Bergoglio and Giussani

A few weeks ago I read an article on the CL website entitled Bergoglio and Giussani. It was by Massimo Borghesi, and explained not only why Bergoglio like Giussani so much, but also showed some of the influence Giussani has had on  then Cardinal Bergoglio's (and now Pope Francis') thought.

Cardinal Bergoglio's esteem began back in the nineties when he first started reading Giussani's works. In 2001 Bergoglio publicly offered two main reasons:  "The first, more personal, is the good that this man has done for me, for my life as a priest, in the last ten years, through my reading of his books and articles. The second reason is that I am convinced that his thought is profoundly human, and reaches even the most intimate part of human yearning. I would daresay that it is the most profound, and at the same time, most comprehensible phenomenology of nostalgia as a transcendental fact." 

 Bregoglio was explaining and deepening what had said in 1999, when he commented on The Religious Sense "For many years, Monsignor Giussani's writings have inspired my reflection...The Religious Sense is not a book for the exclusive use of those who are part of the movement, nor is it only for Christians or believers. It is a book for all men who take their own humanity seriously. I dare say that today, the question that we must primarily face is not so much the problem of God - the existence of God, the knowledge of God, but the problem of man, the knowledge of man, and finding in man himself the imprint that God left there, in order to meet him...If a man has forgotten or censored his fundamental 'whys' and the longing of his heart, the fact of speaking to him about God proves to be an abstract, esoteric discourse, or a push toward a devotion with no bearing on life. One cannot begin a discourse about God without first blowing away the ashes that suffocate the burning embers of those fundamental 'whys'. The first step is to create the sense of those questions that are hidden, buried, perhaps suffering, but that exist." 

Brogoglio found in Giussani's writings a God whose grace, ( i. e. whose  unpredictable, always new, action in man), comes first. Grace is always the source, as well as the sustenance,  follow-through, and fulfillment of  man's hunger for the Infinite. Man today doesn't see Christ as the satisfaction of his human aspirations because his religious sense has been blunted. 

 

Bregoglio continues his commentary on The Religious Sense: "...in order to interrogate ourselves when faced with signs, a extremely human capacity is necessary, the first one that we have as men and women: wonder, the capacity to be amazed, as Giussani calls it, ultimately , the heart of a child. Only wonder knows. ... The cultural opiate tends to obliterate, weaken, or kill this capacity for wonder. The beginning of any philosophy is wonder. There is a phrase of John Paul II that says that the drama of contemporary Christianity lies in the fact of putting categories and norms in place of wonder. Wonder comes before all categories. It is what brings me to search, to open myself; it is what makes my response possible, and it is neither a verbal nor a conceptual response. Because if wonder opens me as  a question, the only response is the encounter - and only in the encounter is thirst quenched." 

When Bergoglio presented  Giussani's book The Attraction of Jesus, he confirmed: "Everything in our life, today as in the time of Jesus, begins with an encounter, - an encounter with this man, the carpenter from Nazareth, a man like all others, and at the same time different. The first ones, - John, Andrew, Simon, - discovered that they were looked at in their very depths, read deep down, and a surprise was generated in them, a wonder that made them feel tied to Him, a wonder that made them feel different. ... One cannot understand this dynamic of the encounter that arouses wonder and adhesion without the "trigger" of mercy. Only those who have encountered mercy, who have been caressed by the tenderness of mercy, get on well with the Lord. ...The privileged place of he encounter is the caress of the mercy of Jesus Christ toward my sin."

In Borghesi's article, Bregolio  then cites another book by Giussani, Something that Comes Before, to explain what an unmerited gift the encounter with Christ is: "the 'something that comes before' is the encounter with Christ, even if unclear, not truly aware - as for John and Andrew, it was something astonishing, not definable by them. The thing that come first, grace, is the relationship with Christ: Christ is the grace, it is this Presence, and it is your relationship with it, your dialogue with it, your way of looking at it, thinking about it, focusing on it."

This encounter is the essential form in which Christianity has to manifest itself today! The Cardinal's understanding of this profound insight is what  influenced him to say a  some years later as Pope Francis that "The dogmatic and moral teachings of the Church are not all equivalent. The Church's pastoral ministry cannot be obsessed with the transmission of a disjointed multitude of doctrines to be imposed insistently. Proclamation in a missionary style focus in essentials, on the necessary things: this is also what fascinates and attracts us more, what makes the heart burn, as it did for the disciples at Emmaus. We have to find a new balance; otherwise even the moral edifice of the Church is likely to fall as a house of cards, losing the freshness and fragrance of the Gospel. The proposal of the Gospel must be more simple, profound, radiant. It is from this proposition that the moral consequences then flow." Without the encounter, the moral behavior has no foundation.  If it is Christ that attracts us first, and encountering Him comes before all else, there is no danger of falling into moralism, dogmatism, or any form of Christian fundamentalism which reduces Christ to an ideology!

Bregoglio wrote  in 2001 :"This Christianly authentic conception of morality that Giussani presents has nothing to do with the seemingly spiritual quietisms of which the shelves of today's religious markets are full. And neither does it have to do with the Pelagianism that is so popular in its various and sophisticated manifestations. Pelagianism, at bottom, is a new version of the tower of Babel. Seemingly spiritual quietisms are efforts at prayer or immanent spirituality that never go beyond themselves." 

Pelagianism and Quietism are two ways we can reduce Christ and Christianity to a this-worldly equivalent but still deceive ourselves into thinking we are  being religious and spiritual. In Evangelii Gaudium, Pope Francis continues and deepens his explanation of how and (more importantly) why we still  try today to reduce Christ to what our Ego can control and manipulate instead of losing ourselves in the wonder of who He is.  The pope says: "This worldliness can be fueled in two deeply interrelated ways. One is the attraction of Gnosticism, a purely subjective faith whose only interest is a certain experience or set of ideas and bits of information which are meant to console and enlighten, but which ultimately keep one imprisoned in his or her own thoughts and feelings. The other is the self-absorbed promethean neo-Pelagianism of those who ultimately trust in their own powers and feel superior to others because they observe certain rules or remain intransigently faithful to a particular Catholic style from the past. A supposed soundness of doctrine or discipline leads instead to a narcissistic and authoritarian elitism, whereby instead of evangelizing, one analyses and classifies others, and instead of opening the door to grace, one exhausts his or her energies in inspecting and verifying. In neither case is one really concerned about Jesus Christ or others. These are the manifestations of an anthropocentric immanentism. It is impossible to think that a genuinely evangelizing thrust could emerge from these adulterated forms of Christianity," (94)

 Wow! After reading that a few times and chewing on it over again, I have to conclude that Pope Francis is every bit as deep a thinker as Pope  Benedict! Praise God that in his everyday preaching, Francis knows how to say profound things in an evangelical, missionary style! 

 All quotations are from the article Bergoglio and Giussani, by Massimo Borghesi, which can be read in its entirety on the Communion and Liberation website.