New York City. CC0 Creative Commons

Reality Does Not Betray

The ninth annual New York Encounter took place in an America where the most insidious fear is “not being able to have everything.” From the title (which hits home) to the face-to-face panels on science, faith, post-truth, literature and more…
Davide Perillo

“Who said those words? Can I meet him? A person who says something like that, I’d like to meet him.” It’s no use telling Mark, who’s at least 6’2” with the perfect build for his role as security guard, that “those words” were said by an Italian priest who died 12 years ago, and so, no, he can’t meet him. At least not in person. The question he immediately followed up with was written all over his face: “But then, who are you? How can you say something like that?”

Really, these days how can you tell New York–tell America, tell the whole world–that “reality has never betrayed me?” And yet, these words from Fr. Giussani are plastered on the wall at the entrance to the Metropolitan Pavilion, in the midst of Manhattan close to the corner of 18th Street and 6th Avenue. They were chosen as the title for the 2017 New York Encounter, the ninth edition, held on January 13-15. It was a weekend full of events (25), guest speakers (41), and exhibits (4) made possible by a small army of 313 volunteers. More than anything, it was a continuous flurry of young people and families, hugs between friends, and happy faces. In other words, of people clearly happy to be alive. And not at all because everything is going smoothly for them.

The phrase that makes up the title does not imply a rhetorical question. That’s true anytime, but if it’s possible it’s even more true now, in this bizarre phase of America with the inauguration of Donald Trump, “The President of the Divided States,” as the cover of Time puts it. The economy has more or less recovered its pace, but the rich are becoming ever richer, the poor abound, and the middle class is stuck hanging in a precarious balance. They say the average American finishes college and starts working with $40,000 in debt (it was half that just eight years ago) after studying at a state university, and you have to pay for health insurance, a home mortgage… “You work 10-12 hours a day, always running; you work really hard to make ends meet, then all it takes is a little stumble–losing a job or an unexpected expense–and you risk suddenly finding yourself flat on your face again,” explains Fr. José Medina, the leader of CL in the US.

The Actor and the Priest
It’s nothing new, of course: falling and getting back up again has always been part of the soul of this country. Only now, it’s happening more quickly and more often. And those who fall don’t always find a way to start over again. Still, there’s another fear that lurks that’s more subtle and insidious than that of losing everything: the fear of not being able to have everything, the fear of the future. “The truth is that here, especially Millennials, those around 30, are often somewhat paralyzed,” Medina goes on to say. “Their lives were organized for them from the time they were five or six years old: someone told them how to spend every hour of the day.” Then the moment comes when the decisions are up to them: raising a family or finding work. “And they don’t know how to decide. The more choices you have in front of you, the more you get stuck.”

The trailer shown at the beginning of every event asks: “How can you trust reality? Why do we often perceive reality as disappointing, from the time we are young? What can help us reconcile with reality and engage life as it is? What are we missing?” The title of the Encounter challenges us at this level. Mark, the security guard at the door, evidently picked up on this right away. What was beautiful is that the guest speak ers grasped this as well. Take Richard Cabral, for example. He is a rising actor (on TV, he’s in American Crime, and he has appeared in movies such as The Counselor and A Better Life), and he’s also a man with a still-open wound. You could see it when he stepped onto the stage for the opening event and told his story as a former member of a Latino gang in Los Angeles. “I joined searching for love. To discover that I was capable of giving my life for another person, of taking a bullet for someone, but we didn’t know how to help each other face the suffering we had inside, all of us.” Years of crime, crack, and shootings. Then the inevitable time in jail: five years, when he was 25. “I began to question, why had my life turned out like this, who had I become, was death better than this reality?” Until the encounter that would change everything–with Fr. Greg Boyle and his Homeboy Industries, a non-profit that helps young people who’ve been in prison get back on their feet. “I was not just an inmate number for him. I was not just a kid from the barrio that never felt loved... He made that little flame in my soul spark again. You see Fr. Greg helped me to believe in love again, for if someone else believed in me how can I not believe in myself?”

An encounter which entered into his life and lit a spark again. Just as happened to Dan Jusino, who was at the Encounter because he, himself an ex-convict from Harlem, set out to help other former prisoners. He started by diligently reporting data and statistics... then pushed the papers aside and said more or less: “Enough with the numbers, I want to tell you why I do what I do.” And out comes a beautiful discussion, speaking about offenses and punishments, but also of fatherhood and how it’s needed to start anew, of betting on one person at a time... “When you run into someone who bets on the heart, it’s an event,” Riro Maniscalco, President of the Encounter, had said, and, “Something always happens.” And this is truly a “contribution” to that “culture of encounter essential for the future of our human family,” the hope Pope Francis expressed in his message for the gathering.

The Art of Science
We see it in many other moments of the weekend. One event was dedicated to science. Or rather, the “art of science.” On the stage, along with astrophysicist Luca Matone, was Polly Matzinger. Scientist and atheist, she was the woman who shifted the whole paradigm in the study of immunology. She thought she’d been invited to a “Catholic convention,” expecting to find the assumed prejudices about science, evolution, nature, etc. But when she heard Maria Teresa Landi, herself a scientist and the moderator for the event, explain the unusual reference to art in the title (“The way you use your reason is beautiful; this is why we chose the title”) she’s blown away. Matzinger talked about her work, how she went against the grain by contesting a popular scientific model “because reality said otherwise” and because it’s “faithfulness to reality” that leads you to discover the truth. “That’s the most concise explanation of the theme of the Encounter,” said Angelo Sala, one of the organizers as he told the story of the conversation, full of questions and curiosity, among the speakers after the event, ending with “See you again soon.”

Sparks
A beautiful phrase: “See you again soon.” And one of the most common heard backstage, which is a good sign. Many of the guests have been coming for years, including Michael Waldstein, a theologian who was struck by Fr. Giussani in Rome many years ago (and who, in a wonderful event with Irish author John Waters, boldly challenged the “tendency of millennials to overlook the present because of the fear of missing out on something else,” and pointed out the risk of “looking at a reduced reality, with a myopic view”); also, Cardinals Timothy Dolan and Sean O’Malley, archbishops of New York and Boston, respectively, who never miss an opportunity to see what O’Malley calls “the spiritual tribe of Fr. Giussani.” Then there’s Brian J. Grim of the Religious Freedom and Business Foundation, who was just a guest at the Rimini Meeting as well. And so it continues. Still, the spark of an authentic human encounter is just as bright with those who are “new.”

Going back to Cabral, for example, who wanted to see everything–really everything: he curiously explored the various booths, tables of books, and even the “kid’s corner” where parents took their children to play. “I see a lot of love behind all this,” he said. “Spirit, gratuity... but it’s also something you can touch.” At dinner, Sala tells us that Cabral was struck. “We told him, ‘The gaze that you’ve met and that changed you, we know that gaze. It happened to us too.’ He was amazed. ‘You mean, you understand what I experienced? That’s so rare. How can we continue?’” A question similar to the one asked by Carolyn Woo, outgoing President of Catholic Relief Services–the humanitarian organization that serves almost 100 million people around the world. Onstage she admitted that, “I agree with that statement [the Encounter’s title], but I don’t totally understand it.” She’s seen too much pain and suffering in her work, reflected in her words, “Oftentimes I stand at the foot of the cross.” And yet even she, after the event, is there asking questions and explaining her work–and clearly moved.

One of the most unexpected sparks is the encounter with David Brooks, a regular columnist with The New York Times and the author of many penetrating essays on American society (from The Social Animal to The Road to Character), possessing a brilliant mind. His event (with Riro Maniscalco and Rusty Reno, a theologian and the Managing Editor of First Things) was probably the second-most anticipated of the weekend (after the presentation of Disarming Beauty, the English version of Julián Carrón’s recent book, which saw the leader of CL onstage with the Jewish jurist Joseph Weiler, another old friend of the Encounter).

Welcomed with “rock star” applause, Brooks was the protagonist of a profound discussion (entitled “Are the American People Betraying Their Dream?”), in which the panelists spoke of “abstraction as our worst enemy,” of the “desire to remain faithful to the moments of beauty we experience that we don’t deserve,” the need to “invest in friendships, more than anything else,” and the fact that “there are few places where you can talk about the things that matter most.” Yet again, it was backstage that something really happened, when Brooks joined the organizers for dinner. Three solid hours of conversation about everything: Fr. Giussani, freedom, obedience, and the heart, with questions like, “so, for you, does reality or the self come first? Why do people come here?” At the end of dinner, he asked what he could read by Giussani. They gave him The Religious Sense. And they parted saying, “We’ll see you again for dinner.”

From Silicon Valley
Another thing about the Encounter makes an impression: the combination of the simplicity of the entire gesture and the extremely high level of the talks. They’re talking about science and literature, post-truth, and faith–with well-known figures of the caliber of Brooks and Matzinger–almost in the same room where high school volunteers are making prosciutto sandwiches and an engineer from Silicon Valley is selling coffee and cannoli at the café. “In the beginning, we relied, for the most part, on the relationships Msgr. Lorenzo Albacete [an accomplished theologian published in many major news outlets, including secular ones, who died in 2014] had,” Medina said. “The most significant guests were his friends, or were invited by him. Not anymore. They come because they’ve met one of us in the places we live and were curious. It’s a life. Those who come here find a place where people can really breathe.”

And they feel at home. Whether it’s the celebrated scientist or the family with five kids, from the high-ranking prelate (like Msgr. Giampietro Dal Toso, outgoing Secretary of the Pontifical Council “Cor Unum,” who gave a beautiful witness about the presence of the Church in the lands torn apart by war) to the teenager who came from Colorado to volunteer.

Peter and the Coat Racks
There were over 300 volunteers, ranging in age from 15 to 70 and having traveled from all over the US. Seeing their faces was enough to show you the heart of the Encounter. And not only because they’d been working for months on the theme with assemblies and meetings. You met people like Debbie, a retiree from Sacramento, California, who arrived here full of doubts (“After a year full of suffering, I wasn’t sure I could say that reality doesn’t betray”), but at the end said she was going home “full of gratitude, because I realized that I am part of a people.” Or Peter, a college student who on the last night found himself “strangely happy” having done one of the most mundane jobs–working at the coat check. “I asked myself what happened in the meantime, since at the beginning I was really angry because it seemed like too humble of a job. It was precisely the days here, one encounter after another.” Simply put, he grew.

Perhaps, in the end, what is most striking was this possibility of having an experience, of maturing. There’s a healthy direct link between the creativity of each person, of his or her personality and temperament, and the path of education in the faith they are following in the Movement, and this makes their “I” flourish. At the Encounter, you can see it. “There are no set formats or instructions to follow; it’s a free intelligence put into play in various ways,” Medina observed. “It’s people who are living that challenge of the theme and say: here, this is how I’d express it.” With this exhibit, this event, by inviting this friend. Or by simply dedicating three days as a volunteer. And all of it helps you to understand how the experience of CL, little by little, is becoming something personal.

This was particularly clear in the four exhibits, which covered a range of topics: from photography to the pedagogy of Fr. Giussani, from the American saints to the beautiful video installation "There’s a Crack in Everything, That’s How the Light Gets In", piecing together interviews with about 40 “average people” to tell the story of how grace can break through even in the midst of pain. This was equally true of the performances produced for the event (one on the writer and teacher Helen Keller, the other on the war novel by Van Der Meersch). As well as of other moments, like when Claire Vouk, a student at Benedictine College, left Cardinal Dolan and Jesuit Fr. Matt Malone agape when she spoke about how Katharine Drexel, a saint from a century ago, had, thanks to her work on the exhibit, “become my friend, because of her yes to reality, which made her flourish.”

The main event was the presentation of Disarming Beauty (you can find the full recording online). In the dialogue with Weiler (who had come straight from Singapore after a 22- hour flight with just enough time to drop off his suitcase at home; if that’s not friendship...), Carrón answered point-by-point: about Europe and Islam, the spread of secularism, and the emptiness being offered to our youth (“we come into the world without an instruction manual, we need someone to at least transmit a hypothesis of meaning to verify”), on the method God uses (“the invisible has become visible, tangible”), and on the challenge of going back to our origins: “Christians were a tiny community in Palestine, on the margins of a great multicultural society, and yet, thanks to the personal communication of the faith, they spread the Gospel in the Empire of the Pantheon.”

If It’s there, You Can See It
In a world where “freedom has become the most important value,” only “a personal witness can reawaken an interest in faith.” Briefly put, Carrón spoke about “another way of living” that, if it’s there, you can see it. And it makes an impression, it raises questions, it’s attractive. Exactly what was happening at the Encounter.

“If reality does its job, it communicates a promise to you,” Sala said when it all was finished, as they took everything down. “I think you could see it over these three days. The title that we chose was a hypothesis. We were able to put it to the test and verify if it was of interest for others as well.” As far as we can tell, it’s of interest...