THE SAND WALLS OF A MAN WHO AWAITS
Eugenio Scalfari will never forget the Pope’s phone call; we will never forget their dialogue. Here is why.

by Luca Doninelli

Eugenio Scalfari’s interview of Pope Francis, which appeared in la Repubblica on Tuesday, October 1st, was actually much more than just an interview. Scalfari can be sure that, just as he will never forget—“as long as I live”—the Pope’s phone call requesting an appointment, neither will many of us forget this extraordinary read, which—finally—upsets decades of preconceived positions.
I am referring to my own positions, those of someone who has read Scalfari for 40 years as… I won’t say an enemy, but certainly an adversary, one with whom I would never be able to agree about anything, the herald of a political and social project that is completely different from and incompatible with mine.

All of a sudden, look: the tone of this proud secularist changes, and he gives me a memorable lesson in humility. It’s not because Francis is the Pope—I don’t believe that Scalfari would be in awe just for that. An almost childish simplicity shines through the words of the great journalist, one that perhaps has been desired for a long time.
That’s not to say that Scalfari gives up his anticlerical ideas, but all at once it’s clear that what counts is no longer the ideological positions. The walls that he erects remind one of the sand castles that children build on the seashore. And I ask myself, are mine not the same?
Suddenly, we realize that the encounter with a person cannot be conditioned by what we know about him or her, or what we think we know: if he is married, if she is gay, if he is a believer or not, if she is liberal or conservative, and so on. (Incidentally, Jesus is not upset by non-believers, but by disbelievers, which are something else—and this is a challenge that concerns everyone, believers or not.)

Scalfari gives in when faced with a human interest that regards him—not Scalfari the journalist, or Scalfari the editor, but him as a person. He may never admit it, but the expectation that this encounter has fulfilled is evident on the page. The human heart, Scalfari’s as well as mine, awaits only one thing, only one! Every time that this happens, as in this interview, we understand it without too many discourses or theories: man awaits the compassion, the mercy, the caress of a God who is near, who is a friend. Not a God lost somewhere up there (including the “up there” of many of our theories and interpretations), but close by, here and now. Eius dulcis praesentia.