In the painful confusion presently surrounding us, only a few things are clear and certain. One of these is that we cannot live on the proceeds of the past any longer. For example, we cannot base our tranquility on political balances consolidated decades...
What do we mean when we say we need to judge? And why is it so urgent, as the Pope points out, that "the intelligence of faith become intelligence of reality"? Let's be quite clear: at times it escapes us. We tend to think of it as something that has...
Six years after his death, FR. LUIGI GIUSSANI goes on generating a people, reaching even those who never knew him personally: a Muslim teacher, a Jewish jurist, an Orthodox theologian, an Anglican pastor, and a journalist. Here is the story of a...
"That Christianity gives joy and breadth is also a thread that runs through my whole life. Ultimately someone who is always only in opposition could probably not endure life at all" (Light of the World, Part 1). These words of Benedict XVI challenge us to...
This month’s editorial is a flyer written by the Spanish CL community after Benedict XVI’s visit to Santiago de Compostela and Barcelona. It speaks of Spain and Gaudí, but holds true for everyone, not only because what the Pope said before the impressive...
Take a look, and say if it isn’t a good sign. You come away surprised from an evening, a meeting with a few friends, or a more impressive event, and find yourself taken up, almost dominated, by an unexpected question that you can’t answer lightly: What...
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...