is simply teaching
us how to live
With his feeble voice, but more powerful than the others,
Francesco is the only one who "sings another song". Who opens a
passage in a contemporaneity made of hypocrisy and inability to meet the
suffering of others. The tiny beauty of a bunch of yellow flowers is opening a
passage in the world
We live in a world of monsters. There is one who wants
Greenland, another who wants Ukraine, another who wants Taiwan, yet another
who, if two hundred more or less children die in Gaza, but who cares, when they
grow up they would all become terrorists, right?
Then there's the one who shot the dog , a real tough
girl, silicone lips, gold Rolex and no shame; she poses in front of deported,
imprisoned, humiliated humanity, a warning to all the desperate people of the
world: take your desperation elsewhere, suffer, die, we don't care. And
what about the guy who has been killing Kurds for years and now had the bright
idea of putting his political opponent in prison?
Then there are nations where we can happily go and play the
World Cup even though they support terrorists and enslave workers. And there
are monsters who claim the right to say “retarded,” “idiot,” “mongoloid,”
perhaps because they recognize themselves in these words.
On social media we talk without listening to each other
And we are monsters too, including me who writes, monsters
who live glued to their little worlds enclosed in electronic devices, zombies
incapable of understanding and wanting, above all incapable of meeting the
face of the other, that face which, to quote Levinas, is the place where
totality, the root of all totalitarianism, disappears to make way for the
infinite, the root of all grace. But we no longer meet the face of the
other, we meet our own face, we take selfies.
We know: we are monstrous even in the way we communicate
on social media, without listening to each other , without seeking the
truth, only seeking victory. We do it, those we elected do it, who are still an
expression of us.
The Hypocrisy of Europe
Europe is monstrous too. Yes, it leaves me the freedom to
write it without fear of retaliation of any kind. This is no small thing and
must always, always be acknowledged. Those who hate Europe should really move
to live under Putin, or Erdoğan, or Trump. But there is no doubt that Europe
can also be monstrous, even if in a less direct way.
It drowns in hypocrisy. It defends the attacked when it comes to Ukraine –
and that is sacrosanct – but in Gaza it looks the other way , and let's
not even talk about migrants. Von Der Leyen and Meloni have a great
understanding on this front. Externalize the problem. They are not human beings
anyway, they are a residual load, as that other monster Piantedosi says. Let's
give money, lots of money. You keep those tramps, we don't want them.
The faintest but most powerful voice
Now, in all this, in the midst of all this chaos, in this
sort of daily hell that our contemporary world has become – perhaps it has
always been like this, for goodness sake, but that doesn't change things –
there is a particularly faint voice, almost silent by now, just a thread of
a voice that is barely audible, but which to me seems like the most powerful
voice, because it is the only one that has a different timbre, the only one
that sings another song , a song that perhaps requires fine ears, otherwise
we risk not paying attention to it, underestimating it, drowning it in the
general din, or, with the cynicism acquired over years of "now let's get
out of the world of dreams and try to be concrete", we could downgrade it,
empty it, consider it indeed graceful and precious for an ideal world, but
completely irrelevant for the real world.
It is the voice of Pope Francis . I say this, en passant , to his detractors within
the Catholic world, to those who consider him too modernist: guys, you have not
understood anything. This Pope will be talked about for a long time.
The yellow flowers
"I see this lady with the yellow flowers, how good she
is." I can't tell you how much this sentence struck me, and how much it
moved me, too. The first sentence uttered in public after a month and more of
almost total silence at the Policlinico Gemelli. It seems like nothing. It
doesn't talk about God, it doesn't talk about Jesus. It only talks about yellow
flowers and a lady. It seems like nothing. And yet. I believe that this
sentence is working in the hearts of millions of people, in a subdued way, like
a melody, precisely, like another song, like the "possibility" of
another song. It doesn't impart a moral lesson, it doesn't prescribe duties, it
doesn't establish prohibitions, it doesn't affirm a doctrine, it doesn't pamper
a political party, it doesn't do anything, it seems like nothing, and yet it is
profoundly moral. Who is there, today, among the powerful in the world, who
speaks like this? I want Greenland! We will annihilate Ukraine! Let's deport
the Palestinians!
The yellow flowers. A tiny beauty that opens a path in the
world. And it is the first thing the Pontiff notices, looking out onto the
balcony. And then there is a good lady, who with those yellow flowers changes
the world.
The Pope teaches us a look. In this cordiality, in this face
to face – which is not for the powerful, but for the powerful it is the face to
face with you – I believe there is a lesson that it would be obtuse to
underestimate.
But there are other things. At the worst moment, when his
breath is at a minimum and the risk of dying is very high, he says to the
doctor who is treating him: "It's bad." Yes, because dying is bad,
even for those who have faith. And I understand that even Jesus was not so
enthusiastic about going to the cross.
Then the almost daily phone calls to the parish in Gaza. And
the constant reference to the “tormented” Ukraine. Always the same adjective:
tormented. Words are important . This is why the Pope does not change
them. What might seem formal to some, actually has the form of a judgment that
does not waver, that does not move. The tormented Ukraine. He who has ears to
hear, let him hear.
The value of words
There are also the powerful words of the letter: "Disarm
words, to disarm minds and disarm the Earth." Here we grasp the deepest
point of the world of monsters we have created: words. Used as a club, as
garbage, as a blunt object.
And then there is the visit to the Sanctuary, before
returning to Santa Marta. The Pope brings flowers to the Madonna. An act of
devotion that is profoundly religious, but also profoundly human; a gesture
addressed to the female gender, to women and to all mothers.
I believe that the Pope, today, is the voice of the
invisible, of the silent, of those who take to the streets in Palestine against
Hamas, or in Turkey against Erdoğan, and of those who go to sea to save lives and meanwhile their phone is spied on, and of all the ladies
with yellow flowers. With his very faint voice, with his simple words and with
measured, delicate, collected gestures, I believe that the Pope is simply
teaching us how to live.
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