Dear reader friends, in various circumstances of life we have certainly asked ourselves how to be “strong”, but worried about losing the meekness and “kindness” that we consider to be Christian values. Can strength and meekness be reconciled? You can be strong, without giving up kindness and without becoming
overpowering? These are questions that can be answered in the words of Pope Francis in the audience
on Wednesday 10 April, in which he spoke about the virtue of fortitude, within the series dedicated to the cardinal virtues. Reflecting on the «most “combative” of virtues», he underlined the link between fortitude and the «irascible appetite» (the “instinct” that is at the origin of anger)but he also underlined that «it is not certain that
passions are necessarily the residue of a sin.” How difficult it is to imagine a man
without passions (“it would be a stone”), so too «Jesus has passions». This is an aspect on which we reflect little: we often represent Jesus only as “good” and compassionate, forgetting that he also came to bring fire to the earth and that he used “strong” methods when he drove the merchants out of the temple.
Passions must rightly be “educated, directed”, but above all Francis concluded that “a Christian without courage, who does not bend his strength to good, who does not bother anyone, is a useless Christian”. It is a thought-provoking reflection: we often have a somewhat lymphatic, pale conception of faith, we think of the Christian as a weak, submissive person who accepts everything: also thanks to a distorted interpretation of “turning the other cheek”, often misunderstood as an invitation to passivity, to resignation, to “take” any blow (see column page 52, on the advertising of chips instead of hosts). But if this were true, we wouldn’t have saints, we wouldn’t have prophets, we wouldn’t have Christians who have impacted and continue to impact history, whether large or daily. Thus, for example, Don Giuseppe Dossetti (see Zoom, page 34), by virtue of the convictions matured in his Christian experience, opposed the use of faith in an anti-communist key desired by Pius XII in the elections of 18 April 1948. Certainly a courageous Christian , for those times. Yet, the Holy Father noted in the same audience, “in our comfortable West, which has watered down everything a bit… which has no need for struggles because everything appears the same, we sometimes feel a healthy nostalgia for the prophets”. The fortress,
he said, «it is a fundamental virtue because it takes seriously the challenge of evil in the world» and makes us «react and shout out a “no”, a “no” dry to all this” (wars, violence, slavery, oppression of the poor, never healed wounds that still bleed, ed.). However, there is also the opposite danger: transforming fortitude into “muscular” attitudes, shouted and even offensive tones, into self-absorption or condemnation of others. Unfortunately, we also see it in a certain segment of “Christian” sites and social networks, which however with this style demonstrate not fortitude but simply violence. In short: we need to find a voice again, a passion for things that are worthwhile and for which we can commit ourselves. And also discernment for when the virtue of is needed “fortress”.