Faith and History

“The Church Is Not an élite,  
but a People”
The “educational emergency” and the relationship between Catholics and the government… The consequences of a reason “condemned to be weak” and the Pope’s “wing-beat…”
The President of the Italian Bishops’ Conference assesses his first eighteen months in office. At the same time, he also presents the theme to be tackled at the Rimini Meeting

edited by Davide Perillo

“When the Holy Father called me to be President of the Italian Bishops’ Conference, we were still embroiled in the problem of Civil Unions. Many of the newspapers were writing, ‘The bishops are pontificating from above, while they know nothing of concrete life.’ Well, from that time I have not stopped reminding people that if there is someone who knows the problems of people, not because he reads them in the opinion polls, but because he lives them personally, it is precisely the Church: the priests, the pastors, the nuns, the laypeople. It is not an elite speaking from the pulpit, but a people”–or, better, “the people that makes history,” to quote the title of the encounter with which Cardinal Bagnasco, 65, Archbishop of Genoa and President of the Italian Bishops’ Conference, will open the Rimini Meeting this year. He suggested the title himself, and no wonder, His Eminence likes to speak of “people.” It is one of the main themes he has touched upon in his term of office, which has been running for almost eighteen months.
It was the beginning of March 2007 when Benedict XVI called him to replace Cardinal Camillo Ruini as leader of the Italian Bishops. It is enough to draw a balance, perhaps going beyond the issues on which the newspapers nail him down, with those trenchant headlines and those somewhat trite diatribes on the relationship between Church and politics, the lay nature of the State and “civil religion,” requests on the part of the bishops and offers from the government. On all these arguments, the Cardinal refers back to the basic texts, like his introduction at the last General Assembly, full of hints at the “need for security,” the “defense of buying power,” “taxation in proportion to family size,” and the risk presented by the question of eugenics. However, the core of the bishops’ concern in this moment is something else. It emerged precisely there, in the hall of the recent Plenary Assembly, where, before and after the Pope’s intervention, there resounded again and again the formula familiar to readers of Traces: “educative emergency.” “It is now a priority,” Cardinal Bagnasco confirms, “a cultural and therefore a pastoral one. I say this in light of the work of the Assembly and the echo it had in the Pope’s intervention.”

Your Eminence, the essentiality with which Benedict XVI tackled the question of education in that address is striking. Substantially, he said that for us the problem of education is first of all a problem of transmitting the faith. Why is faith the focus of education?
Because the announcement of Christ contains and makes explicit a conception of man that is complete. It brings together in a true humanism all that is human and at the same time all that is transcendent in us. And there is no pedagogy, no possibility of education without a correct anthropology. Jesus Christ is the summit, the highest expression of this complete humanism, as Son of God and true man. The Council recalls this and the Pope constantly confirms it.

You have said in a most explicit way that Christ is not something that comes “at the end of the educative proposal” but lies at the origin. Can you explain better what this means?
The announcement of Christ is not a final completion, or the conclusive event of an itinerary, but the foundation. There we have the visible, concrete educative reference. And everyone can see that Christ’s fascination lies at the beginning of the educative itinerary–not as an academic method, but as a complete experience. It is the impact with that fascination that gives rise to an interior movement, a leap, an intuition before the needs of life. This sets in motion a conversion, a journey, because one senses that therein lies the fullness of humanity.

But in part of the Catholic world there has been, and there is still today, the temptation to think that the Christian proposal must come only at the end of a certain itinerary–as if a previous preparation were necessary…
It’s true. But it’s an idea disproved by the facts.

Another clear affirmation you made to your fellow-bishops was that “the problem of the youth is the adults.”
I had already said this at Loreto. I was not just looking for attention; it would be silly and a betrayal of our task. It is a common experience: above and beyond the contradictions and the serious facts that are reported, the world of youth is something different. It is a world in search of high ideals, of reasons for which it is worth giving your life. In young people, there is an instinct for truth and for good that goes off in search of what is good, albeit sometimes in the wrong directions. If this is what animates young people–and our experience tells us this–then the problem lies with the adults. They have to be up to their responsibility.

We have heard speak of “credible witnesses…”
Precisely. And then we have to note that it is not true that there is a rejection of adults on the part of young people. There was this rejection in recent times, but not today. On the contrary, there is the request–often implicit, but at times very explicit–for stable points of reference, capable of communicating certainties.

How would you define education in one phrase?
Opening the young person to the understanding of reality, which is not only the touchable, but also the world of what cannot be touched. Opening someone to the understanding of reality means opening him to the understanding of himself. It means helping him to have confidence in himself, to have a taste for truth and for research. It means initiating him in the hard school of freedom.

As regards freedom, adults are often the first to give in, not being prepared to invest and risk. There is a passage in the Pope’s address that is very meaningful: he speaks of young people who “though surrounded by lots of attention, and perhaps sheltered too much from the trials and difficulties of life,  in the end feel left to themselves…”
This is because we have lost, or sweetened to the point of distortion, certain basic categories of living–first freedom, then truth, then love. These are three categories that must be recuperated completely. If young people go wrong, it is because these categories have been introduced into their hearts and in praxis in a distorted way. The point is that the work of education demands a great alliance between the various subjects–first, the family, which must be helped and not only crucified. The family is the irreplaceable subject of education; no one can take its place. Then, the State, schools, the Church, the community, the mass media, etc.

You spoke of the need for a complete anthropology, and therefore for faith, in order to educate. But the same goes for other questions, too. Benedict XVI was very clear when he said, “The basic problem for man today remains the problem of God. No other human and social problem can be solved if God does not come back to the center of our life.” Is this not a useful key for interpreting the question of the presence of Catholics in politics? Perhaps the crucial question is this, rather than how many fervent Catholics are in the government. The risk is that the faith ends up marginalized.
The problem of God is fundamental because only He is the ultimate and definitive guarantee of the dignity of the person. When God is marginalized, sooner or later man himself is marginalized. The Pope has repeated this many times. But we have to reason further; we have to go to the root of the indissoluble, intimate connection between the importance of God and the importance of man. Without God, man loses his identity; he cannot hold on to the dignity, value and perspective of his own life.

So, politics is impossible…
Without a complete, integral anthropology, no other problem–economic, political, or social–can be solved without difficulty, even with good will, because it will always be a partial solution. If we start off from a reduced concept of the person, we will get only a partial concept of society. All the problems inherent in the polis will be seen in a partial vision, and a lot of partiality does not make totality. The point of departure is not a unitary vision of society, but of the person. This is the point where Catholics fall down; and not only Catholics–in this case, too, it’s a question of reason.

To the eyes of the “secular” world, it’s a paradox that the Church should remain the last bastion in defense of reason.
Yes, if you like, but the Church has always refuted fideism, just as it has refuted rationalism–the Church proposes a reasonable vision of faith. It is not true that the crisis of reason is a victory for the faith. This has never been true. The Church defends reason. But reason itself is the loser when faith is weak, because it closes in on itself.

In a few words, what is original in what faith contributes to society and to politics today?
The definition of man. The nineteenth century left us an enigma–the task of redefining what man is. Faith gives the answer.

And what does it ask of politics?
To be itself, and to serve the common good.

How have you seen the Italian Church change in these eighteen months?
Perhaps it is tending more toward a synthesis. In the moments working together with my fellow-bishops, this can be seen clearly. In the Church, synthesis is certainly not a novelty, but we have always to be on guard not to break up the pastoral approach too much–we can risk fragmentation. Then, we have the Magisterium of Benedict XVI. In his punctual and respectful style, his well-argued discourses, he is focusing more and more attention on the centrality of Christ. The Pope never misses a chance to recall that today men need the announcement of God, but of a concrete, historical God, like the face of Jesus is historical and concrete. An ethereal and cosmic God is very attractive because it demands little. Christ is quite another thing.

The Pope has recently visited your archdiocese, Genoa. Before the visit, you spoke of the hope that he would bring a “wing-beat” to the city. Don’t you see this as a suitable definition of this whole pontificate? In effect, it’s a continuous wing-beat…
True. And it is something splendid, because with his personality and his charisma, the Holy Father is doing nothing but continually re-launching the living tradition of the Church.

Let’s turn again to the Rimini Meeting and to that idea of a “popular” Church. You often stress this aspect. Why?
For the reason I gave before–the Church is popular because it lives near the people like no one else. This must be very clear. It is a great grace that we owe to Italy’s particular history, but it is also a great responsibility for us. We have to keep this in mind when we judge the positions the bishops take up. The bishops don’t intervene because they are experts in political affairs, but in order to be the voice of their people. If they were not to do so it would be a betrayal.

Your Eminence, ten years have passed since the famous meeting with the movements that John Paul II convened, on May 30, 1998. In the meantime, the context has changed very much. What continues to be the specific mission of the movements?
To be the Church–more and more the Church, and more and more alive.