Socio-political education

Very interesting chat with Alessandro Fadda, Rector of the Gerini community next to the B. Z. Namuncurá theology community. Alessandro is one of the few salesians who takes an enormous interest in civic and political affairs, and in socio-political education as part of youth ministry. With Renato Cursi, he edited a book along these lines. When asked whether there were other Italian Salesians with the same kind of interest, he named Giovanni D'Andrea and Angelo Santorsola.

It appears that some religious congregations and movements actively discuss local politics, to the extent of encouraging members or associates to take an active part and to even stand for elections - the Oblates of Mary, the Opus Dei, and so on.

The chief political parties in Italy - the PD, Forza Italia and 5 Stelle included – Alessandro said, all used to have a solid core of committed Catholics, but these were gradually eased or edged out. Perhaps they were getting to be too uncomfortable.

There were also other interests running transversally through the parties. That I found extremely intelligent and interesting, if not exactly new. In the old Bangalore of our theology days, the Gowda family had a prominent politician in each of the major political parties, so that whoever won, they had leverage. In the end, the political inclination does not seem to matter. What matters is access to power and to policy.

Lonergan's remark comes to mind: that the budgets of some multinationals are bigger by far than the budgets of several countries. Which means that international finance and industry can create "runs" at will in countries... simply by investing or divesting at will. It appears that there is no, or not sufficient, international law to govern such operations.

The Aspen Institute is present in several countries of the world, including Italy and India. The thinker and journalist Savona - who writes scathingly against the ruling duo in Italy, in La Repubblica - comes up on the web pages, but so does Romano Prodi. The aim is to prepare leadership with an international colouring. There seems to be also an Istituto Prometeo in Italy with somewhat similar aims, and perhaps also an Istituto Gaia.

GC26, in its chapter on poverty, spoke of our duty to educate young people - even if they happen to be middle class and upper middle class - to active citizenship and socio-political responsibility. Fr Pascual Chavez used to mention this often. Pope Benedict XVI spoke of the high vocation to politics as a form of charity. 

Christian Philosophy in India

See K. Saccidananda Murty, 170 MUR.S in Divyadaan library

On Thomas Aquinas

Dear Father Ivo Coelho,

I want to ‘read-up’ on St. Thomas Aquinas.

Can  suggest some websites or links to articles on his life and work.

It just occurred to me today that I must read his life and works.

Warm regards

Mark

08.07.2018:
that's a difficult request!

because I am not an expert on Thomas, though I love him.

I began with a distaste for him, communicated to us by our first history of philosophy teacher. 

I thought Lonergan was throwing out Thomas, with his freshness.

while doing the doctorate on Lonergan, I discovered just how much he had taken from Thomas: he spent 11 years of his life studying Thomas, first for his own doctoral dissertation on the most interesting topic of "grace and freedom", or the interaction between God's freedom and our own... and then - because he had to teach Christology, the theology of Christ - he studied one point in the classical Thomist Christology, which is obviously linked also to Trinitarian theology: how the Son can be completely equal to the Father, and yet "come from" the Father. Thomas studied a suggestion made first by Augustine, I think, and proposed an understanding of it. In brief: when we understand something perfectly, we are also able to express ourselves perfectly. From perfect understanding emerges the expression of that understanding (Thomas called it the VERBUM, the Word - not to be identified simply with the spoken word which is the sign, either a sound or a written sign) - and that expression is completely equal to the understanding from which it emerges. You can see how this could be taken as somehow shedding light on the relationship between Father and Son...

What was Thomas "doing" in his brief life - 49 years?

Again, this is what I learnt from Lonergan.

Thomas is one of the great theologians of the church. before him was the period of the "Fathers" of the Church - the "patristic" period. 

Peter Lombard had begun collecting books called SENTENCES - which means, in our language "opinions" - on different theological topics.

Abelard organized them into "Sic et Non" - on the same topic, he found some saying one thing, and others something else. 

The medievals had invented a "method" called the QUAESTIO. A quaestio existed if on any topic there was a difference of opinion. 

The method was: to state the Quaestio or else the THESIS; 

then the pros and cons: Videtur ... it seems that; Sed contra... on the contrary... 

then to find some principle or principles of a solution, 

and then to state the solution. 

and then to answer one by one the objections.

this is more or less the structure you will find in any Question of the Summa Theologiae.

People were already doing this in Thomas' time.

what was Thomas' genius?

he realized that solutions to individual questions were fine, but what if the principles of the solutions were themselves in conflict?

he realized that he had to bring unity into the solutions themselves.

how did he do that? how does one do that? either by creating a systematic thought (philosophy) oneself, or else by adopting a good system from someone else and adapt it.

And here again Thomas' boldness: he decided to adopt and adapt ARISTOTLE, where by and large the theologians of his time were Platonic - Augustinian. 

Thomas was utterly brilliant in his adaptation of Aristotle. How did he adapt Aristotle? obviously he was guided in this by his faith and his knowledge of the Christian tradition. (he was actually condemned a few years after his death for adopting Aristotle). 

this work of adaptation was carried out in his COMMENTARIES on books of Aristotle. So it involved assiduous study and writing. (He did not know Greek; so he asked friends to translate Aristotle into Latin.) (PS: the texts of Aristotle had been preserved thanks also to the Muslims - especially in Spain, I guess. These cultured Muslims were at the time the teachers of Europe.) 

There were other theologians who were also turning to Aristotle, but with different results. Thomas was different, I guess, because he also simultaneously studied the bible and wrote commentaries on the books of the Bible. 

So this double study was the source of his modified Aristotelian system. Adn this system becomes the unifying factor in his work of unifying theology. the greatest result of this is the Summa Theologiae. 

NB: Thomas was not content in quoting scripture, or stating Christian beliefs. He was trying to do theology, which means that he was trying to provide some understanding of Christian beliefs, of the Christian faith. E.g. He with all the others, since the great councils (Nicea, etc.) believed that God is three and yet one. He as a theologian tried to make sense of that: how is that possible? Again, he with all the others believed that Jesus is true God and true man, as the Council of Chalcedon had said. He as theologian tried to make sense of that. and so on. theology for him was FIDES QUAERENS INTELLECTUM - faith seeking understanding. 

what could I suggest you read?

the classic way is to first read a general article - something from the Encylopedia (perhaps even the Wiki).

then read a simple life - perhaps the one by G.K. Chesterton.

then a more substantial life which will be "life and thought" - will try to find out some from a friend.

happy study! 

Ivo

From Eugenio Riva, 08.07.2018:

Carissimo don Ivo,

sono stato contento della giornata vissuta insieme a Fossanova e Amaseno.

Il libro con la biografia di San Tommaso è il seguente:

GUGLIELMO DA TOCCO, Storia di San Tommaso d'Aquino, a cura di Davide Riserbato, Jaka Book, Milano 2015

La pubblicazione è della Collana di cultura medioevale ed è disponibile sul mercato.

Guglielmo da Tocco è il promotore della causa di canonizzazione di San Tommaso e ha vissuto con lui dal 1272-1274.

Ho avuto l’occasione di leggerlo quando è uscito a settembre 2015 e mi è piaciuto molto...

Tanti saluti.

JAMES A. WEISHEIPL, Friar Thomas d'Aquino: his life thought and works, 1974

 

Altri due libri di un altro domenicano (tradotti anche in italiano in volume unico) potrebbero essere:

 

JEAN PIERRE TORRELL, Saint Thomas Aquinas, vol 1. The person and his work, 2005 (32,65 dollari)

JEAN PIERRE TORRELL, Sain Thomas Aquinas, vol 2. Spiritual master, 2003 (28,83 dollari)

On Shenoi Goembab: a critical analysis

Jason Keith Fernandes, "Bridging the Centuries: A brief biography of Wamanrao Varde Valaulikar."

https://www.academia.edu/36641286/Bridging_the_Centuries_A_Brief_Biography_of_Wamanrao_Varde_Valaulikar

Salesiani nella chiesa

condivisione:

La Chiesa chiede e ha bisogno di noi come SALESIANI. Il carisma non ci appartiene; è un dono dello Spirito per la Chiesa ed è lei che ci chiede di praticarlo. Art 1§4: “La Chiesa ha riconosciuto in questo l’azione di Dio, soprattutto approvando le Costituzioni e proclamando santo il fondatore’.

Bozzolo direbbe: “.   … Gli elementi della consacrazione, infatti, non riguardano puramente la forma esteriore di un’organizzazione operativa o la fisionomia interiore di un cammino spirituale, ma definiscono un’originale figura simbolica di discepolato del Signore e di apostolato ecclesiale, che può essere assunta e attuata solo mantenendone l’integrità. Si tratta ovviamente di un’integrità dinamica, che dà spazio a originali sintesi personali, a seconda dei tempi, dei luoghi e delle attitudini dei soggetti, ma che mantiene il  timbro inconfondibile che deriva da quella sorta di a priori nell’ordine della grazia che è il carisma..”

Nella concretezza dell’UPS: il contributo che possiamo offrire alla Chiesa ha tanto più valore quanto più è espressione del carisma salesiano: iniziazione cristiana, vicinanza del Vangelo alle fasce giovanili più escluse, sistema preventivo come vai di formazione…

Diventare specialisti di qualcos’altro e dedicarsi ad altre ‘parti della vigna del Signore’ è un po’ come quegli sposati che per evitare i problemi che hanno in casa si buttano corpo  e anima nel volontariato, trascurando moglie/marito, figli… si diventa ibridi che non fan frutti buoni né da una parte né dall’altra.

The human as lived

The other day Carlo Nanni of the UPS said that the problem with formation was that it concentrated too much on the spiritual to the neglect of the human.

I replied saying that, according to us in the Dicastero, the two absolutely important aspects to be emphasized were precisely the spiritual and the human. (I could have added that the intellectual is important, but that by and large we are giving sufficient attention to it, though we could question the methods, the effects, and so on. Then there is also the pastoral, which needs serious attention: not simply engaging in various apostolates, but processing and learning from them.)

Yesterday Nanni went a step further: he said it was not enough to "talk" about the importance of the human, as one more category "up there" among others. We need to pay attention to the "vissuto," which is messy, confused, which includes light and darkness (my words), the affective, the bodily, the sexual.

And here also we are fundamentally in agreement. Not enough to talk about the human as an anthropological category. "Learning by experience the meaning of the Salesian vocation" involves precisely this kind of sustained attention to the "vissuto," to Erlebnis; to dwell before it and to own it; to find there the voice of the Lord. There in our concrete, messed up, fucked up humanity. "In the belly of the whale, Jonah learned to pray." 

Balthasar, Katholisch

 65
Katholisch. Aspekte des Mysteriums. Johannes Verlag, Einsiedeln (Kriterien 36) 93 S. – 21975. – 31993 Johannes Verlag Einsiedeln, Freiburg. Französisch: Catholique. Fayard, Paris 1976 (Coll. Communio). Mit Nachträgen zu Krise der Mission, Weltanschauungen, Zölibat [nur in der franz. Ausgabe]. Italienisch: Cattolico. Jaca Book, Milano 1977. – 21978. Amerikanisch: In the Fullness of Faith. On the Centrality of the Distinctively Catholic. Ignatius Press, San Francisco 1988. Spanisch: Católico. Aspectos del Misterio. Ediciones Encuentro, Madrid 1988 (Libros de bolsillo 42). Slowenisch: Katoliški, vidiki skrivnosti. Družina, Ljubljana 1995. Polnisch: Catholica. Wierzę w kościół powszechny. Wydawnictwo W drodze, Poznań 1998.


http://www.johannes-verlag.de/jh_huvb_bibliographie.pdf