Under Pope Francis, diplomacy is not seemingly enjoying a simple life. Pope Francis has made of prayer his main diplomatic tool. On his flight back from South Korea, the Pope reiterated that the prayer for the peace in Middle East held in the Vatican gardens – which he promoted – had not taken place invain, despite the conflict broke in Gaza a little after this event. In South Korea, in addition to the appeal for the reconciliation between the two Koreas, he called on Asian countries that do not have diplomatic ties with the Holy See yet, to «start a dialogue among brothers,» since «Christian do not come as conquerors.»

The strategy with Asian countries seems to be that of a diplomacy of martyrs. Id est, not to just seek a diplomatic dialogue, but to show the beauty of Christianism through shining examples, to evagelize «through attraction.» The rest – the Pope thinks – will come after. For this reason, the cause for the beatification of the first North Korean martyrs has been unlocked. And there will soon be new martyrs from Laos, another of the seven Asian countries with no diplomatic ties with the Holy See.

Despite this strategy, at one point Pope Francis had to turn to a more interventionist diplomatic strategy. Always during the press conference in the place, he backed an intervention in Iraq to stop the aggressor. «I said: stop, not bomb,» he pointed out. And also he mentioned United Nations, reiterating the principle the Holy See has always followed in humanitarian issues. This principle states that there is the need for an international intervening force. States should not perpetuate a war, and should come together to stop them. This is the eternal debate on the just war, which led to the notion of humanitarian intervention. But the humanitarian intervention had to be done under the auspices of a multilateral organization, as the United Nations are. Is the United Nations an organization strong enough to support States? Is this gathering of nations an effective tool to help the common good? Does it have the necessary authority? 

This is where Pius XII becomes current again. True, the Holy See has always promoted the commitment and the importance of the United Nations. But it has also always more insistently spoken about a needed reform of United Nations. In the midst of the dramatic humanitarian situation in Iraq, the United Nations seems to be among the bigger losers.

In the face of this humanitarian situation, diplomacy of truth has become the only possible way to build a diplomatic support to action. This is something that Pius XII had already foreste  in his Christmas radio message broadcasted in 1954.

That message is very much worth reading again, in its entirety. Among the Pius XII’s Christmas radio messages, only those the Pope delivered during the Second World War are now remembered. Those messages represent in the end a true social encyclical, and are the basis of the John XXIII encyclical Pacem in Terris and of the Second Vatican Council’s document dealing with the social teaching of the Church. No one remember of the 1954 message, delivered when the world was divided in blocks and peace was kept only because the rivals feared their mutual destruction. «The cold peace – Pope Pacelli wrote – is only a temporary calm, conditioned by a sense of fear that is subject to change.»

In that message, Pius XII condemend the notion of war as a political tool, subjected to the error of those who rule, as an «absurd and inmoral notion of war.» A notion that prevale and made the Pope’s effort to avoid war in 1939 futile. “Nothing is lost with peace. Everything can be lost with war” is a famous Pius XII’s maxim, which Pope Francis intentionally quoted often.

Pius XII went further. «Every effort or pacifist propaganda coming from those who profess no  faith in God is always very dubious and uncapable of mitigating or eliminating the anxious sense of fear.»

It is the faith in God that gives rise to the rational choice of not pursuing war, and to pursue living as brothers instead. Pius XII already foresaw the catastrophe in the making because of the merging of practical atheism, free market and consumerism. He wrote: «It is illusiory to believe that peace can be left  to the care of free market alone,» and «it would not be different in the future, if the blind faith which gives economics an imaginary mystic force is carried on.»

According to Pope Pacelli, «it is necessary to understand that economic relations among nations will be tools for peace  as much as they will obey the norms of natural law, inspire love, care for the other and be sources of help.»

Pius XII was also suspicious of a union of European nations merely based on economic purposes, because the union would be frail, without a «big and effective» ideal that would «make it strong in the defence and operation for a common program of civilization.” »

Coexisistence is not enough either, Pius XII admonished, since «to justify» the quest for peace, there must be a «coexistence in truth». For this purpose, «skeptical and cynical people» are not fit to be the basis of human unity, since their materialism reduces «even the most beautiful truths to physical reaction» and since «they speak of mere ideologies.»

«Those who do not acknowledge absolute truths nor accept moral obligations in social life» are not fit, too, since out of this «descructive and unreasonable critic» have come to prepare an atmosphere «favorable to dictatorship and oppression.»

This radiomessage is very rich in offering topics for further reflection. It is from this starting point that the Church carried forward its presence in the world during the Cold War and beyond. Diplomatic effort run side by side with cultural engagement, catechesis and education, to build up a  coexistence in truth.

Yet, cynics, skeptics, those who do not acknowledge absolute truth have won the day. Europe has lost its identity, integral human development has been overshadowed, alliances among States are above all economic in nature and biased toward the benefits of biggest and wealthiest nations. The Holy See has always strongly spoke out about these problems, criticizing the formation of the “G groups” (G7, G8, G20), backing instead multilateral and inclusive multilateral policies, in order to include the weakest States.

It was not enough. International scenario is completely fragmented. One can only powerlessly look at the crescent moon of conflicts broke from the heart of Europe to Africa, since there are not strong international actors on the horizon.

The Catholic Church can still exercise  moral influence, to help States to pursue common good. It has not the power of deterrence, as noted by the Papal nuncio to Ukraine Thomas Gullickson. But it can express its moral strenght based on truth, which is what can really unite States.

This is the reason why Pope Francis should continue his efforts for peace. His word in the plane reiterated once again the position of the Church, whose international diplomacy cares for people, not for issues. Perhaps, Pope Francis should be guided by and beatify Pius XII for his prophetic gift. A prophecy that John XXIII carried forward, halting the Cuban missile crisis. Paul VI followed the same path, with his wonderful speeches on peace and disarmament. John Paul II emphasized it, pushing for a diplomacy based on the relation with people and not with States, one of the true reasons that made the Soviet Union fall. And Benedict XVI went further in this path, with his diplomacy of truth that was part of a reform project intended to give a structure (juridical, theological) to the big ideals of the Church.

Now, Pope Francis is called to take these responsibilities forward. He must be conscious that the destiny of humanity can depend on the strength of his stances.

In the background, the dramatic plight of Christians in Iraq. The northward advance of the army of the Islamic State compelled Christians to flee to Kurdistan. The situation is critical. The Kurdish region Prime Minister Faroud Barzani have said to Cardinal Fernando Filoni, Papal envoy to Iraq: «We have the duty of protecting them.»  But he then added: «They are so many that we don’t have resources nor supplies to do it.»

Only a strong commitment by the international community could provide these resources and supplies. But only on August 14 did the United Nations elevated to its highest the emergency level for Iraq, in order to facilitate the mobilization of assistance. In the meantime, displaced persons are without shelter, the Yazidis are at risk of being massacred, and the Peshmergas (the Kurdish militias) are trying to understand how is it possible that the army of the Islamic State suddenly turned north, with a military rigor they had not ever shown in the previous months.

Iraq is just one of the areas in the Middle East where a conflict has risen and Christians are suffering. The situation is critical in Gaza, too, where weak truces follow each other and negotiations drag on at a pace that is too slow to achieve a solution. The war in Syria is already forgotten. Lebanon is going through a difficult period. And if we look to Africa, we can see the Caliphate establishing itself in Libya, setting its sights on a divided Yemen, and looking at the largely forgotten Sudan –which had returned to the spotlight only because of the case of Meriem, the Christian pregnant woman sentenced to death for apostasy and then released thanks to the intercession of the international community. We can also look to Asia, at Pakistan, where the blasphemy law is still well established.  All of this while the Ukrainian conflict carries on, even if no longer under the media spotlight.

Drawn over a world map, there is a crescent moon of conflicts which starts at the heart of Europe, in the Ukraine, and reaches Africa. This is the result of a not too hidden war. The jihadist militants are aiming at re-establishing one of the great caliphates of the Middle Ages, even eventually taking back Spain,over which Muslim rule ended in 1492. Looking at them from this perspective, the 11 March 2004 bombings at the Atocha Train Station in Madrid fit this ambition.

The long advance of militant Islam certainly begun before September 11. This advance had been stemmed by the diplomacy of truth, which Benedict XVI had promoted and carried forward. His efforts were not free from controversy.

In 2006 in Regensburg, Benedict XVI delivered the most criticized lecture of his professional experience as a professor. In the lecture, he explained that radical violence linked to faith is nothing more than the result of a frail link between faith and reason.

This thesis arouse violent protests in Muslim-majority countries, but on the other hand permitted the flourishing of a new dialogue with the Muslim world. The Regensburg lecture encouraged the exponents of enlightened Islam, those in dialogue with the world and with other faiths, to begin a new chapter of dialogue.

The Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue is well aware of this, as was evident in May at a symposium that celebrated the 50th anniversary of the dicastery. On this occasion, Damian Howard, SJ, professor at Heythorp University and an advisor of the Council, recalled lights and shadows (above all, lights) of these 50 years of dialogue, stressing the continuity between Popes and underscoring that Benedict XVI gave a «distinctive emphasis on truth»   since «his writings are resolutely set against any hint of relativism and offer a corrective to a tendency to say less than we should about the gift of the Word incarnate to all humankind.»

Pope Benedict’s aptitude for speaking words of «love in truth»  – Howard said – «enabled him to reaffirm the Church’s on-going commitment,» overcoming «a short but turbulent period in interreligious dialogue when Muslim sensitivities were not fully appreciated.» Miguel Angel Ayuso Guixot, Secretary of the Pontifical Council, listed among the most remarkable results of the dicastery the Catholic-Islamic Forum, established in 2008 as a result of a letter addressed to Pope Benedict XVI by 138 Muslim leaders in 2007. The letter was signed by those religious leaders who had the courage to take a constructive stance in the midst of the controversy over the Regensburg Lecture.

The years of the diplomacy of truth also resulted in the Holy See becoming a “founding and observer” state at the King Abdullah bin Abdulaziz International Centre for Interreligious and Intercultural Dialogue (KAICIID), which headquarters are in Vienna (Austria). The center is funded by Saudi Arabia, one of the very few countries in the world which does not have diplomatic ties with the Holy See.

Pope Francis inherited this diplomacy of truth, but at the same time he took a different approach, which could be inferred from his choice for Secretary of State. Cardinal Pietro Parolin, who had served for years in the Secretariat of State, hadalways favored a soft line – a classic diplomatic approach, one could say – which prime objective is to avoid conflict. It was Pope Francis’style as well.

The Pope has made of prayer his main diplomatic tool. He never lost out of sight of the persecution of Christians in the world, as is clear from his constant appeals at the Angelus and at the general audiences.

The Pope himself underscored in an interview that Christians are the most persecuted people in the world. Perhaps, he underestimated the importance of diplomacy. He did so, for instance, in organizing the historical prayer for peace in the Middle East held at the Vatican Gardens in June.

It was a historical moment, since no one had ever succeeded in bringing together Israeli and Palestinian leaders in prayer. But it was a diplomatically difficult moment, too, since the prayer was embraced by a president with great moral authority but at the end of his political career (Shimon Peres) and the leader of a Palestinian authority highly criticized because it had concluded a political agreement with Hamas (Abu Mazen).

When the conflict broke out in Gaza, the Pope asked for peace and stated that «the meeting was not in vain.» In the meantime, the Iraqi powder keg exploded, opening another scenario where the Holy See, with her moral authority, played a role to help refugees and achieve peace.

Iraq was already being monitored because of the advance of ISIS, an Al Qaeda splinter group from Syria, now simply called Islamic State. Followinghis appeals and prayers, Pope Francis realized there was a need for a stronger stance.

This is why he dispatched to Iraq Cardinal Filoni, Prefect of the Congregation for the Evangelization of People, as his special envoy. Cardinal Filoni had been nuncio to Iraq during the Second Gulf War, the only diplomat who had remained in Baghdad when targets in the city were being bombed in 2003. He knows the field, and has his contacts.

Cardinal Filoni left on August 10, passing through Jordan. When Pope Francis and Filoni met on August 9, Francist asked him with conveying his solidarity, including by delivering a papal personal contribution for those most in need. During the meeting, Cardinal Filoni probably noted the need for a diplomatic umbrella.

The umbrella came through a papal letter to Ban Ki Moon, General Secretary of the United Nations. Delivered August 13, but dated August 9, the letter serves to give an internationally recognized character to Cardinal Filoni’s mission. It can also be considered, however,a concrete signal that Pope Francis is changing the paradigm of his diplomacy.

The letter makes reference to international law, in particularlyto the Preamble of the United Nations Charter. This particular reference can be found in several texts of the Vatican Secretariat of State in recent years, and relates to the diplomacy of truth that characterized Benedict XVI’s agenda.

The preamble of the UN charter is not quoted by chance. In the preamble, the founders of the United Nations reaffirmed «faith in fundamental human rights, in the dignity and worth of the human person, in the equal rights of men and women and of nations large and small.» The choice of the word “faith” is revealing. Faith makes reference to deeply held beliefs. So, the United Nations is based on this faith in man’s rights that all peoples can relate to, no matter what their religious beliefs may be.

Faith imbued by reason brings about the realization that human beings must be protected and defended as integral (whole) persons. The defense of the human person is at the heart of human rights. John Paul II clearly laid this out in his 1979 encyclical Redemptor Hominis, where he identified respect for human rights as the main way to ensure peace among peoples.

«After all – John Paul II wrote – peace comes down to respect for man’s inviolable rights- Opus iustitia et pax-while war springs from the violation of these rights and brings with it still graver violations of them.»

It is only on this strong basis of truth that a real encounter among nations may take place. Truth in international relations requires that States, when in dialogue or even when involved in a dispute, have before them the people they represent and the whole world community, since their moral dignity consists in this.

Cardinal Jean-Louis Tauran, President of the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue, is very well aware of this. A skilled and refined diplomat, the architect of most of the Holy See diplomacy in the past twenty years, Cardinal Tauran realized that he could not remain silent anymore as the plight of Christians was worsening. It is said that he had thought very carefullyabout sending the declaration, because he did not want to overshadow the Holy See official diplomatic activity. Then, he decided the act. The declaration has the merit of calling religious persecution by name, and of making all the religious leaders co-responsible. His actions immediately led some Islamic leaders (as the Egyptian mufti of Cairo Shawqi Allam and the head of the Italian Islamic Religious Community) to take a strong stance in criticizing the Islamic State.

In the mean time, archbishop Silvano Maria Tomasi, Holy See Permanent Observer to the UN Office in Geneva, called for humanitarian intervention and protection, even through the use of military means, for the people of Iraq. He later reiterated it by commenting on Pope Francis’ letter to Ban Ki Moon. Archbishop Tomasi stressed that “what seems to be particularly important is the expressions the Pope uses: the tragic situation ‘compels’ the international community. There is a moral imperative, so to (speak), a necessity to act.”

These diplomatic interventions underscore the gravity of the plight.  Meanwhile Catholic charities are carrying on a huge effort in the conflict areas, helping those most in need, and coordinating the delivery of supplies. The reform of charity carried forward in recent years was needed to give the charities a necessary juridical umbrella to face difficult situations.

The difficulties of intervening and of providing help are partly the result of the flawed notion of conceiving international governance as merely a rich network of relations between foreign affairs ministries. The governance of the exploitation of resources and the environment is considered just a matter of international protocols; governance of international trade is considered a mere balancing of duties and prices.

But in fact, foreign ministries have failed to prevent war, protocols on the environment are agreed only with great fatigue,and trade agreements often get stuck. In the 2007 World Day of Peace message, Benedict XVI noted that many States do not do all that they can in managing the governance of humanitarian needs.

It is a period of weak governance, a result of weak thinking. And the latter leads to the separation of faith and reason that Benedict XVI had denounced.

There is a search for soft structures, in order to respect everyone’s differences, and this way fragmentation prevails. This fragmentation sometimes acts as a hurdle for the work of international organizations, which should in fact help the people.

There will possibly be an extraordinary session at the Human Rights Council in Geneva about the plight of Christians in Iraq, but not before September. An extraordinary session may be called only if one- third of the 47 members of the Council call for it. There is still not enough support for it, despite the efforts of the Holy See– whose officials are holding many bilateral meetings to raise awareness about the issue.

September will be perhaps too late. As a matter of fact, Vatican diplomats have taken the situation in their own hands. John Paul II had talked about «humanitarian interference,» but the notion was not ultimately defined in juridical terms. Cardinal Angelo Sodano, Secretary of State emeritus, in the end vaguely described it as «the duty to protect.»

But today, facing the crescent moon of conflicts going from Africa to Europe, Vatican diplomats have understood it is time to undertake again the diplomacy of truth, in addition to the diplomacy of prayer and dialogue. They are referring again to the sources of international law. To protect the human person, and to really achieve that culture of the encounter Pope Francis often speaks of.

The change is awaited for two reasons.

First,  under Benedict XVI’s pontificate, Cardinal Bertone’s management has been continuously under attack. Looking back, the attacks against Bertone do not seem to be attacks against the Secretary of State personally. They rather represented an attack against the way Benedict the XVI governed, a way that Bertone faithfully followed. Attacking the Pope is never simple. However, creating a distance between the Pope’s actions and those of his closest collaborators can be particularly effective. Setting aside mistakes and character ideosyncracies (which are to be expected), that is what in essence has happened in the last the eight years.

Second, there is an eagerness to see what orientation Pietro Parolin will give to the Secretariat of State.  Until now, with an outgoing Secretary of State continuously under attack, many have been maneuvering to expand their own influence.  And this has led to a paradoxical situation.

Benedict XVI built an important institutional framework. In the beginning, there were few who shared Benedict XVI’s vision of a Holy See internationally valued, with a strong and credible State to enable the Church to fulfill its mission in the world. At the same time, Benedict XVI had a vision of a Holy See with solid theological roots, whose diplomacy was anchored in the Truth.

Piece after piece, Benedict XVI changed men in key positions. Not the men at the top, but those behind the scenes whose work included drafting documents and speeches that could shape the Church or have an important and visible impact on the world.

When Benedict XVI stepped down, leaving the house in good order, there were a series of key men in the key posts and a strong institutional framework.  However, the Roman Curia was not able to govern the conclave, cardinals splitted in several groups, and in the end a completely different vision prevailed and brought about the election of Pope Francis.

Now Pietro Parolin must deal with a Curia with valuable men (often under-appreciated, because there seems to be a tendency to think that outsiders’ perspectives are more important than what people within the Church think) and with a pope very focused on pastoral activity and much less attentive to the institution. This has led to a sort of “institutional malaise,” a confused state of affairs resulting from the absence of a guide at the Secretariat of State.

Pietro Parolin is expected to bring the Curia’s anarchy to an end. What will be the vision of the new Secretary of State?

Angelo Sodano’s Secretariat of State (1991-2006) further developed and strenghten a privileged relationship with Italy, truthful to a well-established Holy See tradition. The Vatican has always been in good neighbours’ terms with Italy, which is not surprising considering that prior to 1978 all popes had been Italian.

That of good neighbour relations with Italy was an old way of prioritizing. In the meantime, the European Union became a reality, as well as the interdependence among States, and no country found it convenient to rely only on bilateral and privileged relationships. The world became multilateral. Once upon a time it was all about men of compromise, specialists of the Vatican-Italian dichotomy and border, able to develop  that all-important good relationship. These men are history now, in part because the Vatican’s borders are no longer with Italy, but with the whole of Europe.

Bertone’s Secretariat of State (2006-2013) was more focused on multilateralism,  better positioning the Holy See in the international arena and decisevily giving its activities a strong impact and weight.

The vision was that of the Holy See as a State among States, which shares with them rights and duties, defends its sovereignty (with its ideosyncratic peculiarities) and applies it to advance her mission to pursuit the common good. The common good is the Holy See’s international agenda. 

Parolin will have the challenge of maintaining the international profile Benedict XVI gave to the Holy See, and at the same time be very careful with people who want to gain power and influence again even at the expense of tearing apart the Holy See from within the Vatican Walls

What will Pietro Parolin do? Will he carry on upholding the Holy See’s international vocation? Or will he go back and nurture the “privileged” relations with Italy? Will the Holy See take a step forward or a step back?

It is not an easy task : to support an ambitious international vision, while managing competition for  immediate local influence and status. Parolin will not easily find a balance between these two “poles”. If he succeeds, and Pope Francis is able to carry forward Benedict XVI’s project, Parolin will be a great Secretary of State.

What did the Pope wish when he was 7? «I would like – he wrote – the Volks-Schott, a green suit to celebrate the Holy Mass and a Jesus’ Heart. I will always be good. Best regards, Joseph Ratzinger.» The letter was so peculiar that Maria – the Pope’s sister, who took care of Ratzinger until her death – decided to keep it. The letter was recovered when Ratzinger’s house in Pentling was being restored. The house is now a museum, inaugurated at the end of last summer by Georg Gaenswein, then Benedict XVI’s private secretary. Gaenswein reported that the rediscovery of the letter «made the Pope very happy, and made him smile.»

What is most striking is that little Joseph does not ask for toys or sweets. He asks for the Schott, one of the first books in German with a breviary and missal (with its text in Latin also). At that time, two editions were available in Germany: one for children and one for adults. Little Joseph, through that book, begins to love the liturgy that sets the rhythm of his family’s life. Little Ratzinger then asks for a vestment to celebrate Mass. No surprise, because the Ratzinger brothers used to pretend to be “parish priest”, and their mother made vestments for that. «We pretended to celebrate Mass – Georg Ratzinger, the Pope’s brother, told the American monthly Inside the Vatican – and we had vestments made for us by our mother’s seamstress. In turns, one of us was the priest and the other the altar boy». Finally, little Ratzinger asks for a «Jesus’ Heart» i.e. an image of the Sacred Heart, which his family was very devoted to.

Just an anecdote. But perhaps one should keep in mind this anecdote when Benedict XVI delivers his speeches. Whenever he defends family, there is something about memories of his own family. That it was a happy family, which life rhythm was set by liturgy, and where all rejoiced with one another.  It was a family in which it was sensible to be, because it represented the best for a child’s growth. When he became theologian, Joseph Ratzinger expanded his reflection on the meaning of family, based on the Holy Family of Nazareth. Through the example of the Holy Family, he wanted to explain why a «traditional» family was needed. This defense of family started on strictly theological basis. But also on a rational basis.

An idea the Pope has put front and center in his Christmas address to the Roman Curia. In that address, the Pope generally looks back at the life of the Church in the year that is coming to an end. As usual, the Pope flew high. No hint of Vatileaks, nor of internal problems: in the end, these problems really do not amount to much, just petty miseries of the human condition, when compared to the Church’s challenges and agenda. So, Benedict XVI put on the table three issues that marked the Church’s life and that will be on the agenda for the next ten years: family, dialogue, and new evangelization.

The Papal address starting point is the family.  The Pope approaches the topic through the arguments which the Chief Rabbi of France Gilles Bernheim made in defense of the traditional family. Bernheim also sent to the French President François Hollande a 25 pages brief, to explain all the reasons why he and his community are against «marriages for all».  The Pope states: before, the family was in crisis due to a misconception of freedom; today, the very idea of man is in crisis.

This crisis has a specific name: gender.  It is at the same time a neutral and lethal name, as is much of the new «vocabulary» promoted in United Nations documents and continuously denounced by Holy See officials.

Gender points to the human being that calls his own nature into question. «He – the Pope says, drawing on German idealism philosophy – is now only spirit and will.  The manipulation of nature, which we deplore today where our environment is concerned, now becomes man’s fundamental choice where he himself is concerned.  Nowadays, there is only the abstract human being, who chooses for himself what his nature is to be». If there is no more duality, if human being loses his identity, there is no more family.  «When the freedom to be creative – Benedict XVI notes, with Bernehim – becomes the freedom to create oneself, then necessarily the Maker himself is denied and ultimately man too is stripped of his dignity as a creature of God, as the image of God at the core of his being.  The defence of the family is about man himself.  And it becomes clear that when God is denied, human dignity also disappears.  Whoever defends God is defending man.»

Defending man is the Church’s mission, and integral humanism is the Holy See’s International agenda. This agenda is the basis of the dialogue with states, with societies and with religions. The Church’s– the Pope notes – makes memory part of herself, because «human culture, of which she is a guarantee, has developed from the encounter between divine revelation and human existence.  The Church represents the memory of what it means to be human in the face of a civilization of forgetfulness, which knows only itself and its own criteria.  Yet just as an individual without memory has lost his identity, so too a human race without memory would lose its identity».  And Benedict XVI concludes: «In its dialogue with the state and with society, the Church does not, of course, have ready answers for individual questions.  Along with other forces in society, she will wrestle for the answers that best correspond to the truth of the human condition.»

For what concerns interreligious dialogue, the Pope states that the dialogue does not take place on theological grounds, but on practical and cultural grounds, in order not to lose one’s own identity. How to engage in dialogue? «Dialogue – Benedict XVI says – does not aim at conversion, but at better mutual understanding: that is correct.  But all the same, the search for knowledge and understanding always has to involve drawing closer to the truth. »

And truth is Christ himself, and «both sides in this piece-by-piece approach to truth are therefore on the path that leads forward and towards greater commonality, brought about by the oneness of the truth.» This is also one of the main themes of the first Benedict XVI’s message for the World Day of Peace, meaningfully titled In truth, peace. «Being inwardly held by the hand of Christ – the Pontiff says – makes us free and keeps us safe: free – because if we are held by him, we can enter openly and fearlessly into any dialogue;  safe – because he does not let go of us, unless we cut ourselves off from him.  At one with him, we stand in the light of truth.»

What constitutes the good news, then? Benedict XVI points us to the Gospel passage where Andrew and Simon follow Jesus. Both of them are seekers, and that is why «stimulated by the proclamation, their seeking becomes concrete.» The Pope then explains the proclamation is «effective in situations where man is listening in readiness for God to draw near, where man is inwardly searching and thus on the way towards the Lord.»  The Pope’s wish for Christmas, which is also the agenda for next decades, is to know Jesus better, because as one «walks with Jesus, he is led to the place where Jesus lives, to the community of the Church, which is his body.  That means entering into the journeying community of catechumens, a community of both learning and living, in which our eyes are opened as we walk.»

In the end, it is the same agenda of little Ratzinger. He asked for a Schott as a Christmas gift, a book of liturgies, to lock himself in step with Jesus, starting a long walk in life that brought him to the Papacy.

That Benedict XVI noted these principles in Lebanon – a land considered an example of religious cohabitation – and that he did at every meeting, without hesitation and without mincing his words, is very significant. It reveals how the relationship with the Islamic world has evolved in the recent past. Since the controversial Regensburg’s lecture, an unprecedented dialogue has taken place. Benedict XVI knows very well that it is pointless to argue about the truthfulness of different faiths, and he is not one who would ever water down Christian truth in order to gain some kind of concession from interreligious dialogue. Instead he focused on shared concerns, to which all religions are sensitive to. This approach was evident when – in the very beginning of his Pontificate – Benedict XVI established the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue as a section of the Pontifical Council for Culture. What happened after the Regensburg lecture, and then the visit to the Blue Mosque in Istanbul during the trip to Turkey in 2007, made the Pope all the more aware that dialogue among religions needed a proper «framework», also in order not to disturb and lose sight of the work of so many who had been engaged in ad hoc arrangements. That is why Benedict XVI revamped the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue, and appointed Card. Jean Louis Tauran, a skilled and most senior diplomat, as president of the new dicastery.  According to many, it was he who proofread the Papal speeches in Lebanon. Copies of the final drafts of the Papal speeches are shared in advance with journalists.  Several of these texts were tweaked to fine-tune references to Lebanese freedom, allowing the Pope to convey a clear message without the risk of a diplomatic incident.

Tauran later commented the Papal trip in an interview he gave to the French agency iMedia and to the French weekly La Croix. In the interview, Tauran recalled that «in Lebanon, we did not mention the Syrian crisis. Lebanon and Syria are sovereign countries. For sure, the Pope appealed for peace. The use of armed forces must be stopped, and both sides must sit at a table to negotiate, with the help of the international community. Humanitarian aid must be provided, in order to respect the fundamental rights of the human person. And then, there is the need for both sides to build a society where the rights of everyone are respected, with no discrimination.»

Peace was the key topic of the September, 15 speech the Pope delivered in the presidential palace of Baabda, Lebanon. This speech – Tauran says – was received in an «extremely positive» way by the Muslim leaders and by the Muslim grassroots.  «I have been told – Tauran said – that Muslims responsible for the different districts stated that the Pope said exactly what they hoped to hear.» Not even Tauran expected such an enthusiastic reaction.

A reaction that came about because Benedict XVI spoke to everyone’s heart. He underlined: «If we want peace, let’s defend life». He noted that peace must rise upon the purification of language and memory, and also by an opening to the transcendental. He once again focused on religious freedom, which must not be reduced to mere tolerance and that- because of its social and political dimensions – is indispensible for peace. And he strongly affirmed: «A lived faith leads invariably to love. Authentic faith does not lead to death. The peacemaker is humble and just.»

These words shattered to pieces the building blocks of any fundamentalist approach, and directly appeal to religious freedom. Furthermore, Benedict XVI also spoke of the tactic the devil uses in seeking his allies among men. This has an immediate resonance in the Arab world, where Shai-tan, Satan, is considered the spirit of division.

However, the speech was delivered while Islamist protests were taking place against a film about the prophet Mohammad that Muslims consider blasphemous.  The Pope´s speech received scant attention in the U.S. media. It was almost unnoticed, as religious freedom in general seems to have been forgotten. Yet, religious freedom is one of the main focuses of the U.S. bishops’ agenda.  The Pope has focused his pontificate on religious freedom. He has spoken about religious freedom during his visits to the United States, Latin American countries and to France and other secularized Western countries. Above all, he spoke about religious freedom in Lebanon, in a Middle East where religion seems to mean «contrast». Instead, Benedict XVI put forth in Lebanon two key concepts: communion and witness. These two words were the key of the post-synod exhortation Ecclesia in Medio Oriente, which delivery was the main institutional reason for the Papal trip. The news (and the message) was in these two words, which we cannot afford to forget.

Maybe the key of the quiet revolution of Benedict XVI can be found in this speech. It is – one would say – a twofold revolution. On one side, he aims to reinforce the Faith and to turn back the People of God to God. Too busy in worldly affairs, the People of God seem to have lost his polar star. The Year of Faith that will begin the next November, the Year of Priests in 2009, the Pauline Year in 2008 – all of these events prepared by catechesis, homilies, speeches during the General Audiences which the Pope conceived as the most important part of his Magisterium – are part of this project to turn the People of God to Faith. The Pope wants adult faithful. He aims to a Faith which is feed with the Reason.

But this is just one part of his Pontificate. On the other side, Benedict XVI slowly, but inexorably, reformed the Roman Curia. On the principles that «the human person is the essence of law», the Pope guided the Church toward a comeback of the Law, both international and Canon Law. To understand it, it suffices to read what Benedict XVI wrote to the Catholics of Ireland in 2010. There the Pope wrote that  «the program of renewal proposed by the Second Vatican Council was sometimes misinterpreted and indeed, in the light of the profound social changes that were taking place, it was far from easy to know how best to implement it. In particular, there was a well-intentioned but misguided tendency to avoid penal approaches to canonically irregular situations»

No surprise that the first act of his Papacy was the «Instruction Concerning the Criteria for the Discernment of Vocations  with regard to Persons with Homosexual Tendencies
in view of their Admission to the Seminary and to Holy Orders» , that regulated the criteria of access to seminaries. The last act has been the reform of Caritas Internationalis. In the middle, a series of hidden but necessary reforms.. In fact, during the last years of John Paul II’s Papacy – and one should also say from Pastor Bonus on – the documents issued were not so firmly hooked to juridical sources, but more often to theological-pastoral ones. Under this, many had the occasion to abuse of their unprecedented freedom. The result has been a great confusion within the several bodies and organizations of the Catholic Church. This confusion Benedict XVI wants to clear up.

What Caritas Internationalis is

The General Decree that reform the Statutes of Caritas Internationalis are part of this «quiet legally-oriented revolution» brought on by Benedict XVI. This is why it is so important to understand what this reform really is. First, it is important to point out what Caritas Internationalis really is.

What is Caritas Internationalis? Is it a self governing body with an autonomous Statute, or is it a branch of the Pope? The Pope  – according to the Chirograph During Last Supper – gave to Caritas Internationalis the technical status of a public juridic person. According to Canon Law (Can. 116) «public juridic persons are aggregates of persons (universitates personarum) or of things (universitates rerum) which are constituted by competent ecclesiastical authority so that, within the purposes set out for them, they fulfill in the name of the Church, according to the norm of the prescripts of the law, the proper function entrusted to them in view of the public good; other juridic persons are private». This is why Caritas Internationalis can be considered the tool the Pope uses to favor charity in the world.

The Chirograph had a virtue and a limit at the same time. The virtue was that the sources quoted were more thelogical-pastoral than juridical. So, Caritas Internationalis could not be figured out as a tool in the hands of the Pope, since the Chirograph lacked of juridical tools to assure it. Curial offices seemed to have just a moral authority on Caritas Internationalis, but they did not have – in fact – a juridical authority. This favored the fact that Caritas Internationalis could have a complete independence toward both the States and the Holy See. Thus having the opportunity to include under its «umbrella » organizations that were not so aligned with the moral teachings of the Catholic Church. The new statutes better sketch the competences of  each body involved with the Caritas Internationals. That, since it is a tool of the Pope, is obviously controlled by the Secretary of the Pope. That is, the State Secretariat.

The new Statute of Caritas internationalis strenghten the cooperation between Caritas Internationalis and Holy See. At the same time, the competences of the Vatican State Secretariat are better outlined: the State Secretariat is called to be center and joint of the Church. Benedict XVI began this renewal long time ago, but this latter became visible for the first time when the Pope appointed cardinal Tarcisio Bertone – a canonist that served as secretary of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith – as Secretary of State, even if Bertone himself proclaims himself «Secretary of Church». The program of renewal of Benedict XVI aims to make lively and present the identity of the Catholic world. «Charity in Truth» is the title of the «social» encyclical by Benedict XVI, and it is also is «plan to govern». The new Statute of Caritas Internationalis, went into effect on May, the 2^nd (when it had been published in the Osservatore Romano) show once more that «Charity in Truth» is the path Benedict XVI is treading to bring the Church to the Year of Faith.

The new Statute

The new Statute of Caritas Internationalis deeply outlines  the competences of the dicasteries involved with Caritas internationalis. First of all, the role of the Pontifical Council Cor Unum - i.e. the Vatican office responsible for coordinating and promoting charitable giving. – is strengthen. In the very first article of the General Decree, Cor Unum is described as «the dicastery qualified about Caritas Internationalis, its observance of this decree and its normative of canon public juridic person, as well as to control and watching, except for what established in the articles that will follow». Caritas Internationalis must address to Cor Unum before issuing any text with doctrinal and moral contents.

Some more details of the decree: it contains new guidelines for the Caritas Internationalis personnel labour standards and it strengthens the roles Vatican offices and the pope play in working with the charity confederation, including naming and approving new board members and approving its texts, contracts with foreign governments and financial transactions.

It also creates a special «support commission» of legal, technical and organizational experts named by the pope to help the organization follow the new norms as well as canon law and the laws of Vatican City State concerning the procurement and distribution of aid, and employment of workers.

At least three members of Caritas’ executive board will be papal appointees, and Pope Benedict XVI named U.S. Bishop Bernard A. Hebda as one of them.
the need of the Holy See nihil obstat (that is «nothing obstructs») for the candidatures to President and General Secreatary – as already previewed in the Chirograph During Last Supper, and – unlike the previous Statutes – also for the candidature of the treasurer.

The Pope told the assembly that the Vatican is responsible for following the activities of Caritas and «exercising oversight to ensure that its humanitarian and charitable activity, and the content of its documents, are completely in accord with the Apostolic See and the church’s magisterium».

Other new elements that laid on the Decree: Cor Unum will name an ecclesiastical assistant whose role will be to foster «a spirit of communion» between the Vatican and members of the organization, foster reflection on theological questions and promote Caritas’ Catholic identity; the list of candidates for president, secretary general and now treasurer will require approval from Cor Unum, the Secretariat of State and the pope; the new papal appointees to the executive board are Bishop Hebda, Archbishop Paul Yembuado Ouedraogo of Bobo-Dioulasso in Burkina Faso, and Maronite Archbishop Youssef Soueif of Cyprus; that Caritas Internationalis and all of its employees, including those working on contract, will have to abide by the new norms, the norms of canon law and the laws of Vatican City.

The qualification of the Vatican Secretariat of State are better outlined. The first section of the State Secretariat must defend the juridical status of Caritas Internationalis, coordinate the qualification attributed to dicasteries – the Pontifical Council Cor Unum and the other dicastieries qualified with the Vatican City State administration -, assist the «Pontifical Council Cor Unum in the vigilance on the transparency of the administration of patrimony and finance of Caritas Internationalis».

The second section of the State Secretariat holds «the relationships with the political, diplomatic, administrative and juridical authority of the States, particularly with the Italian State, as well as the relations with the Regional and International organization»; approves the agreements of official financing coming from governments and International Organizations and the agreements of cooperation and the other official agreements with the governments; it manages the disputes (if and how Caritas internationalis would appeal to a civil or international court to solve a contention).

The path to new Statute

The revision process began in 2007 as a follow-up to Blessed John Paul II having raised the technical status of the federation to a «public juridical entity» of the church in 2004. The new status formally recognized that Caritas carries out its charitable activities in the name of the Catholic Church and it meant the organization would function under the administration of the Vatican.

Prepared by the Secretary of State in conjunction with the Pontifical Council Cor Unum, the Pontifical Council for Legislative Texts and legal experts, the decree said it was meant to «complete and interpret» Caritas Internationalis’ juridical status and give the organization a legal foundation and reference point for the application of the new statutes.

Msgr. Osvaldo Neves de Almeida, an official in the Vatican’s secretariat of state, said in an explanatory statement accompanying the decree that the updated status was meant to better support the federation’s activity.

Given Caritas’ worldwide presence, international profile and that it acts in the name of the church, the Vatican «has the task of following its activity and exercising vigilance in order that both its humanitarian and charitable action and the content of the documents that it disseminates may be in harmony with the Apostolic See and with the church’s magisterium, and in order that it may be administered with competence and transparency», the monsignor wrote.

According to the new norms, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith will continue to give doctrinal oversight to texts that are of a moral or doctrinal nature and the Prefecture for the Economic Affairs of the Holy See will continue to monitor the administration of temporal goods.

Cardinal Robert Sarah, president of the Pontifical Council Cor Unum, said in a statement that the new legal framework does not apply to national Caritas organizations, which will maintain their autonomy; however, the new norms «could inspire the bishops and bishops’ conferences to eventually review their diocesan or national Caritas statutes».

More coordination

The new tidiness of Caritas Internationalis is aimed to give more coordination to dicasteries and organisms linked to the Holy See. This enhanced coordination has been requested by Cardinal Bertone in his preliminary document for the periodical meeting of the head of Curial Dicasteries in January.

Benedict XVI is bringing on a general reform of the Curia, in order to fully bring into effect the Pastor Bonus, the pastoral Constitution about the Roman Curia. In Pastor Bonus, the State Secretariat is indicated as the body that must coordinate the work of all the dicasteries. Benedict XVI’s general reform dealt with Vatican financial branch (it has come into effect the new Vatican anti-money laundering law n. 127, which also outlines the competences of the State Secretariat); deal with the reform of the Prefecture for Economical Affairs, that has now become the Vatican correspondent to a Ministery of Finance; deal with more dialogue and cooperation among the Curial office. It is not a concentration of power, it is more a coordination of power. Exactly what Vatican bodies lacked of.

Anyway, coordination is also about doctrinal issues. The search for truth, the truth itself, can be considered the main commitment of the Benedict XVI’s Magisterium: the Pope dedicated to the truth his firs message for the World Day of Peace (In Truth, Peace 2006) and several times he claimed for a Faith more adherent to the Truth of Gospel, without justifying relationships and positions that denaturalize the Catholic Thought. Recently, this commitment of the Pontificate – that the State Secretariat is bringing on – has become evident when the Secretariat of State avoided to the Catholic University of Perù to define itself anymore as «Pontifical». But it has been very meaningful last year, when the Caritas Internationalis had to elect its new general Secretary.

Theological basis. The problems of the past

Last year, Vatican Secretariat of State did not give the nihil obstat for the re-candidature of the previous General Secretary Lesley-Anne Knight, notwithstanding his job had been praised by the same president of Caritas Internationalis, card. Oscar Andrés Rodriguez Maradiaga. Michel Roy – a French that previously served in the French association Secours Catholique, and he knows what does mean working in a highly secularized country, where it is of great importance to define and defend the Catholic identity – had been appointed as the new General Secretary.

Caritas Internationalis, whose original statutes were approved by the Vatican in 1951, is made up of 164 Catholic relief, development and social service agencies working in almost 200 countries. Most of the member agencies are Caritas or relief and development agencies sponsored by national bishops’ conferences, such as the U.S.-based Catholic Relief Services or the Canadian Catholic Organization for Development and Peace.

The CCODP, a Caritas member organization supported by the bishops of Canada, has come under fire from pro-life groups for supporting organizations that advocate the legalization of abortion, distribute contraceptives, and support homosexualist policies. Knight vigorously defended CCODP in a letter sent to donors and obtained by LSN.

Similar problems also exist with other Catholic international aid organizations sponsored by other national bishops’ conferences and that this was a disturbing and unacceptable trend. These bishops’ conferences were not conducting proper oversight over their international development and aid organizations resulting in the funding of groups whose objectives are in serious conflict with Catholic teaching.  The risk is that Caritas Internationalis could be the «umbrella» of a series of organization whose purposes seriously contrast with the Catholicism.

Changes in the Vatican’s approach to international aid appear to be part of the general reform project outlined in Pope Benedict’s recent encyclical letter Caritas in Veritate (Charity in Truth).

The encyclical insisted that human development and foreign aid cannot be separated from the demands of truth. In the encyclical, the Pope underlined that «some non-governmental Organizations work actively to spread abortion, at times promoting the practice of sterilization in poor countries, in some cases not even informing the women concerned. Moreover, there is reason to suspect that development aid is sometimes linked to specific health-care policies which de facto involve the imposition of strong birth control measures. Further grounds for concern are laws permitting euthanasia as well as pressure from lobby groups, nationally and internationally, in favour of its juridical recognition». There is the need to prevent the risk that these organization get a «Catholic umbrella» to what they do.

In fact to understand the basis of the «policy of Charity» of Benedict XVI, we should re-read his first encyclical Deus Caritas Est. In this encyclical, Benedict XVI affirms that «the Church’s charitable organizations, on the other hand, constitute an opus proprium, a task agreeable to her, in which she does not cooperate collaterally, but acts as a subject with direct responsibility, doing what corresponds to her nature. The Church can never be exempted from practising charity as an organized activity of believers, and on the other hand, there will never be a situation where the charity of each individual Christian is unnecessary, because in addition to justice man needs, and will always need, love».

The sword of Damocles of the Past

More than an axe, it is a sword of Damocles, made up of a past that hangs above Benedict XVI, but does not refer to Joseph Ratzinger. When he was prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Joseph Ratzinger used to work in the same way he worked as a theologian: he did not want to raise up a school, he preferred to build a team; he did not oppose to any one, he preferred harmonically match ideas of different kind; he did not acted a short-sighted protectionism of pre-judicial positions, he preferred looking at innovative foods for thought. This attitude had been the same of his Papacy. With a starting point: the search for truth. Benedict XVI dedicated the first of his Messages for the World Day of Peace to the truth. The theme was: «In truth, Peace». It is important to notice that the Message for the World Day of Peace has a very strong diplomatic impact: it is delivered to the Chancellors of all over the world, and it is the trace on which the Secretariat of State develop the traditional Papal new year speech to the ambassadors accredited to the Holy See.

Yet, only after seven years, this Papacy’s address seems to be in some ways understood. Before, medias provided just a distorted image of Benedict XVI. Then, medias began to put the Pope up everything, as if he was an ascetical, evanescent and out of the current business of the Church leader. But Benedict XVI, little by little, shaped the face of his Curia. His men trained in the Holy Office he leaded, applying the canon law and being kind with people and understanding to ideas. This Curia knows Ratzinger’s modus operandi, that is determined and accommodating at the same time. This Curia now can prepare for the final act of this quiet revolution: the Year of Faith.

«Scoops» against the Pope?

Right when the year of Faith is up to come, informing papers are delivered behind the curtain of the Roman Curia and are leaked to the press. The last «scoop» would be about a plot to kill the Pope. It is a note written in rough German – probably by a non German speaking person – , that Cardinal Darìo Castrillòn Hoyos brought to Vatican Secretariat of State. The note was a summary of a report of non well précised Chinese officials. These latter were reporting what they learned by cardinal Paolo Romeo, archbishop of Palermo that went mysteriously (maybe to encourage Chinese business in Sicily) to China the last November. Romeo would say that the Pope was not supposed to live more than 12 months. The newspapers made headlines news of the plot. «It seems to me something that is so far from reality that I don’t even want to address it», Father Federico Lombardi, s.j. director of the Holy See Press Office said.  Evidently, somebody has all the interest that these news, this «nonsense» were headlines.

Before,  The letters that msgr. Carlo Maria Viganò – former General Secretary of the Governatorate of Vatican City State – addressed to Pope Benedict XVI and to card. Bertone, Vatican secretary of State, to denounce the «corruption » in procurements of Vatican City State administration had been profusely highlighted by the Medias. According to the press, Viganò had been appointed as Papal nuncio to the United State because of this letter.

Then, an internal memo of the Authority of Financial Information – the Vatican body that  controls all Vatican finances – had been leaked to the press. The memo was part of an inside debate if the new Vatican legislation was to be considered a retroactive legislation, and if it was to be applied in the so-called IOR case (that is the seizure – ordered by Italian magistrates – of 23 million euro transferred by the IOR). Can this memo be considered a proof that the Holy See does not want to cooperate with Italian Magistrates? Actually, the reform itself of the Vatican Law n.127 (the anti-money laundering law) shows that Holy See is going to accomplish the international standards, yet not denaturalizing the nature of Vatican finances (in the Vatican there are no market and no banks).

Some days later, Luca Tescaroli – the Rome prosecutor who has pursued a 30-year-old case concerning the worst scandal at the IOR: the death of Roberto Calvi, the Catholic banker who helped managed the Vatican’s investments and was found hanging from London’s Blackfriars Bridge in 1982  – has recently revived judicial requests to the Vatican for information about IOR/Ambrosiano scandal. He complained that no information has been provided by the Holy See. But these international requests never got to the office of the Protocol of the Secretariat of State, nor they had ever passed through the Italian Embassy to the Holy See. His requests did not probably fulfill all the requirements of an international submission by a foreign prosecutor, the same requirements needed for all States.

Is Bertone under attack?

While speaking about these cases, Vatican had been treated by Italian medias as any multinational company whose seat is in Italy, while prelates had been always depicted as sharks money-makers. «We defend the Pope, not Bertone», was the slogan within newspapers offices. Bertone was in fact the executor of Benedict XVI’s will. In a meeting with the heads of Vatican offices, he asked for more cohesion and stigmatized the «small chatters», that weaken the Church.

In a passage of the last document leaked to the press, one can read that the Pope «barely stands Bertone». It is false. Let’s make a step back in the past. In June 2006, the Pope had to announce that -  after his return to Rome from his trip to Bavaria -  his first act of governance will be the change of the secretary of state, with cardinal Tarcisio Bertone replacing cardinal Angelo Sodano.

Benedict XVI’s initial plans did not include making the announcement as early as he did, with an official statement in June 22, 2006. But the resistance he encountered within the curia convinced him to nip the opposition in the bud. Many in the Curia were discontent. Bertone not only was not a career diplomat – as almost all the secretaries of state have been in recent centuries – but he came from the ranks of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, of which he was the secretary from 1995 to 2003. He was the number two man, with Joseph Ratzinger as prefect, and now he is again becoming the main collaborator of the new Pope. Even after his election as Pope, Ratzinger has kept him as an adviser and a friend: not a week was gone by that they have not spoken together or seen each other.

Bertone’s appointment as Secretary of State signed a sort of “vindication” for the Holy Office. Called by this name until the 1960’s, the Congregation was referred to within the Vatican as «la Suprema». Its highest official was the Pope himself, and the rest of the curia hinged upon it. But then came Paul VI, and the secretariat of state became the central axis of the curia. With John Paul II, who had little interest in Church governance, the power of the secretariat of state in the Church’s internal and external affairs grew even greater. It is no surprise that in the last change of the papacy, the two head honchos of diplomacy and of the curia – cardinals Sodano and Achille Silvestrini – were the ones most staunchly opposed to the election of Ratzinger, just as they later tried to block the appointment of Bertone.

More than diplomacy, it is important to Benedict XVI that his secretary of state be highly skilled «in pastoral practice and doctrinal understanding». And Bertone, in the Pope’s view, had both of these prerequisites. Ratzinger discovered him in 1988, and since then he has had him work on the most intricate and controversial issues: the schism of the ultra-traditionalist archbishop Marcel Lefebvre, liberation theology, the married men with children who were ordained as priests in communist Czechoslovakia, the third secret of Fatima, the apparitions of Medjugorje, the scandal of pedophile priests in the United States, the marriage of archbishop Emmanuel Milingo to one of the members of the sect of Sun Myung Moon.

One can understand many of Benedict XVI’s choice in Bertone’s appointment. Last but not least, the appointment of Charles J. Brown – a non-diplomat that served in the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith – as Papal nuncio in Ireland. The next consistory, in fact – so marked with well-formed experts in Canon Law, as Antonio Maria Vegliò and Francesco Coccopalmerio – is the signal that Benedict XVI want to get back to the solidity of Law, more than entrust on the liquidity of diplomacy. More firmness in Faith, acknolewdge of law and catechism and pastoral care, less diplomacy: these seem to be Benedict XVI’s word orders.

And behind the curtain is…

After Bertone’s appointment, Sodano refused to leave his office as Secretary of State, waiting for the works in his new office to be ended, and so Bertone had to work for about a year in a little office. Sodano is still secretary of State when the Pope goes to Bavaria, in September 2006. There, the Regensburg case on the lecture of the Pope bursted. It seems a Benedict XVI’s owngoal, it is instead the opening of unprecedented path of dialogue with Islam.

There was something else that made Sodano’s remaining in office questionable: his maneuver  to put out of commission the then Pope’s vicar and president of the Italian bishops’ conference, CEI, Camillo Ruini, when this latter turned  75 years old and handed over to the pope the letter of resignation that every bishop is required to write when he turns 75.

In 1991, 1996, and 2001, John Paul II, each time before he made Ruini head of the CEI, asked for the advice of the presidents of the sixteen regions into which the Italian episcopacy is subdivided. But that time – and this was at the end of January 2006 – rather than the pope, the secretariat of state extended the consultation to all of the 226 bishops in office. To each one, the then nuncio in Italy Paolo Romeo sent a letter under the seal of Pontifical Secrecy, asking the recipient to «indicate ‘coram Domino’ and with gracious solicitude the prelate that you would like to suggest».

The letter began by stating that «next March 6 the mandate of the Most Eminent Cardinal Camillo Ruini as president of the CEI will come to a conclusion». And it continued by asserting that «the Holy Father thinks that a change in the office of the presidency is in order».

The letter bore the date of January 26, 2006, and the only one to whom it was not sent was Ruini. But he was immediately made aware of it, and Benedict XVI – who intended to keep Ruini at his post – was also informed. On February 6, 2006 the nuncio who signed the letter, Romeo, was called by Benedict XVI for an audience. The Pope asked him how and why this initiative came about. Romeo left the audience in shambles, but Sodano was the one who was really trembling. On February 9, 2006  Benedict XVI received Ruini together with his then right hand man, the secretary general of the CEI, bishop Giuseppe Betori. They both received the Pope’s reassurances. News of the letter had not yet leaked to the outside.

But a few days later, the news agencies and newspapers were writing about it, attributing the idea for the letter to the pope and to his desire to decide «more collegially» on a replacement for Ruini. And in fact, on the morning of February 14, 2006,  as soon as he saw the complete text of the letter published in two newspapers, Benedict XVI picked up the telephone and ordered that his confirmation of Ruini as president of the CEI be made public immediately.

New stories, old people

Paolo Romeo is also one of the characters of the mordkomplott against the Pope. Behind him, there is still the same cardinal Sodano, that wanted to show his solidarity to the Pope before of the Easter Mass in 2010 – in the spite of clergy abuse storm – attacking the revelations on sex abuses as «petty gossip», and «the chatter of the moment». Yet, it was the same Sodano that for years debarred to make investigations on Marcial Maciel, the founder of Legionaries of Christ, who was found to live a double life, with illegitimate sons and a past of abuses on his seminarists.

A quiet revolution

In the meantime, Benedict XVI went on with his governing project, bringing on his quiet revolution. With time, he changed men in the key posts. It is not sufficient. The strikes does not come from the upper levels, but from the lower ones, clerks within the Secretariat of State that have nothing to lose if they leak some document, and that are still linked to the previous administration. It is a problem that deals with the quality of men. After the fall of the Wall of Berlin, within the Catholic Church, there had been the persuasion that the choice of clerks and official could be made with some more superficiality. Was not the War against the Communism over? An ex clerk of the Secretary of State – who served at the end of card. Agostino Casaroli administration and at the beginning of card. Sodano administration – tells that «suddenly, hiring conditions changed. I had been attentively analyzed, for our psychological quality and our intellectual attitudes. The new clerks hired in Secretariat of State did not seem to have any of these requisites, but a certain good will».

A weakened Curia

Step by step, the machine of the Curia is weakened from the inside. The new pieces of this machine are fascinated by privileges and at the same time they are unconscious of prestige and importance of their role. It is a machine with defective pieces, where an attack against the universal Church and its sovereignty can be easy stroke.

Right after the fall of the Wall of Berlin, the medias spoke only positively about John Paul II. On the other hand, they depict the Curia as rotten, as something that needs to be changed. So rotten that it would be better the Pope to pray, and for the Church not to involve too much in the current affairs of the world. Is it part of the strategy to undermine Holy See diplomacy? Pressures are made against the moral authority of prelates, and at the same time lay government confer upon Churchmen and Churh communities some financial privilege – e.g. tax cuts or financial aids. These tax cuts and financial aids are sometimes legitimated by the law (they are the same acknowledged to other companies and associations), but they are conferred with such a dim procedure that it is easy to create a misgiving climate. The “hottest” case are set aside, in order to use them at the most proper moment.

Market rules

In the mean time, European Union is formed, and market is always more allowed to dominate policy. At the beginning, Vatican machine is not even aware of the new challenge: it is still appeased on precedent positions.  Casaroli’s ostpolitik is considered good in every contingency, from the dialogue with Islam to Chinese situation. The Church is diplomatically weakened – even if still able to fight good fights, e.g. in U.N. Conferences in Beijing and Cairo. Benedict XVI took over this weakened Church. He wants – he has – to repair. He begins changing some piece of the machine. Giovanni Lajolo is appointed as Vatican foreign minister, and his growing agreement with the vision of Benedict XVI was made evident by the sequence of his actions and addresses as the Holy See’s foreign minister, which display a progressive distancing from the «realist» politics treasured by secretary of state Angelo Sodano. Benedict XVI wait the right time. In 2009, msgr. Gabriele Caccia and msgr. Pietro Parolin, number 3 and 4 of Vatican Secretary of State under Sodano’s administration and the under Bertone’s one, are promoted as Papal nuncios. For the first time, the “upper level” of the Secretariat of State has been appointed under Bertone’s administration. The Papal homily at the episcopal ordination of Parolin, Caccia and three other bishops is meaningful. The Pope said: «We do not bind people to us; we do not seek power, prestige or esteem for ourselves. We lead men and women toward Jesus Christ, hence toward the living God. In so doing, we introduce them into truth and into freedom, which derives from truth. Fidelity is altruism and, in this very way, liberating for the minister himself and for all who are entrusted to him. We know how in civil society and often also in the Church things suffer because many people on whom responsibility has been conferred work for themselves rather than for the community, for the common good».

These are the first signals of the fact that the Church changed its attitude, and gets back – modernly – to the origins. The world map goes on changing. States hand over sovereignty to markets, and there is an economic crisis in 2008. In 2009, European Union communicates that the Monetary Agreements with the Vatican is to be reviewed, if Vatican wants to remain hooked to the European Monetary. But Eu commissioners show their hostility, and the Convention will be signed by the European Commissioner Joaquin Almunia and by the Papal Nuncio to the European Union André Dupuy in separate rooms. To face the global crisis, Benedict XVI delivers a social encyclical, the Caritas in Veritate: handed by several people – many do not even agree with the Church -, the encyclical keeps its prophetical message. This prophecy is rooted in the request for more democracy and for an authority with universal competences, whose members are chosen democratically and whose goals is the common good, by regulating the market (thus facing the new Leviathan: international finance) and letting the State develop in a just way. The encyclical is destructured, not understood, un-focused. It is 2009.

The annus horribilis

In the mean time, international scenario changes again. A new global crisis is up to come, and men of Trilateral Commission works for having less democracy – as a paper by Zbigniew Brzezinsky, former U.S. National Security Advisor, states. Holy See has a different idea: at the international tables, Holy See asks more multilateralism, and – on economical scenario – it auspicates a new Bretton Woods, whose winner would be this time John Maynard Keynes ideas.

And here comes the 2010, the annus horribilis. Pedophilia scandals swept all the world, clergy abuse are brought into life, while they had always been hidden. Things are slightly different, and medias do not speak unambiguously, aiming to attack the Pope. It is the same strategy experimented by Adolf Hitler. Together with moral attacks, Hitler obliged the faithful of each religion to pay Kirchensteuer, a tax on religion. It is the reason why religions in German countries became rich and powerful, even if overlooking its focus, as Benedict XVI underlined during his last trip in Germany.

While the Year of Faith is being prepared, bankers took over in Europe. Italian Prime Minister is Mario Monti, Greek Prime Minister is Nicolas Papademos. They both come from Goldman Sachs and Trilateral commission; they both have been appointed, not elected. They must guide Europe to be always more market-oriented. Mario Monti – who claims himself Catholic – give a signal when he went to visit the Pope: one of the Italian Prime Minister’s presents was a book – Il governo dell’Economia e della Moneta – that he wrote in 1992, and this book was one of the pillars of the Maastricht treaty.

Jesus is the key

Attacks to the Church come from the outside, and they are favorite from the inside by incapable officials. Now, these attacks are going to strike the Pope. The tailor-made suite for the Pope is similar to the one tailored on John Paul I: a poor man alone, closed in an ivory tower, taking care of paintings in his apartments and of his clothes – both liturgical and non liturgical. He would make a revolution, but he cannot. Facts says that revolution has come. It was a revolution of faith and thought. A revolution whose symbol is Jesus of Nazaret, to whom Benedict XVI – not casually – already dedicated two books.

Just a few know the obscure work of Silvano Maria Tomasi, permanent observer of the Holy See to the United Nations in Geneva. Scalabrinian missionary, born in 1940, long-term diplomat, from his post of permanent observer he fights against the dictatorship of relativism, that is also maybe the favorite battlefield of Benedict XVI – the Pope dedicated to this topic one of his first papers, New Pagans and the Church. It is a fight for the truth. The same Pope, in his book Light of the World, observed that a large part of contemporary philosophies affirm that the man is not able of truth. «The consequence is – Tomasi comments – that man is not any more able of ethical values, cannot have objective standards and ends by accepting as the only standard the opinion of majority».

Not casually the first message of Benedict XVI for the World Day of Peace was titled: «In Truth, peace». And not casually the major part of battles on this topic had been brought on – during the last years – by msgr. Tomas from Geneva. His speeches, interventions, papers had been rarely highlighted by medias. Yet, they have a strong diplomatic impact.

In some ways, there will be a little of Silvano Maria Tomasi in the next Concistory. The red hat given to Antonio Maria Vegliò, president of the Pontifical Council for Migrants, is the signal that the Pontifical Council gained a renewed importance, and this is also thanks to the entrance of the Holy See as a full member in the International Organization for Migration. This entrance, Tomasi proposed and strongly supported.

Holy See is accredited as a full member in several international organizations – e.g. IAEA, as a founding member – while it keeps the status of permanent observer to the United Nation. Holy See has no intention to get a “political” weight by becoming a full member of the United Nations – what if the Holy See would vote in a session to finance a military intervention? What would be the international and political backlashes? On the other hand, is very important that the Holy See have a “political” weight when political on migrations are on discussion. During the 100th session of the Council of the International Migration, Tomasi underlined that «the achievement of an adequate global management of migration flows, a positive understanding of them , and the approach to human development may seem long range goals. But the speed of the journey is less important than proceeding in the right direction».

What is the right direction? «Nowadays – Tomasi wrote – it is not easy to indicate a clear date when a way of thinking began. Therefore, the change of the dictionary and the prevalence of a new one began with the sexual revolution of 1968 and imposed with more coherence and insistence after the fall of the Wall of Berlin in 1989». It was then that the two blocks of the Cold War had been replaced by a plurality of actors in the international scenario. «In this new situation – Tomasi explained in a debate on February, 17 2011  – United Nations felt freer. More: they felt invested of the precise mission to promote practical priorities that – according to the advisors involved – would have led to a more rightful and free world».

From 1989 on, the new language to sustain this mission has been built up on a series of «key words»: human globalization, sustainable development, good governance, world ethic, cultural diversity, dialogue among civilization, quality of life, gender, equal opportunities, homophobia, sexual orientation, safe abortion, future generations rights, non-governmental organization, partnerships, civil society, participative democracy, transnational networks, consensus building, inclusive approach, agent-actor of social transformation, best practices, sexual and reproductive rights, right of choice, equal commerce, diverse forms of family.

On the other hand, the words that belong to the Christian-Judaic tradition are excluded, or even tend to disappear: truth, moral, conscience, reason, earth, will, parents, spouse, husband, mother, father, son, daughter, chastity, complementariness, service, authority, hierarchies, law, commandment, dogma, sin, nature, marriage.

This new dictionary is – Tomasi explained – «a mixture of words of authentic human aspirations and values and of words that represent an individualistic ideology brought to the limit. This latter inspires and guides the managers of the world governance. This is how we get to a systematic and lasting transition of words in the documents of United Nations: from government to governance, from authority to autonomy and rights of the individuals, from spouse to partner, from happiness to quality of life, from given to built, from family to family in all of his forms, from dignity sufferance to the right to die, from majority decision to consensus, from dogma to freedom of interpretation».

These changes of the dictionary are part of a long term battle, whose seeds can be seen back in international conference and interventions.  For example, in the 1995 Conference of Beijing. Mary Ann Glendon, who was part of the Vatican delegation at the time, was not lenient towards the UN’s intentions:  «Many who promote abortion as a woman’s right do not by any means have women’s real interests at heart. The movement for abortion rights conceals irresponsible men, trafficking in prostitution, industries that make their profits from women’s bodies».

And a book has been published in Italy that brings to light for the first time in a direct and detailed way this anti-Catholic aversion of the UN and the EU: «Contro il cristianesimo. L’ONU e l’Unione Europea come nuova ideologia [Against Christianity: The UN and the European Union as a New Ideology]», by Eugenia Roccella and Lucetta Scaraffia.  In the introduction to the volume, Roccella and Scaraffia identify the roots of the new ideology as the «separation between sexuality and procreation». «More – they write – than a different model of sexual behavior, but conceptually analogous to those that have preceded it in history, this is a question of a real and true utopia, because it is based upon the idea that human beings can find happiness in the realization of their sexual desires, without the moral, biological, social, and relational limitations linked to procreation. This utopia has its roots in the sexual revolution in the West during the 1960′s, and it has not yet been disputed, even though it seems not to have kept its promises. It is a utopia that echoes another, one that brings painful memories: that the selection of new human beings can create a better, more healthy, more beautiful humanity».

It is not just a matter of words. It is a matter of ideology. The conceptual scenario has its own dynamics, and this leads to concrete transformations in several branches of social and political life. Religious freedom and the way it has been handled down is an example. An approach to religious freedom linked to intolerance is first brought on in the Declaration on the principles of Tolerance of UNESCO in 1995 and is then promoted in the Resolution 2004/36 adopted from the 60th session of the Human Rights Commission in the United Nations in 2004. A new chapter of the quest is then open with the  resolution 61/164 (Combating the defamations of religions), adopted from the General Assembly of the United Nations December, 19th 2006. In that resolution, religion is used to limit other basic freedoms (the right to the freedom of expression) and to oppress religious minorities when some impose with force and terrorism their religious ideologies and others deny a place in the public sphere to faith and belief.

As always, one should look back in time. It was in 1981 – when the General Assembly of the United Nations adopted the Declaration on the Elimination of All Forms of Intolerance and of Discrimination Based on Religion or Belief – that the concept of tolerance has been placed by side to religion or belief. «But tolerance – Tomasi explains – is a tool, not a right. In fact, while with religious freedom we mean the warranty of Government that individuals have freedom of belief and the warranty of freedom of cult for individuals and groups – including the freedom not to believe in any god, religious tolerance is the condition to accept or permit beliefs or religious practice that are different from his own one».

Holy See is one of the few sovereign entities that is aware of the risks of this change of dictionary, and that understood that this is a crucial battle. The efforts of the Holy See in this battle are probably on the basis of the initiatives to undermine the Holy See diplomacy, from the outside and from the inside.

In this crucial battle, archbishop Tomasi is one of the paladins of the Church.  He works behind the curtain, but he is one of the few intelligences able to understand what are the things on the play. United Nations have the ambition of a New World Order, and to follow this goal they create a new anthropology. «The implication – Tomasi explained – is that adaequatio rei et intellectus (the accordance of the intelligence with reality) – gained from the reason and theology – is to be replaced from a reality that is socially and subjectively built, so that truth and reality has not a stable and objective contents and every interpretation of this content is equal. This dictatorship of relativism does not use visible and brutal methods as political dictatorships. It works from inside the institution and – through consensus – promote a neutrality that let impose their own norms».

Traditionally, the speech the Pope holds in front of the Diplomatic Corp Accredited of the Holy See marks the beginning of the new year. The Pope goes through all the remarkable international facts of the past year, usually paraphrasing the contents of the message for the World Day of Peace. But in the speech held the last January, 9th, the contents of the message for the World Day of Peace 2012 – Educating young people in justice and peace – took just a few lines of the speech. And the speech itself is more focused on the message that would have been, more than on the one that had been delivered. In fact, the original sketch of the message had been profusely amended by the Vatican Secretariat of State. To have an idea of what the first sketch of the message was, it would be sufficient to read the speech that msgr. Mario Toso – secretary of Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace – held at the opening of the School of Peace in Este.

What does the Pope really think? The 9th of January speech marks the line. The Pope knows that the difference of Christianity is in truth. He knows that the Church must obviously dialogue with the «signs of our time», but that at the same time the Church cannot lose its identity. This lack of identity, Joseph Ratzinger – as Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith – wanted to underline in the declaration Dominus Jesus. This lack of identity, Joseph Ratzinger – as young theologian – underlined in a paper, «New pagans and Church», that came directly from his first experience as vice parish priest – when he used to confess one hour a day, and four hours every Sunday. And Christian identity, based on truth, had become the center of the program of his Pontificate.

It is because of Truth – Benedict XVI underlined in the message for World Day of Peace 2011 – Christians are persecuted. And this is why – the Pope said to the ambassadors in the 9th of January speech – «in many countries Christians are deprived of fundamental rights and sidelined from public life; in other countries they endure violent attacks against their churches and their homes. At times they are forced to leave the countries they have helped to build because of persistent tensions and policies which frequently relegate them to being second-class spectators of national life. In other parts of the world, we see policies aimed at marginalizing the role of religion in the life of society, as if it were a cause of intolerance rather than a valued contribution to education in respect for human dignity, justice and peace».

Notwithstanding the attempts to undermine the Holy See diplomacy, diplomatic corps accredited to the Holy See has increased during the last year, since Malaysia established diplomatic ties with the Holy See and the Association of South-East Asian Nations (A.S.E.A.N.) accepted the appointment of an apostolic nuncio accredited to that organization. Another sign of the cooperation existing between the Catholic Church and States is seen in the Accords reached in 2011 with Azerbaijan, Montenegro and Mozambique. But probably the main piece of news is in the intention of Benedict XVI to concentrate the procedures of diplomacy on international law.

The speech of the Pope follows the first sketch of the message of the World Day of Peace: from the financial crisis to the Arab Spring and the «vast movement calling for reforms and a more active share in political and social life» brought on by young people, and finally to the request for the «respect of the creation», universal issue that needs «a great sense of solidarity and responsibility towards present and future generations» to be pursued.

Yet, in view of the renewed outbreak of violence in Nigeria, in view of the hostilities and acts of violence that continue in Syria, in view of tensions between Palestinians and Israelis that affect the stability of the entire Middle East (Benedict XVI praises to the Kingdom of Jordan mediation), an excellent person merges as a symbol: Shahbaz Bhatti, the Pakistan minister for Religious Minorities, whose «untiring battle for the rights of minorities ended in his tragic death. Sadly, we are not speaking of an isolated case. In many countries Christians are deprived of fundamental rights and sidelined from public life».

To this sideline of religion, Pope opposes «the legislative amendment whereby the public juridical personality of religious minorities was recognized in Georgia», and then also «the sentence of the European Court of Human Rights upholding the presence of the crucifix in Italian schoolrooms».

Benedict XVI also asks «to implement educational policies which ensure that schooling is available to everyone and which, in addition to promoting the cognitive development of the individual, show concern for a balanced personal growth, including openness to the Transcendent».

Before the education, there is the human being. The Pope provides law responses: he notes «with satisfaction the recent sentence of the Court of Justice of the European Union forbidding patenting processes relative to human embryonic stem cells, as well as the resolution of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe condemning prenatal selection on the basis of sex». More: «I am convinced –  Benedict XVI says – that legislative measures which not only permit but at times even promote abortion for reasons of convenience or for questionable medical motives compromise the education of young people and, as a result, the future of humanity».

And before the human being, there is the openness to the Trascendent. «Religion – the Pope says, as he already did in Assisi – cannot be employed as a pretext for setting aside the rules of justice and of law for the sake of the intended ‘good’. In this context I am proud to recall, as I did in my native country, that the Christian vision of man was the true inspiration for the framers of Germany’s Basic Law, as indeed it was for the founders of a united Europe».

It is a recall to the roots of Western civilization, and to the rules and laws produced following these common roots. Benedict XVI does not want to play the same game medias and institutions against the Church play. He remarks the difference of Christianity. And – to do it – he does not commit in communication campaigns, he does not choose to follow the signs of our times and to outline a Church adherent to the world. He just points out what the difference is, and he recalls to laws that had been inspired by this peculiar difference. The game is not any more based on  communication and diplomacy. The game the Pope is now playing is based on truth and law. This is a more solid path to thread. It is a path more adherent to Truth.

There is someone – within the Sacred Palaces – that makes this question: is this message for the World Day of Peace the most adequate to be sent to governmental and diplomatic representation of all the world? Is not the message – albeit so theologically rooted – just something more than a good homework, a scholastic composition on the topic of Educating young people to justice and peace? It is still fresh in memory what happened with the last document released by the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, the note titled “Towards reforming the international financial and monetary system in the context of global public authority”: the note had been approved – after amending it – by the Vatican State Secretariat, and then disowned, subjected and polemics born within the Roman Curia and leaked in improbable versions to the press (then partially contradicted).

The message for the World Day of Peace had been profusely amended by the Vatican State Secretariat. Anyway, the original “spirit” of the message remained so   untouched that Turkson and Toso – holding the press conference to present the message – had been able to explicit item by item what in the message remained implied. And it would be sufficient to read the last public speech held by mons. Toso – at the opening of the School of Peace in Este – to find out that that speech was full of many of the topics issued during the press conference. Was that text inspired to the first sketch of the message? Or was it just the deep explanation of what the message ought tell the world?

Benedict XVI launched an appeal to young people in the Message for the World Day of Peace: «Realize that you yourselves are an example and an inspiration to adults, even more so to the extent that you seek to overcome injustice and corruption and strive to build a better future. Be aware of your potential; never become self-centred but work for a brighter future for all. You are never alone. The Church has confidence in you, follows you, encourages you and wishes to offer you the most precious gift she has: the opportunity to raise your eyes to God, to encounter Jesus Christ, who is himself justice and peace».

Noting a «rising sense of frustration» at the worldwide economic recession, Pope Benedict XVI said that a more just and peaceful world requires «adequate mechanisms for the redistribution of wealth». The message laments that «some currents of modern culture, built upon rationalist and individualist economic principles, have cut off the concept of justice from its transcendent roots, detaching it from charity and solidarity». Authentic education, Benedict XVI writes, teaches the proper use of freedom with «respect for oneself and others, including those whose way of being and living differs greatly from one’s own». Peace-making requires education not only in the values of compassion and solidarity, but in the importance of wealth redistribution, the «promotion of growth, cooperation for development and conflict resolution». The Pope also calls on political leaders to «ensure that no one is ever denied access to education».

One topic – that is maybe the true revolution of the Papal words – is fundamental: young people must be educated to peace, but they have to educate as well. Italian Catholic politician Giorgio La Pira used to say that «young people are the swallow that announce spring». Toso glosses: «We find in young people a fresh intuition of what the big values are: they can find the way to make an air blast».

Card. Turkson remembered that the drafting of the message «was marked by a series of manifestation of young people from almost all the European capitals. The young’s attitude at the beginning of the last years had been pessimistic and despaired. The frustration for the economical crisis grew up. Now, we know that the roots of this crisis are more in cultural and moral than in economical issues. Young people are not bodies isolated and separated from the rest of society. They, on the contrary, are the most vital part of the human family, and we must listen to their request that too often remain uncome up. The worries expressed by too many young people mean the wish to watch with hope to the future».

«Also journalists – mons. Toso remarked – should question themselves about what they can do for justice and peace. There is the need of a non mediocre education, which in fact is. Benedict XVI repeatedly invited to raise up new generations, and he did not tell it only for what concerns the political world: he also referred to people that work in economy, in finance. We need to educate citizens, political administrator, cultured people in all the fields, included the communication branch. We need that the various knowledges help the search for truth, strengthen the wish for the common good, become place where the dignity of human being is respected».

In the message, the word democracy is never mentioned. Otherwise, mons. Toso underline it several times. «The responsibles of the several cultural and social institutions – he says – must take care of their institutions in order the same institutions are instructional and right, since democracy need to be right to educate. The message for the World Day of Peace relates to what the encyclical Pacem in terris issued. Do we really want to build a substantial democracy? Do we really want to build a new international order? If so, we have to educate to freedom, justice, truth and love. In the human catastrophe, when education is emergency, the Pope invites us to work seriously to build the pillars of the New Humanism. We should look at the important speeches held by Benedict XVI (the ones in Germany, the one in Westminster) in which the Pope talks about the reformation of the State,  and this latter must be a State based on the rule of law, that involves religious freedom for everybody. The teaching of Benedict XVI may have been forgotten, so it is important to pose it again, since his speeches are crucial to reform the institutions. Young people that moved the Arab Spring  letted understand that there cannot be social justice if there is not democracy, and there cannot be democracy if there is not social justice. Democracy does not exist without justice, and justice must not lose its trascendant roots. We must watch out for moving the consciences on national, international, cooperation and conflict resolution issues. This must be applied to the current world situation, and must be linked to the present national and international issues, as for example to the problem of wealth redistribution in a global context. That is why there must be a global social justice. What does moving the consciences mean if not commit in order to let social subjects understand the problems of biblical migrations, of poverty, of external debt, of the fall of dictatorial regimes?»

Not only the Third World Countries are affected by the problem of the search for a true democracy. In Western countries – as Ralf Dahrendorf and his thought on post-democracy demonstrates – we are now going to a oligarchical populistic democracy.

And what about the intergenerational exchange? «It is implicit in the message – Toso answers – but it is definitely not the point. We are not talking about a simple substitution. It is about preparing a new generation with an integral education, to give their contribution to a world of peace».