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 […]
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 […]
The recent open letter from the theologian José Ignacio González-Faus to his Jesuit brother Marko Rupnik, a renowned artist, and spiritual guide and who was canonically prosecuted and convicted for sexual assaults, deeply disappoints me because of what it says and what it does not say. I will begin by briefly commenting on some points […]
It could be that perhaps we do not like too much this Christmas with its illuminated streets, consumerist propaganda, over-played carols, unenthusiastic reunions, obligatory gifts…, or that we even dislike it. Yet, if we could free it from commercial exploitation, our deceitful ambitions, even from our boring liturgies, empty words and outdated dogmas, if we […]
For the first time in the history of the Earth, written in fire, water and life, we Homo sapiens, a very recent species, have crossed the line of 8 billion inhabitants. I do not regard this as a glorious milestone, but rather as a worrying warning sign. We have nothing to celebrate, but much to […]
We do not like to talk about death, in spite of its being part of our daily life. We do not like to talk about death, but –or, better yet, because- death hurts. And it is somebody else’s death the one that hurts most, the dejected solitude and the sadness of the void it left […]
The horrific destruction spreading across the Earth moves me to look at the profound mystery of creativity that inhabits it. We are the sons and daughters of creativity, and responsible for it. I am a creature of the air I breathe, of the blood that courses through my body, of the substances that nourish me, […]
In the hot afternoons of the first week of last August, in the shade of a lime tree in Champigny-sur-Veude, a peaceful French village surrounded by wide sunflower and corn fields, I read with both enthusiasm and uneasiness Béatrice Lebel-Goascoz’s doctoral dissertation Boquen entre utopie et révolution1965-1976 (Presses Universitaires de Rennes, 2015). It is a […]
Galo Martínez de la Pera continues his solitary reflection on community, the building of Basque citizenship and culture, feminism, the future of humanity and humanism. He does so with density and brilliance. He has just published Emearen bidea supergizakiaren aroan (“The Female Path in the Age of the Superman”) (Alberdania 2022), written in an excellent […]
