs, AIDS, prisons, prostitution, victims of sexual abuse), new forms of manifestation of joy in distress and new forms of public prayer.
Here - within this framework - the "signs" to indicate that I could name, that is some of the stories of conversion used to Communio and mentioned in conversation in Turin. The Red Brigades Fulvia Miglietta - abandoned by all and become hostile to itself - one evening from the window of the cell sees a cross on a dome, in the fog and the next day asking to speak with the chaplain who gives her a Bible and visits , feels loved and Christian back.
Two other prisoners: one attracted to the church by a letter of closeness that a professor had written in high school (Arrigo buck) and the other by a word of forgiveness that comes from family members of people killed (Peter Cavallero) . Others will enter into a journey of conversion listening to "forgive" the killers of John Bachelet's father (Barbara Palombelli) or to assassinate Pope John Paul II to his (Angelo Busia). Forgiveness as attested to love enemies.
Parents who were dying children Church
Two professed atheist - a woman taking a history of drug and AIDS (Enrico Plebani) and an intellectual rebel for homosexuality and other (Giovanni Testori) - who find the faith in eternal life, one saw the death of the father and one mother "in the hope of the resurrection: the parents here were the Church to the children.
Two journalists who have found the courage to believe seeing up close and for years the power of faith of John Paul II, his ability to confront the mystery and get in God (Domenico Del Rio, Marco Tosatti) .
Two other dying of AIDS who are converted when they are close to despair: the one caused to read the Gospels and ask for baptism by the love of a sister hospital (Enrico Barzaghi); the other casually entering into contact with the monastic family of Don Dossetti, from which it is received and from which it receives the Eucharist and Scripture, to become monaco in articulo mortis (Caccone Paolo).
This is the church loves the derelicts, welcomes them, invites them to the Lord's table, awakens in them the hope of eternal life. These are the signs of God in humanity today. I love the Church for this.
Where two or three are gathered in my name
I hear the objection to grow in me who says: "These are small signs that the Church is working. But the big church? E 'loving the great Church of today? "
shearing Here is my answer:" The Church is not in big things "(words of the will of Bishop Luigi Maverna). The "great things" - even if there are any in the Church today: the mass gatherings of the papacy and the bishops' conferences, and any statistics on the number of works - is perhaps necessary, but not that they are the essence of the Church . The structures, works, law, ministry, the Government aims to make possible the reading of the Word, the celebration of the Eucharist and some continuity in the service of Charity, but they are not in the Church, but "where two or three are gathered in my name."
recur hear the claim as before: you think that government, those structures, those decisions are now managed in an optimal manner? No, I really do not and sometimes it also happens to me to report any non-compliance: you should have less fear of confrontation and even conflict, a more proactive compliance with the responsibility lay, methods for large collegiate decisions, greater internal tolerance. Tolerance is the mean by the various components to the People of God, is between one and the other component. But
Having done reading old stories far and near the Church of high and low - I know the optimal management there has never been and never will be. That now seems better than yesterday, if between today and yesterday we put half-century or a century.
overestimation factor government
am also convinced that never before has there been in our church such a large factor over-government, both by those who exercise it, both by those who oppose it. To help us to love our Church, we should perform an operation to break even, in ourselves and in teaching community: Resize the important factor in government pay attention to the signs of God's love in the world today.
conclude with a parable that takes its cue from a line of one of the seven monks of Tibhirine, in the film Men of God: "We are like birds on a branch, we do not know whether and where to fly." Christians who are carriers of the Gospel are extraordinarily helpless in the midst of the horrors of the world. Like birds on a branch can only rely on God's powers of worldly pressure forces them to fly, to leave the field and choose the concealment. The signs of God's encourage them to stay and play here and now their lives.
Luigi Accattoli
www.luigiaccattoli.it
To investigate the "facts of the Gospel" by Luigi Accattoli, reading his last book
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