Opinions #52/24

Rome is returning to its status as the capital of the world. With the opening of the Holy Door, the beginning of the Jubilee, some thirty million tourists are expected to arrive. These days, everything favors making the altar of Peter the perfect pulpit for Pope Francis’s ecumenical message of hope for a better present. However, this Pontiff did not wait until this exceptional moment to address the faithful and the powers that be. His heartfelt, agonizing, angry address he delivered dozens of times. With increasing force that in itself tells us what forces in the West the spiritual leader of the West must face. Pope Bergoglio was the first, ten years ago, to recognize and denounce the risks of a “phased Third World War.” The words were praised for their forward-thinking boldness and then archived. Bergoglio was also the first and most credible to call for negotiations that would nip in the bud a potentially devastating conflict like the one that has begun between Russia and Ukraine. Receiving a thank you and very little follow-up. Thus, his reflections on the reasons that led to the outbreak of this war (“NATO is barking at Russia’s door”) were not even evaluated. Saved as a miss. Repeated requests to halt arms shipments and redirected multiple energies and resources in favor of a ceasefire have met the same fate. Ukraine is like Palestine. Appeals are completely ignored. So much so that only the sensational condemnation in recent days of the Israeli government’s hostility to the entry into Gaza of the Catholic Patriarch of Jerusalem finally allowed Archbishop Pizzaballa to serve Mass amidst the ruins of a world whose suffering Bergoglio continues to express, in the face of “such brutality, the shooting of children, the bombing of schools and hospitals.” For this reason, we are challenging yet another piecemeal response from a government that is now in full nationalist/fundamentalist drift, like the one led by Netanyahu. So, in these days that the Christian and Western tradition wants to devote not only to the performance of religious rituals, but also to the exploration of individual consciousness, it is necessary to pause to think. The brilliance of St. Peter’s Square, again this year with an increasingly illuminated Christmas tree, the activity of tourist operators, the maximum anti-terrorist preparedness, the business activity that in the tradition of this unique city quickly digests the manipulation on the part of the sacred and the secular, are they the contour or essence of the modern Christmas and the anniversary of 2025 AD? What is the connection between the stated loyalty of many political leaders to the pontiff and their practices? Is their connection to Peter’s successor or to the national and multinational deep state deeper? As we await the arrival of the Jubilee Year, the world’s attention is on the changing of the guard at the pinnacle of American power. The power transition between Biden and Trump on January 20 is seen as a turning point. What this will actually entail is still hard to understand. Of course, Trump and Putin’s stated intention to meet “as soon as possible” is a new element after the stated personal animosity, peppered with insults, which Biden has flaunted toward the Russian president. But it’s not just the Ukrainian issue. Another part of the world, as we saw last week with the Latin American example described by Francisco Borba Ribeiro Neto, awaits the actions of re-elected Trump. This is Africa: concerns in Tim Murithi’s analysis of Trump’s approach to the continent. And Anton Giulio De Robertis’s analysis brings us back to the misunderstandings and mistakes that led to the current international situation. Focuses on the good intentions and bad results of relations between the United States and the Soviet Union under Bush and Gorbachev. The sad memoir, drenched in anxiety, draws a parallel between the 1919 Germany and the 1991 USSR.