L'option fédéraliste de l’évêque de Rome - par Sandro Magister

 In Chiesaespresso

Davantage d’autonomie pour les conférences épiscopales nationales. Et une plus grande place pour les diverses cultures. Ce sont les deux points sur lesquels "Evangelii gaudium" se distingue principalement du magistère des papes précédents

ROME, le 3 décembre 2013 – Dans la très longue exhortation apostolique "Evangelii gaudium" qui a été rendue publique il y a une semaine, le pape François a fait comprendre que, sur deux points au moins, il voulait se distinguer des papes qui l’ont précédé.

Le premier de ces points est aussi celui qui a eu le plus d’écho dans les médias. Et il concerne à la fois l'exercice de la primauté du pape et les pouvoirs des conférences épiscopales.

Le second point concerne le rapport entre le christianisme et les cultures.


1. À PROPOS DE LA PAPAUTÉ ET DES ÉGLISES NATIONALES


En ce qui concerne le rôle du pape, Jorge Mario Bergoglio reconnaît à Jean-Paul II le mérite d’avoir ouvert la voie vers une nouvelle forme d’exercice de la primauté. Mais il déplore un fait - "nous avons peu avancé en ce sens" - et il assure qu’il veut progresser avec davantage d’élan vers une forme de papauté qui soit "plus fidèle à la signification que Jésus-Christ a voulu lui donner et aux nécessités actuelles de l’évangélisation".

Toutefois ce n’est pas tellement à propos du rôle du pape – sujet sur lequel François reste dans le vague et domaine dans lequel, jusqu’à présent, il a en fait agi en concentrant sur lui-même la plus grande part des décisions – qu’à propos des pouvoirs des conférences épiscopales qu’"Evangelii gaudium" laisse pressentir un tournant.

Voici ce qu’écrit le pape, au paragraphe 32 de ce document :

"Le concile Vatican II a affirmé que, d’une manière analogue à celle des anciennes Églises patriarcales, les conférences épiscopales peuvent 'contribuer de façons multiples et fécondes à ce que le sentiment collégial se réalise concrètement'. Mais ce souhait ne s’est pas pleinement réalisé parce qu’un statut des conférences épiscopales qui les conçoive comme sujets d’attributions concrètes, y compris une certaine autorité doctrinale authentique, n’a pas encore été suffisamment explicité. Une centralisation excessive, au lieu d’aider, complique la vie de l’Église et sa dynamique missionnaire".

En note, François renvoie à un motu proprio de Jean-Paul II datant de 1998, qui concerne précisément "la nature théologique et juridique des conférences épiscopales" :

> Apostolos suos

Cependant, lorsqu’on lit ce document, on découvre qu’il reconnaît aux conférences épiscopales nationales une fonction exclusivement pratique, coopérative, de simple corps auxiliaire servant d’intermédiaire entre, d’une part, le collège de tous les évêques du monde réunis autour du pape – unique "collégialité" qui soit déclarée théologiquement fondée – et, d’autre part, chaque évêque qui a autorité sur son diocèse.

Mais, surtout, le motu proprio "Apostolos suos" limite fortement cette "authentique autorité doctrinale" que le pape François dit vouloir concéder aux conférences épiscopales. Il prescrit que, si elles veulent vraiment émettre des déclarations doctrinales, elles doivent le faire avec une approbation unanime et en communion avec le pape et l'ensemble de l’Église, ou tout au moins "à la majorité qualifiée", et avec le contrôle préalable et l’autorisation du Saint-Siège.

Un danger contre lequel le motu proprio "Apostolos suos" met en garde est que les conférences épiscopales puissent émettre des déclarations doctrinales qui seraient en opposition les unes avec les autres ainsi qu’avec le magistère universel de l’Église.

Un autre risque auquel le motu proprio veut s’opposer est la constitution de séparations et d’antagonismes entre les Églises nationales prises individuellement et Rome, comme cela s’est produit dans le passé en France avec le "gallicanisme" et comme c’est le cas, chez les orthodoxes, de certaines Églises nationales autocéphales.

Ce motu proprio porte la signature de Jean-Paul II, mais il doit sa structure à celui qui était son préfet de la doctrine et en qui il avait toute confiance, le cardinal Joseph Ratzinger.

Et Ratzinger – on le savait – portait depuis longtemps un jugement très critique sur les superpouvoirs que quelques conférences épiscopales s’étaient attribuées, surtout dans certains pays, parmi lesquels son Allemagne natale.

Dans son interview-bombe de 1985, publiée sous le titre "Rapport sur la foi", Ratzinger s’était résolument opposé à ce que l’Église catholique devienne "une espèce de fédération d’Églises nationales".

Au lieu de susciter "une relance énergique du rôle de l’évêque" comme l’avait voulu le concile Vatican II, les conférences épiscopales nationales – accusait-il – "étouffaient" les évêques sous leurs lourdes structures bureaucratiques.

Et il affirmait aussi :

"Décider toujours ensemble, cela paraît très beau", mais "la vérité ne peut pas être créée comme résultat de votes". D’une part parce que "l’esprit de groupe, ou peut-être la volonté de vivre tranquille, ou même le conformisme, conduisent la majorité à accepter les prises de position de minorités entreprenantes et déterminées à aller dans des directions précises". D’autre part parce que "la recherche du point de rencontre entre les différentes tendances et l’effort de médiation donnent fréquemment lieu à des documents plats et incolores".

Jean-Paul II et après lui Benoît XVI considéraient que la qualité moyenne des évêques dans le monde et celle d’une grande partie des conférences épiscopales étaient modestes. Et ils ont agi en conséquence. En se présentant eux-mêmes comme guides et comme modèles et, dans certains cas – par exemple celui de l’Italie – en intervenant de manière énergique afin de modifier les leaderships et les orientations.

Sous le pontificat de François, en revanche, les conférences épiscopales pourraient se voir reconnaître une plus grande autonomie, avec les contrecoups que l’on peut prévoir, dont un exemple a été récemment donné par l’Allemagne. Dans ce pays, des évêques et des cardinaux de premier plan s’affrontent publiquement sur les sujets les plus variés, depuis les critères d’administration des diocèses jusqu’à la distribution de la communion aux divorcés remariés ; en ce qui concerne ce dernier sujet, ils l’ont fait en anticipant et en imposant des solutions sur lesquelles le double synode des évêques qui aura lieu en 2014 et 2015 a été appelé à débattre et à prendre des décisions.


2. À PROPOS DU CHRISTIANISME ET DES CULTURES


En ce qui concerne la rencontre entre le christianisme et les cultures, le pape François a beaucoup insisté, dans les paragraphes 115-118 d’"Evangelii gaudium", sur la thèse selon laquelle "le christianisme ne dispose pas d’un unique modèle culturel" mais, depuis les origines, il "s’incarne dans les peuples de la terre, chacun de ceux-ci ayant sa propre culture".

En d’autres termes :

"La grâce suppose la culture et le don de Dieu s’incarne dans la culture de celui qui le reçoit".

Avec ce corollaire :

"Bien qu’il soit vrai que certaines cultures ont été étroitement liées à la prédication de l’Évangile et au développement d’une pensée chrétienne, le message révélé ne s’identifie à aucune d’entre elles et il possède un contenu transculturel".

En affirmant cela, le pape Bergoglio semble s’opposer à ceux qui soutiennent que l'annonce de l’Évangile possède une pureté originelle par rapport à quelque contamination culturelle que ce soit. Pureté qui devrait lui être restituée, en la libérant principalement de ses revêtements "occidentaux" d’hier et d’aujourd’hui, pour lui donner à chaque fois la possibilité de "s’inculturer" en de nouvelles synthèses avec d’autres cultures.

Mais, présenté en ces termes, ce rapport entre le christianisme et les cultures laisse de côté ce lien indissoluble entre la foi et la raison, entre la révélation biblique et la culture grecque, entre Jérusalem et Athènes, auquel Jean-Paul II a consacré l'encyclique "Fides et ratio" et sur lequel Benoît XVI a focalisé son mémorable discours prononcé à Ratisbonne le 12 septembre 2006 :

> Foi, Raison et Université

D’après le pape Ratzinger, le lien entre la foi biblique et la philosophie grecque constitue "une nécessité intrinsèque" qui se manifeste non seulement dans le fulgurant prologue de l’Évangile de Jean : "Au commencement était le Logos", mais également, déjà, dans l'Ancien Testament, par le mystérieux "Je suis" de Dieu dans le buisson ardent : "une contestation par rapport au mythe avec laquelle la tentative de Socrate de vaincre et de dépasser le mythe lui-même est en intime analogie".

Cette rencontre "entre l’esprit grec et l’esprit chrétien" – affirmait Benoît XVI – "s’est faite d’une manière qui a eu une signification décisive pour la naissance du christianisme et sa diffusion".

Et c’est une synthèse – argumentait encore le pape Benoît – qu’il faut défendre contre toutes les attaques qui, au cours des siècles, jusqu’à nos jours, ont cherché à la détruire, au nom de la "déshellénisation du christianisme".

De nos jours – faisait remarquer Ratzinger à Ratisbonne – cette attaque est lancée "au regard de la rencontre avec la multiplicité des cultures":

"On dit volontiers aujourd'hui que la synthèse avec l'hellénisme, qui s'est opérée dans l'Église antique, était une première inculturation du christianisme qu'il ne faudrait pas imposer aux autres cultures. Il faut leur reconnaître le droit de remonter en deçà de cette inculturation vers le simple message du Nouveau Testament, pour l'inculturer à nouveau dans leurs espaces respectifs. Cette thèse n'est pas simplement erronée mais encore grossière et inexacte. […] Certes, il existe des strates dans le processus d'évolution de l'Église antique qu'il n'est pas besoin de faire entrer dans toutes les cultures. Mais les décisions fondamentales, qui concernent précisément le lien de la foi avec la recherche de la raison humaine, font partie de la foi elle-même et constituent des développements qui sont conformes à sa nature".

Sur ce point essentiel, "Evangelii gaudium" n’est pas nécessairement en contradiction avec le magistère de Jean-Paul II et de Benoît XVI. Mais il est certain qu’elle en est éloignée.

Là encore avec une sympathie évidente pour une pluralité de formes d’Église, modelées sur les cultures locales respectives.

La opción federal del obispo de Roma - di Sandro Magister

In Chiesaespresso

Más autonomía a las conferencias episcopales nacionales. Y más espacio a las diversas culturas. Los dos puntos sobre los cuales la "Evangelii gaudium" se distingue mayormente del magisterio de los anteriores Papas

ROMA, 3 de diciembre de 2013 – En la fluvial exhortación apostólica "Evangelii gaudium" dada a conocer públicamente hace una semana, el papa Francisco ha dado a entender que quiere distinguirse al menos en dos puntos de los Papas que lo han precedido.

El primero de estos puntos es también el que ha tenido más resonancia en los medios de comunicación. Remite tanto al ejercicio del primado del Papa como a los poderes de las conferencias episcopales.

El segundo punto remite a la relación entre el cristianismo y las culturas.


1. SOBRE EL PAPADO Y LAS IGLESIAS NACIONALES


Respecto al rol del Papa, Jorge Mario Bergoglio reconoce en Juan Pablo II el mérito de haber abierto el camino hacia una nueva forma de ejercicio del primado. Pero lamenta que "hemos avanzado poco en este sentido" y promete proceder con más decisión hacia una forma de papado "más fiel al sentido que Jesucristo quiso darle y a la necesidad actual de la evangelización".

Pero más que sobre el rol del Papa – tema sobre el cual Francisco permanece impreciso y así hasta ahora ha actuado concentrando en sí el máximo de las decisiones – es sobre los poderes de las conferencias episcopales que la "Evangelii gaudium" permite presagiar un giro.

Escribe el Papa, en el parágrafo 32 del documento:

“El Concilio Vaticano II expresó que, de modo análogo a las antiguas Iglesias patriarcales, las Conferencias episcopales pueden ‘desarrollar una obra múltiple y fecunda, a fin de que el afecto colegial tenga una aplicación concreta’. Pero este deseo no se realizó plenamente, por cuanto todavía no se ha explicitado suficientemente un estatuto de las Conferencias episcopales que las conciba como sujetos de atribuciones concretas, incluyendo también alguna auténtica autoridad doctrinal. Una excesiva centralización, más que ayudar, complica la vida de la Iglesia y su dinámica misionera”.

En una cita, Francisco remite a un Motu proprio de Juan Pablo II, del año 1998, respecto precisamente a "la naturaleza teológica y jurídica de las conferencias episcopales":

> Apostolos suos

Pero si se lee ese documento, se descubre que éste reconoce a las conferencias episcopales una función exclusivamente práctica, cooperativa, de simple cuerpo auxiliar intermedio entre el colegio de todos los obispos del mundo junto al Papa por un lado – única "colegialidad" declarada y teológicamente fundada – y el obispo particular con autoridad sobre su diócesis por el otro lado.

Sobre todo, el Motu proprio "Apostolos suos" limita fuertemente esa "auténtica autoridad doctrinal" que el papa Francisco dice querer conceder a las conferencias episcopales. Prescribe que si precisamente quieren emitir declaraciones doctrinales, lo deben hacer con aprobación unánime y en comunión con el Papa y el conjunto de la Iglesia, o al menos con una "mayoría calificada" con el previo control y autorización de la Santa Sede.

Un peligro contra el cual Motu proprio "Apostolos suos" pone en guardia es que las conferencias episcopales emitan declaraciones doctrinales contradictorias entre sí y con el magisterio universal de la Iglesia.

Otro riesgo que quiere conjurar es que se creen separaciones y antagonismos entre Iglesias particulares nacionales y Roma, como aconteció en el pasado en Francia con el "galicanismo" y como sucedió entre los ortodoxos con algunas Iglesias nacionales autocéfalas.

Ese Motu proprio lleva la firma de Juan Pablo II, pero debe su instalación a quien era su prefecto de la doctrina digno de confianza: el cardenal Joseph Ratzinger.

Y Ratzinger – se sabía – era desde hacía tiempo muy crítico de los superpoderes que algunas conferencias episcopales se habían atribuido, sobre todo en algunos países, entre los cuales se contaba su Alemania.

En su entrevista-bomba de 1985, editada con el título "Informe sobre la fe", Ratzinger se opuso resueltamente a que la Iglesia Católica se convirtiera en "una especie de federación de Iglesias nacionales".

Más que "un decidido relanzamiento del rol del obispo" querido por el Concilio Vaticano II, las conferencias episcopales nacionales – acusaba – habían "sofocado" a los obispos con su pesadas estructuras burocráticas.

Y también:

"Resulta muy bonito decidir siempre conjuntamente ", pero "la verdad no puede ser creada como resultado de votaciones", ya sea porque " el espíritu de grupo, quizá la voluntad de vivir en paz, o incluso el conformismo, arrastran a la mayoría a aceptar las posiciones de minorías audaces decididas a ir en una dirección muy precisa”, o porque "la búsqueda del punto de encuentro entre las varias tendencias y el esfuerzo de mediación dan lugar muchas veces a documentos anodinos y depreciados".

Juan Pablo II y luego Benedicto XVI juzgaban modesta la calidad promedio de los obispos del mundo y de la mayor parte de las conferencias episcopales. Actuaron entonces en consecuencia, haciendo ellos mismos de guías y de modelo, y en algunos casos – como en Italia – interviniendo resueltamente para cambiar el liderazgo y las direcciones de la marcha.

Con Francisco las conferencias episcopales podrían, por el contrario, ver que se les reconocería una mayor autonomía. Con los previsibles contragolpes del cual Alemania es fresco ejemplo, donde obispos y cardenales de primer nivel están enfrentándose públicamente sobre las cuestiones más diversas, desde los criterios de administración de las diócesis hasta la comunión a los divorciados que se han vuelto a casar, en este último caso anticipando y forzando soluciones sobre las que está llamado a debatir y decidir el doble sínodo de los obispos del 2015 y del 2015.
 

2. SOBRE EL CRISTIANISMO Y LAS CULTURAS


En cuanto al encuentro entre el cristianismo y las culturas, el papa Francisco ha insistido mucho, en los parágrafos 115-118 de la "Evangelii gaudium", sobre la tesis que "el cristianismo no tiene un único modelo cultural", sino que desde sus orígenes "se encarna en los pueblos de la tierra, cada uno de los cuales tiene su cultura propia".

En otras palabras:

"La gracia supone la cultura, y el don de Dios se encarna en la cultura de quien lo recibe".

Con este corolario:

"Si bien es verdad que algunas culturas han estado estrechamente ligadas a la predicación del Evangelio y al desarrollo de un pensamiento cristiano, el mensaje revelado no se identifica con ninguna de ellas y tiene un contenido transcultural".

Al sostener esto, el papa Bergoglio parece ir al encuentro de quien sostiene que el anuncio del Evangelio tiene su pureza originaria respecto a cualquier contaminación cultural. Una pureza que se le debería restituir, liberándolo precisamente de sus revestimientos "occidentales" de ayer y de hoy, para permitirle siempre "inculturarse" en nuevas síntesis con otras culturas.

Pero planteado en estos términos, este vínculo entre el cristianismo y las culturas olvida ese nexo inescindible entre la fe y la razón, entre la revelación bíblica y la cultura griega, entre Jerusalén y Atenas, nexo al que Juan Pablo II le ha dedicado la encíclica "Fides et ratio" y sobre el que Benedicto XVI ha focalizado su memorable discurso en Ratisbona del 12 de setiembre de 2006:

> Fe, razón y universidad

Para el papa Ratzinger, el vínculo entre la fe bíblica y el filosofar griego es "una necesidad intrínseca" que se manifiesta no sólo en el fulgurante prólogo del Evangelio según san Juan - "En el principio era el Logos" -, sino ya en el Antiguo Testamento, en el misterioso "Yo soy" de Dios en la zarza ardiente: "una contraposición al mito que tiene una estrecha analogía con el intento de Sócrates de batir y superar al mito mismo".

Este encuentro "entre el espíritu griego y el espíritu cristiano" – sostenía Benedicto XVI – "se ha realizado de un modo que tuvo un significado decisivo para el nacimiento y difusión del cristianismo".

Y es una síntesis – argumentaba también el papa Benedicto – que se defiende de todos los ataques que en el transcurso de los siglos, hasta nuestros días, han intentado romperla, en nombre de la "des-helenización del cristianismo".

En nuestros días – hacía notar Ratzinger en Ratisbona – este ataque se produce "en consideración del encuentro con la multiplicidad de las culturas":

"Se suele decir hoy que la síntesis con el helenismo en la Iglesia antigua fue una primera inculturación, que no debería ser vinculante para las demás culturas. Éstas deberían tener derecho a volver atrás, hasta el momento previo a dicha inculturación, para descubrir el mensaje puro del Nuevo Testamento e inculturarlo de nuevo en sus ambientes respectivos. Esta tesis no es simplemente falsa, sino también rudimentaria e imprecisa. […] Ciertamente, en el proceso de formación de la Iglesia antigua hay elementos que no deben integrarse en todas las culturas. Sin embargo, las opciones fundamentales que atañen precisamente a la relación entre la fe y la búsqueda de la razón humana forman parte de la fe misma, y son un desarrollo acorde con su propia naturaleza".

Sobre este tema capital, la "Evangelii gaudium" no necesariamente contradice el magisterio de Juan Pablo II y de Benedicto XVI, pero seguramente se distancia de él.

También aquí, con una evidente simpatía por una pluralidad de formas de Iglesia, modeladas sobre las respectivas culturas locales.

George Weigel in WSJ on Pope Francis the Revolutionary

Nine months into his papacy, the pontiff has made clear his aim to restore the church's original evangelical passion. 

by George Weigel
November 29, 2013

The first nine months of the pontificate of Pope Francis have often resembled a gigantic Rorschach test in which various commentators inside and outside the Catholic Church have "seen" their dreams and fears realized. Alas, what has been "seen" has often had little to do with the record of Jorge Mario Bergoglio as priest and bishop or with his most consequential decisions as pope. 

Those projections reached fever pitch with the publication on Tuesday of Francis' first apostolic exhortation, "Evangelii Gaudium" (The Joy of the Gospel), which was celebrated, or lamented, as if it were an Occupy Whatever position paper for a G-8 summit. Instead, the papal document should be read and appreciated for what it manifestly is: a clarion call for a decisive shift in the Catholic Church's self-understanding, in full continuity with the teaching of the Second Vatican Council, Paul VI, John Paul II and Benedict XVI. 

Given the fantasies that the pope and his pontificate have inspired on both left and right, it might be useful, at the three-quarter pole of Francis' first year in the Chair of Peter, to describe with more precision the man with whom I shared a wide-ranging conversation about the global state of the Catholic Church in May 2012. 

First and foremost, Jorge Mario Bergoglio is a radically converted Christian disciple who has known the mercy of God in his own life and who wants to enable others to share that experience—and the healing and joy that come from friendship with the Lord Jesus Christ. 

As he declared in a widely publicized interview in September with an Italian Jesuit magazine, Pope Francis is a "son of the church" who believes and teaches what the Catholic Church believes and teaches, and who wants others to hear and be moved to conversion by the symphony of Catholic truth, which he thinks is too often drowned out by ecclesiastical cacophony. 

Pope Francis is completely dedicated to what John Paul II called the "New Evangelization," by which he means a dramatic re-centering of the church on its evangelical mission and a life-changing rediscovery by each of the world's 1.2 billion Catholics of the missionary vocation into which he or she was baptized. 

He is a pastor who is deeply concerned for the flock, draws spiritual strength from the flock, challenges the flock to make good decisions, and respects popular piety. 

The pope "from the ends of the Earth," as he described himself from the central loggia of St. Peter's on the evening of his election on March 13, is a reformer who, as he made clear in "Evangelii Gaudium," will measure authentic Catholic reform by the criterion of mission-effectiveness. Thus the Franciscan reform of the Roman Curia will not be undertaken for whatever modest satisfactions may be derived from moving slots around on an organizational flowchart, but to ensure that the Catholic Church's central administration serves the evangelical mission of all the members of the church. 

As described by José María Poirier, director of the Argentine Catholic magazine Criterio, the pope is a man who "wants a holy church, or at least one with a great striving for virtue," because he knows that Christian example is at least as important as logical argument in the church's evangelization work—a conviction that explains his recent (and welcome) criticism of Catholic "sourpusses." 

He is, by the testimony of many who have worked with him, an efficient executive who consults widely, ponders his options, and then acts decisively. He is not afraid of making decisions, but he makes his decisions carefully, having learned (as he once put it) to be skeptical of his initial impressions and instincts in facing difficult situations. He is not afraid of criticism, he learns from his mistakes, and he wants his collaborators to challenge him when they think he's wrong. 

He is a man of broad culture, well-read theologically but more given to literary references and illustrations than to scholarly theological citations in his preaching and catechesis. Thus one of his recent daily Mass sermons praised Robert Hugh Benson's early 20th-century apocalyptic novel, "Lord of the World," for raising important cautions against dictatorial utopianism, or what the pope called "adolescent progressivism." 

Pope Francis also grasps the nature of the great cultural crisis of post-modernity: the rise of a new Gnosticism, in which everything in the human condition is plastic, malleable and subject to human willfulness, nothing is simply given, and human beings are reduced, by self-delusion, legal definition or judicial dictums to mere bundles of desires. 

The pope is passionately concerned about the poor, and he knows that poverty in the 21st century takes many forms. It can be found in the grinding material poverty of his native Buenos Aires, caused by decades of corruption, indifference, and the church's failures to catechize Argentina's economic and political leaders. But poverty can also be found in the soul-withering spiritual desert of those who measure their humanity by what they have rather than who they are, and who judge others by the same materialist yardstick. Then there is the ethical impoverishment of moral relativism, which dumbs down human aspiration, impedes common work for the common good in society, and inevitably leads to social fragmentation and personal unhappiness. 

As he wrote in "Evangelii Gaudium," Pope Francis is not a man of "political ideology." He knows that "business is a vocation and a noble vocation," if ordered to the common good and the empowerment of the poor. When he criticizes the social, economic or political status quo, he does so as a pastor who is "interested only in helping all those who are in thrall to an individualistic, indifferent and self-centered mentality to be freed from those unworthy chains and to attain a way of living and thinking that is more humane, noble, and fruitful." 

Pope Francis is a revolutionary. The revolution he proposes, however, is not a matter of economic or political prescription, but a revolution in the self-understanding of the Catholic Church: a re-energizing return to the pentecostal fervor and evangelical passion from which the church was born two millennia ago, and a summons to mission that accelerates the great historical transition from institutional-maintenance Catholicism to the Church of the New Evangelization.

What Makes a Marriage? Love, Sex, or Comprehensive Union - by Sherif Girgis, Ryan T. Anderson and Robert P. George

In TPD

 

Prof. Charles Reid thinks love makes a marriage. He claims we think sex makes a marriage. In truth, comprehensive union makes a marriage. And getting marriage right matters for everyone.

 

Earlier this month, at the annual Fall Conference of Notre Dame’s Center for Ethics and Culture, two of us (Girgis and Anderson) participated in a public conversation with Professor Charles Reid on the subject of “Marriage, Catholicism, and Public Policy.” There, Reid amiably defended his view that two men or two women can form a marriage, and that civil marriage should be redefined accordingly.

In a follow-up piece in the Huffington Post, Reid attributes to our book, What Is Marriage? Man and Woman: A Defense, the argument that sex is what makes a man and a woman permanently bonded and hence married. Against the obvious point that one-night stands don’t make a marriage, he claims that we would invoke marital vows but never really stop to consider what might motivate such vows in the first place. If we did, Reid argues, we would see that it is not matching “bodily design[s]” but “human affection” that really “makes a marriage.”

So for Reid, the real question for the marriage debate is “who is capable of love”—by which he means a certain “emotion.” And that, he thinks, is an empirical question now settled by science showing same-sex bonds to be stable.

In his op-ed and our debate, Reid mangles our view (and the historic understanding) of marriage. In its place, he proposes a view vulnerable to objections—some quite obvious—that Reid himself laid out years ago, before he altered his stance on the issue. Here we address his distortions of our view, and the weaknesses in his own, before turning to the social stakes of the debate.

Distortions

Reid says that we think a man and woman’s sexual intercourse “is enough to create a permanent union.” We have never said or written any such thing, for the simple reason that we consider it obviously false. To suggest otherwise, Reid cites a passage in our book in which we point out that the kind of bodily union that exists within a person is possible between two people, but only in coitus. What makes a person’s heart, lungs, and other parts “one flesh” is that they are actively coordinated toward a single bodily end (life) of the whole (the person himself). Likewise, we argued, in coitus a man and a woman participate in a bodily coordination with a single bodily end (reproduction) that pertains to the whole (the couple).

Nowhere in the passage (or even on the page) cited by Reid do we address the marital norm of permanence. So, pace Reid, we don’t think sex itself creates ex nihilo a permanent bond. Nor do we think sexual complementarity is what motivates a man and a woman to pledge permanence.

What makes a marriage—what marriage is—is not just love or sex but comprehensive union. That—total union with the beloved—is what romantic love seeks. Since persons are embodied, one element of total personal union is bodily union—which only a man and a woman can form. That is what we argue in the passage cited by Reid.

Of course, there is more to marriage. It is comprehensive, not just in the dimensions of the partners united (mind and body), but in the range of goods toward which it unites them. Marriage calls for the wide sharing of domestic life because it’s inherently fulfilled by family life. And that is so because the act that makes marital love is also the kind of act that makes new life.

In other words, just as only a man and a woman can unite in both mind and body, so only a male-female bond can naturally produce a child or inherently call for a comprehensive sharing of life. Only such a bond can be oriented by its nature to the development of whole new human beings—i.e., not just this or that good, but new participants in every good—and thus to the all-around sharing of domestic life.

And finally, this twofold comprehensiveness of marriage—in the dimensions of the partners united and the range of goods uniting them—calls for equally comprehensive commitment. That means a commitment of one’s whole self, for one’s whole life: exclusive and permanent.

In short, it is not emotion alone (as Reid supposes), or sex alone (as Reid wrongly supposes we suppose), or even sex plus emotion plus childrearing that creates the permanent commitment. Vows do that.

But contra Reid, our invocation of marital vows here isn’t arbitrary. What determines the kind of commitment people should pledge—the type of vow they should make—is the kind of cooperation they seek. What calls for comprehensive commitment are the comprehensive cooperation of bodily union and its fulfilment in family and domestic life.

Indeed, this sort of cooperation doesn’t merely justify comprehensive commitment; it also gives it content. Commitment is never generic; it is always commitment to do certain things. What spouses pledge to be permanently exclusive about is the comprehensive cooperation that begins in the marital act that seals consent, and unfolds into domestic life.

So it isn’t just that other groups (two men, two women, any three or more) can’t form a comprehensive union in these senses, and so have no objective basis to decide to pledge total commitment (as opposed to whatever they happen to prefer). It’s also that if they did make such a pledge, it would be a permanently exclusive commitment to something else: to sharing a home and fostering romantic desire, perhaps. In any case, it would not be commitment to the kind of mind-body union inherently oriented to family life—to marriage.

Against this, Reid’s citation of studies finding stable same-sex bonds—whatever the quality of those studies—is no rebuttal. Our point is not that two men or two women can form only fragile marriages. It is that they can’t engage in the comprehensively unifying act, or form a bond ordered to the comprehensive sharing, that makes a marriage and calls for total commitment.

Reid’s alternative

Now consider the failures of Reid’s view. Though his line—that love makes a marriage—is a familiar slogan, we are certain no one has ever believed it as stated—not even today, not even Reid. The love of mother for daughter, of teacher for pupil, of pastor for flock; the love of brothers or best friends is true love. No one thinks love in these forms can make a marriage. The question is what is distinctive of marital love, and of the specific form of union it takes.

Most people on both sides of the current marriage debate—including Reid, who has occupied both sides—agree that marriage requires a permanent and exclusive commitment. They agree that it is a sexual bond, and that it unfolds into family life. Our view explains and unifies all these features by the idea of comprehensive union.

But to say with Reid that love makes a marriage, and to explain love as intense emotion, is to make nonsense of these same features. Here is how one scholar put it just a few years ago:

Affection is, of course, a good thing. . . . But affection, personal commitment, love between persons, seem to be insufficient, without more, to provide a coherent foundation for marriage. What does it mean to say that a marriage is grounded on “affection”? What if affection, or commitment, vanish? [sic] What if affection cannot be confined to a single party? What if loyalty shifts?

That scholar was Charles Reid. He has now eschewed the conjugal view of marriage as a male-female union for a view of marriage as defined by affection. But nowhere has he answered his own (former) objections to his own (current) view. We reissue Reid’s challenge to Reid.

The Harms of Redefinition

Professor Reid also once grasped the harms of legally enshrining this new vision of marriage-as-emotional-union. As he put it:

I suspect that the lowest common denominator—the state-established default rules that specify the minimum necessary to enter valid marriage—may come to define marriage for a large majority of persons.

In other words, if the law redefines marriage as simple companionship, then every other distinguishing feature of marriage—permanence, exclusivity, monogamy—will become arbitrary in principle, and harder to support in practice.

We argued as much in our early written work on marriage, when some called it scaremongering. But since then, these implications of the emotional-union view have been embraced by many advocates of marriage redefinition. Indeed, if language is a measure of culture, it’s telling that new terms have been coined to encourage people to flout the stabilizing norms that we argued the emotional-union view would undermine.

Thus, a New York Times profile of gay activist Dan Savage, headlined “Married, with Infidelities,” introduced Americans to the term “monogamish”—relationships where partners would allow sexual infidelity, provided they were honest about it.

The article explained: “Savage says a more flexible attitude within marriage may be just what the straight community needs.” After all, the story added, sexual exclusivity “gives people unrealistic expectations of themselves and their partners.” Rather than strive for faithfulness to one spouse, Savage and increasingly many likeminded advocates would have couples embrace sexual openness. And why not, if some find openness more emotionally satisfying, and emotional union is what makes a marriage?

But by the same token, why should marriage—emotional union—be limited to two people in the first place? Thus the word “throuple:” a couple-like union of three. A 2012 New York Magazine piece profiled one throuple:

Their throuplehood is more or less a permanent domestic arrangement. The three men work together, raise dogs together, sleep together, miss one another, collect art together, travel together, bring each other glasses of water, and, in general, exemplify a modern, adult relationship.

Finally, our culture’s romantic lexicon now includes “wedlease,” introduced in an August 2013 op-ed in The Washington Post. Why should marriage be permanent if what defines it is emotion, which is notoriously inconstant? Why not have temporary marriage licenses, as with other contracts? “Why don’t we borrow from real estate and create a marital lease?” the author asked. “Instead of wedlock, a ‘wedlease.’” He continues:

Here’s how a marital lease could work: Two people commit themselves to marriage for a period of years—one year, five years, 10 years, whatever term suits them. The marital lease could be renewed at the end of the term however many times a couple likes.… The messiness of divorce is avoided and the end can be as simple as vacating a rental unit.

Of course, we’re not primarily concerned with linguistic trends. Our central point is that if people are taught by the law that marriage is fundamentally an emotional union for personal fulfillment, as Reid suggests, it will be more difficult for people to see the point of permanence when emotion fades, of exclusivity when the heart wanders. That will undermine these norms in practice—just as no-fault divorce (we now know) didn’t simply make the separation process easier but weakened public appreciation of permanence, making people more likely to decide to split. Similarly, if we redefine the law to make mothers and fathers optional, it will be hard for people to see that they are critical. And that will weaken motivations to stick with a marriage for the children, or indeed to marry before having children.

All these developments, in turn, will harm the very interests that motivate and justify the state’s role in marriage. As a policy matter, after all, marriage is about attaching a man and a woman as husband and wife to be father and mother to any children their union produces. When a baby is born, there is always a mother nearby: that is a fact of reproductive biology. The question is whether a father will be involved in the child’s life, and for how long. Marriage makes a man likelier to be committed both to the children that he helps generate and to their mother.

It does so for the sake of the children in question, and for everyone else. For whatever one thinks of the morality of sexually open, multipartner, and deliberately temporary bonds, their social costs run high. The marital norms of monogamy, sexual exclusivity, and permanence make a difference for society. They reduce the numbers of fatherless children and fragmented families, which improves prospects for the whole of the next generation.

Redefining marriage collapses the distinction between marriage and companionship in principle and in practice. It therefore undermines all the marital norms—so critical for spousal stability and the next generation’s well-being—that explain the law’s involvement in marriage. Professor Reid once seemed to understand this. He now seems to overlook it, and to have difficulty even grasping the contrary view he once defended.

The Tridentine Masterpiece - by Donald S. Prudlo

In Crisis

“Nam oportet et hæreses esse.” (1 Cor 11:19).  “It is fitting that there be heresies, so that those who are true, may be manifested among you.” 

How appropriate is this sentiment of St. Paul’s when we apply it to the Ecumenical Council of Trent.

In the annals of difficult ecclesiastical births, none was so trying as the effort to marshal a council following the dawn of the Protestant Reformation.  Even when it met it was plagued by intermittent attendance, sickness, military threats, and political machinations.  Yet 450 years ago, on 4 December 1563, after sporadic meetings lasting over eighteen years, the Council of Trent closed its deliberations and forwarded its decisions to Rome for Papal approval.  What it accomplished during those eighteen is staggering.  If all the other 20 ecumenical synods were put together, they would not equal the dogmatic output of the Tridentine Council.  In terms of Church doctrine, no Council has had a wider effect.

The implications of this go much further however.  Trent did not even begin to meet until twenty-five years had elapsed since Martin Luther’s excommunication.  For reasons that included politics, geography, fear of conciliarism, and lack of papal leadership, the Council was severely delayed.  During that time large sections of the Church were ripped away: Germany, Poland, the Low Countries, Switzerland, Britain, and Scandinavia.  By the time the Fathers of Trent assembled, those areas were gone, though a few would later be patiently recovered for the Church.

With that said however, this generational delay allowed the Church time to collect her thoughts.  The great theologians of the Mendicant orders (and the young Jesuits) began to focus their efforts to create a comprehensive answer to the Protestant challenge.  The Council would be no knee jerk reaction, nor a mere repeat of the ineffectual Lateran V.  The theologians and bishops came to Trent with a thorough understanding of the theological issues at stake, a firm grasp of Protestant claims, and a sober realization of the seriousness of the task which lay before them.  In a certain sense, the delay of Trent was a providential blessing.

While the postponement of the Council was keenly felt throughout Christendom, and though the sessions were at times tense, the outcome was astonishing.  There exists no area of Catholic life that the Council did not address, refine, or reform.  Dogmatically, things which were assumed for over a millennium were defined for the first time (or reaffirmed definitively and solemnly).  The canon of scripture—including the Deuterocanonicals—was proclaimed, along with the septenary number of the sacraments.  Apostolic Traditions were held to be received with equal reverence to the scriptures.  Of course all of these had been accepted immemorially, but Trent re-established them as cornerstones of the Catholic faith.

Of course the Council was eager to address the particular claims of the Lutheran and Reformed movements, but in reality it went much deeper than that.  Instead of merely anathematizing heretical tenets, the Fathers of Trent took the occasion to root their answers in a wholesale reaffirmation of lived, hierarchical, traditional, liturgical, and mystical Christianity.   Nor was the Council needlessly divisive; in clarifying the faith they had no desire further to alienate those outside the fold.  For example, the first decrees it issued were condemnations of Pelagianism, the same heresy Luther himself attacked as latent in late medieval scholasticism.  The Council reasserted the Augustinian position that first grace is absolutely unmeritable by us.  Following that however the Fathers took up a wholesale defense of the intrinsic nature of Justification, that we are really made new creations in Christ, grafted into him and regenerated and, with our graced wills now freely able to do good, merit a real claim to eternal life.  The Tridentine documents on Original Sin and Justification are some of the most theologically sophisticated works ever to be produced by an Ecumenical Council.

Following upon these pivotal decrees the Council turned its attention to the ordinary means of justification and sanctification: the sacraments.  Their grace-conferring characters were confirmed.  Transubstantiation received a substantial defense while the sacrificial nature of the Mass was firmly established.  The Council confirmed the value of celibacy and tightened Church law regarding Marriage.

This is only a sampling of the dozens and dozens of dogmatic decisions reached by the Council, but it is well to draw attention to the manner in which these decisions were framed.  In the first place the Council truly wished to cast these ideas in such a way that Protestants—suspicious of scholastic subtleties—would be able to appreciate.  One of the striking achievements of Trent was that the Council managed to communicate the substance of the medieval Christian tradition without the cumbrous scaffolding of scholastic terminology.  Rather the documents of the Council are filled with the language of the Bible and of the Fathers.  This is an underappreciated aspect of the Council which anticipates the genuine desire for mutual ecumenical understanding, while at the same time taking seriously the Church’s duty to safeguard the deposit of faith.

Trent should also not be seen as an authoritarian Council, intended to reduce Catholic intellectual life to mere rote obedience.  There were many theological traditions represented at Trent: Thomists, Scotists, Augustinians, devotees of the via moderna of Ockham, and even some inclined to the more extrinsic, imputational theories of the Protestants.  The Fathers in their decisions retained Catholic dogma, while permitting a wide latitude of interpretation about that dogma within the various theological schools of Christendom.  Far from silencing theology, Trent merely set the boundaries of the “garden,” within which the thinkers of the Church were free to meet and explore the depths of revelation.

Equally significant were the decrees of Reform that the Council accomplished.  What the Tridentine Fathers brought about was no mere “Counter-Reformation” as it has sometimes been derisively called.  Trent was no reflexive reactionary gathering attempting to circle the wagons.  Rather Trent was the culmination of a period of “Catholic Reform” which had its roots long before Luther, and could be seen in the rise of observant Religious orders, in the purified Church in Spain, and in the great humanistic and artistic achievements of the Renaissance.  Trent set its seal of approval on all of these movements, consolidated them, and gave them an impetus which was to last for hundreds of years.

Indeed it was only after the conclusion of the Council in 1563 that we begin to discern its epoch-making effects.  A congregation was set up for the implementation of Conciliar decrees (today the Congregation for the Clergy).  Under its supervision seminaries were created for the first time, leading to the professionalization of the clergy, instructing them in theology, philosophy, Latin, and canon law, and equipping them to keep their congregations Catholic and to begin to win back those fallen away.  Great reforming bishops like Charles Borromeo and Francis de Sales, fired by the Council’s mandate, reformed their dioceses from top to bottom, providing models of episcopal leadership that would endure well into the modern world.  The incomparable Roman Catechism was written for parish priests, to help them instruct the laity and catechize them in a systematic way for the first time in history, with the aim of beginning the theological education of the lay members of the Church.  The artistic, musical, and mystical traditions of the Church were reaffirmed and given new life and new forms.  The insights of humanism aided in the revision of Jerome’s Vulgate bible, and St. Pius V undertook the great streamlining of the Latin liturgy and Divine Office.  While partisans of medieval liturgical pluralism might blanch a bit at the homogenization of the Roman liturgy, one cannot deny the tremendous success of the Missal of Pius V, particularly in the mission territories.

The Council of Trent did indeed stanch the bleeding.  Northern Europe was gone, however the spirit which the assembly breathed into the Church stopped the spread of Protestantism, and indeed helped whole territories to be won back to the Church, such as Poland and southwest Germany.  More importantly it equipped the Church for worldwide expansion.  For every Protestant lost, 10 souls were gained—in Asia, in Africa, in the Americas.  Trent was a missionary revolution, producing a streamlined, purified Church, free of the corrupting accretions of the late medieval period.  It was also that rarest of things in Church history: a Council of Concord.  We are used to the fruits of a Council being disorder and chaos, and Church history supports our present experience—one need only look to the confusion following Nicea and Ephesus, or the conciliarist councils of the fifteenth century.  

Trent was different.  Its spirit inspired a whole age of the Church, lasting hundreds of years.  Nominalist historians have derisively called it the “invention of the Roman Catholicism,” as if Trent fundamentally altered the faith.  In spite of their inaccuracy they identify a central point.  Trent stamped its ineffaceable image upon Catholicism, but it was successful not because it innovated, but rather was able to present that faith “once for all delivered to the saints” in ways that were perfectly suited to its place in history.  Even though responding to new challenges and situations, Catholicism will indeed be “Tridentine” forever.

La Nuova Russia di Putin: Una volta era l’impero del male, oggi è un modello da imitare (e che entra in rotta di collisione con l'Occidente sazio e disperato) - di Mario Palmaro

In BB

"I Paesi euro-atlantici stanno ripudiando le loro radici, persino le radici cristiane che costituiscono la base della civiltà occidentale. Essi rinnegano i principi morali e tutte le identità tradizionali: nazionali, culturali, religiose e financo sessuali. Stanno applicando direttive che parificano le famiglie a convivenze di partners dello stesso sesso, la fede in Dio con la credenza in Satana." Pensieri e parole non di un papa o di un cardinale, ma di un uomo politico: Vladimir Putin. Stiamo parlando del presidente della Federazione Russa, l'erede dell'Unione delle Repubbliche Socialiste Sovietiche, il colosso comunista fondato sull'ateismo di stato e sulla dittatura del proletariato. Ora la storia, con una beffardo e rapido capovolgimento di scena, ci mostra il leader della Russia che bacchetta il mondo occidentale per la sua deriva relativista, nichilista, atea, omosessualista. Satana, dice in sostanza Putin, non abita più nell'Est cattivo e marxista, ma si è comodamente accomodato nell'Occidente libero e consumista. L'impero del male siamo diventati noi.

NO ALLA GLOBALIZZAZIONE DEL MALE
Un discorso storico, quello di Vladimir Putin, tenuto il 19 settembre al Valdai International Discussion Club. Un vasto programma che è l'opposto del regime sovietico del quale Putin stesso fece parte. Ma anche l'antitesi dell'Unione Europea, o degli Stati Uniti, o di importanti nazioni sudamericane. Vladimir Putin sa benissimo che nel mondo globalizzato i barbari morali premono alle porte, e vogliono inquinare ogni nazione con leggi e costumi aberranti. Per questo egli dice che "oggi ci occorrono nuove strategie per preservare la nostra identità in un mondo che cambia rapidamente (…)" Nessuna nostalgia per il passato comunista, spiega: "Ci siamo lasciati alle spalle l'ideologia sovietica, e non c'è ritorno"; ma nello stesso tempo no anche "a un liberalismo estremo, all'occidentale."

"Senza i valori incorporati nel Cristianesimo e nelle altre religioni storiche – prosegue Putin - senza gli standard di moralità che hanno preso forma dai millenni, le persone perderanno inevitabilmente la loro dignità umana. Ebbene: noi riteniamo naturale e giusto difendere questi valori".

FEUERBACH CAPOVOLTO E IL MATERIALISMO LIBERALE
L'uomo è ciò che mangia, diceva con una celebre battuta Ludvig Feuerbach, in una sintesi efficacissima del materialismo storico: l'uomo ridotto a materia, svuotato di qualsiasi elemento spirituale, l'uomo senz'anima e tutto stomaco, cioè desiderio istintivo da soddisfare. Dopo settant'anni di mostruoso socialismo realizzato, dopo i gulag e le purghe, dopo milioni di vittime del regime, fa un effetto strano sentire, nel 2013, il presidente della Federazione Russa capovolgere il paradigma di Feuerbach: "Ogni stato deve disporre di forza militare, tecnologica ed economica; ma la cosa prima che ne determinerà il successo è la qualità dei suoi cittadini, la qualità della società: la loro forza intellettuale, spirituale e morale. Alla fin fine, crescita economica, prosperità ed influenza geopolitica derivano da tali condizioni della società." Lezione impressionante per l'Occidente, che ricerca le cause della sua crisi economica non nel disastro morale, ma nei meccanismi stessi dell'economia. Mostrando così il vero volto del liberalismo, che è la prosecuzione del marxismo con altri mezzi. Putin invece dice: sono le qualità morali e spirituali dei cittadini che fanno grande una nazione.

LA MORTE DELL'URSS: LE VERE CAUSE
Per Vladimir Putin il passato drammatico della Russia è il frutto di una crisi morale: "Abbiamo provato il collasso del nostro stato per ben due volte. L'effetto è stato un colpo devastante ai codici culturali e spirituali della nostra nazione; abbiamo fronteggiato la rottura di tradizioni e consonanza della storia, con la demoralizzazione della società, con una perdita di fiducia e responsabilità. Queste sono le cause radicali dei tanti urgenti problemi che affrontiamo. La questione della responsabilità verso se stesso, verso la società e il diritto, è qualcosa di fondamentale per la vita di ogni giorno come per la vita del diritto". Quindici anni fa mi capitò di incontrare e intervistare Michail Gorbaciov – uomo assai diverso da Putin - e gli chiesi: "Signor Presidente, la sua è la nazione del mondo con il maggior tasso di aborti, se ne4 praticano un milione all'anno: cosa pensa di fare?" Gorbaciov rispose: "Se non sapremo uscire da questa crisi morale, non ci risolleveremo".

In Europa "la political correctness ha raggiunto tali eccessi – dice il Presidente - che ci sono persone che discutono seriamente di registrare partiti politici che promuovono la pedofilia. In molti Paesi europei la gente ha ritegno o ha paura di manifestare la sua religione. Le festività sono abolite o chiamate con altri nomi; la loro essenza (religiosa) viene nascosta, così come il loro fondamento morale. Sono convinto che questo apre una strada diretta verso il degrado e il regresso, che sbocca in una profondissima crisi demografica e morale. (…) E cos'altro se non la perdita della capacità di auto-riprodursi testimonia più drammaticamente della crisi morale di una società umana? Oggi la massima parte delle nazioni sviluppate non sono più capaci di perpetuarsi, nemmeno con l'aiuto delle immigrazioni." Parole sante. Forse l'Europa avrebbe bisogno di un politico come Vladimir Putin.

CHI È PUTIN?
Ma chi è realmente quest'uomo? Nato il 7 ottobre del 1952 a San Pietroburgo, forse di antiche origini vicentine, Putin visse un'infanzia povera: il nonno era cuoco di Lenin e Stalin, il padre sommergibilista nella marina sovietica. Putin è stato membro del Partito comunista, colonnello del KGB, collaboratore per cinque anni della Stasi a Dresda. Fu indubbiamente un ingranaggio della macchina sovietica. La svolta nel 1997, quando Boris Elstin lo chiama a collaborare con lui. Dal 2000 al 2008 diviene presidente della Federazione Russa, e il 7 maggio 2012 ottiene un nuovo mandato presidenziale con oltre il 60% dei consensi contro il 17% raccolto dal candidato comunista. Nel 1983 Putin convolò a nozze con Ljudmila Škrebneva, dalla quale ha avuto due figlie. Quest'anno la coppia ha divorziato.

Oggi Vladimir Putin è un cristiano praticante. Nonostante il padre fosse un militante ateo, la madre di Putin era una devota credente ortodossa. Pur non avendo icone dentro la propria casa, la donna frequentava regolarmente la Chiesa, battezzò segretamente Vladimir ed era solita portarlo con lei in chiesa. Pare che la "conversione"di Putin ebbe luogo dopo un grave incidente stradale che coinvolse la moglie nel 1993. Putin divenne ancora più devoto dopo che nell'agosto 1996 la sua dacia prese fuoco rischiando di uccidere gli occupanti.

ODIATO DAI MASS MEDIA OCCIDENTALI
Vladimir Putin è molto odiato dai giornali e dalle Tv occidentali, che ne offrono un'immagine rozza e violenta. Viste le sue idee, non c'è da stupirsi di tale mistificazione. Nel 2011 Putin ha annunciato misure economiche per la natalità, e la Duma – il parlamento russo – ha varato una legge restrittiva sull'aborto. Nella primavera di quest'anno Putin ha varato la legge contro la propaganda anche via Web di orientamenti sessuali non tradizionali in presenza di minori. Una legge contro la propaganda gay, che ha fatto infuriare il media system occidentale.

E' difficile capire fino in fondo l'uomo Putin: un deciso interventista nella guerra in Cecenia, un appassionato di judo che però è contrario a ripristinare la pena di morte perché, dice, "lo stato non può sottrarre a Dio il diritto di togliere la vita". Un uomo che nel 2000 cambiò con una legge il testo dell'inno russo: Putin confermò la bellissima melodia di Aleksandrov, ma eliminò tutti i riferimenti a Lenin e al PCUS. Al loro posto introdusse i versi che recitano: "Russia, nostra santa patria! Russia, nostro amato paese! Una volontà forte, una grande gloria, sono il tuo patrimonio da sempre!» (…) Dai mari meridionali alla regione polare si stendono le nostre foreste e i nostri campi. Tu sei unica nel mondo, inimitabile, terra natia protetta da Dio!"

Fonte: Il Timone, novembre 2013 (n. 127)