Dearest Father Julián: Immediately after reading the Page One section of Traces’ March issue, “Witness and Recounting,” I started breathing again. It was as if a breath of fresh air had reached me, just when I was about to suffocate, prisoner of a cage of values to defend, of positions to hold, and of battles to fight. Some of those values and battles might be right and even necessary, yet sometimes we forget His sweet and real presence and, with all our good intentions, we become utterly incapable of moving ourselves or others. We run the risk of becoming–or maybe we already are– like the Great Inquisitor that Dostoyevsky writes about, whose actions are oriented toward something good that had its origin in Jesus, and yet ends up affirming something else, adding something else to His decisive presence. I want to thank you, because you help us walk on this path, staying faithful to its origin, truly following Father Giussani, to lead us to Jesus–the One who has such a great conception of the human being.

Giuliano