Dear readers, after the start of the Israeli military operation “Gedeone floats” To enter the heart of Gaza City and randy everything to “stop” Hamas, the indignation and the desire to rebel (in a civil way) to something unacceptable torment many and light the public debate.
On the one hand, at the end of August, the director Pupi Avati He had declared, referring to the protest of actors and directors against the massacre in Gaza: “But do we really think that a march in Venice during the cinema exhibition can change things?”. It is what perhaps, in essence, many think. But, since it is very frustrating and in the long run unbearable to accept that in the face of this tragic “final solution” we ordinary people are almost impotent, we end up removing even just thought.
On the other hand, there are initiatives that aim to take action for that “little” (or a lot?) That it is possible to press governs on governments as well as on public opinion: we have the initiative of the international network of “Priests against genocide” in Gaza and in the occupied territories. 550 Catholic priestsfrom 21 countries, “to affirm our response from priests to war” and condemn “the disproportionate response against the Palestinian people”.
Or like the touching appeal that is turning, launched by Sister Giovannaof the community of the small family of the Annunziata, who is in Ma’in, near the border with the West Bank and denounces the inertia of the world of religious. “My conscience torments me, because this remaining inert makes us accomplices», He writes. But, he continues, «We cannot give in to the logic of impotence … it deeply grieves me to see an almost silent church». And he concludes: “There can be no neutrality in the face of a genocide. Or you are accomplices, or you choose the truth. And today, the truth screams from the rubble of Gaza».
His proposal to religious and religious: gather in front of the Quirinalereading the psalms and the Gospel, to ask that the sale of weapons to Israel will end and the economic ties with the Jewish state are stopped, in order not to finance the war.
There is even the appeal (last August 12) of a pop star like Madonna who asks the Pope to go to Gaza in person, imagining that this can solve things.
These are positions that question us on an aspect of our faith: does only the pragmatic plan, the result? Do you need to do something with uncertain or even null results? Do you also need to pray?
I was struck in this regard, in the first interview with Pope Leo to Cruxthe distinction between The realistic plan of things (referred to the question about the possible mediation of the Vatican in the Russian-Ukrainian conflict) and “the voice of the Holy See that supports peace”. As if to say that there is a further plan, beyond the results, so we speak “against all hope”, because there are values like justice, peace, the common good to keep high and that can breach the consciences.
There Christian hopeafter all, to which the Pope referred, does not start from what exists, but hopes for what is not yet (and is possible) (cf. Romans 8,24-25). A faint hope that also supports those who – in the face of a destruction that seems unstoppable – pray and those who feel, in the name of faith (or other beliefs) and for the “Crucified body of humanity»(Words of Sister Giovanna), to do something. It was also a drop in the sea.
(Photo above: reuters)
