Great interviews The Surprise of a Fact Why Nietzsche Is Wrong An interview with Pedro J. Ramírez, founder and director of the Spanish daily, El Mundo. In the face of the failure of reason, an education to realism is needed. “Facts are sacred, and interpretations are free. There are spheres in which relativism does not work.” The limits of science, the Church’s contribution, and the errors of the Spanish government. A wide-ranging dialogue with an open and free figure. edited by Cristina López Schlichting Pedro J. Ramírez is the most famous newspaper editor in Spain. Once in the crosshairs of the Socialist Party for having investigated and revealed the state crimes of the PSOE, the members of which had undertaken the war against the ETA, he later abandoned his tacit alliance with José María Aznar, condemning the war in Iraq and the Spanish alliance with the United States. He couldn’t be freer, from the journalistic point of view. He is an impeccable dresser, married to the fashion designer from Spanish high society, Agatha Ruiz de la Prada. The Editor-in-Chief of El Mundo came to the Meeting in Rimini last August and expressed a very clear opinion of it: “I would have never guessed that a Catholic movement could give life to a gesture of such social significance, or that it could be so pluralistic.” Nietzsche said, “There are no facts; there are only interpretations.” I don’t agree. Facts have an objective dimension, and interpretations start from there. The nucleus of genuine journalism is the search for truth, according to the famous expression, “Facts are sacred, and interpretations are free.” Knowledge of the facts is the basis for any information, and also for any possibility of coexistence, of social relations. The value of life, of the person, and respect for others seem weakened today. Notwithstanding the confusion, to your mind, is there any elementary evidence, beyond any discussion? There’s something “on this side”–fundamental values that precede any interpretation. A murder is a murder, a crime is a crime, and an aggression is an aggression. Violence, regardless of its actors, victims, or motives, is violence. It is an indisputable datum, because it is verifiable. It belongs to the order of things that are written upon the very heart of man. It seems that, in our time, many crucial questions, such as the definition of human life, genetic experimentation, or cloning, are the exclusive realm of science. People end up marshalling their own feelings according to medical directives. Recently, a nurse friend congratulated a couple when the wife came for an obstetrical check-up. “Congratulations on being a father,” she said to the husband, looking at the sonogram. He answered her fiercely, “Don’t congratulate me. Until it’s certain that the baby is healthy, I won’t feel like a father at all.” Do we have to put ourselves in the hands of the “experts”? Science and feelings are two distinct realms. For example, when is it that someone feels like a father? It’s a subjective question. Some feel like a father right at the moment of conception, and others don’t feel like one even after the child’s First Communion. The scientific criterion is another thing. It’s hard to establish what should come first. Science hasn’t provided objective data on the origin of life, yet I think, “When in doubt, pro reo.” If the risks involved would only hurt myself, I might very well choose to run them. But if someone else’s life is involved, I’d tend to take all the precautions possible. But, should the scientists be the ones to decide? True scientific knowledge ends up being shared. I want to make my own decisions, and so I expect to be shown the proof, so I can check the information with my ability to understand, with the common sense and reason that are inherent in the human being. All of society has the right to weigh scientific conclusions in the light of reason. In the face of the failure of reason, what can the Church contribute to society? It’s hard to answer this question when you’re not involved in the work of the Church. However, every institution must contribute so that any citizen has reasonable elements for judgment. In spheres such as reproduction, interpersonal relationships, or research with embryos, we find ourselves in unexplored territory. For this reason, I believe the work of the Church–beyond the circle of the faithful, for society in general–is to contribute to guaranteeing that all the information available (scientific, biological, legal, anthropological, and moral) be organized in such a way as to be intelligible. It would be an error to avoid this challenge, taking refuge in a rigid concept of dogma. The Church must participate in the public debate and make possible a reconciliation of tradition and new knowledge. Modern man has lost sight of the fact that in order to say, “A murder is a murder,” you need an education to realism. What can be the point of departure when it’s no longer enough to merely repeat a Kantian maxim? Those of us who have influence over society–for example, the means of communication–have a responsibility. Beyond codes of honor, we must uproot prejudice and look at reality, concentrating on those who suffer, who have been hurt; the victims. If anyone has any doubts about terrorism, let him look at the victims. This empathy, this capacity of suffering for others is what distinguishes us from animals. A victim’s family doesn’t suffer differently for being Arab or Israeli. There’s the proof: there are spheres in which relativism doesn’t work. The Spanish Church has just presented a campaign of education and consciousness-raising on the value of life, of the family, and of pluralism, to counter the laicist legislation of Mr Zapatero. In this context, José Blanco, secretary for the organization of the PSOE, said that the positions of certain sectors of the Church are reactionary and incomprehensible. What do you think is the reason for the conflict between the Spanish government and the Church? There are two levels. The first is that of the institutional Church-State relations, which I think both parties are trying to respect, and that, in addition, correspond to agreements with the Holy See. The second level is the content of the policy the government is legitimately developing, and that the Church is legitimately criticizing. It seems to me that some aspects of government policy, such as the recognition of civil rights for homosexual couples, or the simplification of divorce procedures, are part of political choices and, from my point of view, also have beneficial effects. But there are other aspects that end up gratuitously offending Catholics, and it is natural that the Church should react with indignation. One example is calling the homosexual union “matrimony” in a way that, to my mind, is unconstitutional. Another example is giving different status, from the academic point of view, to the teaching of religion and the teaching of this new subject called “education of the citizen.” It is defensible that religion should be an optional subject, and it is also defensible that it shouldn’t be. (If it comes very close to being catechism, one could argue that it shouldn’t be so. But in the case in which it has academic content, one can argue to the contrary.) It doesn’t occur to people that if teaching religion, or ethics, from a Catholic perspective has a status, and teaching ethics from another perspective has a different status, this means totally damaging parental rights to choose the outlook in which their children’s education should unfold. I believe that these gratuitous offenses have put the Church on the defensive, and that the Church does very well to defend itself. I think that, from the government’s point of view, it’s a mistake for an executive body with such deep problems–such as those regarding the structure of the State, international relations, or economic policy–to dedicate part of its political energy to a sterile war that does not meet a social need, and that will end up damaging the government itself, to the point of endangering its achievement of other objectives. Why does the government act this way? Out of a conviction? In part, it corresponds to a conviction, and in part, to a strategy. What I see is that Zapatero won the election with a very heterogeneous social majority, which means that, to reach power, he had to unite segments with very different opinions on many things. Just look at the case of Rafael Vera [the request for pardon of a GAL member, one of those responsible for State murders, now also condemned for having stolen government reserve funds, for his own benefit], which involves such essential values as the criterion for defining robbery, and you realize that the government has to contemporaneously satisfy those who require behavior coherent with the positions that are nominally established on the level of ethics, and those, including Felipe González, who ask him to pretend not to see, to hold his nose and grant pardon to this man. At the same time, he has to simultaneously satisfy those who have a constitutional idea of Spain, such as the Defense Minister, José Bono, and those, like Maragall, President of the Catalonian Generaliat, who want to break with this idea. He has to deal with the furious anti-North Americans, and those with more pragmatic and realistic opinions, who ask him for a foreign policy based on consensus, as well as the classic labor union leaders, who want a leftist economic policy, and those, like the assessor Miguel Sebastián, who have convinced him that lowering taxes is progressive. In this situation, he is trying to find a common denominator among them all and, right or wrong as he may be, he thinks that a battle against the Church can keep such heterogeneous sectors united. Some interpret this laicist mentality of the Zapatero government in terms of nihilism or fear. When there are no answers or certainties about life, you can only legislate out of fear. To avoid a decrepit old age and grave illness, you support euthanasia; to avoid unwanted pregnancies, you offer incentives for abortion; to resolve the difficulty of marriage, you establish express divorce. Do you agree with this analysis? It is very difficult to respond to such a complex question! I can say that I share what we could call a system of laicist values, but I don’t think that this system presupposes truth, or that it has the answers to all the transcendental questions that the human being asks. I don’t feel sufficiently sure of my convictions to try to impose them on others. My aspiration is to live in a society in which the rights of all human beings are respected equally, and this certainly includes religious freedom, and respect for the religious convictions of practicing Catholics. For this reason, I believe that there is an enormous difference, for example, between granting homosexual couples the same rights as those in marriage for succession, pensions, inheritance and agreements–and this assumes recognizing the civil rights that have value from the laicist perspective–and calling this union “matrimony,” which is nothing other than an insult that adds absolutely nothing in terms of content; it is an insertion, an attempt to alter the nature of a millennial institution of law that, in addition, coincides with what for practicing Catholics is a sacrament. What need was there to cross this line? Only political opportunism, and a mistaken calculation about the strategy for keeping this heterogeneous majority united, could have brought this government to commit this error.