We just have to hear the word “relativism” to jump to the wrong conclusions. Our thoughts fly at once to something abstract; important, yes–that’s why the Pope keeps talking about it. To be honest, though, we tend to see it as a philosophical problem, a...
We took our leave before the summer, laying the accent on a word that Benedict XVI–and along with him, the force of reality–has continually recalled us to: “conversion,” the need to keep our eyes fixed on Christ. Now, in September, we find ourselves rich...
At a certain point in your work, you want to stop a moment and look back–to see how much you have grown, what steps you have taken. And, usually, if you think about it, the best moment for doing this is the summer, when the “social year” slows down and...
It’s true that, at times, numbers talk. On May 16th, two hundred thousand people were in St. Peter’s Square, to welcome the Pope and to be welcomed by him for the Regina Coeli prayer–a rare spectacle, coming only three days after the four hundred thousand...
There was a moment during the recent weeks when even the storm unleashed on the Church suddenly stopped. Just an instant, the kind when your breath stops in your throat and a silence full of amazement descends. The Pope cried. It happened in Malta, with...
None of us has ever been as dismayed as we are in front of the heart-wrenching story of child abuse. Our dismay arises from our inability to respond to the demand for justice which springs from the bottom of our hearts. The request to assume...
What freedom we breathe when we find out that life has unity! We can live without fractures (which eventually become fissures) in our daily lives, without separating facts from aspirations, desires from circumstances, faith from reality... Life is one, it...
Five years ago, Fr. Giussani died. At the conclusion of his funeral, celebrated by then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, Fr. Julián Carrón, the successor, entrusted to the 40,000 people present the challenge he felt first of all for himself: “I am sure that if...
Dear Editor, There is a phrase of Dostoevsky that accompanies me these days, when I have to speak of Christianity to all kinds of people in Italy and abroad: “Can an educated man, a European of our time, believe–truly believe–in the divinity of the Son...
The challenge is all there, on that leaflet stuck on the wall in the corridor of the Faculty of Physics in Milan University. The text is the flyer that Communion and Liberation published concerning the ruling by the European Court of Human Rights that, in...
There is an event that has marked the month of November for some years now, in Italy and not only Italy, as, little by little, it is becoming a global event, with expressions in Europe and South America. It is the Collection Day, organized by the Food...
There’s a recurrent expression surfacing in the vocabulary of our culture: “the educational emergency,” indicating the awareness that the void of education, the abandonment of this fundamental task for two generations now, has generated a dramatic...
Perhaps some people will do it after reading this magazine, and it will take time to take the proposal seriously, so as not to let it pass them by quickly while the year takes off again in its normal rhythm of work. But if you have already done so, if you...
The beautiful thing about the summer is that you get down to serious work. Not that during the rest of the year you’re just twiddling your thumbs, of course (at least, not always, and not everyone...). But between July and August, when your obligations...
Many people had already felt their hearts jump for joy as they heard those words, “Only He is able to fulfill this desire. This is why we must celebrate Christ, that Christ exists!” Then the work began, studying and trying to understand the text of the...
Looking through and beyond all that happened that night of the earthquake in Italy on April 6th gives room to the truest desire of the heart, that which opens up an instant after the great–and dramatic–question, “Why?”: the desire to start again, to get...
Faced with the arguments that have involved Benedict XVI over the question of the Lefebvrian schism and the AIDS question in Africa, and the Pope’s presumed isolation, we run the risk of becoming inured to the idea that, in the end, these are things we...
An editorial by Cardinal Angelo Scola, Patriarch of Venice, that was recently published in Avvenire, the Italian Catholic daily newspaper, is well worth a careful reading, and we offer it here for you in this issue of Traces. Scola describes two...
There are moments when the impact of reality becomes more violent. Think of the barbarities surrounding the case of Eluana Englaro,* the thunder of war in the Middle East, the grip of the economic crisis. They seem to be placed there on purpose, all...
‘Whatever the crisis, the first question that arises is: ‘Who are you?’” Bernard Scholz, President of the Companionship of Works Association, recently wrote this in a letter to the directory of the association, made up of 34,000 companies (suffering like...
Eluana Englaro is a young woman in Northern Italy who, after a car accident on January 18, 1992, was left unconscious, and has remained so until today, cared for by nuns. Her father wishes to have her feeding tube removed and allow her to die, but up to...