Those who… happiness

Money is not everything. A complex research carried out by the authoritative British review, New Scientist, reaches a conclusion halfway between the banal and the disturbing: wealth (and beauty, power, youth…) doesn’t bring happiness. On the contrary, Repubblica, the Italian daily, commenting on this, adds, “a person is happier the less he tries frantically to become rich.” It’s much better to content yourself with having a good character, or “believing in God (or in Marx, which has the same effect).” We won’t question the scientists’ methods, but in the concept behind this research there appears to be an ideological flavor that in the end manages to subvert the evidence–not the philosophical evidence, but precisely the material evidence. For in the New Scientist’s tables it appears that the countries where people are happier are the poorest and most unfortunate: Nigeria (68%), Mexico (59%), Vietnam (49%). In Great Britain, we reach only 37%; in miserable Italy, 17%. Presumably, the reason is that the less you have, the more easily you are satisfied. Borghesi says, in the article quoted, “There is a profound bond linking freedom and desire, to the deepest desire that dwells in the human heart, the desire for Happiness.”

Believe, perhaps obey, but don’t fight. On Friday, October 10th, the front page of Corriere della Sera presented a complex university level poll to monitor the Catholics in Italy. There are a lot of them, they are educated, they go to Mass more than before. However, the most interesting result–as the headline stressed with journalistic malice–was another. Most Catholics are convinced that their own religion is true, but not an absolute truth: “There are important truths in other religions, too,” and to each one his God….

Church Without the World
“The third aspect of the effect that the rationalistic world has brought into our ecclesial life, both individual and collective, is a Church without the world. This is where clericalism and spiritualism come from, as a twofold reduction of the value of the Church as Body of Christ. Christian religious life comes to be determined by statism, which in a unilateral way is also known as ‘clericalism.’ Thus, Christian religiosity lives in an environment of rules conceived in a legalistic way (pharisaism). In this way, Christians have in effect become agents of a power (civil, political, or religious).

‘Spiritualism’ is faith set alongside life so that faith is no longer the reason enlightening life and the force at work in it. Every kind of spiritualism cannot but speak of Christ’s resurrection in a sentimental way: the devotion of a remembrance, not the memory of a presence. In this view, Christ is not really risen in His body–the Resurrection is not something present; salvation is not something already begun.

Salvation is conceived of ‘eschatologically,’ only on the last day. In this way, we empty salvation of what is human, as it is defined by faith, for faith announces, tends to achieve, and as far as possible attains salvation in the present. Faith announces the salvation of a present. If we restrict salvation to the end of time, then we destroy the reasonability of faith–in other words, the humanity of faith and the human concreteness of our relationship with Christ and, finally, the very reason for the Church in the world, the Christian’s identity in the world.