End of religion? For a long time the mantra of the “abolition of religion” (to borrow from the title of Richard Schröder’s provocative essay) has resounded insistently in the West. Philosophers, sociologists, psychologists, scientists and writers have competed to predict its end. The most famous change that characterizes this line of thought is the withdrawal of those of religious commitment and the progressive diminishing of the sacred dimension in the affairs of the world. The underlying assumption of such a...
Interreligious dialogue needs to understand the cultural interweaving of religions in different contexts, says Ambrogio Bongiovanni, the director of the Pontifical Gregorian University’s Center for Interreligious Studies. For example, the relationship between Christianity and Islam in Europe is different from the relationship between Christianity and Islam in South Asia, or Iran, says Professor Bongiovanni, who also teaches Missiology at the Pontifical Gregorian University. Prof Bongiovanni lived some 25 years in South Asia, much of that in India, doing research and...
The relationship between the 20th-century popes, the Soviet Union, and the Russian Federation is often the subject of discussion. Some publications have given hasty and not always correct answers to questions raised. In this article we will deal with two pontiffs considered by some historians as antithetical; different in character and sensibility, but who had in common a great respect and love for the Russian people, even considering the historical period in which they lived. Pius XII and the Soviet...
One only has to take a look at the media and its coverage of current events to see that in this 21st century the virus of populism has spread far and wide, settling in virtually all corners of the globe. It stirs conflicts, waves flags, undermines institutions. It destabilizes governments and breathes life into ridiculous conspiracies. It lurks in right-wing and left-wing groups alike, is endorsed by progressives, nationalists and conservatives in the service of seemingly noble and just causes,...
The Pope's weekly General Audience is normally held in St Peter's Square on a Wednesday morning. March 29 was no different and thousands of pilgrims from around the world attended to hear the Holy Father's catechesis... Summary of the Holy Father's words Dear brothers and sisters: In our continuing catechesis on apostolic zeal, we now consider some of the great men and women in the history of the Church whose lives exemplify love for Christ and passion for the spread...
Many have heard about the Jesuit missionaries in China in the 16th-18th centuries. The most famous was Matteo Ricci, who has gone down in history as the initiator of the encounter between Chinese and Western culture and – as far as the Church is concerned – as a model of inculturation, of the proclamation of the Gospel to China and, more generally, to peoples of cultures very different from that of Europe. Ricci was only the first in a long...
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