society

Spain, the Challenge
of Mission

The recent events in Spain have demonstrated the weakness of an entire people’s consciousness, with repercussions overseas as well, in the United States and in Latin America

by José Miguel Oriol


The events of last March in Spain and the reaction of a large part of Spanish society have brought to light some aspects of what we could define as the “state of consciousness of the Spaniards,” aspects that have remained hidden or “slumbering” because of growing material affluence and the famous “Spanish vitality” (see the Times issue of the first days of March.)
The caving in to radical Islam –which is manifesting itself in many ways and is defended with sophisticated rationalizations, only a few short months after the terrorist attacks of March 11th and the first political victory of Islamic terrorism over a Western democracy, with the March 14th elections–demonstrates the extreme weakness of the Spanish people’s self esteem, which, under the appearance of the “joyful and carefree” vitality linked to the undeniable economic progress achieved during the eight years of Popular Party rule, has arrived at the point of betraying our history and tradition, which is certainly pluralistic, but at the same time united and solidly rooted in the Christian faith, which over the centuries has formed the backbone of our nation. This identity has for a long time been trod underfoot in textbooks, in films, the arts, television, and literature, and by the great majority of our writers and journalists. For this reason, Spain today is the weakest link in the West. Radical Islam saw that very clearly.

A reference point
for the Americas

All this notwithstanding, Spain is still a fundamental pivot point for the future of the Christian faith in all of America, both North and South. Why? Because Spain, as the scenario and mirror observed continuously by that continent, and Spanish Catholicism as the protagonist of this scene (even though it is progressively losing its importance), continue to be a daily reference point , constant and historically deep, not so much on the institutional or ecclesiastical level as on the popular level, because of the thousands of bonds in family, education, finance, politics, economics, business, university, cooperation in development, religious missionary orders and congregations, means of communication, etc.
This universe of 300 million Spanish-speaking people, linked among themselves in manifold ways, constitutes the human base of “Hispanicness,” what we could call sociological Hispanicness. But is the concept of Hispanicness as a historical unity with its own, essentially Catholic identity, still alive? No. Spanish-speaking America, like the Portuguese-speaking one, is going through a process (similar to the Spanish one) of deterioration, fragmentation, and weakening of its own identity. The main front of this battle, where the future is being determined, is Mexico, already the most important Hispanic nation, with its more than one hundred million inhabitants and emigrants.

Injection from outside
And so, what can Spanish Christians do today to contribute to revitalizing this Hispanicness? Very little. Today, Spanish Christianity is exhausted, and its highest priority is survival, at least keeping itself alive, working, studying, and carefully, prudently, and decisively nurturing its own experience of the democratic society it contributed decisively to form, but which today rejects it overwhelmingly in the spheres of words and images from the world of culture.
It comes as no surprise that, from the Christian point of view, Spain is mission territory. It’s been like this for many years (even before the famous “democratic transition,” Francoism, and the Civil War). And the idea that Spanish Catholicism, in order to re-flower in accord with the Second Vatican Council, needs a strong injection of new vitality (of lived thought, and manifested faith) from outside is a view shared by the most committed part of the Spanish Church. But, thirty years ago, no one would have imagined that this injection, rather than coming from France or Germany, would come from Italy. Italian Catholicism (or at least part of it) has shown itself in the beginning of the 21st century to be the only residue of Christianity capable of establishing a meaningful dialogue with contemporary man, of evoking an intellectual curiosity, a moral interest, a desire to share its own human adventure.

Dignified forms
It should come as no surprise that one of the key figures, Msgr Giussani, who (together with the great Roman popes God has given the Church, and thus Italy, in the last centuries) has renewed and re-awakened a Christianity “that is important for me,” affirmed many years ago that “a tradition or, in general, a human experience, cannot challenge history, cannot subsist in the flow of time, if not in the measure to which they manage to express and communicate themselves according to ways that have cultural dignity” (Luigi Giussani, Il Movimento di Comunione e Liberazione. Conversazioni con Robi Ronza, Milan, 1987, p. 13). This is what has been missing for a long time, perhaps too long, in Spanish Catholicism.
Spain is the first mission territory. Thus, this way of understanding and living the Christian faith in Spanish society can contribute to revitalizing American Hispanicness.