It is not easy to be potato in a time like the current one in which religious faith is usually taken by one more option, a mere personal matter that is of limited importance. While, in the name of truths in his eternal judgment, the German Benedict XVI refused to surrender to relativism prevailing that in his opinion he was undermining the western civilization that he owed so much to Christianity, his successor, the Argentine Francisco, tried to adapt to the times that run assuming positions that would deserve the applause of non -believers but they would disappoint the defenders of the. traditional In addition to wanting to open the doors of the Church so that anyone, even those previously condemned to the infernal flames for their sins, could enter, Francisco promised to join novel causes such as the fight against climate change, committing to minimize the coal footprint of the Vatican.
Both alternatives, both severe, not to say rigid, which was chosen by the German, as the most friendly preferred by the Argentine, pose risks. As Joseph Ratzinger understood very well when he chose to be called Benedict, a Catholic Church that was reluctant to disconnect from his own past would be necessarily very minority, but a more flexible one, the one proposed by Jorge Bergoglio, could degenerate in a kind of politicized NGO, which would be dedicated to beneficial works with the purpose of becoming more popular among those who considered it an obsolete antigual.
It is a dilemma that surely worries the cardinals who are already thinking about which of their colleagues they would like to become the next Pope. Will they privilege a scholarly theologian as Ratzinger, a man who clings to the essentials without making concessions to those tempted by ephemeral cultural fashions, or a character like Bergoglio, “the Peronist Pope”, who prefers to be influenced by them and that sometimes he will speak as a politician of the heap that hopes to congratate himself with everyone? Soon we will know the answer to this question.
With approximately 1,400 million faithful, the Catholic Church remains the most important Christian confession, but is threatened not only by old enemies such as rationalism and, it goes without saying, by evangelical creeds of Protestant inspiration that, in Latin America, are expanding disconcerting rapidly, but also by the renewed Islamic militancy.
Faced with the propensity of Western societies to turn its back on the old ecclesiastical teachings, Ratzinger believed that it would be better to retreat and, like San Benito de Nursia on the days when the Roman Empire succumbed to barbaric invasions, founded the Benedictine order that, from the monasteries, contributed to maintaining the inherited culture of antiquity, until, until later, until, centuries later. I would dominate all of Europe. Needless to say, Bergoglio’s attitude was radically different; Unlike German, he was willing to agree with infidels of advanced ideas with the hope that they would accept him as one of his. He managed to convince the majority that, thinking about it, he was on “the right side” of the story. However, some would criticize him for his opposition to abortion and, although he affirmed reluctant to condemn his behavior for immoral, his tendency to speak disparagingly of homosexuals.
Like many European political leaders, the Argentine pontiff resisted really taking the Islamist challenge. For him, all Muslims in Europe were weak victims of xenophobic prejudices of the inhabitants of the countries in which they were looking for refuge and therefore should be protected. For this reason, he tried to ignore what was happening in the Middle East, which is emptying Christians at an alarming pace because of the bloodthirsty aggressiveness of the Islamists, and in Africa, where a few days pass without new massacres of Christians at the hands of enraged jihadists. The Pope’s refusal to raise his voice in defense of his co -religionists in such parts of the world has only served to embolden those resolved to kill them or expel them from their ancestral lands.
Likewise, although their request that European countries allow to enter contingents nourished by Muslims fleeing cruel dictatorships and the economic misery of their countries of origin has deserved the approval of sectors that are described as progressive, by behaving like this it is helping to prepare the land so that in the next years there are large -scale tragedies. The rise of “the extreme right” parties in Europe that proposes to emulate the American government of Donald Trump and “repatriate”, by the means that were, to all those who seem oblivious to their own lifestyle are mainly due to the proliferation of brutal terrorist attacks and the preaching of the clergy who encourage them.
The “multiculturalism” that, despite everything, has not lost its validity in countries that already have large Muslim communities, can work if all different groups manage to coexist peacefully in a climate of mutual respect, but when one insists on their own superiority and allows its members to commit acts of violence, as has happened with some frequency in France, the United Kingdom, Germany, Germany, attempt have lucuitous consequences.
It would be reasonable to assume that the Bishop of Rome is responsible for keeping the spirit of Christianity alive in societies that, for diverse reasons, seem to have lost interest in the religious traditions that formed them, but Bergoglio did not stand out for his will to fight cultural battles against those determined to reduce the influence of the cult of which he was the natural boss. Even so, even if it is somewhat paradoxical, in the last years some intellectuals who claim to be agnostic or even atheists have begun to claim the contribution of Christianity to European culture, attributing it, in its first phase at least, to respect for the free conscience of each one that, walking a lot of time, would lead to the Enlightenment. In the last decades, leaders such as the former British prime minister Tony Blair and the current vice president of the United States, have become Catholicism for believing it a bulwark against the nihilist relativism that Ratzinger had failed.
The “cultural Christians” distinguish between the faith that must be irrational and the alleged need for the majority to believe in something that is not clearly subjective since, as the remarkable Catholic polemicist GK Chesterton will have said, “when men no longer believe in God, it is not that they do not believe in anything, they believe everything.” Indeed, it does not strange that, in the post-Christian world, a multitude of very rare cults has emerged, hence the phenomenon “woke” that, it seems, has begun to beat in retreat. Be that as it may, recognize that, good that European culture has Christian bases, it can be of historical interest, but it will not help to renew faith.
It would seem that, in the opinion of Catholic hierarchs, Europe is already a lost case and that the future of the Church is in Africa. It would not surprise, then, that after having tried luck with a South American Pontiff, the product of a culture with strong European features, the cardinals would opt for an African who, judging by the attitudes assumed by many ecclesiastics of such origin that live in Europe, would have more conservative opinions than those of Bergoglio. Since they broke with a long tradition of giving priority to the Italians by choosing the Polish Karol Wojtyla, who was followed by a German and then by an Argentine, the cardinals have been guided by the possible geopolitical implications of the Pope’s national origin. In view of the meaning that today gives so many to the racial identity of the people who occupy key positions, there will be many convinced that the Church would be convenient for the Supreme Pontiff to be a “color” man.
When Bergoglio was chosen Pope, the specialists in Vatican issues took it for a sign that, in the opinion of the sloping ones, Ratzinger had been too traditionalist and therefore it was necessary to replace it with someone more capable of “building bridges” that would serve to reconnect the church with the outside world. Bergoglio tried to fulfill the tacit mandate thus assumption. For a while, he managed to closely approach international elites, but when he started changing, he cost him to adapt. In Italy, one more government would arise with the Catholicism of previous generations. Soon, something similar could happen in France and Germany, while in the United States the advent of Trump outraged the Pope that he would not hesitate to criticize with virulence the migratory policy of the tycoon. As for Argentina, it would seem that he did not have time to absorb the clash that will have caused the choice of Javier Milei, a character whose religiosity could only please him but that, in addition to showing a successful biblical faith, in everything related to the economy is even more “neoliberal” than Mauricio Macri, who, as a good peronist who wanted to “take care of” Cristina.
