[Text of de Lecture given in the Library of the Autonomous Community of Navarra, March 27, 2023 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U-pYHo5j3NE&t=614s] When my friends who organize this series of lectures on “spirituality and suffering” asked me to talk about loneliness and suffering, the first thing that came to my mind –as it often occurs to me- was the […]
Yesterday, April 12, at the age of 88, Monsignor Gaillot, Bishop of Evreux (France) from 1982 to 1995, died. He was a peaceful and energetic man, passionate about justice for all the excluded, a prophet of the Good News of Jesus, of a fraternal world, of a human Church. He supported conscientious objection against military […]
Easter arrived again. It is the Easterof Jesus, the crucified prophet, the singular image for Christians of the universal hope for all crucified people. It is the Easter of the first full moon of spring that so many cultures have celebrated thousands of years before our Christian Era: Chinese, Indians, Sumerians, Babilonians and Jews, and […]
Holy Week could make sense even for those who do not share the Christian myth, if it were a vindication, not of the brutal death of a single man two thousand years ago, but of the violated dignity of all those who were then victims of the viciousness of power, including those crucified with Jesus […]
Pope Nicholas V granted “full and free permission” to the Portuguese Crown to “capture and subjugate Saracens and pagans” in its African expansion (Bull Dum Diversas, 1452). Alexander VI Borgia blessed the arrival of the Spaniards in America and stipulated the division of dominions between Castile and Portugal (Bull Inter Caetera, 1493). These and other […]
“Do we educate to achieve serenity and peace?” These are the opening words of this brief, dense book; they end with a black question mark and are surrounded by a white, empty space. In that white space of the question, the reader becomes trapped, suspended, attentive to silent, white emptiness. And calmly. That is where […]
Taking stock of Pope Francis’ 10 years Eight months following his election in November 2013, Pope Francis published the first of his major documents, which I believe is the best of all the texts written or signed by him: the Apostolic Exhortation Evangelii Gaudium. It was like a programmatic proclamation. Like a spring proclamation. It […]
In October 2022 the Organic Law guaranteeing sexual freedom, more widely known as the “Only yes means yes” law, came into force in Spain. It stipulates that any sexual act without consent is now regarded as a crime of sexual assault, and the concept of mere “abuse” has been eliminated. The law covers any kind […]
“Take your hands off the Democratic Republic of Congo, do not touch Africa. Stop suffocating it, because Africa is not a mine to be exploited or a land to be plundered. Let Africa be the protagonist of its own destiny.” “The poison of greed has bloodied its diamonds.” “We cannot get used to the blood […]
Is it still worth talking about “God”? I do not honestly know, but, in spite of all doubts, for many people –and for myself- it is still a good way to speak about the deepest and best unspeakable Mystery of the universe, and an inspiring source of justice and peace in a world that needs […]