Leonardo Boff
Une des premières paroles du Pape François a été : "Comme je souhaiterais une Église pauvre pour les pauvres." Cet objectif est conforme à l’esprit de Saint François, qu’on appelle le Poverello, le pauvre d’Assise. Il n’avait pas la prétention de diriger une Église pauvre pour les pauvres, car ce n’était pas possible dans le régime de chrétienté où l’Église avait tout le pouvoir, mais je pense qu’il a créé autour de lui un mouvement et une communauté de pauvres avec les pauvres et comme les pauvres.
En termes d’analyse de classes sociales, François appartenait à la bourgeoisie locale prospère. Son père était un riche marchand de tissus. Jeune homme, il menait avec ses amis une vie de bohème – une jeunesse dorée – ils passaient leur temps à faire la fête et à chanter les sirventès des troubadours du sud de la France. Adulte il a affronté une crise existentielle grave. C’est du dedans de cette crise qu’ont surgi en lui une compassion inexplicable et un amour pour les pauvres, en particulier les lépreux, totalement mis au ban de la société, chassés hors de la ville. Il a quitté l’entreprise familiale, a choisi la pauvreté évangélique radicale et est allé vivre avec les lépreux. Jésus pauvre et crucifié et les pauvres bien réels furent les mobiles de son changement de vie. Il a passé deux ans dans la prière et la pénitence, jusqu’à ce qu’il entende un appel intérieur du Crucifié : "François, va réparer mon Église en ruines".
Il était difficile de comprendre qu’il ne s’agissait pas d’une mission matérielle, mais d’une mission spirituelle. Il partit sur les routes prêchant l’Évangile dans les villages, dans la langue du peuple. Et il le faisait avec tant de joie, de "grâce" et de force de conviction que cela a fasciné certains de ses anciens compagnons. En 1209, il a obtenu que le pape Innocent III approuve sa "folie évangélique". Le mouvement franciscain démarrait et en moins de vingt ans il comptait plus de cinq mille disciples. Quatre axes structurent le mouvement : l’amour passionné pour le Christ crucifié, l’amour tendre et fraternel envers les pauvres, la "dame pauvreté", une vraie simplicité et une grande humilité.
Laissons de côté les autres points et essayons de comprendre comment François a vu et vécu avec les pauvres. Il n’a rien fait pour les pauvres (une léproserie ou des œuvres d’assistance), mais il a beaucoup fait avec les pauvres, car cela faisait partie de la prédication de l’Évangile et il était avec eux quand il le pouvait, mais il a fait plus : il a vécu comme les pauvres. Il assumait leur vie, leurs habits, la besace, il soignait leurs blessures et mangeait avec eux. C’était un pauvre parmi les pauvres. Et s’il trouvait quelqu’un de plus pauvre que lui, il lui donnait une partie de ses vêtements pour être vraiment le plus pauvre des pauvres.
La pauvreté n’est pas un manque, mais la capacité à donner et redonner encore jusqu’à se priver de tout. Ce n’est pas un chemin d’ascèse, mais le moyen pour parvenir à une excellence incomparable : l’identification avec le Christ pauvre et avec les pauvres avec qui établir une relation de fraternité.
François avait senti que les possessions se dressent entre les personnes, les empêchent de se regarder les yeux dans les yeux et de se parler de cœur à cœur. Il y a des intérêts qui s’insinuent entre (inter-esse)les personnes et qui créent des obstacles à la fraternité. La pauvreté est l’effort continu pour enlever les richesses et les intérêts de toute nature parce que c’est de là que viendra la véritable fraternité. Être radicalement pauvre pour être pleinement frère, c’est le projet de François, d’où l’importance de la pauvreté radicale.
Il est vrai que l’extrême pauvreté était pénible et dure à vivre. Personne ne vit seulement d’expérience mystique. L’existence dans un corps et dans le monde pose des exigences qui ne peuvent être truquées. Comment humaniser la déshumanisation réelle qu’est ce genre de pauvreté? Les sources de l’époque témoignent que les frères ressemblaient "à des hommes des bois (des sauvages), qu’ils mangeaient très peu, marchaient pieds nus et s’habillaient de guenilles". Mais à la surprise de tout le monde, qu’ils ne perdaient jamais la joie et la bonne humeur.
Dans ce contexte d’extrême pauvreté, François donne de la valeur à la fraternité. La pauvreté de chacun est un défi pour l’autre, pour s’occuper de lui et lui donner l’aumône ou de travail, le minimum nécessaire, lui donner un abri et la sécurité. C’est ainsi que ‘l’avoir’ est remplacé dans sa prétention à assurer la sécurité et l’humanisation. François veut que chaque frère assume vis-à-vis de l’autre la mission de mère, parce que les mères savent comment prendre soin des autres, en particulier des malades. Seule la prise en charge mutuelle humanise l’existence comme l'a démontré M. Heidegger dans Être et Temps.
Pour ceux qui vivent sans aucune protection, la fraternité signifiait tout en fait. Le biographe Thomas de Celano décrit le bonheur et la joie au cœur de l’extrême pauvreté. Il a écrit : "pleins de nostalgie, ils cherchaient à se rencontrer et ils étaient heureux quand ils pouvaient être ensemble, l’éloignement était douloureux, le départ amer, la séparation triste." Le dépouillement total les ouvrait à profiter des beautés du monde, non pas parce qu’ils voulaient les avoir, seulement pour les goûter.
De nombreuses leçons peuvent être tirées de cette aventure spirituelle. Tenons-nous en à l’une d’elles : pour François, les relations humaines doivent toujours être construites à partir de ceux qui ne sont pas et qui n’ont pas la vision des puissants. Ils doivent être embrassés comme des frères. Seule une fraternité qui vient d’en bas et à partir de là englobe tout le monde, est vraiment humaine et est durable. L’Église que nous avons aujourd’hui ne sera jamais comme les pauvres. Mais elle peut être pour et avec les pauvres, comme le rêve le Pape François.
14-06-2013
Leonardo Boff - Brésil)
Notes :
http://www.servicioskoinonia.org/boff/articulo.php?num=569 traduction : P. Collet
Tuesday, June 25, 2013
Monday, June 24, 2013
Ser radicalmente pobre para ser plenamente hermano
2013-06-14
Una de las primeras cosas que dijo el Papa Francisco fue “cómo me gustaría una Iglesia pobre para los pobres”. Este objetivo está en consonancia con el espíritu de San Francisco, llamado el Poverello, el Pobrecito de Asís. Él no pretendió gestar una Iglesia pobre para los pobres, pues no era realizable bajo el régimen de cristiandad donde la Iglesia tenía todo el poder, pero creó en torno suyo un movimiento y una comunidad de pobres con los pobres y como los pobres.
En cuanto a la extracción de clase, Francisco pertenecía a la próspera burguesía local. Su padre era un rico comerciante de telas. De joven lideraba un grupo de amigos bohemios ̶ jeunesse dorée ̶ que vivía de fiesta en fiesta y cantaba a los juglares del sur de Francia. De adulto sufrió una fuerte crisis existencial. Desde dentro de esa crisis surgió en él una inexplicable misericordia y amor a los pobres, especialmente a los leprosos, incomunicados, en las afueras de la ciudad. Abandonó la familia y los negocios, asumió la pobreza evangélica radical y se fue a vivir con los leprosos. Jesús pobre y crucificado y los pobres reales fueron los móviles de su cambio de vida. Pasó dos años en oración y penitencia, hasta que interiormente escuchó una llamada del Crucificado: "Francisco, vete y repara mi Iglesia que está en ruinas".
Le costó entender que no se trataba de algo material, sino de una misión espiritual. Se fue por los caminos predicando en los burgos el evangelio en lengua popular. Y lo hacía con tanta alegría, "grazie" y fuerza de convicción que fascinó a algunos de sus antiguos compañeros. En 1209 consiguió que el Papa Inocencio III aprobase su "locura" evangélica. Comenzaba el movimiento franciscano que en menos de veinte años tendría más de cinco mil seguidores. Cuatro ejes estructuran el movimiento: el amor apasionado a Cristo crucificado, el amor tierno y fraterno a los pobres, la "señora dama pobreza", sencillez genuina y gran humildad.
Dejando a un lado los otros ejes, intentemos entender cómo Francisco vio y vivió con los pobres. No hizo nada para los pobres (algún lazareto u obra asistencial), pero hizo mucho por los pobres, pues los incluía en la predicación del evangelio y cuando podía estaba con ellos, pero hizo más: vivió como los pobres. Asumió su vida, sus costumbres, los besaba, limpiaba sus heridas y comía con ellos. Se hizo un pobre entre los pobres. Y si encontraba a alguien más pobre que él, le daba parte de su ropa para ser realmente el más pobres de los pobres.
La pobreza no consiste en no tener, sino en la capacidad de dar y volver a dar hasta expropiarse de todo. No es un camino ascético, sino la mediación para una excelencia incomparable: la identificación con Cristo pobre y con los pobres con los cuales estableció una relación de fraternidad.
Francisco había intuido que las posesiones se interponen entre las personas, impidiendo que se miren a los ojos y que el corazón hable al corazón. Los intereses son lo que se encuentra entre (inter-esse) las personas y lo que crea obstáculos a la fraternidad. La pobreza es el esfuerzo continuo para eliminar las posesiones e intereses de cualquier tipo para que de ahí resulte la fraternidad verdadera. Ser radicalmente pobre para ser plenamente hermano, este es el proyecto de Francisco, de ahí la importancia de la pobreza radical.
Cierto es que la pobreza así de extrema era pesada y dura. Nadie vive solo de mística. La existencia en el cuerpo y el mundo plantea demandas que no pueden ser falsificadas. ¿Cómo humanizar la deshumanización real que comporta este tipo de pobreza? Las fuentes de la época dan testimonio de que los hermanos parecían "homines silvestres (salvajes) que comen muy poco, van descalzos y visten con los peores vestidos". Pero, para sorpresa de todos, dicen que nunca pierden la alegría y el buen humor.
En este contexto de pobreza extrema Francisco da valor a la fraternidad. La pobreza de cada uno es un reto para el otro, para cuidar de él y proporcionarle, mediante la limosna o el trabajo, lo mínimo necesario, darle cobijo y seguridad. Con esto el tener es sustituido en su pretensión de dar seguridad y humanización. Francisco quiere que cada fraile cumpla con la misión de madre para con otro, ya que las madres saben cómo cuidar, especialmente a los enfermos. Sólo el cuidado recíproco humaniza la existencia como lo mostró M. Heidegger en su Ser y Tiempo. Para quienes vivían totalmente desprotegidos, la fraternidad significaba efectivamente todo. El biógrafo Tomás de Celano describe la alegría y el gozo en medio de su pobreza severa. Escribía: "llenos de saudades trataban de encontrarse y estaban felices cuando podían estar juntos, el alejamiento era doloroso, la partida amarga, la separación triste". El despojamiento total les abría al disfrute de las bellezas del mundo, pues no las querían tener, solo saborear.
Muchas lecciones podrían extraerse de esta aventura espiritual. Quedémonos con una: para Francisco las relaciones humanas deben construirse siempre a partir de los que no son y no tienen la visión de los poderosos. Deben ser abrazados como hermanos. Sólo una fraternidad que viene desde abajo y desde ahí engloba a todos los demás, es verdaderamente humana y tiene sostenibilidad. La Iglesia, tal como la tenemos hoy, nunca será como los pobres. Pero puede ser para y con los pobres, como la sueña el Papa Francisco.
Leonardo Boff
To be radically poor so as to fully be a brother
Leonardo Boff
Theologian-Philosopher
Earthcharter Commission
One of the first things Pope Francis said was, “how I would like a Church that is poor, for the poor”. This idea is in consonance with the spirit of Saint Francis, called the Poverello, the Little Poor Man from Assisi. He did not attempt to create a poor Church for the poor, because this was not possible under the regime of Christianity, where the Church had all the power, but he created around himself a movement and a community of the poor, with the poor, living as the poor.
As to his class background, Francis came from the prosperous local bourgeoisie. His father was a rich cloth merchant. As a youth he led a group of bohemian friends ̶ jeunesse dorée ̶ who lived from feast to feast, and sang with the jugglers of Southern France. As an adult he endured a powerful existential crisis. From that crisis there arose within him an inexplicable mercy and love for the poor, especially for the lepers, the outcasts, outside the city. He abandoned his family and business, assuming an evangelical and radical poverty, and went to live with the lepers. Jesus, the poor and crucified one, and the real poor, were the reason for this change of life. He spent two years in prayer and penance, until he heard an inner call from the Crucified: "Francis, go and repair my Church; it is in ruins".
It was hard for him to understand that it was not about something material, but a spiritual mission. He traversed the pathways, preaching the Gospels in the hamlets in the popular tongue. And he did it with such joy, "grazie," and strength of conviction, that it fascinated some of his old companions. In 1209 he convinced Pope Innocence III to approve his Evangelical "madness". There began the Franciscan movement that in less than twenty years would have more than five thousand followers. Four central ideas underlay the movement: a passionate love for the crucified Christ; a tender and fraternal love for the poor, "dame lady poverty"; genuine simplicity, and great humility.
Leaving aside the other central ideas, let us try to understand how Francis saw and lived with the poor. He did nothing for the poor (a leper hospital or place of care), but he did much with the poor, because he included them in his preaching of the Gospels and stayed with them when he could. But he did more: he lived with the poor. Francis assumed their life, their customs, he kissed them, cleaned their wounds and ate with them. He made himself a poor man among the poor. And if he found someone poorer than himself, he would give him some of his clothes, so as to really be the poorest of the poor.
Poverty does not consist in not having anything, but in the capacity to give and give again until everything has been given away. It is not an ascetic path, but the means to an incomparable excellence: the identification with Christ the poor, and with the poor, with whom he established a fraternal relationship.
Francis had realized that possessions come between persons, such that they could not look into each other's eyes and speak heart to heart. Such interests are what lies (inter-esse) between persons and creates obstacles to fraternity. Poverty is the continuous effort to eliminate possessions and interests of any type, so that from there true fraternity may follow. To be radically poor in order to be fully a brother, that was the project of Francis, hence the importance of radical poverty.
It is true that such extreme poverty was heavy and harsh. No one lives on mysticism alone. Existence in the flesh and in the world make demands that can not be denied. How can one humanize the real dehumanization that this type of poverty entails? Sources from that time offer testimony that the brothers looked like "homines silvestres (savages) who eat very little, walk barefoot and wear the worst outfits". But, to everyone's surprise, they say that they never lacked joy and good humor.
In this context of extreme poverty Francis valued fraternity. The poverty of each one is a challenge for the other, to care for and provide the necessary minimum, shelter and security, for him/her, through handouts or work. In this way, giving security and humanization is substituted for having. Francis wanted each friar to fulfill the mission of mother towards the other, because mothers know how to care, especially for the infirm. Only reciprocal caring humanizes existence, as Martin Heidegger showed in his Being and Time. For those who lived totally unprotected, such fraternity in effect meant everything. Biographer Tommaso da Celano described the happiness and joy amidst this severe poverty. Da Celano would write: "filled of saudades, they tried to find each other, and were happy when they could be together; distance was painful, farewells were bitter, separation sad". Being totally distant opened for them the pleasures of the beauties of the world, because they did not want to possess them, only to enjoy them.
Many lessons could be taken from this spiritual adventure. Let's keep one: to Francis, building human relationships must always start with those who are not and do not have the vision of the powerful. They must be embraced as brothers and sisters. The only fraternity that is truly human and sustainable is that which comes from below and from there embraces all others. The Church, such as she exists now, will never be like the poor. But she can be for and with the poor, as Pope Francis dreams of her becoming.
Leonardo Boff
14 June 2013
Tuesday, June 18, 2013
La "tentación" de Francisco de Asís y la posible "tentación" de Francisco de Roma
2013-06-09
No imaginemos que los santos y santas están libres de las vicisitudes del común de la humanidad, que conoce momentos de alegría y frustración, tentaciones peligrosas y superaciones valerosas. No fue diferente en San Francisco, presentado como «el hermano siempre alegre», cortés, que vivía una fusión mística con todas las criaturas, a las que consideraba hermanos y hermanas. Pero, al mismo tiempo, era una persona de grandes pasiones e ira profunda cuando veía sus ideales traicionados por sus hermanos. Su mejor biógrafo, Tomás de Celano, describió con cruel realismo que Francisco sufría tentaciones de «violenta lujuria», que sabía sublimar simbólicamente.
Hay, sin embargo, un hecho que la historiografía piadosa del franciscanismo oculta, pero está bien documentado por la crítica histórica, y es conocido con el nombre de «la gran tentación». Los últimos 5 años de la vida de Francisco (muerto en 1226) estuvieron marcados por angustias profundas, casi desesperación, y enfermedades graves que lo afligían, como la malaria y la ceguera. El problema era objetivo: su ideal de vida era vivir en extrema pobreza extrema, sencillez radical y despojado de todo poder, apoyado sólo en el Evangelio leído sin interpretaciones que suelen desfibrar su sentido revolucionario.
Sucedió que en unos pocos años su estilo de vida cautivó a miles de seguidores, más de cinco mil. ¿Cómo albergarlos? ¿Cómo darles de comer? Muchos eran sacerdotes y teólogos como San Antonio. Su movimiento no tenía una estructura ni legalidad. Era un puro sueño tomado en serio. El mismo Francisco se entiende como un «novellus pazzus», como un «nuevo loco» que Dios quería en la Iglesia riquísima, gobernada por el Papa Inocencio III, el más poderoso de todos los papas de la historia.
A partir del verano de 1220 escribió varias versiones de una regla que todas fueron rechazadas por el conjunto de la fraternidad. Eran demasiado utópicas. Frustrado y sintiéndose inútil, decidió renunciar a la dirección del movimiento. Lleno de angustia y sin saber qué más hacer, se refugió en el bosque durante dos años, sólo visitado por su íntimo amigo fray León. Esperaba una iluminación divina que no venía. Entre tanto, se redactó una regla marcada por la influencia de la curia romana y del Papa que convirtió el movimiento en una orden religiosa: la Orden de los Frailes Menores, con estructura y propósitos definidos. Francisco, con dolor, la aceptó humildemente. Pero dejó claro que no la discutiría más sino dando ejemplos del primitivo sueño. La ley triunfó sobre la vida, el poder encorsetó el carisma. Pero quedó el espíritu de Francisco: de pobreza, de sencillez y de hermandad universal que nos inspiran hasta el día de hoy. Murió en medio de una gran frustración personal, pero sin perder la alegría. Murió cantando cantilenas de amor provenzales y salmos.
Francisco de Roma seguramente estará enfrentándose a su «gran tentación», no menor que la de Francisco de Asís. Tendrá que reformar la Curia romana, una institución que cuenta con cerca de mil años. Ahí está cristalizado el poder sagrado (sacra potestas) de forma administrativa. A fin de cuentas se trata de administrar una institución con una población como la de China: mil doscientos millones de católicos. Pero inmediatamente hay que advertir: donde hay poder difícilmente son posibles el amor y la misericordia. Es el imperio de la doctrina, el orden y la ley, que por su naturaleza incluyen o excluyen, aprueban o condenan.
Donde hay poder, sobre todo en una monarquía absoluta como el Estado Vaticano, siempre surge un anti-poder, intrigas, carrerismo y disputa por el poder. Thomas Hobbes en su famoso Leviatán (1651) lo vio claro: «no se puede garantizar el poder, sino buscando poder y más poder». Francisco de Roma, actual obispo local y Papa, debe interferir en ese poder, marcado por mil astucias y, a veces, por corrupción. Sabemos por los Papas anteriores que se propusieron reforma de la Curia, las resistencias y frustraciones que tuvieron que soportar, e incluso se sospecha de la eliminación física de algún Papa hecha por la gente de la administración eclesiástica. Francisco de Roma tiene el espíritu de Francisco de Asís: está por la pobreza, la sencillez y el despojamiento del poder. Pero afortunadamente es jesuita, con otra formación y dotado del famoso "discernimiento de espíritus", propio de la Orden. Manifiesta una ternura explícita en todo lo que have, pero también puede mostrar un vigor inusitado, como corresponde a un Papa con la misión de restaurar la Iglesia moralmente arruinada.
Francisco de Asís tenía pocos consejeros, soñadores como él, que no sabían cómo ayudarlo. Francisco de Roma se ha rodeado de consejeros elegidos de todos los continentes, personas de edad, es decir, con experiencia en el ejercicio del poder sagrado. Éste debería adquirir ahora otro perfil: más de servicio que de mando, más despojado que adornado de los símbolos del poder palaciego, más con "olor a oveja" que a perfume de las flores del altar. El portador del poder sagrado debe ser antes pastor que portador de la autoridad eclesiástica; presidir más en la caridad y menos con el derecho canónico, debe ser hermano entre sus hermanos, pero con diferentes responsabilidades.
¿Francisco de Roma soportará su «gran tentación» inspirado en su homónimo de Asís? Estimo que sabrá tener mano firme y no le faltará coraje para seguir lo que le dicte su "discernimiento de espíritu" para restaurar efectivamente la credibilidad de la Iglesia y devolver la fascinación por la figura de Jesús.
Leonardo Boff
No imaginemos que los santos y santas están libres de las vicisitudes del común de la humanidad, que conoce momentos de alegría y frustración, tentaciones peligrosas y superaciones valerosas. No fue diferente en San Francisco, presentado como «el hermano siempre alegre», cortés, que vivía una fusión mística con todas las criaturas, a las que consideraba hermanos y hermanas. Pero, al mismo tiempo, era una persona de grandes pasiones e ira profunda cuando veía sus ideales traicionados por sus hermanos. Su mejor biógrafo, Tomás de Celano, describió con cruel realismo que Francisco sufría tentaciones de «violenta lujuria», que sabía sublimar simbólicamente.
Hay, sin embargo, un hecho que la historiografía piadosa del franciscanismo oculta, pero está bien documentado por la crítica histórica, y es conocido con el nombre de «la gran tentación». Los últimos 5 años de la vida de Francisco (muerto en 1226) estuvieron marcados por angustias profundas, casi desesperación, y enfermedades graves que lo afligían, como la malaria y la ceguera. El problema era objetivo: su ideal de vida era vivir en extrema pobreza extrema, sencillez radical y despojado de todo poder, apoyado sólo en el Evangelio leído sin interpretaciones que suelen desfibrar su sentido revolucionario.
Sucedió que en unos pocos años su estilo de vida cautivó a miles de seguidores, más de cinco mil. ¿Cómo albergarlos? ¿Cómo darles de comer? Muchos eran sacerdotes y teólogos como San Antonio. Su movimiento no tenía una estructura ni legalidad. Era un puro sueño tomado en serio. El mismo Francisco se entiende como un «novellus pazzus», como un «nuevo loco» que Dios quería en la Iglesia riquísima, gobernada por el Papa Inocencio III, el más poderoso de todos los papas de la historia.
A partir del verano de 1220 escribió varias versiones de una regla que todas fueron rechazadas por el conjunto de la fraternidad. Eran demasiado utópicas. Frustrado y sintiéndose inútil, decidió renunciar a la dirección del movimiento. Lleno de angustia y sin saber qué más hacer, se refugió en el bosque durante dos años, sólo visitado por su íntimo amigo fray León. Esperaba una iluminación divina que no venía. Entre tanto, se redactó una regla marcada por la influencia de la curia romana y del Papa que convirtió el movimiento en una orden religiosa: la Orden de los Frailes Menores, con estructura y propósitos definidos. Francisco, con dolor, la aceptó humildemente. Pero dejó claro que no la discutiría más sino dando ejemplos del primitivo sueño. La ley triunfó sobre la vida, el poder encorsetó el carisma. Pero quedó el espíritu de Francisco: de pobreza, de sencillez y de hermandad universal que nos inspiran hasta el día de hoy. Murió en medio de una gran frustración personal, pero sin perder la alegría. Murió cantando cantilenas de amor provenzales y salmos.
Francisco de Roma seguramente estará enfrentándose a su «gran tentación», no menor que la de Francisco de Asís. Tendrá que reformar la Curia romana, una institución que cuenta con cerca de mil años. Ahí está cristalizado el poder sagrado (sacra potestas) de forma administrativa. A fin de cuentas se trata de administrar una institución con una población como la de China: mil doscientos millones de católicos. Pero inmediatamente hay que advertir: donde hay poder difícilmente son posibles el amor y la misericordia. Es el imperio de la doctrina, el orden y la ley, que por su naturaleza incluyen o excluyen, aprueban o condenan.
Donde hay poder, sobre todo en una monarquía absoluta como el Estado Vaticano, siempre surge un anti-poder, intrigas, carrerismo y disputa por el poder. Thomas Hobbes en su famoso Leviatán (1651) lo vio claro: «no se puede garantizar el poder, sino buscando poder y más poder». Francisco de Roma, actual obispo local y Papa, debe interferir en ese poder, marcado por mil astucias y, a veces, por corrupción. Sabemos por los Papas anteriores que se propusieron reforma de la Curia, las resistencias y frustraciones que tuvieron que soportar, e incluso se sospecha de la eliminación física de algún Papa hecha por la gente de la administración eclesiástica. Francisco de Roma tiene el espíritu de Francisco de Asís: está por la pobreza, la sencillez y el despojamiento del poder. Pero afortunadamente es jesuita, con otra formación y dotado del famoso "discernimiento de espíritus", propio de la Orden. Manifiesta una ternura explícita en todo lo que have, pero también puede mostrar un vigor inusitado, como corresponde a un Papa con la misión de restaurar la Iglesia moralmente arruinada.
Francisco de Asís tenía pocos consejeros, soñadores como él, que no sabían cómo ayudarlo. Francisco de Roma se ha rodeado de consejeros elegidos de todos los continentes, personas de edad, es decir, con experiencia en el ejercicio del poder sagrado. Éste debería adquirir ahora otro perfil: más de servicio que de mando, más despojado que adornado de los símbolos del poder palaciego, más con "olor a oveja" que a perfume de las flores del altar. El portador del poder sagrado debe ser antes pastor que portador de la autoridad eclesiástica; presidir más en la caridad y menos con el derecho canónico, debe ser hermano entre sus hermanos, pero con diferentes responsabilidades.
¿Francisco de Roma soportará su «gran tentación» inspirado en su homónimo de Asís? Estimo que sabrá tener mano firme y no le faltará coraje para seguir lo que le dicte su "discernimiento de espíritu" para restaurar efectivamente la credibilidad de la Iglesia y devolver la fascinación por la figura de Jesús.
Leonardo Boff
The "temptation" of Francis of Assisi and the possible "temptation" of Francis of Rome
9 June 2013
Leonardo Boff
Theologian-Philosopher
Earthcharter Commission
Let us not imagine that saints are free from the vicissitudes common to human life, which includes moments of happiness and frustration, dangerous temptations and courageous stands. It was no different with Saint Francis, portrayed as «the always happy brother», courteous, who lived a mystical union with all creatures, whom he considered his brothers and sisters. But at the same time, he was a person of great passions and profound rage when he saw his ideals betrayed by his brothers. His foremost biographer, Friar Tommaso da Celano, described with cruel realism that Francis suffered temptations of «violent lust», that he knew how to symbolically sublimate.
There is, however, a fact that pious Franciscan historiography hides, but that is well documented by historical critique, and that is known as «the great temptation». The last five years of Francis' life (he died in 1226) were marked by deep anguish, almost desperation, and the grave illnesses that afflicted him, such as malaria and blindness. The problem was objective: his ideal of life was to live in extreme poverty and radical simplicity, divested of all power, and sustained only by the Gospel read to him without the interpretation that often shroud its revolutionary meaning.
As it happened, in a few years his lifestyle captivated thousands of followers, more than five thousand. How to shelter them? How to feed them? Many were priests and theologians, such as Saint Anthony. His movement had neither structure nor legality. It was purely a dream taken seriously. Francis understood himself as a «novellus pazzus», a «new madman» that God wanted for the very wealthy Church, led by Pope Innocence III, the most powerful of all popes throughout history.
Beginning in the Summer of 1220, he wrote several versions of a rule that were all rejected by the gatherings of the fraternity. They were too utopic. Frustrated and feeling useless, he decided to renounce leadership of the movement. Filled with anguish and without knowing what else to do, he found refuge in the woods for two years, visited only by his intimate friend friar Leo. He waited for a divine illumination that would not come. Meanwhile, a rule was drafted that was marked by the influence of the Roman Curia and the Pope, turning the movement into a religious order: the Order of Friars Minor, with defined structure and purposes. Francis, with pain, humbly accepted it. But he clearly stated that he would no longer discuss it, but would continue giving examples of the primitive dream. Law triumphed over life, power confined charisma. But the spirit of Francis remained: the spirit of poverty, of simplicity, of universal brotherhood that inspires us to this day. Francis died amidst great personal frustration, but without losing his happiness. He died singing Provencal songs of love and the psalms.
Francis of Rome will surely face his own «great temptation», no less than the one of Francis of Assisi. He has to reform the Roman Curia, an institution that is about one thousand years old. In it, the sacred power (sacra potestas) has fossilized into an administrative structure. At any rate, it is a question of administering an institution with a population as large as China's: one billion, two hundred million Catholics. But one must immediately be warned: it is difficult for love and mercy to co-exist with power. It is an empire of doctrine, law and order, that by its nature includes or excludes, approves or condemns.
Where there is power, above all in an absolutist monarchy such as the Vatican State, there always arise anti-power intrigues, career climbers, and power disputes. Thomas Hobbes in his famous Leviatan (1651) saw it clearly: «power can not be guaranteed other than by seeking more and more power». Francis of Rome, presently the local bishop and Pope, must intervene in that power, marked by a thousand tricks, and sometimes, by corruption. We know from previous Popes who also proposed to reform the Curia, the resistance and frustrations they had to endure, including suspicion of the physical elimination of a Pope by people of the ecclesiastic administration. Francis of Rome has the spirit of Francis of Assisi: he is for poverty, simplicity and relinquishing power. But fortunately, he is a Jesuit, with a different background, and endowed with the famous "discernment of spirits" of the Jesuit Order. Francis of Rome manifests an explicit tenderness in everything he does, but he can also show an unusual vigor, as befits a Pope with the mission of restoring the morally bankrupt Church.
Francis of Assisi had a few advisors, dreamers like himself, who did not know how to help him. Francis of Rome has surrounded himself with advisors chosen from every continent, persons of age, that is, with experience in the exercise of the sacred power. This Pope must acquire a different profile: one that is more nearly of service than command, more divested of than adorned with the symbols of palatial power, with more of the "flavor of the lamb" than the perfume of the flowers of the altar. The carrier of the sacred power must be a pastor before he is the carrier of ecclesiastic authority; he must preside more in charity and less with canonical right, he must be brother among his brothers, but with different responsibilities.
Will Francis of Rome face his «great temptation» inspired by his namesake of Assisi? I believe he will know how to have a firm hand and that he will not lack the courage to follow what his "discernment of spirit" dictates is necessary to effectively restore the credibility of the Church, and return the fascination with the figure of Jesus of Nazareth.
Leonardo Boff
Leonardo Boff
Theologian-Philosopher
Earthcharter Commission
Let us not imagine that saints are free from the vicissitudes common to human life, which includes moments of happiness and frustration, dangerous temptations and courageous stands. It was no different with Saint Francis, portrayed as «the always happy brother», courteous, who lived a mystical union with all creatures, whom he considered his brothers and sisters. But at the same time, he was a person of great passions and profound rage when he saw his ideals betrayed by his brothers. His foremost biographer, Friar Tommaso da Celano, described with cruel realism that Francis suffered temptations of «violent lust», that he knew how to symbolically sublimate.
There is, however, a fact that pious Franciscan historiography hides, but that is well documented by historical critique, and that is known as «the great temptation». The last five years of Francis' life (he died in 1226) were marked by deep anguish, almost desperation, and the grave illnesses that afflicted him, such as malaria and blindness. The problem was objective: his ideal of life was to live in extreme poverty and radical simplicity, divested of all power, and sustained only by the Gospel read to him without the interpretation that often shroud its revolutionary meaning.
As it happened, in a few years his lifestyle captivated thousands of followers, more than five thousand. How to shelter them? How to feed them? Many were priests and theologians, such as Saint Anthony. His movement had neither structure nor legality. It was purely a dream taken seriously. Francis understood himself as a «novellus pazzus», a «new madman» that God wanted for the very wealthy Church, led by Pope Innocence III, the most powerful of all popes throughout history.
Beginning in the Summer of 1220, he wrote several versions of a rule that were all rejected by the gatherings of the fraternity. They were too utopic. Frustrated and feeling useless, he decided to renounce leadership of the movement. Filled with anguish and without knowing what else to do, he found refuge in the woods for two years, visited only by his intimate friend friar Leo. He waited for a divine illumination that would not come. Meanwhile, a rule was drafted that was marked by the influence of the Roman Curia and the Pope, turning the movement into a religious order: the Order of Friars Minor, with defined structure and purposes. Francis, with pain, humbly accepted it. But he clearly stated that he would no longer discuss it, but would continue giving examples of the primitive dream. Law triumphed over life, power confined charisma. But the spirit of Francis remained: the spirit of poverty, of simplicity, of universal brotherhood that inspires us to this day. Francis died amidst great personal frustration, but without losing his happiness. He died singing Provencal songs of love and the psalms.
Francis of Rome will surely face his own «great temptation», no less than the one of Francis of Assisi. He has to reform the Roman Curia, an institution that is about one thousand years old. In it, the sacred power (sacra potestas) has fossilized into an administrative structure. At any rate, it is a question of administering an institution with a population as large as China's: one billion, two hundred million Catholics. But one must immediately be warned: it is difficult for love and mercy to co-exist with power. It is an empire of doctrine, law and order, that by its nature includes or excludes, approves or condemns.
Where there is power, above all in an absolutist monarchy such as the Vatican State, there always arise anti-power intrigues, career climbers, and power disputes. Thomas Hobbes in his famous Leviatan (1651) saw it clearly: «power can not be guaranteed other than by seeking more and more power». Francis of Rome, presently the local bishop and Pope, must intervene in that power, marked by a thousand tricks, and sometimes, by corruption. We know from previous Popes who also proposed to reform the Curia, the resistance and frustrations they had to endure, including suspicion of the physical elimination of a Pope by people of the ecclesiastic administration. Francis of Rome has the spirit of Francis of Assisi: he is for poverty, simplicity and relinquishing power. But fortunately, he is a Jesuit, with a different background, and endowed with the famous "discernment of spirits" of the Jesuit Order. Francis of Rome manifests an explicit tenderness in everything he does, but he can also show an unusual vigor, as befits a Pope with the mission of restoring the morally bankrupt Church.
Francis of Assisi had a few advisors, dreamers like himself, who did not know how to help him. Francis of Rome has surrounded himself with advisors chosen from every continent, persons of age, that is, with experience in the exercise of the sacred power. This Pope must acquire a different profile: one that is more nearly of service than command, more divested of than adorned with the symbols of palatial power, with more of the "flavor of the lamb" than the perfume of the flowers of the altar. The carrier of the sacred power must be a pastor before he is the carrier of ecclesiastic authority; he must preside more in charity and less with canonical right, he must be brother among his brothers, but with different responsibilities.
Will Francis of Rome face his «great temptation» inspired by his namesake of Assisi? I believe he will know how to have a firm hand and that he will not lack the courage to follow what his "discernment of spirit" dictates is necessary to effectively restore the credibility of the Church, and return the fascination with the figure of Jesus of Nazareth.
Leonardo Boff
Actualidad del espíritu de San Francisco
2013-06-07
Debido a que el actual Papa ha elegido el nombre de Francisco, mucha gente ha vuelto a interesarse por esta figura singular, tal vez una de las más luminosas que el cristianismo y el propio Occidente ha producido: Francisco de Asís. Algunos lo llaman el "último cristiano" o "el primero después del Único”, es decir, de Jesucristo.
Seguramente podemos decir que cuando el cardenal Bergoglio eligió este nombre quería indicar un proyecto de Iglesia en la línea del espíritu de san Francisco. Este era lo opuesto al proyecto de la Iglesia de su tiempo, que se expresaba por el poder temporal sobre casi toda Europa hasta Rusia, por inmensas catedrales, suntuosos palacios y grandiosas abadías. San Francisco optó por vivir el evangelio puro, literalmente, en la pobreza más extrema, con una sencillez casi ingenua, con una humildad que lo situaba junto a la Tierra, al mismo nivel de los más despreciados de la sociedad, viviendo entre los leprosos y comiendo con ellos en la misma escudilla. Nunca criticó al Papa o a Roma. Simplemente no siguió su ejemplo. Para aquel tipo de Iglesia y de sociedad confiesa explícitamente: “Yo quiero ser un novellus pazzus, un nuevo loco”: loco por Cristo pobre y por “la señora dama pobreza” como expresión de total libertad: nada ser, nada tener, nada poder, nada pretender. Se le atribuye esta frase: “deseo poco, y lo poco que deseo lo deseo poco”. En realidad no era nada. Se despojó de cualquier título. Se consideraba “estúpido, mezquino, miserable y vil".
Este camino espiritual fue vivido a duras penas, ya que cuantos más seguidores acudían, más se oponían a él, reclamando conventos, normas y estudios. Resistió como le fue posible, y al final tuvo que rendirse a la mediocridad y la lógica de las instituciones que presuponen reglas, orden y poder. Pero no renunció a su sueño. Frustrado, volvió a servir a los leprosos, dejando que su movimiento, contra su voluntad, fuese transformado en la Orden de los Frailes Menores.
La humildad ilimitada y la pobreza radical le permitieron una experiencia que viene al encuentro de nuestras preguntas: ¿es posible recuperar la atención y el respeto por la naturaleza? ¿Es posible una hermandad universal que incluya a todos, como él lo hizo: el sultán de Egipto que encontró en la cruzada, la banda de asaltantes, el feroz lobo de Gubbio y hasta la muerte?
Francisco mostró que esta posibilidad es realizable a través de una práctica vivida con sencillez y pasión. Al no poseer nada, mantuvo una interacción directa de convivencia y no de posesión, con cada ser de la creación. Al ser radicalmente humilde se situaba en la misma tierra (humus = humildad) y al pie de cada criatura, que consideraba su hermana. Se sintió hermano del agua, del fuego, de la alondra, de la nube, del sol y de cada persona que encontraba. Inauguró una fraternidad sin fronteras: hacia abajo con los últimos, hacia los lados con sus semejantes, independientemente de si eran papas o siervos, hacia arriba, con el sol, la luna y las estrellas. Todos son hermanos y hermanas, hijos del mismo Padre de bondad.
La pobreza y la humildad así practicadas no tienen nada de santurronería. Suponen algo previo: el respeto sin restricciones a cada ser. Lleno de devoción, quita a la lombriz del camino para que no sea pisoteada, sujeta una rama rota para que se recupere, en invierno alimenta las abejas que revoloteaban perdidas. Se colocó en medio de las criaturas con profunda humildad, sintiéndose su hermano. Confraternizó con la "hermana y Madre Tierra". No negó el humus original y las raíces oscuras de donde venimos todos. Al renunciar a cualquier posesión de bienes, rechazando todo lo que podría ponerle por encima de otras personas y de las cosas, y poseerlas, se convirtió en hermano universal. Iba al encuentro de los otros con las manos vacías y el corazón puro, ofreciéndoles sólo cortesía, amistad, amor desinteresado, lleno de confianza y ternura.
La fraternidad universal surge cuando nos ponemos con gran humildad en el seno de la creación, respetando a cada ser y todas las formas de vida. Esta hermandad cósmica, fundada en el respeto ilimitado, es el requisito previo necesario para la fraternidad humana. Sin este respeto y esta fraternidad, difícilmente la Declaración de los Derechos Humanos será eficaz. Habrá siempre violaciones por razones étnicas, de género, de religión y otras.
Esta postura de fraternidad cósmica, asumida seriamente, puede animar nuestra preocupación ecológica de salvaguardia de cada especie, de cada animal y de cada planta, pues son nuestros hermanos y hermanas. Sin fraternidad real nunca llegaremos a formar la familia humana que habita la "hermana y Madre Tierra" con respeto y cuidado. Esta fraternidad demanda una inquebrantable paciencia, pero también contiene una gran promesa: es alcanzable. No estamos condenados a liberar a la bestia que habita en nosotros y que tomó forma en Videla, Pinochet, Fleury y otros cobardes torturadores.
Ojala el Papa Francisco de Roma en su práctica de pastor local y universal haga honor al nombre de Francisco y muestre la actualidad de los valores vividos por el fratello de Asís.
Leonardo Boff
Debido a que el actual Papa ha elegido el nombre de Francisco, mucha gente ha vuelto a interesarse por esta figura singular, tal vez una de las más luminosas que el cristianismo y el propio Occidente ha producido: Francisco de Asís. Algunos lo llaman el "último cristiano" o "el primero después del Único”, es decir, de Jesucristo.
Seguramente podemos decir que cuando el cardenal Bergoglio eligió este nombre quería indicar un proyecto de Iglesia en la línea del espíritu de san Francisco. Este era lo opuesto al proyecto de la Iglesia de su tiempo, que se expresaba por el poder temporal sobre casi toda Europa hasta Rusia, por inmensas catedrales, suntuosos palacios y grandiosas abadías. San Francisco optó por vivir el evangelio puro, literalmente, en la pobreza más extrema, con una sencillez casi ingenua, con una humildad que lo situaba junto a la Tierra, al mismo nivel de los más despreciados de la sociedad, viviendo entre los leprosos y comiendo con ellos en la misma escudilla. Nunca criticó al Papa o a Roma. Simplemente no siguió su ejemplo. Para aquel tipo de Iglesia y de sociedad confiesa explícitamente: “Yo quiero ser un novellus pazzus, un nuevo loco”: loco por Cristo pobre y por “la señora dama pobreza” como expresión de total libertad: nada ser, nada tener, nada poder, nada pretender. Se le atribuye esta frase: “deseo poco, y lo poco que deseo lo deseo poco”. En realidad no era nada. Se despojó de cualquier título. Se consideraba “estúpido, mezquino, miserable y vil".
Este camino espiritual fue vivido a duras penas, ya que cuantos más seguidores acudían, más se oponían a él, reclamando conventos, normas y estudios. Resistió como le fue posible, y al final tuvo que rendirse a la mediocridad y la lógica de las instituciones que presuponen reglas, orden y poder. Pero no renunció a su sueño. Frustrado, volvió a servir a los leprosos, dejando que su movimiento, contra su voluntad, fuese transformado en la Orden de los Frailes Menores.
La humildad ilimitada y la pobreza radical le permitieron una experiencia que viene al encuentro de nuestras preguntas: ¿es posible recuperar la atención y el respeto por la naturaleza? ¿Es posible una hermandad universal que incluya a todos, como él lo hizo: el sultán de Egipto que encontró en la cruzada, la banda de asaltantes, el feroz lobo de Gubbio y hasta la muerte?
Francisco mostró que esta posibilidad es realizable a través de una práctica vivida con sencillez y pasión. Al no poseer nada, mantuvo una interacción directa de convivencia y no de posesión, con cada ser de la creación. Al ser radicalmente humilde se situaba en la misma tierra (humus = humildad) y al pie de cada criatura, que consideraba su hermana. Se sintió hermano del agua, del fuego, de la alondra, de la nube, del sol y de cada persona que encontraba. Inauguró una fraternidad sin fronteras: hacia abajo con los últimos, hacia los lados con sus semejantes, independientemente de si eran papas o siervos, hacia arriba, con el sol, la luna y las estrellas. Todos son hermanos y hermanas, hijos del mismo Padre de bondad.
La pobreza y la humildad así practicadas no tienen nada de santurronería. Suponen algo previo: el respeto sin restricciones a cada ser. Lleno de devoción, quita a la lombriz del camino para que no sea pisoteada, sujeta una rama rota para que se recupere, en invierno alimenta las abejas que revoloteaban perdidas. Se colocó en medio de las criaturas con profunda humildad, sintiéndose su hermano. Confraternizó con la "hermana y Madre Tierra". No negó el humus original y las raíces oscuras de donde venimos todos. Al renunciar a cualquier posesión de bienes, rechazando todo lo que podría ponerle por encima de otras personas y de las cosas, y poseerlas, se convirtió en hermano universal. Iba al encuentro de los otros con las manos vacías y el corazón puro, ofreciéndoles sólo cortesía, amistad, amor desinteresado, lleno de confianza y ternura.
La fraternidad universal surge cuando nos ponemos con gran humildad en el seno de la creación, respetando a cada ser y todas las formas de vida. Esta hermandad cósmica, fundada en el respeto ilimitado, es el requisito previo necesario para la fraternidad humana. Sin este respeto y esta fraternidad, difícilmente la Declaración de los Derechos Humanos será eficaz. Habrá siempre violaciones por razones étnicas, de género, de religión y otras.
Esta postura de fraternidad cósmica, asumida seriamente, puede animar nuestra preocupación ecológica de salvaguardia de cada especie, de cada animal y de cada planta, pues son nuestros hermanos y hermanas. Sin fraternidad real nunca llegaremos a formar la familia humana que habita la "hermana y Madre Tierra" con respeto y cuidado. Esta fraternidad demanda una inquebrantable paciencia, pero también contiene una gran promesa: es alcanzable. No estamos condenados a liberar a la bestia que habita en nosotros y que tomó forma en Videla, Pinochet, Fleury y otros cobardes torturadores.
Ojala el Papa Francisco de Roma en su práctica de pastor local y universal haga honor al nombre de Francisco y muestre la actualidad de los valores vividos por el fratello de Asís.
Leonardo Boff
The current relevance of the spirit of Saint Francis
Leonardo Boff
Theologian-Philosopher
Earthcharter Commission
Since the present Pope adopted the name of Francis, many people are interested again in this singular figure, perhaps one of the most luminous that Christianity and the West have produced: Francis of Assisi. Some call him "the last Christian" or "the first after the Unique," this is, after Jesus Christ.
We surely can say that when Cardinal Bergoglio took this name he was indicating that the Church would be in line with the spirit of Saint Francis. Saint Francis was the opposite of the tendency of the Church of his own time, that was expressed by temporal power over almost all of Europe, including Russia, by immense cathedrals, sumptuous palaces and grandiose abbeys. Saint Francis opted for living the pure gospel, literally, in the most extreme poverty, with an almost ingenuous simplicity, and a humility that kept him close to the Earth, at the level of the most despised of society, living among the lepers and eating with them from the same bowl. He never criticized the Pope or Rome. He simply did not follow their example. As to that type of Church and society he explicitly confessed: “I want to be a 'novellus pazzus', a new crazy one”: crazy for Christ the poor and for “the lady dame poverty” as an expression of total freedom: to be nothing, to have nothing, without power or pretense. This phrase is attributed to him: “I want little, and the little that I want I don't want very much.” In reality, it was nothing . He eschewed all titles, and considered himself, “stupid, small, miserable and low".
This spiritual journey was hard, since the more followers who came to him, the more they opposed him, demanding convents, norms and studies. He resisted as much as possible, but in the end he had to surrender to the mediocrity and the logic of the institutions that presuppose rules, order and power. But he did not renounce his dream. Frustrated, he went back to serve the lepers, allowing his movement, against his will, to slowly transform itself into the Order of Friars Minor.
This unlimited humility and radical poverty offered him an experience that leads to our questions: is it possible to regain the care and respect for nature? Is a universal brotherhood and sisterhood possible that includes all, as Francis of Assisi did: the sultan of Egypt he found in the crusade, the band of thieves, the ferocious wolf of Gubbio, and even death?
Francis showed that this is feasible through a life lived with simplicity and passion. Not possessing anything, he maintained a direct interaction of coexistence with, rather than possession of, every being of creation. Being radically humble he grounded himself in the very earth, (humus = humility) and on the side of every creature, that he considered his sister. He felt as if he were brother to the water, to the fire, the lark, the cloud, the sun and to every person he came across. He inaugurated a fraternity without borders: reaching the depths with the least, at the side of his fellow humans, whether popes or servants, and upwards with the sun, the moon and the stars. All are brothers and sisters, children of the same Father of goodness.
Poverty and humility thus practiced bear no trace of sanctimoniousness. They imply something previous: respect for every being without restriction. Filled with devotion, he moved the worm from the path so that it was not trampled, held a broken limb from a tree to heal itself, in the winter he fed the bees that flew about lost. He placed himself in the midst of the creatures with profound humility, feeling as if he were their brother. He fraternized with "sister and Mother Earth". He did not deny the original humus nor the obscure roots whence we come. By renouncing any possession of goods, rejecting all that could put him above, or possessing, other persons or things, he made himself into the universal brother. He would go to an encounter with others with empty hands and a pure hearth, offering them only courtesy, friendship, love without self-interest, full of confidence and tenderness.
Universal fraternity arises when we place ourselves with great humility in the womb of creation, respecting every being and all forms of life. This cosmic brotherhood, grounded in unlimited respect, is the necessary prerequisite for human fraternity. Without this respect and fraternity, the Human Rights Declaration will be hardly efficacious. There will always be violations for ethnic reasons, for reasons of gender, religion and others.
This posture of cosmic fraternity, seriously undertaken, can animate our ecological concern to safeguard every species, every animal and every plant, because they are our brothers and sisters. Without real fraternity we will never be able to form the human family that with respect and caring, inhabits "sister and Mother Earth". This fraternity demands an unlimited patience, but it also holds great promise: it is reachable. We are not condemned to set free the beast that inhabits us, and that took form in Videla, Pinochet, Fleury and other cowardly torturers.
We hope Pope Francis of Rome, in his practice of local and universal pastor, honors the name of Francis and shows the current relevancy of the values lived by the fratello from Assisi.
Leonardo Boff
Theologian-Philosopher
Earthcharter Commission
Since the present Pope adopted the name of Francis, many people are interested again in this singular figure, perhaps one of the most luminous that Christianity and the West have produced: Francis of Assisi. Some call him "the last Christian" or "the first after the Unique," this is, after Jesus Christ.
We surely can say that when Cardinal Bergoglio took this name he was indicating that the Church would be in line with the spirit of Saint Francis. Saint Francis was the opposite of the tendency of the Church of his own time, that was expressed by temporal power over almost all of Europe, including Russia, by immense cathedrals, sumptuous palaces and grandiose abbeys. Saint Francis opted for living the pure gospel, literally, in the most extreme poverty, with an almost ingenuous simplicity, and a humility that kept him close to the Earth, at the level of the most despised of society, living among the lepers and eating with them from the same bowl. He never criticized the Pope or Rome. He simply did not follow their example. As to that type of Church and society he explicitly confessed: “I want to be a 'novellus pazzus', a new crazy one”: crazy for Christ the poor and for “the lady dame poverty” as an expression of total freedom: to be nothing, to have nothing, without power or pretense. This phrase is attributed to him: “I want little, and the little that I want I don't want very much.” In reality, it was nothing . He eschewed all titles, and considered himself, “stupid, small, miserable and low".
This spiritual journey was hard, since the more followers who came to him, the more they opposed him, demanding convents, norms and studies. He resisted as much as possible, but in the end he had to surrender to the mediocrity and the logic of the institutions that presuppose rules, order and power. But he did not renounce his dream. Frustrated, he went back to serve the lepers, allowing his movement, against his will, to slowly transform itself into the Order of Friars Minor.
This unlimited humility and radical poverty offered him an experience that leads to our questions: is it possible to regain the care and respect for nature? Is a universal brotherhood and sisterhood possible that includes all, as Francis of Assisi did: the sultan of Egypt he found in the crusade, the band of thieves, the ferocious wolf of Gubbio, and even death?
Francis showed that this is feasible through a life lived with simplicity and passion. Not possessing anything, he maintained a direct interaction of coexistence with, rather than possession of, every being of creation. Being radically humble he grounded himself in the very earth, (humus = humility) and on the side of every creature, that he considered his sister. He felt as if he were brother to the water, to the fire, the lark, the cloud, the sun and to every person he came across. He inaugurated a fraternity without borders: reaching the depths with the least, at the side of his fellow humans, whether popes or servants, and upwards with the sun, the moon and the stars. All are brothers and sisters, children of the same Father of goodness.
Poverty and humility thus practiced bear no trace of sanctimoniousness. They imply something previous: respect for every being without restriction. Filled with devotion, he moved the worm from the path so that it was not trampled, held a broken limb from a tree to heal itself, in the winter he fed the bees that flew about lost. He placed himself in the midst of the creatures with profound humility, feeling as if he were their brother. He fraternized with "sister and Mother Earth". He did not deny the original humus nor the obscure roots whence we come. By renouncing any possession of goods, rejecting all that could put him above, or possessing, other persons or things, he made himself into the universal brother. He would go to an encounter with others with empty hands and a pure hearth, offering them only courtesy, friendship, love without self-interest, full of confidence and tenderness.
Universal fraternity arises when we place ourselves with great humility in the womb of creation, respecting every being and all forms of life. This cosmic brotherhood, grounded in unlimited respect, is the necessary prerequisite for human fraternity. Without this respect and fraternity, the Human Rights Declaration will be hardly efficacious. There will always be violations for ethnic reasons, for reasons of gender, religion and others.
This posture of cosmic fraternity, seriously undertaken, can animate our ecological concern to safeguard every species, every animal and every plant, because they are our brothers and sisters. Without real fraternity we will never be able to form the human family that with respect and caring, inhabits "sister and Mother Earth". This fraternity demands an unlimited patience, but it also holds great promise: it is reachable. We are not condemned to set free the beast that inhabits us, and that took form in Videla, Pinochet, Fleury and other cowardly torturers.
We hope Pope Francis of Rome, in his practice of local and universal pastor, honors the name of Francis and shows the current relevancy of the values lived by the fratello from Assisi.
Leonardo Boff
Saturday, June 15, 2013
Agenda Latinoamericana 2014: "Libertad! Libertad!"
With thanks to Iglesia Descalza
Introduction
Dom Pedro Casaldaliga has just published his introduction to the 2014 edition of the Agenda Latinoamericana, which addresses the issue of freedom. We are pleased to bring it to you here in English. Previous issues of the Agenda are available on Servicios Koinoniaand the Agenda now has a Facebook page too!
With her earthy voice, echoing many ancestral voices, Mercedes Sosa offers us a deeply human invitation:
"Hermano, dame tu mano,
vamos juntos a buscar
una cosa pequeñita
que se llama libertad".
("Brother, give me your hand, let's go together to seek a tiny thing called freedom.")
Our 2014 Agenda welcomes the invitation by making freedom its subject and challenge.
Mercedes, with revolutionary tenderness, characterizes freedom as something tiny. What tininess! Tiny and grand, like the mystery of the freedom of every person and every people and all of human history. Tiny and tender as a fetus, as awesomely large as hate.
Oh, freedom, freedom! In your name, the most beautiful heroic actions have happened and the greatest iniquities have been committed. You are a banner of life and a banner of death.
In the Agenda, we touch on the subject of freedom in all its dimensions, seeking to know and experience complete freedom, which has many aspects, which is a gift and something to be won. It's in the anthems of all nations and in all anthologies. It's basic in all religions. Religion, ultimately, is the dialogue between two absolute freedoms -- God and the human being. In the Christian faith, specifically, we proclaim that Christ freed us so that we would be truly free. He assures us that "the truth shall make you free." To be free, to become free, to embrace freedom as a spiritual process and political experience is to make our humanity more and more humane. Knowing with a critical and self-critical spirit how many enemies beset our freedom. Just a game of justification takes us from freedom to licentiousness and that "tiny thing" dies, like a bird without wings, in our hearts, in our families, in our work, our citizenship, in our personal lives, and in our society. And suddenly we find ourselves slaves -- slaves to fear, to selfishness, to money, consumption, power...
We speak of liberty and we speak of liberation. Liberation cannot be sidestepped through spiritualism or disembodied personalism. Freedom is political; in our Agenda, it's political with that clear option that the Zapatistas advocate: "always from below and on the left."
True freedom is communitarian, an exercise in give and take relationships. I'm free if you're free. "There is no freedom without equality." Nor is there freedom without dignity, a dignity that's so often killed by ideologies and systems, a victim of individual or collective selfishness, but also victorious through exemplary acts of resistance that make a way from behind bars, through marginalization, torture, and censure. The list of martyrs to freedom is infinite.
On the occasion of the commemoration of the misnamed Discovery of America, the Agenda Latinoamericana y Mundial was born to stimulate alternative awareness and action. And this awareness and action would translate into service to the Great Causes, Our America, the Third World, the World. And in each Agenda, we go on highlighting the critical historical moment of those Great Causes. The signed texts are the responsibility of the author, but the whole Agendabrings together contentious burning issues, in a broadly ecumenical and macro-ecumenical spirit. By talking together again and again we become more humane. In going over the 22 editions of ourAgenda, it's comforting to see how this dialogue has taken effect and been updated, how grassroots activists, students and professors, politicians, pastoral agents, and community facilitators have come into the arena.
Mercedes' song asks us to "go together to seek" freedom and liberation. Let's stimulate the awareness that we bring and carry "a people in our voice" ("un pueblo en nuestra voz"). Let's not let "that tiny thing" that guarantees our dignity be snatched away from us. "Es nuestra tierra la que espera sin distancias ni fronteras" ("It's our land that awaits without distances or borders"). Against all tyrants, despite all empires, getting outraged every day and translating our outrage into unstoppable acts and processes.
Definitely:
Without fear of Freedom, which is the most dehumanizing fear.
Without fear of Freedom, that is, without fear of Life.
Dom Pedro Casaldaliga has just published his introduction to the 2014 edition of the Agenda Latinoamericana, which addresses the issue of freedom. We are pleased to bring it to you here in English. Previous issues of the Agenda are available on Servicios Koinoniaand the Agenda now has a Facebook page too!
With her earthy voice, echoing many ancestral voices, Mercedes Sosa offers us a deeply human invitation:
"Hermano, dame tu mano,
vamos juntos a buscar
una cosa pequeñita
que se llama libertad".
("Brother, give me your hand, let's go together to seek a tiny thing called freedom.")
Our 2014 Agenda welcomes the invitation by making freedom its subject and challenge.
Mercedes, with revolutionary tenderness, characterizes freedom as something tiny. What tininess! Tiny and grand, like the mystery of the freedom of every person and every people and all of human history. Tiny and tender as a fetus, as awesomely large as hate.
Oh, freedom, freedom! In your name, the most beautiful heroic actions have happened and the greatest iniquities have been committed. You are a banner of life and a banner of death.
In the Agenda, we touch on the subject of freedom in all its dimensions, seeking to know and experience complete freedom, which has many aspects, which is a gift and something to be won. It's in the anthems of all nations and in all anthologies. It's basic in all religions. Religion, ultimately, is the dialogue between two absolute freedoms -- God and the human being. In the Christian faith, specifically, we proclaim that Christ freed us so that we would be truly free. He assures us that "the truth shall make you free." To be free, to become free, to embrace freedom as a spiritual process and political experience is to make our humanity more and more humane. Knowing with a critical and self-critical spirit how many enemies beset our freedom. Just a game of justification takes us from freedom to licentiousness and that "tiny thing" dies, like a bird without wings, in our hearts, in our families, in our work, our citizenship, in our personal lives, and in our society. And suddenly we find ourselves slaves -- slaves to fear, to selfishness, to money, consumption, power...
We speak of liberty and we speak of liberation. Liberation cannot be sidestepped through spiritualism or disembodied personalism. Freedom is political; in our Agenda, it's political with that clear option that the Zapatistas advocate: "always from below and on the left."
True freedom is communitarian, an exercise in give and take relationships. I'm free if you're free. "There is no freedom without equality." Nor is there freedom without dignity, a dignity that's so often killed by ideologies and systems, a victim of individual or collective selfishness, but also victorious through exemplary acts of resistance that make a way from behind bars, through marginalization, torture, and censure. The list of martyrs to freedom is infinite.
On the occasion of the commemoration of the misnamed Discovery of America, the Agenda Latinoamericana y Mundial was born to stimulate alternative awareness and action. And this awareness and action would translate into service to the Great Causes, Our America, the Third World, the World. And in each Agenda, we go on highlighting the critical historical moment of those Great Causes. The signed texts are the responsibility of the author, but the whole Agendabrings together contentious burning issues, in a broadly ecumenical and macro-ecumenical spirit. By talking together again and again we become more humane. In going over the 22 editions of ourAgenda, it's comforting to see how this dialogue has taken effect and been updated, how grassroots activists, students and professors, politicians, pastoral agents, and community facilitators have come into the arena.
Mercedes' song asks us to "go together to seek" freedom and liberation. Let's stimulate the awareness that we bring and carry "a people in our voice" ("un pueblo en nuestra voz"). Let's not let "that tiny thing" that guarantees our dignity be snatched away from us. "Es nuestra tierra la que espera sin distancias ni fronteras" ("It's our land that awaits without distances or borders"). Against all tyrants, despite all empires, getting outraged every day and translating our outrage into unstoppable acts and processes.
Definitely:
Without fear of Freedom, which is the most dehumanizing fear.
Without fear of Freedom, that is, without fear of Life.
Wednesday, June 12, 2013
Fig leaf Christianity: Prisoners lacking conscience
A reflection by Camilla Gilmore
I sometimes read the comments on the National Catholic Reporter. It is a fascinatingly depressing exercise in raising ones blood pressure to its upper limits.
One commenter recently, a neo-con troll, ranted and railed against the evil of the LCWR (without ever substantiating allegations) based purely, it seemed, on the fact that the Magisterium didn’t like them and that was enough for him. He was assured in his right-ness and righteousness because he always aligned his opinion with that of the Catholic hierarchy. Any deviation, or questioning of the position of the Magisterium, was the sin of self idolisation and arrogance and it was his duty to bring this truth to the sinful and ignorant. The irony of his arrogant pronouncements was entirely lost on him. For someone who could quote encyclicles and cannon law, he seemed woefully ignorant of basic formative Catholic theology.
Even back in the earliest days of Christian theology, when systematic theology was in a stage so infantile as to be fetal, the primacy of conscience and the necessity of questions was recognised. The earliest church dedicated itself to holding important councils; Nicea, Chaldean, Alexandria, all these councils were held to decide exactly what was and wasn’t orthodoxy and what was and wasn’t heresy. And they did this through questioning, discussion and debate. Augustine had his “faith seeking understanding” that exhibited itself in his dialectic form of writing. Later, Aquinas and Kant spoke of the primacy of individual conscience, and the need for Christians to critically engage with their faith, if only to ensure that they were not being deceived or tempted by the Devil.
Catholics who suppose themselves to always to be correct as long as they align themselves with Vatican pronouncements are committing a far greater sin than self idolisation. In denying the primacy of their own conscience, they are denying the aspect of themselves that carries the image of God, and so are guilty of self-deicide. When they suppress the conscience in favour of conformity, when they demand uniformity over the unity that comes from free and open dialogue, they attack what is most unique and beautiful about humanity; our self reflective and self expressive conscience. They attack the very gift that God gave us that marked us as above the angels; free will. They deny the God of revelation, who continues to speak through the Holy Spirit; the God who is constantly revealing more and more about who God is. They deny the God of salvation history, who can continue to work within history today to address old and grievous social sins and injustices.
These neo-cons are prisoners to their own lack of conscience. Their entire notion of themselves as right and good is predicated in the opinions of others, and their own ability to align themselves to those opinions. They are cyphers; vampires that cast no reflection and whose entire identity would be lost were the Magisterium to do one of it’s rare and spectacular 180′s. They have created themselves on the shifting sand of human institution and fooled themselves, through historical revisionism and academic dishonesty, that they are surely founded upon an eternal rock of continuous truth. The only eternal foundation humanity has access to is its conscience. It is the conscience that is the mark of the image of God, and so it is the conscience, and the conscience alone that is eternal and absolute truth.
The denial of the primacy of conscience is often accompanied by the insistence on eternal, ethical, absolute truths; homosexuality is always and eternally “intrinsically disordered”, women are always and eternally barred from the Priesthood, contraceptives are always and eternally condemned. But if conscience is the eternal and absolute truth, as only conscience can be if it is in conscience that we find the image of God, then none of these external “absolute truths” can be absolute truths precisely because they are external and have nothing to do with the image of God and so cannot carry the mark of eternity.
Neo-cons need external absolute truths because they have severed themselves from the absolute truth within. They need the idols of external absolute truth because they have killed the internal absolute of conscience; they have killed the God within.
To live out the Gospel is not to recreate the social norms and biases of a bygone era in our own, modern world and call it eternal. To live the Gospel is to live in an ever shifting world where the only thing that can be relied on is the spark of the eternal within; the conscience. It is to live as the nuns do; to recognise that caring for and sheltering homeless LGBTQ youth is of more immediate importance than denouncing their sexuality as the Vatican would like them to do (particularly when the entire concept of sexuality as sinful is so theologically unsubstantiated and in need of free and open debate). To recognise that the time to condemn is not when a person is already on the floor, bent and broken. To recognise that their conscience demands more of them than the easy reaction of disgust and pontification and condemnation; it demands the absurd reaction of love and compassion and service. It demands the absurd conviction that the eternity of God is internally accessible to all us mere mortals, and the courage to trust that internal eternity even when the external “absolute and eternal truth” is diametrically opposed to the conclusions of ones conscience. It is all that is beautiful and unique within the human condition and evidence of Gods perverse sense of humour because, it would seem, the only eternal truth we have access to is the fact that we have access to the eternal truth, and beyond that we just need to have faith that we are getting it right and ask questions to make sure we don’t get it wrong.
I sometimes read the comments on the National Catholic Reporter. It is a fascinatingly depressing exercise in raising ones blood pressure to its upper limits.
One commenter recently, a neo-con troll, ranted and railed against the evil of the LCWR (without ever substantiating allegations) based purely, it seemed, on the fact that the Magisterium didn’t like them and that was enough for him. He was assured in his right-ness and righteousness because he always aligned his opinion with that of the Catholic hierarchy. Any deviation, or questioning of the position of the Magisterium, was the sin of self idolisation and arrogance and it was his duty to bring this truth to the sinful and ignorant. The irony of his arrogant pronouncements was entirely lost on him. For someone who could quote encyclicles and cannon law, he seemed woefully ignorant of basic formative Catholic theology.
Even back in the earliest days of Christian theology, when systematic theology was in a stage so infantile as to be fetal, the primacy of conscience and the necessity of questions was recognised. The earliest church dedicated itself to holding important councils; Nicea, Chaldean, Alexandria, all these councils were held to decide exactly what was and wasn’t orthodoxy and what was and wasn’t heresy. And they did this through questioning, discussion and debate. Augustine had his “faith seeking understanding” that exhibited itself in his dialectic form of writing. Later, Aquinas and Kant spoke of the primacy of individual conscience, and the need for Christians to critically engage with their faith, if only to ensure that they were not being deceived or tempted by the Devil.
Catholics who suppose themselves to always to be correct as long as they align themselves with Vatican pronouncements are committing a far greater sin than self idolisation. In denying the primacy of their own conscience, they are denying the aspect of themselves that carries the image of God, and so are guilty of self-deicide. When they suppress the conscience in favour of conformity, when they demand uniformity over the unity that comes from free and open dialogue, they attack what is most unique and beautiful about humanity; our self reflective and self expressive conscience. They attack the very gift that God gave us that marked us as above the angels; free will. They deny the God of revelation, who continues to speak through the Holy Spirit; the God who is constantly revealing more and more about who God is. They deny the God of salvation history, who can continue to work within history today to address old and grievous social sins and injustices.
These neo-cons are prisoners to their own lack of conscience. Their entire notion of themselves as right and good is predicated in the opinions of others, and their own ability to align themselves to those opinions. They are cyphers; vampires that cast no reflection and whose entire identity would be lost were the Magisterium to do one of it’s rare and spectacular 180′s. They have created themselves on the shifting sand of human institution and fooled themselves, through historical revisionism and academic dishonesty, that they are surely founded upon an eternal rock of continuous truth. The only eternal foundation humanity has access to is its conscience. It is the conscience that is the mark of the image of God, and so it is the conscience, and the conscience alone that is eternal and absolute truth.
The denial of the primacy of conscience is often accompanied by the insistence on eternal, ethical, absolute truths; homosexuality is always and eternally “intrinsically disordered”, women are always and eternally barred from the Priesthood, contraceptives are always and eternally condemned. But if conscience is the eternal and absolute truth, as only conscience can be if it is in conscience that we find the image of God, then none of these external “absolute truths” can be absolute truths precisely because they are external and have nothing to do with the image of God and so cannot carry the mark of eternity.
Neo-cons need external absolute truths because they have severed themselves from the absolute truth within. They need the idols of external absolute truth because they have killed the internal absolute of conscience; they have killed the God within.
To live out the Gospel is not to recreate the social norms and biases of a bygone era in our own, modern world and call it eternal. To live the Gospel is to live in an ever shifting world where the only thing that can be relied on is the spark of the eternal within; the conscience. It is to live as the nuns do; to recognise that caring for and sheltering homeless LGBTQ youth is of more immediate importance than denouncing their sexuality as the Vatican would like them to do (particularly when the entire concept of sexuality as sinful is so theologically unsubstantiated and in need of free and open debate). To recognise that the time to condemn is not when a person is already on the floor, bent and broken. To recognise that their conscience demands more of them than the easy reaction of disgust and pontification and condemnation; it demands the absurd reaction of love and compassion and service. It demands the absurd conviction that the eternity of God is internally accessible to all us mere mortals, and the courage to trust that internal eternity even when the external “absolute and eternal truth” is diametrically opposed to the conclusions of ones conscience. It is all that is beautiful and unique within the human condition and evidence of Gods perverse sense of humour because, it would seem, the only eternal truth we have access to is the fact that we have access to the eternal truth, and beyond that we just need to have faith that we are getting it right and ask questions to make sure we don’t get it wrong.
Fig leaf Christianity: Prisoners lacking conscience (French)
Une réflexion de Camilla Gilmore
Il m’arrive de lire les commentaires [des lecteurs] sur le National Catholic Reporter[1]. C’est un entraînement à la déprime envoûtant dans sa manière de faire grimper la tension artérielle au plus haut.
Un commentateur récent, un gnome néoconservateur, déclamait des injures contre la calamité de la LCWR[2] (sans jamais donner corps à ses allégations) seulement fondées, semble-t-il, sur le fait que le Magistère n’aimait pas [les religieuses] et cela lui suffisait. Il avait l’assurance d’être dans le vrai et le juste parce qu’il alignait toujours son opinion sur celle de la hiérarchie catholique. Toute déviation, toute interrogation sur la position du Magistère était péché d’auto-idolâtrie et d’arrogance, et c’était son devoir de révéler cette vérité au pécheur, à l’ignorant. Le grotesque de sa déclaration arrogante lui échappait totalement. Pour quelqu’un qui pouvait citer les encycliques et le droit canon, il semblait dramatiquement dépourvu d’une formation de base de théologie catholique.
Même en remontant aux débuts de la théologie chrétienne, alors que la théologie systématique en était à un stade infantile, si bien que fœtal, la primauté de la conscience et la nécessité du questionnement étaient reconnues. L’église primitive s’adonnait à l’organisation d’importants conciles ; Nicée, Chaldée, Alexandrie, tous ces conciles se tinrent pour décider exactement de ce qui était ou n’était pas orthodoxie, de ce qui était ou n’était pas hérésie. Et ils le firent par le questionnement, la discussion et le débat. Augustin avait sa « compréhension en quête de foi » qui s’exprimait dans la forme dialectique de son écriture. Plus tard, Thomas d’Aquin et Kant ont parlé de la primauté de la conscience individuelle, et du besoin pour les Chrétiens de de débattre de façon critique avec leur foi, ne serait-ce que pour s’assurer qu’ils ne sont pas trompés ou tentés par le Démon.
Les Catholiques qui se voient toujours dans le droit chemin tant qu’ils s’alignent sur les déclarations du Vatican commettent un bien plus grand péché que l’auto-idolâtrie. En niant la primauté de leur propre conscience, ils nient la part d’eux-mêmes qui porte l’image de Dieu, et alors ils sont coupables de self-déicide. Quand ils annihilent la conscience au profit du conformisme, quand ils exigent que l’uniformité soit au-dessus de l’unité qui provient du dialogue libre et ouvert, ils attaquent ce qu’il y a de plus unique et le plus beau dans l’humanité : l’autonomie de notre conscience par la réflexion et l’expression. Ils attaquent le don même que Dieu nous fit qui nous mit au-dessus des anges : le libre arbitre. Ils nient le Dieu de la Révélation, qui continue à parler par l’Esprit Saint ; le Dieu qui nous révèle toujours plus qui est Dieu. Ils nient le Dieu de l’histoire du Salut, qui peut continuer à travailler au creux de l’histoire aujourd’hui pour s’attaquer à des fautes sociales et à des injustices anciennes et douloureuses.
Ces néoconservateurs sont prisonniers de leur propre manque de conscience. L’entière perception d’eux-mêmes comme justes et bons s’affirme dans l’opinion d’autres, et dans leur propre aptitude à s’aligner sur elle. Ils sont inexistants ; ce sont des vampires qui ne produisent aucune réflexion et dont l’identité s’évanouirait au cas où le Magistère se livrerait à l’une de ses rares et spectaculaires volte-face. Ils se sont créés sur les sables mouvants de l’institution humaine et ils en sont arrivés à croire, en passant par le révisionnisme historique et la malhonnêteté académique, qu’ils étaient établis sur un roc éternel de vérité permanente. Le seul fondement éternel auquel l’humanité ait accès, c’est sa conscience. C’est la conscience qui est la marque de l’image de Dieu, et donc c’est la conscience, et la conscience seule, qui est vérité éternelle et absolue.
Le refus de la primauté de la conscience s’accompagne souvent de l’affirmation de vérités éthiques éternelles et absolues ; l’homosexualité est toujours et pour l’éternité « intrinsèquement déséquilibrée », les femmes sont toujours et pour l’éternité interdites de sacerdoce, les contraceptifs sont toujours et pour l’éternité condamnés. Mais si la conscience est la vérité éternelle et absolue, comme seule la conscience peut l’être si c’est dans la conscience que nous trouvons l’image de Dieu, alors aucune de ces « vérités absolues » ne peut être vérité absolue précisément parce qu’elles sont extérieures et n’ont rien à voir avec l’image de Dieu, et donc ne peuvent porter la marque de l’éternité.
Les néoconservateurs ont besoin de vérités absolues extérieures parce qu’ils se sont coupés de la vérité absolue intérieure. Ils ont besoin des idoles de la vérité extérieure absolue parce qu’ils ont tué l’absolu intérieur de la conscience ; ils ont tué le Dieu intérieur.
Vivre en dehors de l’évangile revient à ne pas réinventer les normes et les préjugés sociaux d’une époque révolue au sein de la nôtre, le monde moderne, et la dire éternelle. Vivre l’évangile, c’est vivre dans un monde en transformation permanente où la seule chose à laquelle nous pouvons nous fier est l’étincelle d’éternité en nous ; la conscience. C’est vivre comme les religieuses [états-uniennes] ; reconnaître que s’occuper de la jeunesse LGBT sans domicile et l’abriter est d’une importance plus immédiate que dénoncer leur sexualité comme le Vatican voudrait qu’elles le fassent (notamment à un moment où tout le concept de sexualité comme péché se retrouve tellement sans fondement théologique et a besoin d’un débat libre et ouvert). Reconnaître que le temps de la condamnation ne se présente pas quand une personne est déjà à terre, courbée, brisée. Reconnaître que leur conscience exige davantage d’eux que de réagir par un dégoût facile, de pontifier et de condamner ; elle impose la réaction absurde de l’amour, de la compassion et du service. Elle impose la conviction absurde que l’éternité de Dieu est accessible intérieurement à nous tous simples mortels, et le courage de se fier à cette éternité intérieure même quand la « vérité absolue et éternelle » extérieure est diamétralement opposée aux conclusions de nos consciences. C’est tout ce qui est beau et unique au cœur de la condition humaine et du sens pervers de l’humour de Dieu, parce que l’on dirait que la seule vérité éternelle à laquelle nous ayons accès est le fait que nous ayons accès à la vérité éternelle, et, au-delà, nous avons juste besoin d’avoir foi dans la justesse de notre approche et de nous interroger pour nous assurer qu’elle n’est pas faussée.
Camilla Gilmore
Traduction 5 mai 2013 : Didier Vanhoutte
[1] Site catholique de langue anglaise critique à l’égard de l’institution catholique.
[2] Leadership Conference of Women Religious, vaste mouvement de religieuses états-uniennes en délicatesse avec Rome.
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