Information service of the Pontifical Mission Societies since 1927
Vatican City (Agenzia Fides) - Bishop Velasio De Paolis, Secretary of the Supreme Tribunal of the Apostolic Segnatura and a docent at the Pontifical Urban University, have the prolusion to open the academic year 2007/2008, on Monday 8 October on the theme “Mission between universality and particularity”, to which, as he said at the beginning of his address, he wished to add a subtitle: “The Role of the Christian faith in the re-composition of things in truth and unity”. We give below excerpts from the address.
“We live in the multiplicity and fragmentation of things. This is the first observation which continually appears to our eyes. Is it possible to find any unity among this multiplicity and fragmentation? Man, the only thinking being we encounter on this earth, from the beginning of the history of humanity, has made attempts in this sense but apparently with little result ”.
“When it is a question of the multiplicity of things and their unity and relation in this vast world solutions swing between two extremes: on the one hand a mechanistic and atomistic vision we observes and simply affirms the multiplicity, variety, singularity and fragmentation of things. On the other a pantheist vision, which annuls everything in mundane reality, seen as one great soul, one intelligence and one reason. The solution should consist in common good sense, which in explaining things, must respect both the multiplicity and the singularity and the profound unity which links the fragmented human reality!”
“With the advent of Christian reflection, we have a specific contribution both with the concept of creation from nothing and with the revelation of the fall in sin. Both aspects will be considered carefully from a theological point of view by Augustine and from a philosophical point of view by St Thomas … Contemplating the multiplicity, the variety of things, man sees in them a divine presence and inserts them in a universal divine plan. The world acquires meaning from God who is the source of the being of every thing; and every thing since it comes from God refers to Him. We discover thus the fundamental law of St Thomas' theology: of the exitus and the reditus. The concept of creation, the fall-sin, and redemption allow us to read the universe in a profound unity and to valorise each single reality because it is illuminated by the presence of God the creator. The reflects particularly on the vision and interpretation of man. Man is created in the image and likeness of God.”
“This anthropological construction or, better, this vision which places God at the centre and sees man in the mystery of God, unites reason and faith, nature and supernatural, sin and grace, unity and plurality, singular and universal, it is like some beautiful cathedral, where each part has its own specific beauty within the vision of the whole. This construction starts to crumble with the beginning of the modern epoch. The collapse is gradual. The modern epoch place man at the centre; God is not denied, he is simply put to one side. But soon He will be forgotten and therefore denied. The anthropological vision changes profoundly. It has fundamentally two moments: the moment of enlightenment rationalism and the moment of scientist positivism. A great break comes about: between reason and faith; contact with the being is lost; the universal falls to nominalism empty of significance; the singular becomes dispersion, without foundation and without sense. All this has repercussions on every field of life and science; in some aspects it has repercussions also in the Church, which feels the need to defend the value of reason and metaphysics, and to re-establish a correct relation between reason and faith ”.
“Exaltation of the particular easily leads to the justification of the moral of the situation; equally the exaltation of the particular can lead us to consider the Church as the sum of the Churches and to privilege the particular Churches, as detached entities, destined to be dead branches. Even the most important question of the inculturation of the faith and the Gospel, in an individualistic mentality can lead us to a privilege the particular as such, that is culture, without the due verification whether or not culture is the fruit of pagan or Christian thought ”.
“The picture before us believers today is a challenge which should not cause fear. On the one hand the post modern with its profound crisis which openly confesses nothing: its knows nothing of the history of mankind, its destiny, its sense of pilgrimage. All it can do is present and boast its great scientific successes, which end up instilling fear. On the other hand we have the faith of the believer wrapped in the mystery of God, of his grace and his love. Believers know they come from God and that they are called to return to Him. They bear the image of the Only Son of the Father, they have the gift of filial life, they are called to live in communion with God. They are born of the heart of God, their vocation is to return to the heart of God; their pilgrimage through time is a great returning towards the house of the Father, in the certainty of being welcomed, forgiven, and reintegrated into the joy of the banquet of life ”.
“ The Church, as the depositary of the mystery of God Creator and Redeemer, of His word and His Sacraments, has a project of truth for man. She has the task to proclaim Him until the end of time”. Of this mystery we will only mention its heart, the mystery of Jesus the Incarnate Word, in which all things are reunited: the mystery of God is the mystery of man, the perfect unity of every thing and the truth of every single thing, the meaning of history and the universe, the fulfilment of everything in the fullness and identity of every thing. And it is in the mystery of the Incarnate Word that history discloses all its richness ”. (S.L.) (Agenzia Fides 9/10/2007; righe 67, parole 954)
