The presentation of the Spanish version of Father Giussani's The Religious Sense represented both a challenge and a proposal for the big cities of northern Peru, Trujillo and Chiclayo.
The first volume of the "PerCorso"(the series of three books that begins with this one) was presented on November 20th, in the courtyard of the most famous colonial house in Trujillo, the Casa de la Emancipacion, with the paternal support of Most Reverend Miguel Cabrejos, the new Archbishop of Trujillo, who encouraged the initiative from the very beginning, manifesting his interest and esteem for Father Giussani's book. The Rector of the main seminary Father Afrodisio Hernandez, an agricultural engineer from the community of Chepén Walter Nicho, and Dr. Gian Battista Bolis of Lima witnessed to how a reading of this book offers an extraordinary opportunity for encounter. That is, an encounter with a "way of living faith that embraces all of reality, explaining a Fact that makes an impact on one's life in order to change it." An encounter, because the book "possesses the color and liveliness of the many encounters and special situations that have nourished this ever since the first class at the Berchet high school." And, finally, an encounter as an occasion today to work with a text that illuminates the present, creating in one's daily surroundings the possibility for a new life that challenges society: School of Community.
Three Trujillo daily newspapers and one from Chiclayo, as well as some local radios, gave ample publicity to the event. For the first time parishes and schools, bookstores and public meeting places were covered with announcement posters featuring a reproduction of Matisse's Icarus, an image of man's heart in relationship with the Infinite. The friends in the communities of Trujillo and Chiclayo took this conscious relationship and the freedom that is born of it as their starting point, seeing the moment of the presentation as a chance to make known to everyone the experience of the Movement.
School friends, university professors, young people, priests, and nuns crowded into the meetings. This is what Oscar, the son of our great friend Juvenal Ñique Rios, wrote to us after the two presentations: "What great things in these days! A great satisfaction stays with me for having given everything, with confidence, for the things in which I most believe: the experience of the Movement that I met for the first time in June 1991, our friendship, and my faith in Christ."
In Chiclayo the presentation of The Religious Sense was held on December 4th. The Bishop, Most Reverend Jesús Moliné Labarta, at the last minute was unable to come, but he sent the text of his speech to be read by his secretary: "A work that reminded me not only of my high school days, where I was taught the reasonableness of faith, but also Pope John Paul II's great encyclical Fides et ratio." Next, in the auditorium of the prestigious Manuel Pardo Institute, came talks by Professor Domingo Rivadeneyra of the Pedro Ruiz Gallo State University of Chiclayo, and by Professor Gian Corrado Peluso.
On December 10th in Yurimaguas, a town in the Amazon forest, the Spanish edition of The Educational Risk was presented in the presence of Bishop José Luis Astigarraga Lizzaralde, the Director of the Institute of Pedagogy Jesús Garcia Perez, and Professor Gian Corrado Peluso. The friends in the Movement were astonished to see so many people flock to the municipal auditorium. Great interest was shown in Father Giussani's proposals for education.
Educar es un riesgo (the title of the Spanish translation of the book) is the risk of liberty for those who, having encountered something great for their lives, want to witness to it to the far corners of the earth. "The first time I came to this city was in 1993," Dr. Peluso said. "While I was conversing with the episcopal vicar and thinking about the friends in Lima and companions in the Memores Domini house, and looking at the great Huallaga River that pours into the Amazon River, I thought about the friends in Manhaos, and about Fr. Massimo Cenci and Fr. Giuliano, PIME missionaries, and Father Giussani, because the encounter we have had makes us embrace the entire world, starting with a belonging that is alive."

Faith and Reason

The intervention of the Bishop of Chiclayo, Jesús Moliné Labarta

Reading the book The Religious Sense by Father Luigi Giussani was particularly gratifying for me for two reasons: it reminded me of my high school days, when I was taught the reasonableness of faith, and it allowed me to remember also John Paul II's great encyclical Fides et ratio.
The Religious Sense sets up a process of dialogue that is necessary for man to discover himself and to live by being himself. It is a difficult dialogue for many people, as they are not used to reflecting on man's fundamental questions: the origin, the goal, Destiny, the problem of evil, God, etc. But dialogue is necessary in order for all of us to be able to live more and more as persons.
We men are not islands, we are, whether we like it or not, in relationship. We develop our personality in relationship with others. Solitude is something that is merely subjective because "when one is aware of the adequate motive for which he is with others, even if everyone were distracted or not understanding, he would not be alone at all."
Man is distracted by multiple internal and external phenomena that easily confuse him and keep him from thinking in an appropriate way. Among others, there are "the most uncontrolled forces of instinct and power." It is urgent, for the good of all, to create spheres or places that allow men to be truly free, to rethink the basic questions, to correct the deviations that will inevitably be produced. It is not a question of approaching life as a reaction, but it is necessary to know where we are going. Man here puts into play his intellect, will, and freedom. Thus on the near or distant horizon Being, the Infinite, God is manifest. God himself stimulates all man's energies so that he can reach his goal.
The nostalgia for God is a constant in human life, even though we don't want to think about it. In the last part of his book, Father Giussani states that "reality calls us on to another reality. Reason, in order to be faithful to its nature and to the nature of such a calling, is forced to admit the existence of something else underpinning, explaining everything." And a little further on, he offers the hypothesis of a divine revelation so that man, as a searcher after the truth about himself and the world, may reach his goal, his peace. "The world by its very structure is the revelation of God. And human beings hear the presence of a 'Beyond' by interpreting the dynamic structure of their relationship with things."
In Fides et ratio John Paul II says that the search for truth is humanly unstoppable, and adds, "Christian faith comes to meet them, offering the concrete possibility of reaching the goal that they seek." He bases this affirmation on the fact that Christian faith "enables them to share in the mystery of Christ, which in turn offers them a true and coherent knowledge of the Triune God. In Jesus Christ, who is the Truth, faith recognizes the ultimate appeal to humanity, an appeal made in order that what we experience as desire and nostalgia may come to its fulfillment."