Vatican City, 27 January 2015 (VIS) –
A press conference was held in the Holy See Press Office his morning,
during which Msgr. Giampietro Dal Toso, secretary of the Pontifical
Council “Cor Unum”, presented the Pope's Message for Lent 2015,
explaining that its central theme is indifference, an issue that the
Holy Father has touched upon on a number of occasions. In addition,
in his speech to the UN last September Cardinal Secretary of State
Parolin emphasised “widespread indifference”, which he equated
with an “apathy” that is at times even “synonymous with
irresponsibility”.
Indifference is, therefore, “an
important concept to explain the different phenomena of the modern
world. In this way, we can understand this same concept, including it
in what is surely a partial interpretation of a certain culture.
Indifference comes from a lack of difference, from a lack of
attention to the difference. This can be applied at least on three
levels”.
“At the interpersonal level, the play
on words between difference and indifference is perhaps more easily
understood. On the one hand, the difference is stressed in order to
provoke a separation. On the other hand, a lack of attention to the
difference between the other and myself conforms the other to one's
own parameters and thus annihilates him”.
“At the cultural level, that is, in
the everyday environment that helps shape our thoughts and judgement,
I seem to notice an indifference to values. This is not only related
to a lack of awareness of values or an incomplete observance of
values; it is above all a lack of judgement on values. In this way,
every choice becomes interchangeable, every option becomes viable,
any assessment on good and evil, truth and falsity becomes useless.
If there is no difference, everything is the same and is therefore
not permissible for anyone to propose something that is more or less
appropriate to a person’s nature. In my opinion, global uniformity,
the lowering of the standards of values that comes from the lack of
difference is linked to the experience of many of our contemporaries
of a lack of meaning. If everything is the same, if nothing is
different and everything is therefore more or less valid, in what can
one invest one’s life? If everything is the same, it means that
nothing really has value and therefore it means nothing fully
deserves our gift”.
“We then come to a third level, that
more specifically regards metaphysical principles. Here lies the
greatest indifference, the largest and most consequential form of the
lack of attention to difference, that is: indifference towards God
and as a result, a lack of attention to the difference between the
Creator and creature, which causes so much harm to modern man as it
leads him to believe that he is God, while he must continually push
against his own limitations”.
Msgr. Dal Toso went on to consider the
globalisation of indifference not merely as a geographical
phenomenon, but also a cultural one. As it spreads, a Western concept
of the world, or Weltanschauung, prevails, linked not only to
relationships but also as an existential attitude. The Church does
not denounce certain situations simply in order to censure them but
instead to offer paths towards healing. For this reason, the Lenten
season is always a time of conversion, change and renewal. It is a
time for overcoming this globalisation of indifference and entering
into a new phase in which we recognise the difference between the
self and the other, between one lifestyle and another, between
oneself and God. This year’s Lenten Message presents three areas in
which indifference must be overcome: the Church, the community and
the individual”.
He continued, “Pope Francis speaks
about the necessary conversion and the new heart that can beat within
us. The key step in all social reconstruction and cultural renewal is
change in the individual. The Gospel provides the keys for achieving
this change in the person, which then affects the whole social
fabric”. However, he warns, “conversion does not have its purpose
in a better society, but in the knowledge of Christ and in becoming
like Him. Therefore, as we can see in Pope Francis’ Magisterium, he
calls us to go beyond a faith that serves only to care for oneself
and one's own well being. Indifference stems from an attitude to life
in which otherness does not make a difference and so each person
withdraws into himself. Faith also can become instrumental in this
search for self”. Our path, he explained, is must therefore take us
further, “beyond ourselves”, so that we “live our faith by
looking at Christ and in Him we find the Father and brothers and
sisters who await us”.
Indifference must also be overcome in
Christian communities, which are required to be “islands of mercy
in a world dominated by the globalisation of indifference. There is a
distinction between the Church and the world, between the heavenly
city and the earthly city, a distinction which become increasingly
evident. Our Christian places – parishes, communities and groups –
must be transformed into places that manifest God’s mercy. Faced
with this globalisation of indifference, some might be discouraged as
it seems as if nothing can be changed, since we are part of a great
social and economic process that is is beyond us. Instead, this is
not the case. The Christian community can already overcome this
indifference, it can show the world that one can live differently and
that it can become the city on the mount mentioned in the Gospel.
Beginning with this Lent season, Christian community life, where one
lives for the other, can be not merely a chimera but instead a living
reality; rather than a distant dream, a living sign of the presence
of God’s mercy in Christ”.
Finally, the third level is the Church
in her global reality. “Unfortunately”, remarked Msgr. Del Toso,
“we tend to see the Church only as an institution and a structure.
Instead, she is the living body of those who believe in Christ. It is
the Church in her entirety that needs to be renewed. As a body, she
shows that she is really alive because she changes, grows and
develops. In this body, the members take care of each other”.
Finally, the prelate recalled that “Cor
Unum” has always acted as an “instrument of the Pope's proximity
to the least of our brothers and sisters”, offering three examples.
First, he mentioned the recent joint meeting with the Pontifical
Commission for Latin America and the various other entities involved
in the reconstruction of Haiti, during which the balance of the
financial aid raised by the Catholic Church's for the island during
the five years since the earthquake, estimated at 21.5 million
dollars, was presented. He also referred to the humanitarian crisis
in the Middle East, especially in Syria and Iraq, “where the great
victims of these wars are the people, especially the most vulnerable
minorities such as Christians who again have become the 'cards' with
which those in power play”. Finally, he remarked on the Pope's
recent trip to the Philippines, where it could be seen what it means
to “'make hearts firm' where there is nothing left to hope for”.
In Tacloban, the area visited by the Pope, “Cor Unum” has built
large community centre named after Pope Francis, to care for the
young and the elderly. He concluded, “Our Dicastery wishes to be a
great global expression of what it means for the Church to be a body
in which each member can experience the love of the other”.
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