HEART AND REASON
Editorial
By Giovanni Maria Vian
Translated from the
1/20/08 issue of
Will the Sunday Angelus prayer with Benedict XVI tomorrow be what it usually is? Yes and no.
Yes, because, every week, men and women, the faithful along with non-believers, Romans and tourists alike, come together in great numbers to listen to the Pope and to pray with him.
No, because this time, the event will have a special significance after the incidents that led to a cancellation of the visit by the Bishop of Rome to La Sapienza University, the city's oldest university, which was founded by a Pope in 1303 a pontifical university for over 500 years
[until 1870 when the Italian state was born, the Papal states within Italy were abolished, and the new Italian State took over most church institutions all over Italy].
To listen to what Benedict XVI will say and to the ancient prayers addressed to Mary which marked the course of the day in Christian tradition, many more will be participating this time - and the reason is not difficult to see - to demonstrate in this way 'a gesture of affection and peace' that will balance out the sadness in the preceding week.
That is why the Cardinal Vicar of Rome Camillo Ruini has called on the faithful to be at St. Peter's tomorrow, making clear in the interview published here yesterday that the invitation is for a prayer assembly.
Therefore, far above any reading of the event which does not respect - but instead would exploit - its religious sense and an expression of closeness to Benedict XVI to show him he is not alone, but that with him are people whose confines are known only to God.
This Angelus together with the Pope is the expression of an impulse of the heart acting together with reason. In this sense, it is a secular gesture, one of freedom - as the Foreign Minister of Italy indicated in an interview - to the degree that it is impelled by that principle that should unite believers and non-believers alike: reason, distinct from rhe heart but not opposed to it.
The relationship between heart and reason was not by chance at the center o of the discourse that Benedict XVI would have delivered at La Sapienza.
A discourse that would have been inevitably obscured by the disconcerting events which accompanied it, but which deserves to be read, meditated on and discussed.
A discourse that is profoundly secular on the relationship between religious authority and the profane world, which makes an appeal to reasonableness.
A discourse that harks back to St. Augustine who reasoned about the prophet Isaiah's words and to St. Thomas on the autonomy of philosophy and the responsibility of reason - to the great thinkers of Christian tradition, but also to secular thinkers of today like John Rawls and Juergen Habermas.
Benedict XVI does not seek to impose the faith but to propose it , with gentle firmness, as he has been doing since the first day he served as Bishop of Rome. And as Paul VI did - concluding Vatican-II and during his entire Pontificate - and then John Paul II, in his incessant planetary preaching, repeating tirelessly : Men of our time, listen, be trustful, don't close yourself up, have no fear of
Christ.
Almost as if to say: We, too, are reasonable and free, and so, do not close up your secularity and your reason to God, Logos - the rational principle that crated and rules the universe - who also knocks at the door of every man and woman, and therefore, knocks at the heart, which is not far from reason.
L'Osservatore Romano - 20 gennaio 2008
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But wouldn't you know it? The 'contras' readily seized the occasion to avail of the publicity generated by tomorrow's Angelus-cum-show-of-support, in order to stage a 'sit-in' near St. Peter's Square, according to this item from Apcom, translated here - and look what they were protesting, a non-issue that is downright laughable, considering the notorious disinterest of MS in the Pope and the Church unless it is to report something controversial about them!:
RADICAL SIT-IN NEAR ST. PETER'S:
'NO VATICAN, NO TALIBAN'????
ROME, Jan. 19 (Apcom) - A sit-in by the Paritdo Radicale to
denounce the 'excessive presence' of the Pope and other representatives of the Catholic Church in Italian newscasts these days was organized this evening at Piazza Pio XII, not far from St. Peter's Square, where tens of thousands are expected to gather tomorrow to show their solidarity with Pope Benedict XVI.
Radical leaders Marco Pannella and Emma Bonino led their partisans carrying sandwich boards that carried the slogan "No Vatican, No Taliban", a motto they would chant together at the end of the sit-in.
[Whatever it was they mean by it. The slogan is as silly as their sit-in!]
Present werre less than a hundred participants and some media representatives.
Bonino told the newsmen it was a 'hoax' to claim that the Pope was being prevented from speaking publicly.
[First of all, no one has said that, only that his critics wanted to keep him from speaking at La Sapienza!]
"We are here to expose a hoax that appears to be gaining ground." she said.
[Whoa! Sit, b****...er... woman!
Bonino is the minister for European Community policies in Prime Minister Prodi's government. She has taken advantage of this role to campaign against the Church in the European Parliament, where she instigated the EU investigation into whether the Italian government was guilty of violating anti-trust law by granting tax exemptions to the Catholic Church. The woman gives women a bad name. And a minister of the Italian government wearing a sandwich board to lead a sit-in against the Pope is, to say the least, conduct unbecoming a cabinet minister and a lady! But see to what depths of asinine behavior anti-clericalism can lead to!!]
[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 20/01/2008 00:37]