In his new bookfreshly published, the bishop of the diocese of Ugento-Santa Maria di Leucamonsignor Vito Angiuli, addresses highly topical issues. The volume, entitled “Are we out of the tunnel?” (Viverein editions), collects a series of writings and will be presented tomorrow at 7.30 pm at the municipal theater of Morning.
Monsignor Angiuli, your new book addresses numerous themes. The narrative opens with a reference to the pandemic. In your opinion, did this sad and common experience end in the course of two years or did it leave consequences on the new generations and on the current world?
«The book collects some of my writings from the years 2020-2023, a rather problematic period due to the succession of a series of events that affected all of humanity: the rapid spread of the Covid-19 pandemic, the outbreak of war in Europe between and Ukraine and, subsequently, the new conflict in Palestine between Hamas and Israel. These are three events that have shaken the whole of humanity, the effects of which have had and continue to have negative consequences at an international level in many sectors of economic, social and political life. On May 5, 2023, the WHO declared the end of the international health emergency. The closure of schools, the lack of relationships with friends and the lockdown have produced psychological consequences especially in the younger generations.
The number of boys and girls in need of urgent care, with serious medical conditions, has increased significantly during the pandemic. The consequences have been serious among young people: a general state of anxiety, depression, episodes of self-harm and suicide attempts. These outcomes are attested by national and international investigations and are confirmed by the testimonies of psychiatrists, psychologists, doctors and social workers. It is necessary for adults to be ready to welcome their difficulties, listen to them and help them find a way to understand their anxieties.”
Don Tonino Bello spoke of conviviality of experiences and peace. But how is peace “built”?
«The path to peace requires observance of international law together with the exercise of legitimate defense, while adhering to a proportionate use of force. It’s strange that when you can’t change the world you change the words. Russia calls the war a special operation. In the past, the West waged war to export democracy, as if it were a commercial product. We must put aside the idea of the superiority of one culture over another and abandon the rhetoric of waging war to export democratic values. Either values are affirmed by their intrinsic strength or we fall into contradiction by imposing them with weapons. Only dialogue between cultures can allow peoples to meet and avoid the clash of civilisations. Above all, it is necessary to limit the enormous availability of weapons and pursue a disarmament policy, particularly when it comes to nuclear arsenals. It is illusory to think that armaments have a deterrent value. In reality, their production encourages their use. For the Christian, peace is always possible, despite all the historical contradictions. Not without reason, Paul VI in his message for the Day of Peace on 1 January 1973 stated: «We admit that a perfect and stable tranquilitas ordinis, that is, an absolute and definitive among men, even if they have progressed to a high and universal level of civilization, it can only be a dream, not false, but unfinished; an ideal that is not unreal, but must be realized; because everything is mobile throughout history; and because man’s perfection is neither univocal nor fixed. Human passions are not extinguished. Selfishness is an evil root, which can never be completely eradicated from man’s psychology.” Therefore, the pontiff continues, “peace is possible, if truly desired; and if peace is possible, it is a must.”
You talk about religious freedom, about the meeting and progress of peoples but also about very current social issues. In this it manifests a Church attentive to society and the life of the man of our time. What could be the common denominator of these issues and why is it important for the Church to be interested in them?
«The Church lives in time and walks together with men, sharing their joys and hopes. The Gospel is her compass and the point of reference for her journey. It proposes it to the world as a treasure chest of spiritual and ideal, religious and social values that every man of good will can welcome as a guide for his life. Above all, we need to promote a gift economy. The current civil economy, in fact, proposes a way of thinking about the economic system based on some principles – such as reciprocity, gratuitousness and fraternity – which overcome the supremacy of profit or mere instrumental exchange in economic and financial activity. It is therefore proposed as a possible alternative to the capitalist conception of the market. It is then necessary to combine the right relationship between identity and otherness. Identity is never acquired once and for all, but is placed in a historical process and is subject to interaction with diversity and difference, closely linked to being other than, until the latter is identified as its co- principle, recognizing the primacy of the other, his autonomy and also his primacy. In this perspective, we must consider that the other is constitutive for me because, with his otherness from me, he helps me to define myself, to become aware of my identity, of my personal contours, of my profile which is different and distinct from his.”
The Romans defined the Mediterranean as “Mare nostrum”. Does the Mediterranean basin currently have strategic importance for Europe and the world?
«The Mediterranean increasingly qualifies itself as an enlarged sea and a contested sea due to the consolidation of a complex geopolitical, geoeconomic and geohistorical interweaving. Italy’s location at the center of the Mediterranean gives our country a strategic role of fundamental importance in view of the transformation of this sea into a laboratory of peace. Illuminating is Giorgio La Pira’s image according to which the Mediterranean is the mysterious enlarged Lake Tiberias which gave rise to a culture based on three essential elements: monotheistic religions, the metaphysical dimension elaborated by the Greeks and Arabs, the juridical dimension and politics developed by the Romans. Three components that have merged into a single Western culture, with the historical task of integrating and ordering economic, social, religious, cultural and political elements. The identity of the Mediterranean is not only about its past, but remains specific in the present and future. «We think – he writes – that the Mediterranean remains what it was: an inextinguishable source of creativity, a living and universal hearth where men can receive the lights of knowledge, the grace of beauty and the warmth of brotherhood».
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