The Swiss-German philosopher of Korean origin, Byung-Chul Han continues, book after book, to set out his thoughts. Three years ago, La Civiltà Cattolica published an introduction to his work on time.[1] His writings are numerous, but always accessible for their form and clarity. They draw a lucid map of our contemporary society. Their echo can be measured by the numerous translations that have been made of them, even if the author remains far from the media game and discreetly continues...
May 19, 2022. “Welcome! You see? I am in my new gestatorial chair,” the pope joked, alluding to his being in a wheelchair owing to knee pain. Francis greeted, one-by-one, the editors of the cultural journals of the Society of Jesus in Europe gathered in the Private Library of the Apostolic Palace. The group was composed of Fr. Stefan Kiechle of Stimmen der Zeit (Germany), Lucienne Bittar of Choisir (Switzerland), Fr. Ulf Jonsson of Signum (Sweden), Fr. Jaime Tatay of...
When Pope Francis spoke for the first time of the Church as a “field hospital after a battle,”[1] he had in mind what he terms a “piecemeal world war.” In his Easter 2022 Urbi et Orbi message, he listed a few of these “pieces”: Ukraine, Jerusalem, Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Libya, Yemen, Myanmar, Afghanistan, Sahel, Ethiopia, Democratic Republic of Congo, South Africa. He had done the same previously, but the map is destined to always be incomplete. The Russian invasion of...
An inexhaustible circularity A short anecdote handed down by the Chassidic tradition narrates that “one day a young disciple approached his teacher and asked: ‘How is it that in ancient times God often appeared to our fathers, to Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses and so many others? Today, instead, nobody sees Him anymore.’ The old rabbi pondered for a long time, then answered: ‘Because we no longer know how to stoop low enough’.”[1] This story lends itself to multiple interpretations, but...
A new wind of extra-constitutional government change is blowing north from central Africa and now is in the west of the continent. In April 2021, Chad’s President, Idriss Déby, who had recently been re-elected, died at the front as FACT (Front for Alternation and Concord in Chad) rebels from the north of the country threatened his regime. His son, Mahamat, 37, an army general, took over the leadership of the country, despite the fact that the constitution stipulated that, in...
In 2019, a Russian researcher wrote about how the strategic collaboration between Russia and India can be summed up in two words: energy and armament. Despite this summary and other factors, even from the strategic point of view, bilateral relations have endured, overcoming internal and external difficulties, from Russia’s instability and weakness in the 1990s, up to the current U.S. sanctions, which have become a problem for both Moscow and New Delhi.[1] The biggest test of India’s relations with Russia...
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