Why are we now offering our readers a text by then-Fr. Jorge Mario Bergoglio dated Christmas 1987? Before replying to this question we need to understand something about the context in which it was written. Fr. Bergoglio signed a short preface to a collection of eight letters from two Superiors General of the Society of Jesus (“Las cartas de la Tribulación,” Buenos Aires, Diego de Torres, 1988). Seven of them were by Father General Lorenzo Ricci, written between 1758 and...
An American story. Detroit, summer of 1967. An African-American riot is violently suppressed by the police and the army. Shot in a documentary style full of tension, the film involves the audience totally, a tribute to its effectiveness. The film Detroit, by Kathryn Bigelow, is divided into three parts and preceded by a brief prologue that summarizes the historical context of the facts that are taken into consideration. The spark that starts a fire In the years following the First...
In speeches intended to foster a climate of world peace, Pope Francis has often used metaphors referring to walls and bridges in opposition to each other. Walls are an eloquent symbol of division and incommunicability, while bridges are an equally clear symbol of encounter between different shores – between different nations, religions and people. The quotations are numerous. Best known, perhaps, is the quote from the speech given by Pope Francis (whose Latin title, Pontifex, indicates a “creator” or “builder...
Africa is the “continent of hope.” We see this hope in the eyes of the many young men and women who arrive in Europe. A hope that can be a great contribution to an aging Europe when it finds a way of being accepted, put to use, and adequately accompanied by the welcoming community. But news of African migrants losing their lives on the way to Europe has become commonplace nowadays. The Italian island of Lampedusa conjures up ghastly images...
The most influential Church Fathers and countless scriptural commentators throughout the centuries have commended the Our Father for its theological richness, extolling it as the perfect prayer, especially since the Divine Master himself taught it to us. There are those who maintain that the Our Father is the culmination of every prayer contained in the Old Testament. Others define it as a synthesis of Christian catechesis presented in the form of an invocation.[1] Underlying the prayer’s exalted status is the...
Well-known to viewers around the world, soap operas have interested communication researchers almost from the beginning of their appearance.[1] The broadcast genre started in the United States, on radio, in the 1930s and by the 1940s early communication researchers were investigating the nature of the audience for soap operas, their motivations for listening to soap opera, and the satisfaction listeners gained from the soap opera. The soap opera form itself spread fairly rapidly to other countries, with some of the...
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