Erik Varden: “Loving those who make mistakes does not mean pretending that those mistakes do not exist, but addressing them in a constructive way”.”

-OSV News / Gina Christian

During his May 7 visit to St. Mary's Seminary in Baltimore, Bishop Erik Varden of Trondheim, Norway, a member of the Trappist monastic order, gave an interview to OSV News to share his reflections on Christian hope, the dangers of artificial intelligence and the instrumentalization of the Christian faith, as well as the need for patience in the spiritual life.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

You gave reflections for the Lenten Spiritual Exercises at the Vatican to Pope Leo XIV and others, and in your final reflection you focused on the theme of communicating hope. In the United States there has been a great deal of interest in films and books of the “Nordic noir” genre-often bleak and morally ambiguous-and there is a perception that Nordic culture is, in general, similar. Do you find it ironic that a Nordic bishop would focus on hope?

- Well, your question makes me smile, because I've lived in several countries, mostly in Europe, and it seems to me that the further south you move in Europe, the more outlandish people's ideas of the north are, and the more they take for granted that it's an area of the world mired in perpetual darkness, where everyone is into drinking and excess, where everyone is on antidepressants, and where people keep committing suicide with axes.

And actually it's not exactly like that. I think this idea of the long Norwegian winter has a big impact on the imagination. But what most people don't realize is the extreme brightness of the Norwegian summer, and that exposure to light without any hint of darkness. That is intrinsic to our way of living the cycles of the year.

The “Nordic noir” phenomenon is interesting. But I suspect it is a genre that has arisen precisely because a few astute authors have realized that it responds to what the public expects. And so they feed the stereotype because it sells, and because people find it entertaining, in a somewhat perverse way.

But when we look at our own literature, poetry and music, we see that, for the most part, they are a celebration of light and spring. It is fascinating how much Norwegian poetry and music is dedicated to spring, to the thaw and the appearance of the first flowers.

Of course, I don't mean at all to deny that the Vikings were brutal, but that wasn't everything about them. I think there is a constructed Norse identity that goes back centuries.

In his Lenten reflection on hope, he pointed out the current tendency to cling to our wounds or to ignore them altogether. How can we avoid both extremes?

- I think our wounds are so problematic, in large part, because we absolutize our own experience. We are inclined to think, “I carry this burden, and this is my great tragedy, and this is the drama of my existence.” Or else I think, “Let's make sure that no one suspects this wound that I carry.”.

We do that instead of looking around and saying, “Actually, being wounded is the normal human thing. And maybe my wound is not so different from my neighbor's.”.

If I learn to live with my wound, and if I learn to believe and hope that it may be curable, and if I seek the right remedies, I may even be able to overcome it.

And what will remain will be the memory of healing.

There are so many things around us that encourage us to live closed in on ourselves, as if each of us were the only important subject on planet Earth. Immersed in my own experience and its pathos, I forget to look around me and to take into account the experience of others, their joy and their suffering. And I isolate myself from the engine of compassion that makes community and even communion possible.

As a pastor, how would you like to see community built in your parishes?

- Well, I'm a bit skeptical about master plans; I don't have enough entrepreneurial spirit. But I was very happy about the study day we had at the cathedral parish in Trondheim. There was a very, very mixed audience, and a lot of people came who didn't know each other.

In the evening, we all had dinner together and the room was full of people chatting animatedly. I stood in a corner and could see all those little groups of people who had met that same day, enjoying each other's company, eating and drinking together, listening to each other, learning from each other... and not thinking for a moment about looking at their cell phones.

I believe that the more our parishes and communities succeed in fostering this kind of union, the greater their impact will be beyond their own borders, because that is precisely what attracts other people.

It must be said that (the event at the Trondheim Cathedral parish) had been a day made up of some conferences, but also moments of prayer. We had attended Mass, celebrated the Divine Office together and spent some time in silent prayer.

And I think it was precisely because our community that day was based on both intellectual and spiritual nourishment, on shared silence and shared conversation, that it was able to be so effective in such a short time. All these elements must be present: the spiritual, the intellectual, the social and the convivial.

What are your hopes and fears regarding artificial intelligence and its use to promote spirituality?

- I am afraid that, if I may now express my own nihilism, as far as spirituality is concerned I have absolutely no hope in AI.

Anything can serve as a tool, but I do not believe that AI will generate any spiritual renewal, because any spiritual renewal worthy of the name is one that reaches the human heart, and that is something that an algorithm cannot do.

Obviously, I mean there are things I can use in digital media and artificial intelligence that can save me time and even make me discover useful things, but I don't rely on them much as conversion agents.

You have spoken before about the dangers of using Christianity as a weapon for political purposes. How can we stop that process, instead of continuing to fuel the problem?

- Good question. And you see it everywhere; I see it in my own country too.

First of all, I would like to stress that the Gospel of Jesus Christ is an end in itself, an end that represents a goal. Any attempt to instrumentalize the Gospel for a secondary purpose, whether cultural, ideological or political, is suspect.

And we must guard against any attempt to wield Christianity devoid of the message and presence of the Wounded and Risen One. Any presentation of Christianity that removes the scandal of the Cross or perversely uses the Cross as a weapon to beat others is straying into heresy or even blasphemy.

That is why we must remain resolutely Christocentric and firmly committed to following Christ and applying his commandments, as well as his promises - first and foremost to ourselves. And we must beware of too much rhetoric, beware of too many words and look at how people live.

In short, this is how Christianity spread and how it renewed a world exhausted in Late Antiquity. Of course, there was a component of preaching, teaching and catechesis. But what captivated people and transformed societies was the discovery of a new way of being human and of creating and fostering community, as well as seeing and recognizing the possibility of reconciliation, forgiveness and building a society, a new city, on the basis of reconciliation and forgiveness.

And so, when Christianity is invoked as part of what is ultimately hate speech, we must not go with the flow.

How do we make sure we don't fall into the danger of getting on that train and how do we help others get off it?

- The fundamental principle-which is very ancient, you know, we find it in St. Paul-is to train ourselves to speak the truth in love.

Loving those who make mistakes does not mean pretending that those mistakes do not exist, but rather addressing them constructively, rather than giving in to an escalation of conflicts.

That is, to speak the truth with love, to make sure that I have really studied the truth, that I understand it, that I am prepared to give an answer, that I am prepared to give an account of the hope that is in me, and that I am not just clinging to some tribal instinct. It's really important.

The best thing we can all do is to deepen our faith, read the Scriptures, be formed in them, understand and live deeply the sacramental grace of the Church, in order to be able to speak from that experience.

And I would say that that represents the ultimate curative remedy to which you referred in your question, because when one contemplates the splendor of the Church as a community of the redeemed, living by grace and enlightened by the love of Christ, incarnated in a concrete community, that has an attractiveness and a beauty that makes any other attractiveness that invites loyalty pale into insignificance.

Part of this instrumentalization of Christianity is an attempt to “hasten the coming of God's kingdom on earth” by human means. As Christians, how do we balance this tension between the present life and our hope for a future in heaven?

- Above all, practicing patience, which is not a very fashionable virtue and against which everything seems to conspire, since today we live under the illusion that if I have a need or a desire, it must be satisfied immediately. There must be something I can download, or a number I can call, or some delivery man who can come to the door with things in his backpack that will give me what I crave, or what I long for, or what I feel I cannot live without.

But that belief is an illusion. It works to some extent, if we have money on our credit card; it can keep us fed and clothed, and to some extent entertained.

But human life is a protracted affair. And things take time.

Great things take time. That is a principle that (St. John Henry) Newman liked to emphasize.

And being human is a great thing.

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This article was originally published by OSV News and is reprinted here with permission. You can read the original text HERE.