The Violence of Those Who Reject Reality
London Terrorist Attacks: A Note from Communion and Liberation

After Madrid, London. The great peace of post-war Europe is over. The factor that sows war is radical violence that refuses to accept reality, considering it wrong because it fails to correspond to its own vision, the sole determinant for what deserves to exist or be destroyed. The London massacre reveals that Islamic radicalism is the tragic emergence of a nihilistic position, which is seeking to impose itself in Europe as elsewhere as the standard of thought and action. The terrorists show they are its coherent disciples. In this situation of anti-human barbarity, as Benedict XVI has said, we will follow the Pope “in the certainty that charity is first of all communication of the truth.” And the truth is witness in the places of human experience where life is loved in its infinite value and in all its embodiments, even more than the terrorists “love death.” Even the smallest attempt in this direction is not unavailing, because it affirms the inexorable positivity of reality, which nihilism can never overcome.
CL Press Office / Milan, July 8, 2005

Before the sadness and sorrow aroused by the terrorist attacks in London, we would like to join our Holy Father Benedict XVI in offering “fervent prayers for the victims and for all those who mourn.” While we condemn “these barbaric acts against humanity,” we are spiritually close to all people suffering in this time of grief. In front of these atrocities, man cannot but cry out: “The world cannot be like this. We desire to build a better world.”
How is this possible? A human effort is not enough. Only hope sustains man in this desire. In front of death and hatred, man cannot do anything if there does not exist a Presence that has defeated death and evil and to Whom he can entrust his desire for life, his thirst for a meaning. The events of July 7th ask each one of us to change, to become truer. We entrust ourselves to you, Holy Mary, “living fountain of hope.” May this living fountain of hope be every morning the most gripping and tenacious meaning of life possible.
Communion and Liberation, London, July 7, 2005