Vittorio MessoriCritiques
Auteur de Entrez dans l'espérance
Critiques
With the humility and generosity of spirit for which he is known, John Paul II speaks directly and forthrightly to all people.
The first chapter is "The Pope: A Scandal and a Mystery." This chapter unfolds little of either, but clearly positions both in the Papacy itself -- a "scandal" to logic and good sense, and in its displaced "father", a mystery and "sign of contradiction." [3]
Our author admits that the Church is changing in the face of discoveries of many recent documents from out of almost all previous ages of the Church, which offer proof that the Church has changed over time. For example, the interviewer points out "Recently in the Church, words have multiplied. {!?} It seems that in the last twenty years more 'documents' have been produced at every level of the Church than in the entire preceding twenty centuries." [178]
And "It must be admitted that this eschatological vision [set forth in the recent Lumen Gentium ] was only faintly present in traditional preaching." [182] He also notes an "insensitivity" to Hell in an afterlife, while "hells on earth" created in this century offer an even greater animadversion. [183] Last Things and eschatology has become "irrelevant to contemporary man". He admits that "the problem of hell has always disturbed thinkers in the Church, beginning with Origen and continuing in our time...Bulgakov and ...Balthasar." [185, without pausing over Origen's unitarianism and the Church persecution]. "In point of fact, the ancient councils rejected the theory of the 'final apocatastasis'."
In the face of paradox, mystery and perplexity, the Pope offers the comfort of silence: "The silence of the Church is, therefore, the only appropriate position for Christian faith." [186]
This work of personal explication is filled with jewels of truth. He clearly condemns the Nazi thugs who took over a great nation and conquered a great continent. But he visits no condemnation upon the wealth, the victory of the criminals who plundered and continue to plunder the vulnerable.
He does visit Auschwitz. This former Polish Bishop notes that Auschwitz is a ceaseless admonishment "constructed on principles of racial hatred and greed for power". He adds "Anti-Semitism is a great sin against humanity, that all racial hatred inevitably leads to the trampling of human dignity." [97]
{While true, that seems to leave the Jews exposed as victims. They suffered quite alone, in Auschwitz, and now while the injustice and thievery remains largely unrepaid, he recognizes them without restitution. Has "human dignity" been restored by justice, or is it still left in the Jewish blood and mud of the camp?} He notes the destroyed synagogues are not rebuilt. [97] Therefore, nor is human dignity restored.
The Papa answers many of the questions put to and indulged by him with paradox. For example, in a mystifying excursus through the "rays of fatherhood" in the father-son paradigm illuminated by the Trinitarian mystery of God Himself in history, Original Sin is the "real fact" which is "truly the key for interpreting reality". [228]
He summarizes his message of himself in the following paradox: "In order to set contemporary man free from fear of himself, of the world, of others, of earthly powers, of oppressive systems, in order to set him free from every manifestation of a servile fear before that 'prevailing force' which believers call God, it is necessary to pray fervently that he will bear and cultivate in his heart that true fear of God, which is the beginning of wisdom."
Content-wise, this was one of the first books to really open up on new interpretations of Vatican II, and to say that there were things that had been lost in the process of its implementation that needed to be regained. Continuity vs. Rupture is the name of the game here. Much of this is rather old news and accepted fact now, but in the mid-80s it was rather shockingly controversial.
Recommended for those interested in modern Catholicism and especially the implementations of Vatican II. Others may find it all a bit dated and might want to seek out his more recent interviews like Salt of the Earth or Light of the World.
I read this over the course of several months, and was richly rewarded with many opportunities to reconsider my own life and beliefs. If only to know the man who was vicar of the church through most of my lifetime, this book was truly revealing.
The title has direct link to the meaning behind Pope JP II's first proclamation as Pope, "Be not afraid!"
After I read this book on 2 April 1986 I commented as follows: There has been a lot of talk about The Ratzinger Report, an interview an Italian journalist had with Cardinal Ratzinger in 1984. I have now read it. It seems to me quite wide-ranging, and touches on much which one such as I--who has not kept up on the matters discussed--am not qualified to judge.
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La cultura della morte in cui viviamo non sa affrontare la questione della morte, pretende di cambiare il mondo ma il mondo non si può cambiare se prima non lo si interpreta, se non gli si dà un senso. Oltre alla morte, la verità e la realtà più difficile da affrontare per l'uomo, è il fatto che è amato.
Avrei apprezzato ancora di più il libro se fosse stato un po' più conciso e se fosse stato arricchito da note bibliografiche, in particolare vengono citate molte frasi di altri autori senza dire in quale opera possono essere trovati tali riferimenti.