By the spirit one goes to God… What a heart-breaking misfortune!” These words by Arthur Rimbaud contain the drama of human consciousness, especially for contemporary man. To the men of our time, God–according to the teaching of centuries of philosophers...
Someone wrote that violence is the midwife of history. The midwife is the factor that makes it grow, the motor, the lever setting concrete historic changes to motion. Only violence, they say, changes the state of things. Hosts of men, under various...
The world has always been marked by war–not only war between peoples and nations, but also the division that worms its way into the most “normal” relationships, into friendships and families. It seems that men are carriers of a disease impossible to stamp...
What I want to tell you is like a clearer and more profound vindication than can be imagined on the apparent uselessness of life, on the apparent negativity of plans. Whoever has not experienced it, whoever has not felt it, and thus has not done it...
We are coming to the middle of a summer that arrives as a relief. This is desired by all, and it is also fitting, if it is true that God Himself rested on the seventh day. In the world, a “fiscal year” particularly dense with events and change has come...
Awell-known Italian philosopher, Umberto Galimberti, urged teachers, from the columns of a well-known daily newspaper, to take their students’ souls into their care. Too many episodes of violence all around us show that there is a lack of education of the...
One of the pat phrases going around–without ever being critically examined, especially in these times–is the statement: “I envy those who have faith.” Journalists, writers, and politicians may be saying it in all sincerity, but they view the gift of faith...
Flames of war and terror in the Holy Land, the continuation of tension and attacks after the destruction of the Twin Towers, other hotbeds of grave violence in Africa and the Far East. And in Italy political tension, feeding on pretext, and even acts of...
The Pope’s letter to the Fraternity of CL on the twentieth anniversary of its pontifical recognition is a document rich in direction for the Movement and for the Church. The letter which Fr Giussani subsequently addressed to the Fraternity grasps its...
As this month’s editorial, we offer Fr Giussani’s article which appeared on the front page of the Italian daily newspaper Corriere della Sera, February 3, 2002 Dear Editor, We cannot help voicing our participation in the gesture by which God, through...
“Even if salvation does not come, I want to be worthy of it in every moment” (F. Kafka) We offer as the editorial of the first issue of Traces for 2002 the written text sent by Pierluigi Battista, editorialist for the Italian daily newspaper La...
Everyone who knows about the events of those times from my works or the works of others, may be sure that every time the Prince ordered exiles or slaughters, thanks were rendered to the gods, and that the ceremonies which once characterized happy events...
One hundred thirty seven years ago, John Henry Newman wrote, “Observing the world far and wide, the vicissitudes of its history, the multiplicity of human races, their beginnings, fates, mutual alienation, conflicts; the feats or purposeless wanderings;...
In these weeks that slip by, covered by the leaden feeling of war, numerous comments have been made on a theme batted about by politicians, writers, and journalists. Are our civilization and our culture “superior” to the others, and in particular,...
The terrorist acts perpetrated on the United States represent, first of all, a horrendous surprise. The symbols of power in the world were demolished, bringing thousands of dead down with them. It is as though the power, the greatest display of the human...
At the upcoming Meeting in Rimini, a great exhibition will shed light on one of the most recent periods in which Italian culture has discussed “realisms.” This is a timely topic. It is a fact that in the modern era one of the words whose commonly accepted...
It very often happens that intellectuals, theologians, and other representatives of that category which Charles Péguy called the “clerical clericals” set themselves to criticizing what the Pope says or does. They claim to represent “the simple faithful”...
On the walls of our cities and in the media for a number of months, there has been a recurrent factor in many advertising campaigns: an insistence on the “I.” “Because I’m worth it,” say some famous (and affluent) figures as they hold up perfume or other...
St. Ambrose’s hymn for Easter says that from that day on, the only one to die is death. This text reminds us of how the thief stole at the end, he grabbed eternal life at the last instant, and through a wondrous mystery, the flesh of One saved the flesh...
We offer as this month’s editorial the notes of Father Giussani’s closing words to the CL National Council on Saturday, February 17th. They provide a further deepening of the thoughts expressed in February’s Word Among Us (“Charism and History”),...
If 2000 was the year of the Jubilee, what will 2001 be? Already many have let themselves be tempted by the reference to Stanley Kubrick’s famous film, 2001: A Space Odyssey. In effect, many of the questions now on the table have to do with the problem of...