More than 30 years ago, when I was just a student, a professor told me something that I never forgot: «I've never forgotten.«I know a bishop who looks like a super agent.«. When I met him personally shortly after graduating, I understood that this was not an exaggeration. Don Antonio Arregui possessed that rare and admirable blend of mystical depth and astonishing practical efficiency. I always thought of him as Agent 007.

His commitment was not improvised; it had deep roots. He asked for admission to the Opus Dei in 1957 and, after his ordination to the priesthood in 1964, he arrived in Ecuador in 1965, never to leave again. It was here that his vocation of service was forged in moments of surprising spiritual density. He spent 62 years serving the country.

In 1974, he experienced the paradox of faith when he received St. Josemaría in Ecuador: the immense joy of the encounter in the face of the weight of the pain caused by the Founder's health. Those were days in which the joy of having our Father was mixed with constant vigil, because the altitude sickness struck hard on his already tired body. It was a great teaching of how to serve in fragility.

We saw that same fidelity when he succeeded Bishop Juan Larrea as Vicar of Opus Dei in Ecuador, and later following in his footsteps as Bishop of Ibarra and Archbishop of Guayaquil. In spite of the difficulties -which were never lacking- he never lost his smile nor did he stop extending his hand to offer a detail, a word or a consolation to whoever needed it.

He followed in the footsteps of Bishop Juan Larrea Holguín.

Don Antonio was a builder in the broadest sense of the word. Thanks to his vision and his close relationship with the German Church and several international foundations, he managed the necessary resources to build numerous churches and finance emblematic projects such as the improvement of the Guayaquil Cathedral. But his legacy went far beyond stone: he gave a strong impetus to the management of the Diakonia Food Bank, the network of Redima health clinics and strengthened the educational network of Catholic schools, convinced that charity, health and education are the pillars on which human dignity is based.

He was, without a doubt, the great champion of the pro-life cause in our country. With a subtle intelligence and tireless perseverance, he dedicated himself to form leaders and defend the truth about marriage and the family. To his prudence and good arts we owe, to a great extent, that our Constitution maintains a pro-life essence. I remember how he insisted that I dedicate my time to get something done in this area, which, thank God, was achieved. consolidated some projects.

In the face of difficulties, he never gave in to discouragement; he continued to work in silence, with the peace of one who knows that he is doing God's will, to reverse the throwaway culture.

An impeccable man who cannot be implicated in any scandal.

Beyond his great management achievements, I prefer to remember him as the gentleman he was. I have witnessed his pastoral dedication in recent years. He attended to the scheduled activities with great care, and we rarely had to replace him.

I cherish with special affection the memory of his sharpness and his fine sense of humor, reflected in those witty and affectionate letters that he personally wrote to celebrate the birthday celebrations. In those small details we could see the man who knew how to love concretely.

I thank God for his life and because Bishop Antonio Arregui was a living reflection of the promise of the prophet Jeremiah in Jer 3:15: “Then I will give them shepherds after my own heart, who will guide them with knowledge and understanding”.

Thank you for so much, Don Antonio! Rest in the peace of the Lord and intercede for us, Agent 007.

La entrada Arregui, un pastor con visión de eternidad y pies en la tierra se publicó primero en Omnes.

Reading the Bible can be an awe-inspiring, enlightening... or downright intimidating experience. María Vallejo-Nágera does not intend to solve this dilemma with an academic treatise or a pious manual. Her proposal is something else: to provoke curiosity, to unsettle the reader and, if all goes well, to leave him or her wanting to go straight to the biblical text. Thus is born Bible for Zoquetes 2, the second installment of a series that is as unconventional as it is deliberately personal.

A series that is not at all neutral (and proud to be so).

In the last two years, Vallejo-Nágera has published the first two volumes of this series designed to teach people about the Bible and encourage them to read it, not to explain it exhaustively. This is not a typical popular essay, nor is it a catechism in disguise. Bible for Zoquetes is a narrative bet, with a very recognizable voice: casual, feminine, sharp, provocative and entertaining.

The author writes from a specific place: after two years of biblical study at Harvard and Comillas Pontifical University, and after teaching courses on biblical popularization, she decides to put in writing a part of what she has learned. The result does not aspire to completeness, but to impact.

Vallejo-Nágera explains that her path as a biblical communicator began almost spontaneously, when she was “so fascinated by the Bible” that she couldn't stop talking about it. “I devoured it,” she recalls, and she told all her friends about it until she thought: “this can't be”. So she decided to set up “a tiny little school”, with no academic or institutional pretensions, designed solely “for a small group of friends”. They were all Catholics, but, as she humorously acknowledges, “they didn't have a clue”, so she looked for an unexpected hook: art. “Since they love art, I began to explain the Bible to them in front of the paintings in the Prado”. Thus was born the «Escuelita Virgen de Guadalupe», a project that began informally and that, “nine years ago now”, became the germ of a different and very personal way of bringing the Bible to new readers.

Few core ideas and many surprises

And what do we find in the pages of the «Bible for Dummies 2»? A handful of key ideas and a shower of interesting curiosities. The goal is to surprise the reader: to discover details he had never noticed before and a veritable gallery of secondary characters with stories of all kinds - disturbing, funny, noble, miserable - that populate the biblical text and usually go unnoticed.

The author's eye for asking uncomfortable or unexpected questions is simply brilliant. Vallejo-Nágera looks right where many read too long... and wonders: Why does it happen this way? What is behind it?

If you connect with the style, you have a great time.

This point is key and should be stated bluntly: this book is not for everyone. And that's okay. Vallejo-Nágera's narrative style is very marked. If you connect with it, you will enjoy it a lot. If you don't, you'll put the book down after a few pages, but it's definitely worth giving it a chance and experiencing it firsthand.

There is no middle ground. It's like that brilliant friend who makes jokes all the time: either you laugh with him or you'd rather sit at another table. In my case, I enjoyed the book immensely, although I didn't connect with the graphic jokes the author intersperses in the narrative. But the whole thing works. And it works very well.

Stories that whet the biblical appetite

Bible for Zoquetes 2 is not intended to replace the reading of Scripture, but to whet the appetite. It already does so, for example, when it approaches the Jewish tradition of Lilith, The author's work is also interesting when he dwells on figures scarcely mentioned in the biblical text, but fundamental for its comprehension.

In several scenes, the author completes the biblical context with references to the particular revelations of Blessed Catherine Emmerich, which often shed surprising light on difficult passages. Particularly illuminating is her contribution to understanding the famous episode of the struggle between Jacob and God, a text as fascinating as it is puzzling.

Or when he presents Melchizedek, a character who appears in just one line of the Bible and yet is a key figure in the Jewish and Christian priestly tradition. Vallejo-Nágera explains why his figure is so relevant, «to the point where the Church ordains priests as «priest forever according to the rite of Melchizedek».

The recourse to Emmerich, used freely and without complexes, reinforces the personal character of the book: Vallejo-Nágera does not hide from where he looks or what traditions help him to read.

In this second volume, Vallejo-Nágera recognizes that she has “spilled her guts” with one of those “tiny” characters that appear in the Bible and before which the attentive reader is forced to stop in his tracks: «Wait, wait, wait... what did the text just say about this poor girl? It is about Dinah, »the little sister of the twelve tribes“, an almost forgotten figure whose story - marked by violence and silence - often goes unnoticed.

From “the small verses that speak of her, which are very few”, the author decided to “dig deep” to investigate what the Talmud said, to consult articles recommended by her professors and to reconstruct a story that she describes as “fascinating”. The result is a very complete chapter that restores Dinah's place in biblical history. The surprise came later, when Vallejo-Nágera discovered that Catalina Emmerich also mentioned her: “I was totally amazed,” she confesses, confirming that even the margins of the sacred text hide stories that ask to be read with different eyes.

Understanding the human heart without anachronisms

One of the book's greatest strengths is its ability to explore human nature as it appears in the Bible. Jealousy, revenge or resentment are familiar to us; not so much personal and family honor, a decisive category in the biblical world and deeply transformed in contemporary culture.

Far from projecting current sensibilities on ancient texts, this work does just the opposite: it strives to understand the characters in their context, without sweetening them or judging them from modern parameters. In that sense, the treatment of the human heart, especially that of women and their historical situation, is worked with intelligence and sensitivity.

Bible for Zoquetes 2 does not pretend to please everyone. It aims to provoke, to awaken questions and to restore to the Bible something that is sometimes lost: the capacity for wonder. If the reader enters the game, the journey is well worth it. And, hopefully, you will end up where the author wants to take you from the beginning: opening the Bible on your own.

Bible for Dummies 2

Author: María Vallejo-Nágera

Editorial: Word

Pages: 320

Year: 2025

La entrada Biblia para Zoquetes: cuando la Biblia te mira y te dice «esto no lo habías pensado» se publicó primero en Omnes.

In an Angelus with numerous prayer intentions, the Pope focused on “rekindling joy with concrete gestures of openness and attention to others”. Then, he recalled the feast of the Sudanese nun saint Josephine Bakhita, The first time she was enslaved as a child, she reaffirmed that “peace begins with dignity”.

He also thanked “the nuns and all those who are committed to eliminating the current forms of slavery”. 

In its message for the XII World Day of Prayer and Reflection against Hunger and Poverty Human Trafficking, The Holy Father reaffirms the Catholic Church's commitment to combat this scourge. He also thanks those who serve with delicacy and consideration in approaching victims of trafficking, including international networks and organizations. “I strongly renew the Church's urgent call to confront and put an end to this grave crime against humanity.”. 

‘Cura Valera”: encouragement for priests, “to be faithful in daily life”.”

Along with this appeal, the Holy Father reported on the recently beatified Don Salvador Valera Parra, ‘priest Valera’, in Huércal-Overa (Almería, Spain), “a parish priest fully dedicated to his people, humble and solicitous in pastoral charity. May his example as a priest focused on the essentials be an encouragement to the priests of today, so that they may be faithful in daily life lived with simplicity and austerity”.

The Prefect of the Dicastery for the Causes of Saints, Cardinal Marcello Semeraro, said yesterday that the new Blessed, diocesan priest, archpriest and parish priest, in all circumstances, even the most risky, always stood by the weakest. «The sick, the poor and the needy who walked the streets and inhabited the houses of this land.”.

Prayer for Nigeria, and solidarity with those affected by floods

“It is with pain and concern that I have learned of the attacks in Nigeria, which have caused great loss of human life. I express my prayerful closeness to all the victims of violence and terrorism. I hope that the competent authorities will continue to act with determination to ensure the safety and security of every citizen,” the Pope added.

The Pope also assured his prayers for the populations of Portugal, Morocco, Spain, in particular Grazalema in Andalusia, and southern Italy, especially in Niscemi (Sicily), affected by heavy floods. “I encourage the communities to remain united and in solidarity, with the maternal protection of the Virgin Mary,” he said.

“God never discards us”, “attention to others to rekindle joy”.”

After having proclaimed the Beatitudes, the Pope meditated today on the Àngelus on this message of Jesus: “You are the salt of the earth. [You are the light of the world» (Mt 5:13-14)”.

“It seems that Jesus warns those who listen to him not to renounce joy. The salt that has lost its taste, he says, ‘is no longer good for anything but to be thrown out and trodden underfoot by people’ (Mt 5:13).”.

The Successor of Peter said that “Jesus announces to us a God who never discards us, a Father who guards our name and our uniqueness”, and that “concrete gestures of openness and attention to others are what rekindle joy”.

Jesus himself was tempted, in the desert, by other ways, he stressed: to assert his identity, to show it off and to have the world at his feet. “But he rejects the ways in which he would have lost his true flavor, that which we find every Sunday in the breaking of the Bread: the life given, the love that makes no noise.”.

“Mary, Gate of Heaven”.”

“To Mary, Gate of Heaven,” the Pope concluded, “let us now direct our gaze and our prayer, that she may help us to be and remain disciples of her Son.”.

La entrada Jornada contra la Trata: “La paz comienza con la dignidad”, enfatiza el Papa se publicó primero en Omnes.

We interviewed Alfonso Aguiló Pastrana, one of the most recognized voices in the educational field in Spain and abroad. He has dedicated a large part of his professional life to educational management, pedagogical reflection and the promotion of projects with a Christian identity. He has been director of the Tajamar School in Madrid and currently chairs the Arenales Educational Network, which brings together more than thirty centers in Europe, Africa and America, as well as the Spanish Confederation of Educational Centers (CECE), which represents approximately one third of the country's private and state-subsidized education. In addition, he advises educational institutions in dozens of countries and is the author of more than four hundred articles and a dozen books on education, society and anthropology.

From your experience as a manager, what would you say is the most difficult thing today in providing a truly Catholic education?

-It is difficult to make a general diagnosis, because different things happen to each project. But, globally, we see various scenarios. There are projects that are doing very well; others, on the other hand, have lost a lot of their Christian identity; others maintain it in the pastoral area, but less so in the basic issues; others the other way around; and others have lost almost all public manifestation of the faith.

In addition, there is another important problem: there are people with a very clear Christian identity but who are not good managers. There are also good managers with a weak Christian identity. The challenge is not to choose between one thing or the other, but the unity of all aspects. The Christian vision attends to the person and the school as a whole.

If I had to underline something today, I would say that the Catholic school should distinguish itself especially for its good formation in the use of reason and for its interest in all knowledge. There are moral problems, yes, but I think there are even greater problems related to the lack of rigorous thinking. If a person learns to think well and to be a good person, Christian identity finds a well-fertilized path for growth.

«Here there is a growing problem: a minority of very demanding families, protected by overly protective regulations, is generating a culture of distrust. The teacher feels unprotected, loses authority, and that deteriorates the personal encounter, which is the most valuable aspect of education.».

Alfonso Aguiló

You mentioned the intellectual and academic dimension. What other elements do you consider essential for a school to be truly Christian?

-The viability of the project is essential. If a family provides an excellent Christian education but mismanages its resources, something is wrong. The same is true of a school. Economic and organizational viability is also part of making the talents work. Christian identity does not consist in being a character out of reality, with very lofty speeches, but who then ruins the projects he directs.

I relate it very much to the parable of the talents. We have received talents and we are called to make them work: in the more strictly business management aspect -because a school is also a business- and in the aspect of identity, purpose and mission.

In your opinion, what is the key role that parents should play at school, and what problems or conflicts currently arise in the relationship between the family and the school?

-It is fundamental to achieve the protagonism of parents, in line with the magisterium of the Church: family and school must act in a coordinated manner. But sometimes this protagonism is confused with the government of the center.

In a good hospital, the patient and his family are at the center, but they are not the ones who diagnose, operate or manage. In the school, something similar happens: the family must be central in educational care, not necessarily in technical management.

Here there is a growing problem: a minority of very demanding families, protected by overly protective regulations, is generating a culture of distrust. The teacher feels unprotected, loses authority, and this deteriorates the personal encounter, which is the most valuable aspect of education.

This is not a problem in Catholic schools or in education in general; it also occurs in medicine and other professional fields.

Do you think the current regulations are influencing this situation?

-There is a tendency to protect -with all good intentions- the rights of the child, but with a collateral effect: the teacher feels legally too vulnerable. Without authority it is not possible to generate culture, and without culture there is no real education. School is not only the transmission of content -that is clearly a downward trend-. What is on the rise is the human community that is created, and this is affected by an excess of defensiveness.

I believe that it is necessary to revise certain regulations to give authority back to the teacher. Without authority, a healthy educational culture cannot be generated. I am not talking about eliminating norms, but adjusting them. All laws need revision; that is democracy.

In many countries, the idea seems to be growing that anyone who wants Catholic education should pay for it in full. What is your opinion on this matter?

-That idea is profoundly mistaken. In almost every country in the world there is public funding of private education because, after World War II, it was understood that in order to move away from the horrors of totalitarianism, more must be done to make society plural, and for that it needs plural education. And for access to it to be plural, it must be financed.

Only between 7 % and 10 % of the population can afford private education without public support. If there is no funding, there is no real freedom of choice. The State does not finance the Church: it finances families who want an educational project in accordance with their convictions. Not to do so would be discriminatory. Just as political parties or trade unions -private institutions that operate in the public sphere- are financed, it is natural that there should be private educational centers financed with public money that guarantee pluralism, freedom and democracy. To deny this is neither modern nor democratic; it is a step backwards in terms of rights.

«There is a tendency to protect - with all good intentions - the rights of the child, but with a collateral effect: the teacher feels legally too vulnerable.».

Alfonso Aguiló

In the United States there are organizations that evaluate the “catholicity” of universities and educational centers through qualitative analysis and objective data. Do you think something like this would help in other countries?

-I am in favor of metrics, because they help to complement impressions. But measuring who is “more Catholic” is risky. It would be like ranking who is a better person.

The criteria for “being Catholic” should not be set by a private entity, but by the Church, and I sincerely do not think it is in its interest to do so. What does seem reasonable to me is to analyze objective elements: presence of the sacraments, prayer, social action, quality as a human community, care for creation, etc. Then each family will give more weight to some or others according to its sensibility. This plurality is very healthy in the Church.

You are part of the General Council of the Church in Education of the Spanish Episcopal Conference. What fruit do you expect from this work?

-I believe that one of the most interesting fruits is to generate a culture of collaboration among the institutions. Historically, each charism has taken great care of its own, which is logical and very positive, but there has been a lack of communion between charisms. The Christian message of fraternity should also be manifested in greater institutional collaboration within the Church.

La entrada Alfonso Aguiló: “En la educación quizá ha faltado más comunión entre carismas” se publicó primero en Omnes.

For years, Nerea Castellanos (Alicante, 1995) lived with a tumor the size of a tennis ball without knowing it. What began in April 2023 as headaches, vomiting and vision problems - initially attributed to migraines and a cervical contracture - ended in a life-changing diagnosis: a grade 3 astrocytoma in the right frontal lobe of the brain. Despite two surgeries, radiotherapy and chemotherapy, Nerea says she shared her testimony at Instagram, Among other things, because I wanted to remember all that.

From the beginning she had a certainty that never left her: «I knew she was going to be cured». Indeed, in just nine months, on January 25, 2024, she received the good news: «there is no disease». The first thing she did was to pray before the tabernacle of the San Juan University Hospital. Today she looks back on all that and testifies to the faith that sustained her and the meaning of her suffering.

In this interview, Nerea tells us how she coped with her cancer. We can glimpse her optimism in small everyday gestures, such as the decision to dress up and dress in cheerful colors every time she went to the oncology department, a simple but firm way of facing an environment marked by sadness and suffering.

When you were told you had a brain tumor, what was the first shock like? What role did faith play?

He has had the whole role. As soon as I was told about it, I thought «what should I do now». Maybe without being aware of it, the Holy Spirit and the Lord were in me, because at no time was I worried.

People told me that my attitude was not normal. Now I am even more aware that this peace was a gift that the Lord gave me at that moment, and I have always been very positive and very cheerful. In fact, I was like the one who had to console everyone because I knew I was going to be cured.

Why did you decide to share your testimony in networks?

I was living so many things that I didn't want to forget anything: anecdotes from the hospital, my siblings coming from abroad to see me, deep conversations with my family... I made a second private Instagram account as a diary to keep everything there, but I never uploaded anything. I felt it didn't make sense to separate a “nice Instagram” from the real thing.

Deep down, the only thing that held me back was the fear that it would seem that I was looking for pity or attention. In the end I thought: «this is my reality, I want to keep it for myself and also share it in case someone else finds it useful or feels identified. And if it bothers anyone, they can always stop following me».

In fact, when I was diagnosed with the tumor I read the book by Elena Huelva, the girl who died of cancer. Her testimony helped me a lot, because I felt that, in a way, I was talking to her. No matter how much I talked to my friends or other people, it was not the same. She was describing trials, feelings and moments that I was also going through, and I felt very identified. Even if I couldn't talk directly to her, she was very much with me. So I thought that maybe I could also help someone by telling my story, especially because brain cancer, as was my case, is very scary, and it doesn't always have to end badly.

Have you seen fruits after sharing your testimony?

Yes, there have been some very special cases. One of them is a father I am very fond of. He contacted me because his one-year-old daughter had the same tumor as me. In fact, worse. And it had come to his attention when I told him that the only thing that gave me peace was to offer suffering. He wanted to understand this better.

She felt guilty, she thought her daughter's illness was a punishment from God and we talked about it. I finally got to meet them in person when they came to Alicante for treatment. I spent time with the child, playing with her, and it was a gift. To this day we still write to each other.

What was it for you to offer that suffering?

What I get the most out of everything that has happened to me is the offering of suffering. For me it was a revelation.

One day, after telling me that they had removed practically all the tumor, I had my mind set on going home. But, at the last minute, they told me that they had to give me an injection in my stomach. It may seem silly, but I had a panic attack: I felt that I could not go on any longer, that I had no strength for anything else. And to top it off, they explained that I would have to take it every day for at least fifteen days.

The next day I woke up in anguish, waiting for the moment when someone would come through the door to prick me. I cried, tried to distract myself with music or drawing, but nothing calmed me. Until something did click inside me and I thought: “I'm going to offer it”.

It was instantaneous. Suddenly the suffering made sense, it gave me peace. I understood that it was not in vain, that I could offer it for someone, for the Lord. And that changed everything.

Before the first operation, you were told that you could come out lifeless. How did you face the possibility of dying?

At that time I was alone with my father and we started talking about it. I said, “Dad, if I die, I'm not going to know. I'm not going to suffer, I'm going to be asleep.” Also, I explained to him that if I died, I would have reached the goal, the best place I can be, I would have reached heaven with the Lord and that I would be better off than here.

He understood what I was saying, even if it hurt. I knew they would suffer because of the human attachment we have, but for me it was a very real peace. I wasn't playing hard to get: I really felt it. Now I think it was the Holy Spirit sustaining me, because, if not, it cannot be explained.

Have you seen how this illness has strengthened your relationship with God?

Yes, now I am more aware of the trust I had in Him and the grace He gave me. I see His presence in my life and I am more grateful.

A few months before all this, I was already very strong in my faith. In fact, a friend even told me that it seemed that the Lord was preparing me for that moment. I am not overflowing with faith by any stretch of the imagination, but even then I felt very strong.

Other aspects were also strengthened, such as my relationship with my guardian angel. Before the operation, a priest suggested to my father that I talk a lot with my angel and the guardian angels in the operating room, and I did. Since then I am much more aware of him and talk to him many times a day.

What place has Our Lady occupied in this process?

I slept every night in the hospital with my rosary rolled up in my hand. After all, she is my mother, literally.

Every day my earth mother slept with me and held my hand; she almost always stayed with me. On the day of the operation, however, I had to spend the night in resuscitation and I could not go in there.

That night I really felt that Our Lady was with me, as if she was holding my hand. I couldn't see well or use my cell phone, but I managed to put on music and spent the whole night listening to Am I not here, who am your mother? of Athens and Quiet by Luis Po. I didn't sleep at all, but those songs sustained me, especially the one about the Virgin, which says something like: “I am here, I am your mother, don't be afraid”.

After receiving the news that there is no illness, what do you feel God is asking of you?

I'm still figuring that out. But I felt very clear that I wanted to do something that would really help, both at work and personally. I had a lot of uncertainty, but also the conviction that the Lord had saved me because he had a plan for me. I kept asking him, “Lord, what do you want from me?.

Eventually he gave me the job where I am now, in a foundation for people with mental health problems, where I am very happy. There I also met my partner, whom I will marry next year, and I live it as a gift from God.

I feel that He has saved me for this plan and that I will continue to discover more things, but it is clear to me that I cannot stop talking about Him and trying to help and be His instrument.

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La entrada Nerea Castellanos tras superar un cáncer: «lo único que me calmó fue ofrecer el sufrimiento» se publicó primero en Omnes.

Forgiveness is neither forgetting nor automatic reconciliation, but an inner, complex and deeply human process. This is demonstrated by recent research led by psychologist Agata Kasprzak and Maria Pilar Martinez-Diaz, which has just been published in Journal of Marital and Family Therapy, a scientific journal of international reference in family and couple therapy.

The study validates in the Spanish population the Marital Offense-Specific Forgiveness Scale (MOFS), an international instrument that allows rigorous measurement of how people deal with forgiveness after a specific offense within a couple's relationship. The work has been carried out by researchers from the Universidad Francisco de Vitoria and the Universidad Pontificia Comillas, and represents a relevant advance for both psychological research and clinical practice.

Measuring forgiveness to better understand it

Far from reducing forgiveness to a superficial attitude or a well-intentioned formula, the validated scale makes it possible to analyze it as a profound motivational change. As Agata Kasprzak explains, “from psychology we understand forgiveness as a change in motivation towards the other: when there is forgiveness, avoidance, resentment and the desire for revenge decrease, and a different disposition towards encounter and reparation may appear”.

The tool assesses two major dimensions. On the one hand, avoidance and resentment, which reflect the tendency to withdraw emotionally, ruminate on the damage or keep the wound alive. On the other, benevolence, understood not as naivety or justification of what happened, but as “an internal willingness to look at the other without hostility, once the wound has been recognized and elaborated”.

Forgiveness is not forgetting or denying the damage

One of the main contributions of the research is to help dismantle simplistic ideas about forgiveness, which are widespread in society. “Forgiveness is not forgetting what has happened, or pretending it never happened, or automatically reconciling,” Kasprzak stresses. “Forgiveness is first and foremost a free response to the harm. It does not stem from the event itself, but from the position I take in the face of what has happened to me.”.

In this sense, the psychologist insists that forgiveness does not imply minimizing the wound: “Forgiveness does not mean denying the pain, but recognizing it without letting the wound define me. For this reason, she adds, forgiveness can occur even when the relationship does not continue: ”It is an inner act. I can forgive even when there is no reconciliation“.

A slow, cumbersome and unenforceable process

The research, supported by years of clinical work with couples, highlights that forgiveness is a long and sometimes uncomfortable process. “It's a very complex human experience,” Kasprzak explains. Against the idea that time heals everything, he warns: “Time can alleviate the intensity of the pain, but it does not replace the process of forgiveness, which is only possible from the freedom of the one who has been hurt”.

For this reason, he stresses, forgiveness cannot be demanded. “Forgiveness always belongs to the freedom of the one who has been hurt; that is why it cannot be claimed as a right, but received as a gift”. In many cases, when relationships become blocked in dynamics of silence, distance or mutual reproach, the intervention of a third party, such as a therapist, can be key to unblock the process.

Scientific rigor and clinical application

The study was conducted with more than 700 people in stable relationships, who were asked to recall a specific offense and to respond to the items of the scale based on that actual experience. In addition to statistically validating the instrument in Spain, the researchers tested its equivalence with U.S. samples, allowing international comparisons of results.

Publication in a Q1 journal (Scopus) reinforces the scientific value of the work and its impact on the field of couple psychology. But, beyond the academic indicators, the study offers a fundamental contribution: to help to better understand what forgiveness is - and what it is not - and why it is so decisive for the health of human bonds.

As Kasprzak concludes, “Forgiveness is not submission or naivety; it is an active process that allows me to decide what I do with what happened to me and how I want to continue living.

La entrada El perdón en la pareja: lo que la psicología revela sobre volver a confiar se publicó primero en Omnes.

Leo XIV reflected this morning on Christian formation, following a theme dear to St. Paul, he recalled. At the plenary session of the Dicastery for the Laity, the Family and Life, likened the task of the formator more to that of “a father capable of engendering in the faith” than that of a “pedagogue”. And he conveyed with Benedict XVI that “without sacraments there is no Christian life”.

After quoting St. Paul, the Successor of Peter recalled that “after the Resurrection, Jesus entrusted the missionary mandate to the Apostles, telling them to ‘make disciples of all nations,’ to ‘baptize them’ and to ‘teach them to observe his commandments’ (cf. Mt 28:19-20).”.

“Baptism and Sacraments, or their rediscovery.”

“I remember these expressions,” he stressed, “because in them we find summarized other fundamental elements of the formator's mission, which I would also like to emphasize.”.

“First of all, the need to favor constant, involving and personal life itineraries that lead to Baptism and the Sacraments, or to their rediscovery, because without them there is no Christian life (cf. Benedict XVI, Apostolic Exhortation Sacramentum Caritatis, February 22, 2007, 6).”.

“Our mission is higher: as parents who sacrifice for the sake of their children.”

In the Church, at times, the figure of the formator as ‘pedagogue’, committed to the transmission of instructions and religious skills, has prevailed over that of the ‘father’ capable of engendering in the faith, the Pope recalled.

However, “our mission is much higher, so we cannot limit ourselves to transmitting a doctrine, an observance, an ethic, but we are called to share what we live, with generosity, sincere love for souls, willingness to suffer for others, unreserved dedication, like parents who sacrifice themselves for the good of their children”.

St. Paul: “it is I who have begotten you in Christ Jesus”.”

The Pontiff pointed out at the beginning some well-known words of St. Paul to the Corinthians that guided his brief address.

“This is a theme dear to the Apostle and present in several passages of his letters. For example, when he addresses the Corinthians and says: ‘You may have ten thousand pedagogues in Christ, but certainly not many fathers: it is I who have begotten you in Christ Jesus through the Gospel’ (1 Cor 4:15).”.

The Apostle addresses the Galatians and calls them ‘my children’, referring to the ‘childbirth’ with which, not without suffering, he led them to welcome Christ, the Pope meditated.

“Formation is thus placed under the sign of ‘generation,’ of ‘giving life,’ of ‘giving birth,’ in a dynamic that, although painful, leads the disciple to vital union with the very person of the Savior, living and acting in him or her, capable of transforming ‘life in the flesh’ (cf. Rom 7:5) into ‘Christ's life in us’ (cf. 2 Cor 13:5; Gal 2:20).”.

“Respect for human life in all its stages”, and prevention of “all forms of abuse”.” 

The Pope went on to exhort, in an “indispensable” way, to “take care in our communities of the formative aspects oriented towards respect for human life in all its stages, in particular those that contribute to preventing all forms of abuse against minors and vulnerable persons, as well as to accompany and support the victims”.

He also referred to the community dimension. “Just as human life is transmitted thanks to the love of a man and a woman, so too Christian life is transmitted by the love of a community. It is not the priest alone, nor a catechist or a charismatic leader, who engenders in the faith, but the Church (cf. Francis, Apostolic Exhortation Evangelii Gaudium, 24 November 2013, 111).”.

It is about “the Church united, alive, made up of families, young people, singles, consecrated people, animated by charity and, therefore, eager to be fruitful, to transmit to all, and especially to the new generations, the joy and fullness of meaning that it lives and experiences”. 

“The art of training is not easy and is not improvised.”

This is how Leo XIV expressed himself at the Assembly of the Dicastery for the Laity, the Family and Life, whose Prefect is the Cardinal Kevin Farrell.The art of formation requires patience, listening, accompaniment and verification, both on a personal and community level, and cannot do without the experience and company of those who have lived it, in order to learn and take an example”. 

Thus, over the centuries, “giants of the spirit such as St. Ignatius of Loyola, St. Philip Neri, St. Joseph Calasanz, St. Gaspar del Bufalo and St. John Leonardi have emerged. And it is in this perspective that also St. Augustine, recently elected bishop, composed his treatise ‘De catechizandis rudibus’, whose indications continue to be useful and valuable to this day”.

World meetings

At the beginning of his speech, the Pope had mentioned the World Encounters, which “involve a large number of participants and require complex organizational work, in listening and collaboration with local communities and with people and organizations, many of whom have long and valuable experience in evangelization”.

“You must not be discouraged.”

In concluding, the Pope acknowledged that “the challenges you face at times may seem beyond your strength and resources. But you should not be discouraged.

Start small, following, in faith, the Gospel logic of the ‘mustard seed’ (cf. Mt 13:31-32), confident that the Lord will never let you lack, at the right time, the necessary energy, people and graces. 

And “look to Mary: in giving us Christ, ‘she has cooperated through love to engender the Church of the faithful, who form the members of that head»” (St. Augustine, De sancta virginitate 6, 6). Imitate her faith and always trust in her intercession".

La entrada El Papa a los formadores: “sin sacramentos no hay vida cristiana” se publicó primero en Omnes.

For years, educators, psychologists and families have been warning about the massive consumption of pornography among adolescents. We know -because studies confirm it- that exposure begins earlier and earlier, that it affects the perception of the body and distorts the understanding of consent. That concern is legitimate. But as we look to that shore, another phenomenon has been quietly growing that deserves the same attention: the popularization of erotic novels disseminated through social networks, book clubs and platforms such as BookTok.

Today, it is enough to go into any bookstore to see for yourself. The “juvenile” section is flooded with covers with warnings of spicy, and labels that classify the level of explicit content. Sometimes they are works of fiction for young people; others are clearly aimed at adults, but massively acquired by adolescents. In almost all of them, the plots revolve around hypersexualized bonds, normalized jealousies and a dependency presented as the ideal of romantic love.

This editorial turn is not random. It responds to the explosion of communities on TikTok, where the hashtag #BookTok has transformed algorithms into the most powerful showcases of the decade. Under tags such as Dark Romance o Romantasy, titles that until recently would have inhabited adult niches now lead the global sales rankings. In Chile, it is enough to observe the prominence of these works in fairs and large chains: luxury editions with painted edges and irresistible aesthetics designed to capture the collecting desire of a generation that, paradoxically, consumes fantasies of possession and emotional violence under a cotton candy appearance.

And here a disturbing ingredient appears: the naivety -or resignation- of some parents. While their children devour bulky books, they sigh with relief: at least they are not in front of a screen. They ask few questions and check less. Sometimes they don't want to know. But reading is not an absolute good in itself: content matters and how it shapes a child's affective imagination.

This is not to demonize literature; the written word has the power to open worlds and heal wounds. However, books educate -even unintentionally- and the mass consumption of certain narratives shapes the idea of desire and bonding. When an adolescent girl reads, over and over again, stories where loving means losing herself in the other or justifying any excess in the name of physical attraction, the message is not neutral. She will learn, by osmosis, that love absorbs and controls.

Contemporary erotic narrative does not only eroticize: it also pedagogizes. It teaches what is acceptable in a couple and what can be demanded or tolerated. For many young people with no real experience, these works function as emotional manuals. And if the models are toxic, the print will be too. Some will say that “they are just fictions,” the same as is often argued about pornography. However, both build unrealistic expectations. When sexuality appears without human context, the boundaries of consent become blurred: what in reality would be aggression, on paper is celebrated as “irresistible passion”.

And in the midst of this phenomenon, the publishing industry has found a vein of gold.: the boundary of “fit” while making up the content as "fit". women empowerment. Relationships of control, asymmetrical power or emotional dependence are packaged under the discourse of freedom and self-desire. But if empowerment consists of enduring harm in the name of love, we are confusing something serious. The market sells an affective education of very low ethical cost and very high emotional profitability.

We cannot leave all the responsibility on the child's judgment or on the weary eye of the parent. When a plot that contains dynamics of abuse and romanticized dysfunctional relationships is labeled as juvenile, sales are prioritized over the protection of emotional development. And the result is that many adolescents are receiving, without adult mediation, a “sex education” that is not recognized as such..

What to do? Prohibition is not enough; the clandestine always attracts. What we need is conversation and emotional literacy. Just as we ask for comprehensive sex education, we also need a critical look at cultural consumption. To read with them, to ask: is this love or control? Where does respect appear? What image of the body and of women is transmitted?

As a society we have recognized the harm that pornography can cause; let us not now ignore its printed version, disguised as sensitivity. It is not enough to celebrate our children turning the pages: the real challenge is to help them read with lucidity so that they do not confuse a heart on fire with a bond that consumes them. Because to love is not to possess, nor to annul oneself, and no novel -no matter how successful it may be- should teach us otherwise.

La entrada «¡Al menos lee!»: El peligroso espejismo de la novela erótica juvenil se publicó primero en Omnes.

In contemporary ecclesial discourse, a certain partial vision of the Social Doctrine of the Church (SDC) seems to have taken root: some of its principles are insistently emphasized while others, equally binding, are relegated to silence. Recovering them does not mean “ideologizing” the faith, but rather restoring its balance and internal coherence, indispensable for an honest analysis of social reality.

In the following, I propose ten fundamental ideas, firmly anchored in the Magisterium, which today rarely occupy a central place in the ecclesial debate.

1. Sovereignty and order in borders

Christian charity is universal, but the right to immigration is not absolute. The Catechism of the Catholic Church (n. 2241) reminds us that civil authorities can regulate this right for the common good of the host country. Order is not the enemy of acceptance; it is its condition of possibility. Helping the needy also requires recognizing the real difficulties of these processes and proposing responsible solutions that avoid counterproductive effects.

2. The right not to emigrate

The focus is often placed almost exclusively on the country of destination, while the responsibility of the governments of origin is ignored. True social justice means creating dignified conditions so that no one is forced to flee. As African bishops have denounced, encouraging the departure of the best educated people is a serious harm to poor countries and a disguised form of plunder.

3. Commutative justice as the basis of social justice.

To speak of social justice without insisting on commutative justice - honoring contracts, paying what is due, respecting agreements - is to build on sand. Without honesty in exchanges, no social peace is possible. Claiming debt cancellation without demanding reforms, responsibilities and structural improvements may condemn poor countries to future financial exclusion.

4. The immorality of structural public debt

The permanent indebtedness of the State to sustain present welfare is a heavy burden for future generations. The DSI reminds us that the financial system must be at the service of the person; mortgaging tomorrow to pay for today violates intergenerational justice and erodes political responsibility.

5. Demand and merit in education

Authentic education fosters personal responsibility and effort. Academic facism, which is increasingly widespread, impoverishes students, weakens their character and limits their ability to contribute their talents to the common good.

6. Entrepreneurship as a vocation

The figure of the entrepreneur and economic initiative are often viewed with suspicion in ecclesial discourse. However, creating wealth and employment is not greed, but a legitimate expression of human intelligence and freedom. Entrepreneurship strengthens the self-esteem of the worker and sustains the social fabric.

7. Criticism of the welfare state

The Social Doctrine of the Church clearly defends the principle of subsidiarity. A State that invades all spheres ends up annulling social initiative and turns the citizen into a dependent client of power, weakening community responsibility.

Work ethics

The Church is not only a defender of labor or union rights; she is also a defender of a job well done. Laziness, unjustified absenteeism, abuse of social benefits or lack of professionalism are as much a threat to the common good as exploitation of the worker.

9. Political identity without complexes

The participation of the laity in public life does not consist in diluting the faith in the dominant consensus. The political commitment of Catholics must be recognizable in the defense of life, the family and educational freedom, without any reduction or complexes.

10. Ecology with truth

In the face of catastrophist discourses that absolutize nature, the Church proposes an integral human ecology. Benedict XVI warned that the person cannot be subordinated to the environment and that ecological concern must be based on reason, not on ideological exaggerations that hinder the legitimate development of peoples.

It is time for the ecclesial narrative to recover the totality of its doctrinal treasure. A Church that repeats only the slogans of the world runs the risk of ceasing to be salt of the earth and becoming an irrelevant echo.

La entrada Diez ideas de la Doctrina Social de la Iglesia que se oyen poco se publicó primero en Omnes.

Would you like to take a five-question quiz, like a reduced-format ‘Pasapalabra’, about the Islamic Republic of Iran? If you have read the series in Omnes by writer and historian Gerardo Ferrara, published in early 2024, has it easier.

If you have not done so, or have it in perspective, you can also add the latest contribution of Javier Gil, researcher at the Institute for Culture and Society (ICS) and professor of international relations at the University of Navarra. The book is entitled ‘La sombra del AYATOLÁ’, edited by Citadel Books. Its topicality is evident. 

The works of Gerardo Ferrara, more synthetic, and Javier Gil, are complementary, although the latter contributes, in addition to his strong historical accent, the geopolitical variable in the Middle East, given his specialization in U.S. foreign policy in the area.

Since this is not a conventional review, let's go with questions and answers, We summarize the analysis of the ICS researcher in his book on Iran, outlined in his presentation at the campus of the University of Navarra in December, and in contributions in January in ‘El Mundo’ and on radio stations such as RNE.

1. What is happening in Iran? 

Three years after the last major popular challenge to the regime (2022), Iranians have taken to the streets. Economic discontent has served as an impetus, and the protests have called for the overthrow of the Islamic Republic.

The Iranian regime has gone from being established with the massive support of the citizenry to surviving violently in the face of an opposition that is perceived as a majority of the population. In the last elections of 2024, the turnout barely reached 39.9% in the presidential elections and 41% in the legislative elections. 

2. How has the regime's repression been now?

According to human rights agencies, the death toll has reached several thousand, with thousands injured, and thousands detained. The Iranian government has reported more than 3,000 dead, and the UN and its agencies have significantly raised the figure.

In addition, the regime has taken extraordinary measures such as cutting internet and telephone lines, which are being partially restored.

3. How many major protests have taken place since the Iranian revolution in 1979?

In summary, they have been as follows.

First) Summer 1999. Regime forces storm Tehran University campus. Hundreds injured and arrested.

Second) In 2009. Second great period of social protest. Opposition candidates in the presidential elections led protests that ended up shaping the so-called Green Movement. Struggle between reformists and hardliners (Khamenei). 

Third) Hardliners of the regime encouraged a large protest in December 2017, to weaken the reformist government.

Fourth) 2019. Riots and strikes over gasoline price subsidy cuts. Demands for the end of the Islamic Republic began. Hundreds of deaths.

Fifth) 2021, against management of the country's water resources and water cuts.

Sixth) 2022. Death of Masha Amini, young woman arrested for wearing the veil incorrectly. New riots greater in participation and virulence than those of 2019. Catalysts: imposition of the veil and women's rights. Hundreds of deaths and thousands of arrests.

Seventh) 2025/2026. Economic unrest, new protests, also against the Islamic Republic. Repression has been described in point 2.

4. What new developments have occurred?

a) In these protests, the demonstrators may have reached a certain consensus around a symbolic figure, the exiled crown prince, Reza Pahlevi, although there are sensitive divergences among the opponents in the Iranian diaspora. 

b) greater unity among the demonstrators, who are not limited only to the economic situation or human rights. The researcher believes that “we must be cautious”, as there is no evidence of a fracture in the regime.

(c) The regime is currently supported by Russia and China.. 

5. What is the ideology of Iranian Shiite Islam like?

Sonia Sánchez, professor of international relations at the Francisco de Vitoria University, who participated in the presentation of the book, defined the Iranian regime as an “Ayatolacracy, the tragedy of when fanatics take power”. 

Elías Cohen, also a professor of the same specialty at the Francisco de Vitoria University, stated that «Iran has a hegemonic role in the Middle East”, and with the seizure of power by the clerics, “the Shiite religion is in the hands of the State, which oversees everything”.

Researcher and author Javier Gil explained the genesis, and after explaining the “46 years of cold war between Iran and the US”, he referred to the underlying ideology of the Islamic Revolution.

Revolutionary ideology

In his opinion, this is a “politicization of Shiism”. The Islamic revolution transformed the traditional quietism of Shiism, or Shiite Islam (90 % of Iran), in “a religion of protest that combined ingredients taken from nationalism, Marxism and populism, to put them at the service of a revolutionary reinterpretation of Islam”. In Iran an “ideologized and revolutionary Islam” took shape, writes the author (see pp. 35 ff.). 

But Iran's presence in several Middle Eastern countries has become an unbearable burden on the country's finances, dragged it into endless wars, and subjected it to economic sanctions (pp. 268 ff.).

To make matters worse, on 7-O, 2023, Hamas led a surprise attack against Israel. They killed 1,200 people and captured more than 200 hostages. The aim was to disrupt an impending deal between Israel and Saudi Arabia. Iran denied involvement, but its leaders showed support for Hamas. The rest you know. 

The Shadow of the Ayatollah. A History of the Islamic Republic of Iran.

AuthorJavier Gil Guerrero

Editorial: Citadel Books

Pages: 288

Year: 2025

La entrada ¿Qué sabes sobre Irán? 5 respuestas sobre el régimen de los ayatolás se publicó primero en Omnes.

It is worth watching a podcast by Blanket and Faith (@MantitayFe on Instagram), and listen to Bárbara Bustamante with her interviewees. For example, the a guide for Eucharistic Adoration y the visit to the Blessed Sacrament. O the Catechesis at home, with Olatz (@Blessings.es), to teach the faith to children at home. Now he has launched another on the art that gives life, with Javier Viver. They all catch.

We spoke with Barbara about her evangelizing concern. She is on the phone, about to give birth to her third child, Santiago. The eldest is two years old and the second is in Heaven. 

"I come from a Catholic family, but not a practicing one, although there were times when I did. My parents baptized me, even without being fully aware of what the gift of Baptism meant. It was the greatest gift along with my sister”, she comments gratefully. “He made me a child of God from the beginning.”. When he began his faith journey, “let's say, out of conviction, in adolescence”The dialogue with their parents consisted of putting “a share of understanding between me and them".

“Uncomfortable questions...”

Then, the communicator explains that “God came into my life with uncomfortable, existential questions. We are four siblings, but I have a sister a year older than me; we loved each other, but when we fought, it was to the death. When this happened, I was left without my friend, without my sister. Me, who do I play with now?” 

“The experience of frustration I began to feel very strongly from very early on.”she acknowledges. First it was her sister's, and as she grew older, “why there are so many wars in the world, why politics does so much harm in the family, why do we have to aspire to something in life if in the end I am going to die, and nothing is going to happen... From frustration to disillusionment”. At 14 years of age, Barbara had with God “.“a very defensive attitude”, reveals, “a rather distant image of God, as if he did not take responsibility for the horrors experienced by humanity". 

This is how he came to find himself “face to face with God. And He, instead of answering me from reasoning, simply loved me.”, he assures. “And that is why I believe he revealed himself to me in the Eucharist. It was an encounter that had a total impact on me, and it made me lower my defenses, and I really wanted to know him.".

Professional vocation, lay, marriage

"I also asked myself, ‘How am I going to earn a salary preaching the Gospel?’ In the end I studied translation, a tool to be able to proclaim the Lord.”.

“The Lord came to meet me - another adventure of God - and unintentionally, with my sister, who was a journalist, I came into contact with the Aciprensa agency. Through that door, I entered to translate news for the Hispanic American audience in the United States. God wanted to make me an integral Catholic communicator.”, he says.

At the same time, his faith was consolidating, “and I saw clearly that my vocation was lay, marriage. And at the same time, not without difficulties, because in my parish there were cases of abuses of conscience, which caused many people to leave, but thanks to God I never lost my faith, and it was strengthened.".

At that moment, the Lord came back into his life. He was responsible for the coverage of Pope Francis in Chile, and correspondent at WYD in Panama, with Aciprensa. “But suddenly the Lord moved my heart to take care of the little ones, and I went as head of communications to a mostly rural diocese, Villarrica, with a large indigenous community.". 

A change. A mission experience that considers “beautiful”He accompanied the bishop with the Mapuches. In Villarrica, moreover, he met a Spanish missionary priest, and then a nephew of his, from Madrid. “And we fell in love with each other. We started a long-distance relationship, had a normal courtship, and got married in February 2022 in Madrid.” “I am in Spain because of my husband, basically.e,” he says. 

In the podcasts of Blanket and Faith, Bárbara Bustamante likes to “listening a lot”, “because it's really how the Lord speaks to me.”. People have liked what he calls the “theology of the home”, he explains, “how to make God present in my home”, y “consistent evangelization inside and outside the home".

You can click below to listen to one of the episodes of his podcast.

La entrada Bárbara Bustamante. Las “aventuras de Dios” se publicó primero en Omnes.

Of all the disciplines that make up theology, morality is, in my opinion, the most demanding. It does not rise, perhaps, to the abstract heights of my beloved metaphysics, but neither can it allow itself to take refuge in them. It is obliged to descend to the rough terrain of history and to confront the world as it is: a web of complexities, lights and shadows, persistent injustices and difficult-to-decipher dynamics that gravitate around human freedom, often tainted by spurious interests, culpable weaknesses and heroic resistance. 

Where speculation seeks coherence in the eternal, moral theology must discern in the contingent, between fragile wills and self-interested decisions that shape, for better or for worse, the fabric of reality. Its object is not the abstract proclamation of the good, but its prudential determination in contexts traversed by juridical, cultural, economic and demographic factors. It requires simultaneously upholding universal principles and concrete circumstances, without sacrificing the former to sentimentality or the latter to abstraction. 

That is why tradition has never allowed moral judgment to be reduced to a rhetorical reflex -a decontextualized quotation, a slogan with a pretension of conscience-, but has subjected it to the higher art of prudence: that intellectual virtue that discerns, weighs, orders means and ends and assumes responsibility for the effects. It is not a simple virtue -none is-: it requires memory of the past, intelligence of the present, docility to learn and circumspection to foresee consequences. 

In the face of complex issues, moral honesty consists precisely in resisting the temptation to sloganeering. Authentic mercy is not ashamed of prudence, because it knows that peace is a just order, and that a just order requires discernment, gradualness, limits and reciprocal duties. To describe this responsibility as “extremism” can be, paradoxically, a form of moral superficiality: the substitution of judgment for gesture, of truth for applause, of the common good for an aesthetic of goodness that refuses to look reality in the face. 

An eloquent example is the question of migration, of renewed centrality and painful human and political density. Precisely because of its concrete proximity and the burden of suffering it entails, it is understandable that the first impulse should be that of immediate welcome; but the Christian tradition does not stop at this impulse, but submits it to prudential judgment. The Church has always spoken in a double key that admits of no shortcuts: the irreducible dignity of every person and the responsibility proper to every authority - as such - with respect to the social order, understood as a condition for the common good and not as a mere circumstantial strategy. 

The Franciscan tradition -from Bonaventure to Scotus, and in more recent authors- has insisted with remarkable balance that charity is not a formless energy, but an ordered love, an ordered love, a ordo amoris that respects the architecture of the common good. The legal order is not an extrinsic limit to charity, but its institutional condition. Without normative stability and a minimum of cultural cohesion, what is presented as compassion can turn into structural cruelty: the community fragments, the law weakens and the vulnerable - inside and outside - end up paying the cost. 

For this reason, it is difficult to understand certain public manifestations of perplexity and censure which, in the face of prudential judgments made by pastors in the exercise of their legitimate responsibility, adopt a tone of impugnation more characteristic of factional debate than of ecclesial discernment. In times of discursive agitation, tradition reminds us that ecclesial fruitfulness does not spring from visibility without responsibility, but from virtuous coherence. Obedience-understood as humble insertion into an order received-, silent work for the common good, effective charity translated into works rather than declarations, and a sobriety that distrusts moral protagonism have always been the pillars of Christian action.  

La entrada En defensa de una palabra incómoda: Jesús Sanz y la cuestión migratoria  se publicó primero en Omnes.

The choice of the new Director General of the Legionaries of Christ The meeting was held in Rome at the headquarters of the General Government. Carlos Gutiérrez López, L.C., 51, a native of Hermosillo, Sonora (Mexico).

Carlos assumes “the task of accompanying the life and mission of the Congregation in a stage marked by the consolidation of the road traveled in recent years and by the current challenges of evangelization”, according to the information made public.

Sa now opens “a new stage in the path that the Congregation continues to follow, with the desire to serve the Church from a renewed religious life, faithful to its charism and attentive to the signs of the times”.

General Assemblies and Audience of Pope Leo XIV

The election took place within the framework of the General Chapter of the Legionaries of Christthe General Assembly and the General Assembly of the Consecrated Laity of Regnum Christi, to be held in Rome in 2026.

On January 29, Pope Leo XIV received in private audience the participants of the Assemblies of Consecrated Women and Consecrated Laity. The Pontiff encouraged them to live faithfully the charism received, to exercise an evangelical government at the service of the people and to deepen communion within the Church and Regnum Christi. The audience was experienced as a gesture of pastoral closeness and spiritual impulse for the present context.

General Chapter

Carlos Gutiérrez López, L.C., replaces Father John Connor, L.C., who has been Director General since 2020. The General Chapter, the supreme governing body of the Congregation, is composed of 60 priests from 13 countries. In the coming days it will continue its work in electing the General Government and in reflecting on various aspects of the life and mission of the Legion of Christ.

He has worked in America and Europe

Fr. Carlos, 51, entered the Congregation in 1999 and was ordained to the priesthood in 2009. Throughout his ministry he has served in various countries in the Americas and Europe, with pastoral and governmental responsibilities in Chile, Italy, Colombia, Venezuela and Mexico. Until his election, he served as Territorial Director of Northern Mexico.

His academic formation combines studies in industrial and systems engineering at the Monterrey Institute of Technology. He holds a bachelor's degree in philosophy and theology from the Ateneo Pontificio Regina Apostolorum. And a master's degree in psychology at Divine Mercy University, in the United States, which has marked his service in the fields of accompaniment, formation and government.

Evangelistic service 

Among other assignments, Fr. Carlos Gutiérrez L.C. served as Territorial Director of Colombia-Venezuela between 2018 and 2022. In this stage he accompanied communities and apostolic works in a particularly complex social context. Since 2022, he has been territorial director of Northern Mexico.

Regnum Christi and the Legionaries of Christ emphasize that the commissioning of the General Chapter strengthens “their contribution to the whole of Regnum Christi and the evangelizing service to all people, with particular attention to the most fragile realities in need of hope”.

General Council of Consecrated Women of Regnum Christi

During the III Ordinary General Assembly, the consecrated women of Regnum Christi have elected the new board of the general government, which will accompany the life and mission of the Society for the next six years.

The general government was formed as follows. Nancy Nohrden (United States), reelected as President. director general. Perla Guadalupe González de la Fuente (Mexico), Vicar General and First Councilor. Eugenia (Uge) Álvarez Espinoza (Venezuela), second general councilor. Kathleen Murphy (Canada), third general councilor. Camila Melo (Brazil), fourth general councilor.

This council, composed of the general director and four councilors, plays a key role in accompanying the life and mission of the Society of Apostolic Life.

La entrada Elegidos los nuevos responsables del Regnum Christi y de los Legionarios de Cristo se publicó primero en Omnes.

In 1907 Robert Hugh Benson wrote his best known novel, Lord of the world. It is a fictional dystopia in the style of 1984 or Brave New World, in which the author enters with great intuition into the world he was living in. When one reads this book one cannot help but feel that one is before a prophetic tale that is a great denunciation and a terrible warning about the future. About our present.

The book narrates the advent of a secular messiah, Julian Felsenburgh, a diplomat, a sage, a charismatic and powerful leader who manages to bring peace to the world at a time of great tension and who establishes a humanitarian philosophy in politics. I don't want to reveal the plot, but it is overwhelming to see how, step by step, many of the predictions made by the author are fulfilled. From the general apostasy and a secularization that leaves religion in a corner of social life, to the euthanasia laws or the creation of the European Union and the emerging power of China. In the end, only the Church remains as the last redoubt of a transcendent vision that Julian Felsenburgh wants to destroy.

I was reminded of this suggestive novel when I saw the debate that has arisen in recent days the atheist funeral, secular tribute they call it, that the Socialist Government of Pedro Sanchez wanted to celebrate after the victims of the train accident in Adamuz in which 46 people died.

In the novel the Government promoted by Felsenburgh promotes new festivities, that of Paternity and Maternity and establishes the worship that the citizens must render. Francis, a former apostate priest, is presented on behalf of a group of former clergymen to organize the whole liturgy, because he and the Government know that men need rites and faith, and that the liturgy has a special relevance in it. No one knows this better than he, a former Catholic priest.

For some time now, the Government has been trying to replace Catholic State funerals with secular tributes, with a liturgy that partly reminds us of the liturgy that religions have created to worship God. We saw it for the first time in the pandemic that caused the COVID-19, we saw it again in the tribute after the floods in Valencia, and they have also wanted to do it now, before the terrible railway accident.

But this time the victims have refused to play the government's game and finally the Sanchez administration has postponed its proposal. sine die. A Catholic funeral was indeed held, attended by the King and Queen of Spain and many civil authorities. Only the President of the Government was absent... for agenda reasons, they said.

Liliana Alvarez, daughter of one of the victims, took the floor at the beginning of the ceremony and was clear about this: «Thanks to our diocese for this funeral, the only funeral that could fit in this farewell, because the only presidency we want at our side is that of the God who has made himself present in bread and wine».

Why is the government so determined to organize funerals that leave aside any allusion to transcendence, to religion, to God? Who wants an atheist funeral at the most tragic and painful moment of life? «Only God can console us now,» said one of the victims of the accident at the beginning of the funeral. 

When a government decrees that a religious ceremony must be replaced by an atheist one, it is imposing its own vision of life, which in this case is the denial of God, and it is entering a sphere that does not correspond to it, which is that of consciences and religiosity. And it does so by substituting one rite for another, a religious liturgy for an atheist rite - as in Benson's novel - because they know that men need liturgies and rites. 

The excuse is a half-truth-half-lie. According to this Government there are people of different confessions or without any confession and a State funeral should not be offered in the rite of a specific confession. As it can be seen, we are in the so many times used misunderstanding between the non-confessional State and the atheist State. It is true that the State in our country has no official religion, but it must be a State that welcomes and respects the life of its citizens, especially with regard to the practice of their deepest convictions such as religious ones. The State is non-denominational, its citizens have beliefs and faith. The way to respect the plurality that exists in society is not to impose silence on everyone, but to generate a public space where everyone can be himself in freedom.

In reality, what is intended with this type of tributes as a substitute for religious funerals is to offer a materialistic vision of the meaning of life, without any reference to the spiritual, much less to life after death. But why should the State assume this position of offering the meaning of life and transcendence that corresponds to religions? Would it not be more normal for the authorities to accompany the victims and their relatives to the funeral that corresponds to their religious convictions? Let us imagine that by a fateful misfortune those who died in an accident were all Muslims: wouldn't it make sense that our rulers accompany them in that moment of pain in a funeral that is in accordance with their religious experience? 

But the problem is that it is not a question of respect for the faith of all citizens, but of imposing their atheistic vision of reality, in which the State replaces God himself. Benedict XVI speaks of this temptation when he analyzes how Jesus was tempted in the desert at the beginning of his mission in his book Jesus of Nazareth.

Here the core of all temptation becomes clear: to set God aside, who, before everything that seems most urgent in our lives, becomes something secondary, or even superfluous and annoying. To put order in our world on our own, without God, relying solely on our own abilities, to recognize as true only political and material realities, and to set God aside as something illusory, this is the temptation that threatens us in many ways.

The State has its function, without a doubt. It has to solve and manage the concrete problems of citizens' lives, including the maintenance of proper infrastructures. But it must never go beyond the limits that lead it to invade areas of the life of the conscience of the people. This pretension is dangerous and leads, sooner or later, to totalitarianism, more or less covert.

The victims of the Adamuz accident have understood this and have conveyed it with dignity and courage to the Government. I already tell them that the postponed state funeral will take a long time and will not be held. Because in the end, also in this type of acts, for them political calculation counts more than showing closeness to the victims. The President of the Government was not at the Catholic funeral because he feared the booing at the entrance or exit and he will only call an event of any kind if it has some political gain or if he can introduce his particular and personal vision of life.

The victims of Adamuz have given an example of dignity and faith. When I heard the words of Liliana Alvarez at the funeral I was moved and cried, and I understood, with pride, that faith in God fills with light even the darkest moments of our lives. That no State or Government can offer us the comfort that God gives us at the hour of death.

La entrada ¿Quién quiere un funeral ateo? se publicó primero en Omnes.

The magazine Katolskt magasin interview with the Bishop of Copenhagen, Czesław Kozon, who talks about the challenges and hopes he sees for his diocese and for the Church in Denmark.

There was a time when the Catholic Church was the cornerstone of Danish society. The evangelization of the country began as early as 826, when Emperor Ludwig the Pious sent the Frankish missionary St. Oscar, the “Apostle of the North”, to proclaim the Gospel in Denmark and Sweden during the Viking Age.

Paganism long maintained a strong influence, but Oscar's missionary work bore fruit a little over a century later, when the Danish King Harald Blåtand had himself baptized. Only with the Reformation in 1536 was the Catholic faith banned in Denmark, a ban that remained in place until 1849.

Today Catholics represent less than 1 percent of the population. However, since the middle of the 20th century the Church has grown thanks to immigration from countries with a Catholic tradition. Even so, Denmark remains, as in St. Oscar's time, a difficult mission field. The difference is that today it is secularization that challenges evangelization, even though the Evangelical Lutheran Church is formally the national Church.

«Many politicians claim that Denmark is a Christian country,» says Bishop Czesław Kozon, «but in people's daily lives one can hardly find any traces of Christianity.».

He points out that, of course, one cannot compare the situation today with the Middle Ages, but that the country's Christian roots should not be forgotten. «It should not be considered anti-Danish to be Catholic, but many people think that a true Dane must be Lutheran. That is why we must show that you can also be a good and authentic Dane by being a Catholic. It is often argued against the Danish character of the Catholic Church that it is to a large extent an immigrant Church, as is also the case in the rest of the Nordic countries.».

A triple challenge for the Church

Bishop Kozon has headed the Diocese of Copenhagen since 1995 and is only the third Danish-born bishop since the Reformation. He was born in 1951 in Brovst, in northern Jutland, and his own story reflects the current character of the Church: he is the son of Polish immigrants who came to Denmark to work. After studying philosophy and theology in Rome, he was ordained a priest in 1979 and served in several parishes and as vicar general before Pope St. John Paul II appointed him bishop.

As pastor of the only Catholic diocese in Denmark - which also includes Greenland and the Faroe Islands - he describes three main challenges: being a Christian minority in a strongly secularized society; being a Catholic minority in a dominant Lutheran context; and creating an integrated Catholic community in a Church that today is mostly made up of newcomers. He acknowledges that some Danish Catholics may feel that they are a minority even within their own Church, but he sees diversity as a richness rather than a problem.

«I see it as an enrichment. We are a universal Church and it is in our nature to welcome Catholics wherever they come from,» he explains. At the same time, he stresses that while many Catholic immigrants may not feel like a minority within the Church, they are a minority in Danish society and may feel excluded if they do not actively seek to integrate into the church community.

Catholic positions are ignored

According to Bishop Kozon, about 60 percent of the population is registered as members of the Lutheran Church. The Catholic Church is the second largest Christian group in the country, but has only about 55,000 members.

«There are probably ten to twenty thousand more, but we are still far behind the Lutheran Church in numbers,» he says.

Being a Christian in today's Denmark is, in general, a great challenge, especially on issues related to marriage and family, abortion and euthanasia. The modern view on these issues is widely accepted in society and among politicians, so Christian arguments are rarely welcome in public debate.

The Catholic Church takes a stand on these issues, but because of the small number of Catholics its voice is not taken seriously, the bishop explains. «Many know what the Church stands for, often with a negative tone, but our statements are often met with silence. We are ignored,» he concludes.

A change of attitude

The latest annual Vatican statistics show that the world's Catholic population has grown from 1.39 billion to 1.41 billion. Europe is the least dynamic region, with an increase of only 0.2 percent, although several countries have recorded a notable increase in the number of baptisms. France, “the Church's eldest daughter,” reached record numbers of baptisms in early 2025, despite the deep secularization that has long characterized the country.

Asked whether Denmark is experiencing something similar, Bishop Kozon replies that they have seen an increase in participation in adult courses on the Catholic faith, although the numbers are still modest. «It's about a hundred people a year,» he qualifies.

Nevertheless, he perceives a positive change: today people are more daring to talk about their faith. «A few decades ago it wasn't like that. Back then it was something very private, even impolite, to ask someone if they were a believer. That has changed,» the prelate explains.

Looking to the future

As for vocations, the bishop explains that there are currently seventy-three priests in Denmark, while the number of religious sisters has dropped to less than one hundred. For this reason he maintains that «from a vocational point of view we are not particularly strong. At the moment we do not have any Danish born seminarians in priestly formation».

At the same time, new vocations are emerging thanks to the Redemptoris Mater seminary in Copenhagen, which is part of the diocesan missionary seminaries linked to the Neocatechumenal Way. So far it has trained fourteen priests and another thirteen young men are preparing for ordination. «They ensure the availability of priests to be able to serve our parishes,» he explains.

Despite this, the diocese is looking for ways to awaken local interest in the priesthood and consecrated life. «In Sweden and Norway there are more native vocations. I try to encourage young people at confirmations to think about the priesthood or religious life, but we lack the resources to have a specific vocation minister who can work directly with young people,» the bishop laments.

He notes that the shortage of vocations is not exclusive to the Nordic countries, but a Western phenomenon, especially in the case of women. «Classical religious life, especially in active apostolic orders, no longer attracts young women. It is sad that this way of life is practically disappearing.».

Despite all the difficulties, Bishop Kozon remains fundamentally optimistic about the future. «When I see people rejoicing in their faith, even showing enthusiasm - especially young people - or when more people come to confession, I see that the faith is alive. There are people who really want to deepen their faith and pass it on to others.».

The prelate concludes by affirming that «it is decisive that what remains of the Church be credible and that we radiate joy and hope. That is my hope: that we can do it.

This article originally appeared in the magazine Katolsk Magazin from Sweden. Reproduced here with permission of the publisher.

La entrada ¿Cómo está la Iglesia en Dinamarca? Su obispo lo explica en esta entrevista se publicó primero en Omnes.

In the 11th-12th century, St. Anselm of Canterbury asked in a famous book, “Cur Deus homo?” why God had become man. Certainly in God's redemptive plans after original sin, there was a key element: to redeem the world and illuminate it from within again, it seemed necessary to do it from within, it was not enough to do it from without.

Seen a posteriori, the mystery of the incarnation of the second person of the Blessed Trinity and the hypostatic union; two natures, divine and human, in the one person of Jesus Christ, seemed very convenient to carry out the work of Redemption and Salvation.

“Gaudium et spes” and the Church as the soul of the world.

Precisely on this recent anniversary of the Pastoral Constitution “Gaudium et Spes” (1965) that we have just celebrated, that element of the illumination of the world from within, from the light of so many hearts that are one, one could understand the conciliar expression with deep patristic resonances: “the Church is the soul of the world”.

Ramón Sala OSA (Bilbao 1963), professor of theology at the Augustinian Theological Study of Valladolid, has done a magnificent job of understanding the texts of the Constitution “Gaudium et spes”, taking as a starting point the life and work of great saints who were involved in its drafting and its interpretation according to the light of God that they had received.

The Popes of the Council and its living application

Of course, the selection of persons and themes elaborated by Professor Sala could not be more appropriate: first of all, two Roman Pontiffs: St. Paul VI and St. John Paul II, two saints who knew how to echo the Holy Spirit, first as active protagonists of the and then in its development or application.

St. Paul VI was able to intervene in Vatican Council II, first as Council Father and then as Roman Pontiff to carry it out and close it. Ramón Sala recommends us to read slowly his Encyclical “Ecclesiam suam” (Rome 6, VIII, 1964), to discover many concomitances and synergies with the mentioned Constitution (26).

Then there was St. John Paul II who, first as Council Father and then as Roman Pontiff, carried out the true application of the Second Vatican Council with his travels throughout the world that brought all the particular Churches together with the universal Church in all languages, lives and cultures, and, above all, with the body of Encyclicals and apostolic exhortations. Finally, with the treasure of the 1983 Code of Canon Law, and the 1992 Catechism of the Catholic Church and the true liturgy celebrated by the Church in all the languages of the world or in Latin to show the unity and diversity of the Latin rite (215).

Sanctification of the world from the laity

Next, our author will highlight the figure of St. Josemaría Escrivá, Founder of Opus Dei, who would have anticipated the doctrine of the conciliar Church on the laity and especially would have articulated the sanctification of ordinary work as a theological place to dream of the sanctification of the world from within (30).

It is interesting to note the figure of Cardinal Pironio who would bring from America the Catholic Action and the work of so many years in the application of the Council in the peoples and nations of America and Europe in that capillary work of the laity, as St. John Paul II would underline in the Exhortation “Christifidelis laici: “The Church is a mystery of missionary communion” (187).

Justice, human dignity and option for the poor

The contribution of the holy martyr Saint Oscar Romero, who applied the conciliar doctrine to the particular Church of El Salvador and gave his blood for the Church, is very interesting because he was martyred when he asked for respect for the dignity of the Christian people and specifically for the poorest and most despised of the American continent. 

The conciliar doctrine of “Gaudium et spes” recognizes that all men and women, of every class and condition, have the right to a dignified life and work because they are children of God: “Without Christ there is no true liberation” (118).

Professor Sala reminds us that the Universal Declaration of Human Rights of 1948 was deepened and founded in the Constitution “Gaudium et spes”, when the Council magisterium recognized that this declaration was based on the dignity of the human person and that the dignity of the human person was based on the fact that every human being was created as “the image and likeness of God”.

The fundamental option for the poor, characteristic of the Church since the beginning of Christianity, is present in “Gaudium et spes” and at the same time was courageously applied throughout the world. Therein lies the example of Oscar Romero who was martyred for the truth and of many other Christians who were martyred without dying defending this universal cause (109).

Mission and witness in the contemporary world

The contribution of the Superior General of the Jesuits, Pedro Arrupe, who intervened in the last sessions of the Council and was very active in its application throughout the world through the mission entrusted by God and by the Church to the Society of Jesus in the apostolic mission of the Society (146).

In particular, our author recalls the mission entrusted by Pope Paul VI to the Jesuits of dialogue with non-believers and with the contemporary atheism that plagued and continues to plague humanity in so many parts of the world. Arrupe “contributed in a direct way to begin to overcome the social barrier that still exists today between believers and non-believers” (151).

This mission was concretized positively as a fundamental option for justice, the defense of human rights, the voice of the voiceless and the daily effort to promote justice and the development of peoples in all countries: “Arrupe's insistence on linking contemporary unbelief to social injustice is striking (149).

The Church in the street

AuthorRamón Sala

EditorialRialp : Rialp

Pages: 264

Year: 2026

La entrada La Iglesia en la calle: transformar el mundo desde dentro se publicó primero en Omnes.

Today's Gospel is a direct continuation of last Sunday. Jesus continues his great discourse as the new Moses, developing the Beatitudes. What we hear today is the logical consequence of living the Beatitudes: the Christian becomes salt and light. These images reveal another essential feature of the Christian's “identity card”. With the emphatic words “You are”Jesus does not simply offer advice; he defines what his disciples are called to be. The Christian's mission and witness are made concrete through the images of light and salt, realities that do not exist for themselves, but for others: to enlighten and to give flavor.

“Being light and giving light” is a constant theme running through today's readings, beginning with the first reading. What does it mean for a Christian to give light? It means allowing the Gospel to shine in daily life, through concrete acts of love. Jesus tells us: “Let your light so shine before men”and the prophet Isaiah explains how it happens: “break your bread with the hungry, shelter the homeless poor, cover those you see naked ... Then your light will break forth like the dawn.”. Every good deed is light, but works of charity-especially toward the poor and vulnerable-have a particular radiance.

There is, however, a paradox in being light for others. Not only do we give light through our good works; we also receive light in the process. Charity enlightens us as it flows through us. As Isaiah says: “When you drive away oppression, the accusing finger and slander from you, when you offer to the hungry your own and satisfy the afflicted soul, your light will shine in the darkness, your darkness like the noonday.”. Good begets good. In sharing, we receive; in giving, we are given. This is a profoundly Christian paradox. 

The ultimate purpose of this light is not for personal display, but for the glory of God: “The light is for the glory of God.“give glory to your Father who is in heaven”. Every authentic Christian action refers beyond itself to God, the true source of all light. When good works are motivated by self-interest or vanity, they lose their deepest meaning. The Christian is always called to remember that God is the source and goal of every genuine act of love.

Although light is the dominant image in today's readings, the symbol of salt in the identity of the Christian cannot be overlooked. He is called to transform the world from within and to raise it to its true dignity, just as salt does. Salt acts in a silent way. C. S. Lewis illustrates this beautifully in his book, Mere Christianity.

Imagine someone who has never tasted salt. You give him a small pinch to taste, and he is impressed by its strong, pungent flavor. Then you tell him that, in your country, salt is used in almost all cooking. He might well reply: “Then I guess all your food tastes the same, because that substance you just gave me is so strong that it would overpower any other flavor.”. But you and I know that the true effect of salt is precisely the opposite. Instead of destroying the flavor of the egg, rice or lettuce, it makes it better. They do not reveal their true flavor until salt has been added.

So it is with the Christian as salt of the earth. Through faithful witness and charitable action, the Christian helps earthly realities to reveal their true meaning and beauty, that is, their true flavor.

La entrada Ser luz y dar luz. V domingo del tiempo ordinario (A) se publicó primero en Omnes.

Lately, the cultural environment raises incisive questions about virginity: what is the meaning of virginity in a hyper-sexualized world? Why is its value being devalued? How to explain the treasure of virginity?

Undivided heart, by Josefina Ramón Berná, offers lucid answers deeply rooted in the Christian experience. The work not only documents the spiritual and theological richness of Carmen Hernández, co-initiator of the Neocatechumenal Way, but also opens a window into the soul of a woman totally consecrated to Christ and to evangelization, with a radical, undivided and free love.

The text gathers with special beauty Carmen's words on virginity, understood as a gift: “In virginity it is all grace, gift, which is not born of moralism but of God himself.”. This conception unfolds in a self-surrender lived in gratuity, without the need for vows or formal structures, but with a prophetic and eschatological force. As Fr. Mario Pezzi emphasizes, Carmen was a woman “with eyes set on the sky”, The book faithfully conveys that vital tension, that burning desire to fulfill God's will to the end.

Of special value are the chapters dedicated to women in revelation. Hernandez elevates the feminine vocation from its biblical and anthropological roots, clearly confronting the ideological discourses that dilute the identity of women and their generative capacity. Her vision, luminous and challenging, reminds us that woman carries in herself “the factory of life”, which explains, in her words, why the evil one attacks her so strongly.

This is not a book exclusively for young women with a vocation to consecrated virginity, but a work that sheds light on the entire Christian life, especially in an era marked by affective confusion, loss of meaning and vocational crisis. 

The figure of Carmen Hernandez - who never sought to found anything, but to serve the Church - resonates as an urgent call to follow Christ with a whole heart.

Undivided heart is, without a doubt, a gift for the Church: a book to read, meditate, pray and share. As Kiko Argüello states, “The brothers and sisters of the Camino have the right to know Carmen.”. And, it could be added, also the whole Church.

Undivided heart. Mission and virginity in Carmen Hernández

AuthorJosefina Ramón Berná

Editorial: BAC

Number of pages: 256

La entrada Corazón indiviso. Misión y virginidad en Carmen Hernández se publicó primero en Omnes.

The Bishop of Trondheim (Norway), Trappist monk and writer, Bishop Erik Varden, will preach the Lenten Spiritual Exercises to Pope Leo XIV, to the Cardinals residing in Rome, and to the Heads of Dicasteries of the Holy See, from February 22 to 27.

These are Leo XIV's first Spiritual Exercises as Pope, and will take place in the Pauline Chapel. The Prefecture of the Pontifical Household has reported that the general theme is ‘Enlightened by a hidden glory’. Sunday 22 will begin with Vespers at 5:00 p.m., followed by a meditation on ‘Entering Lent’.

Themes of the meditations

The themes of the following meditations will be ‘St. Bernard the Idealist’ and ‘The Help of God’ (Monday 23). ‘Becoming free’ and ‘The splendor of truth’ (Tuesday 24). A Thousand Shall Fall‘ and ’I Will Glorify Him‘ (Wednesday 25). ’The Angels of God‘ and ’Realistic St. Bernard‘ (Thursday 26). And ’On Consideration‘ and ’Communicating Hope‘ (Friday 27).

Each day concludes with Eucharistic Adoration and Vespers.

At an Omnes Forum in January

A few days ago, the Bishop of Trondheim visited Madrid. He was accompanied by Omnes, from Editorial Encuentro, where he has published his book ‘Wounds that Heal.’, and the Herrera Oria Cultural Foundation, Varden was the star guest of a Omnes Forum, The event, which brought together more than 250 people, was sponsored by the CARF Foundation and Banco Sabadell.

Shortly before, the Norwegian Trappist monk and bishop, spoke to Omnes on the proposal for prayer and Christian reflection through the wounds of Christ in his latest book publication in Spanish as well as other current issues. 

In the interview with Omnes, Monsignor Varden stated, among other things: “I think the Catholic turn is real and has to be taken seriously. Whether it will last is another question.

La entrada El obispo Erik Varden predicará los Ejercicios al Papa y a los cardenales se publicó primero en Omnes.

Sister Sandra works in Sierra Leone and is currently in Spain to publicize the Manos Unidas campaign “Declare War on Hunger”, an initiative that seeks to raise awareness of the reality of the poorest countries and mobilize support for development and education projects.

For the past eight years, she has been working in Sierra Leone, one of the countries with the lowest per capita income in the world, where her congregation develops educational and social projects aimed especially at women and young people in vulnerable situations.

A missionary between Mexico and Africa

Born in Mexico, Sister Sandra belongs to the congregation of the Poor Clare Missionaries of the Blessed Sacrament, a Franciscan-inspired branch founded by a former Poor Clare during the religious persecution in Mexico in the 1920s.

Before entering religious life in 1995, Sandra graduated in industrial chemistry and worked in a company dedicated to the manufacture of dyes and pigments. “I have always been a person eager to learn,” she explains, an attitude that today she defines as key to living Christian discipleship with an “open mind and docile to the Spirit.”.

After missionary experiences in different countries, she arrived in Sierra Leone in 2018, where she currently coordinates several educational projects of great social impact.

Training for underprivileged women and youth

Sister Sandra is responsible for a technical-vocational school for vulnerable women, mostly single mothers who dropped out of basic education. There they receive training in trades such as sewing, hairdressing or cooking, which gives them access to employment and enables them to improve their living conditions in a real way.

At the same time, the congregation offers vocational training in computer and administrative areas for young people who have finished high school but cannot access university. “Training, especially in computers, opens more doors for them in a country where job opportunities are very limited,” he says.

Some of the women trained have found employment in companies that provide services to the iron and bauxite mines, especially in industrial canteens that serve thousands of workers. “Having a stable salary changes their lives,” she says.

Key support from Manos Unidas

The educational work of the Poor Clare Missionary Sisters is largely supported by international cooperation. In this context, Sister Sandra underlines the fundamental role of Manos Unidas, which has been supporting the congregation's projects in Sierra Leone for decades.

In recent years, the NGO has financed the rehabilitation of school buildings at the Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe school, which is home to about a thousand female students. “The state subsidy is a mere 2.60 euros per student per semester. With that it is impossible to maintain infrastructure or improve the quality of education,” he explains.

The difficulties are compounded by the tropical climate, with long periods of heavy rains that quickly deteriorate the buildings. “Without the help of Manos Unidas, we would not be able to continue offering a decent, quality education,” he adds.

Faith and mission in a majority Muslim country

Sierra Leone has a majority Muslim population (95%), which poses a particular challenge to missionary work. For Sister Sandra, this reality demands “to proclaim the faith with respect, but also with freedom”.

“The first conversion is that of the missionary herself,” she says, convinced that daily experience among the poorest people constantly renews faith. She recalls moments of profound spiritual experience, such as community prayer with the sick and poor children, which made her feel that she was “inside a page of the Gospel”.

Although baptisms are few -five or six a year-, the nun emphasizes that evangelization is advancing silently and steadily. “The Holy Spirit works slowly, but does not stop.”.

A mission sustained with few means

Currently, 27 sisters of the congregation work in Sierra Leone, eleven of them in the Lunsar area, attending five schools with more than 3,000 students. In addition, they run a small dispensary that treats more than 1,000 sick people a year.

“We are few and with limited resources, but we keep going,” concludes Sister Sandra. “We firmly believe that education is the basis for real social transformation, even if it is slow. That's why we are here.”.

La entrada Misionera en Sierra Leona: “La primera conversión es la del misionero” se publicó primero en Omnes.

Manos Unidas has presented today its new campaign «.«Declares war on hunger»The call to action focuses on the close relationship between armed conflict, structural poverty and food insecurity that affects millions of people around the world.

The campaign was unveiled at a press conference at the Press Association of Madrid in which Cecilia Pilar, president of Manos Unidas, and Fidele Pogba, coordinator of studies of the NGO, spoke, accompanied by the testimonies of three local partners from projects supported by the organization in Syria, Sierra Leone and Colombia.

Testimonials from the field

During the event, Brother George Sabe (Syria), Sister Sandra Ramos (Sierra Leone) and Father Jesús Albeiro (Colombia) shared the harsh reality of their communities, deeply affected by violence, political instability and lack of access to basic resources.

Their interventions put a face to the figures of hunger and showed how Manos Unidas accompaniment is key to sustaining vulnerable populations, strengthening local resilience and offering development alternatives in conflict contexts.

A historic commitment against hunger

«Fight Hunger» is a reminder of the founding manifesto of Manos Unidas, born in 1955, when the women of the World Union of Catholic Women's Organizations (WUCWO) pledged to try to eradicate hunger in the world.

More than six decades later, this shortage remains a grim reality for nearly 700 million people, and continues to be both a cause and a consequence of many of the world's active conflicts.

Manos Unidas works to break the vicious circle between hunger, poverty and violence, placing peace at the center of its mission, both through humanitarian action and development cooperation projects and social awareness in Spain.

The campaign's proposals for action are framed within Pope Leo XIV's invitation to abandon the «paradigm of war» and to opt for models of coexistence based on justice, equity and dialogue.

A world increasingly violent and less prepared for peace

The data presented during the press conference reflect a worrisome global scenario. Seventy-eight countries are currently involved in wars beyond their own borders, evidencing the weakening of multilateral conflict resolution mechanisms. There are 59 active armed conflicts, the highest number since World War II and three more than the previous year.

According to the Global Peace Index 2025, the world is not only less peaceful, but also less able to build peace.

In 2024, global investment in peacebuilding and peacekeeping was just $47.2 billion, representing just 0.52 % of global military spending, which reached a record $2.7 trillion.

Violence, natural resources and inequality

Armed violence is closely linked to resource exploitation and economic inequality, as four out of ten internal conflicts in the last 60 years have been related to the exploitation of natural resources (UN, 2024). One in eight people in the world were exposed to conflict in 2024, yet a December 2025 Manos Unidas survey indicates that 90 % of Spaniards believe that world peace is the responsibility of all countries.

The impact of Manos Unidas in 2024

With 67 years of experience, Manos Unidas consolidates its international impact with the following data for 2024:

• Scope: 1,600,743 people supported directly by means of 575 projects at 53 countries from Africa, America and Asia.
• Collections: 51.1 million, with a 83.5 % from private funds, The organization's independence is strengthened.
• Efficiency: The 89,8 % of income went directly to the mission (84.7 % to projects in the South and 5.1 % to awareness-raising in Spain).
• Human structure: 6,710 volunteers, 72 delegations, 68,398 members and a technical team of 157 professionals.
• Key sectors: Education, health, water and sanitation, food, women's rights, human rights and environment.

La entrada El 90 % de los españoles creen que la paz mundial es responsabilidad de todos los países se publicó primero en Omnes.

Each year, when the faithful collaborate with the Collection for the Holy Places of the Holy Land, their generosity is transformed into concrete help and real hope. The money given not only serves to safeguard the holy places, but also to support social and educational works that protect the life and dignity of the local Christian communities. 

The Franciscan Children's Home of Bethlehem is a living example of this: an initiative of the Custody of the Holy Land where donations are converted into education, medical care, human accompaniment and a possible future for children and young people who have known pain too soon.

A few steps from the Basilica of the Nativity, the home run by Sandro is no longer an institution but a living Bethlehem where a true family spirit is the real shield against tragedy. In this shelter, the bond is so deep that the team and the children have woven a web of belonging that defies the logic of conflict. «We are a family and, if something happens to us, it happens to us together», is the feeling that prevails in a house where everyday life is celebrated in the simplest details, such as the children teaching a parrot that has become a member of this unique home to speak.

This bond has worked what adults in the area describe as a «special grace»: the total absence of fear in the little ones throughout the two years of war. While the sky was tinged with the trail of bombs passing over their heads, Sandro's children slept «peacefully», astonishing the adults with their serenity. Their secret, they tell with emotion, is the physical closeness of the chapel: «We are next to Jesus», they repeat with the certainty of those who know that the presence of the Eucharist in their own home turns any basement into an impregnable refuge. For them, being with family and being with God are literally the same thing.

The origins

The Franciscan Children's Home of Bethlehem is one of the many social services offered by the Custody of the Holy Land at the service of the local Christian community. Founded in 2007 as an affiliate of Terra Sancta College, this Home was born with a clear mission: to open a new window of hope and build a bridge to a brighter and more dignified future for children and young people in vulnerable situations.

Among the many stories that reflect the Hogar's mission, the story of a young boy who, after seven years of silence, was able to resume dialogue with his mother stands out. This process of family reconciliation symbolizes one of the deepest missions of the Franciscan Children's Home: not only to welcome and care, but also to heal wounds, rebuild bonds and help families walk together again.

Under the slogan “Home is not only the place where you live, but the place where you are understood.”, The Hogar is located in the city of Bethlehem, a few steps away from the birthplace of Our Lord Jesus Christ. 

It is specially equipped to welcome children and adolescents between 7 and 18 years of age who, for various reasons, have been immersed in contexts of pain and suffering. Among the causes are orphanhood, abandonment, neglect resulting from divorce, drug abuse in the family environment, physical and emotional abuse, as well as other serious socio-economic problems affecting the Palestinian Christian community.

The present

Currently, the Home accompanies about 30 children, 12 of whom reside permanently in the house. The Custody takes care of all their needs: education, food, medical care, medicine, clothing and daily accompaniment. A team of 10 to 13 people - educators, teachers, kitchen and cleaning staff - is constantly present to ensure a family and protective environment.

The children of the Franciscan Home attend the Terra Sancta School in Bethlehem, a school run by the Franciscans that welcomes more than 1,300 students from the city and surrounding areas. The Hogar was created to care for and accompany Christian children with serious social, psychological and economic difficulties. More than a simple shelter, it offers a safe, stable and welcoming environment, where their educational, spiritual and human needs are attended to. The objective is to foster their personal growth, their social adaptation and their integral formation, preparing them to become responsible and committed young people.

If you wish to collaborate with the Bethlehem Home you can do so by bank transfer to the Franciscan Boys Home. IBAN NO: PS79 ARAB 0000 0000 9050 7285 0053 0. Arab Bank p.l.c Bethlehem branch, swift code: ARABPS22050.

La entrada ¿Para qué sirve el dinero de la campaña para Tierra Santa? El Hogar Franciscano de Niños de Belén se publicó primero en Omnes.

The pontificate of Pope Leo XIV officially began with his election on May 8, 2025, but it could be said that it is now that his most personal stage begins. His first months at the head of the Church have been marked by an agenda inherited from his predecessor and strongly conditioned by the magnitude of the Jubilee. This event has subjected the Pope to a frenetic rhythm of audiences, celebrations and speeches; a pastoral effort that Francis heroically sustained and that the new Pontiff assumed with generosity from the first day.

The impact of the Jubilee has undoubtedly been positive, with millions of pilgrims passing through Rome. However, the immense public dedication that such an event demands hardly leaves room for that other work of government that requires slow times of study, prayer and dispatch. Now, with the return to normality, this necessary space is opening up.

The challenges facing the Church are well known and resounded strongly in the general congregations prior to the last conclave. The silent persecution of Christians, the secularization of the West, the urgency of internal unity or the delicate Vatican finances are on the table. In addition, there are complex diplomatic issues, such as the renewal of agreements with China, or ecclesial issues, such as liturgical tensions in the Syro-Malabar Church.

These matters have both a technical and a deeply spiritual dimension. The Pope prays and has these intentions prayed for, but he also needs “hands” to execute them. Therefore, a cascade of appointments in the Curia is to be expected. Leo XIV is now putting together his trusted team, the “oarsmen” who will help him guide the ship in this new stage of navigation on the open sea.

La entrada León XIV elige a sus remeros se publicó primero en Omnes.

The Dicastery for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments has published today a Decree, dated November 9, 2025, by which Pope Leo XIV decrees that “St. John Henry Newman, priest and Doctor of the Church, be inscribed in the General Roman Calendar and his free memorial be celebrated by all on October 9”.

This new memorial will be “included in all liturgical calendars and books for the celebration of Mass and the Liturgy of the Hours, making use of the liturgical texts attached to this decree, which will be translated, approved and, after confirmation by this Dicastery, published by the Episcopal Conferences”.

The Holy Father Leo XIV is “aware of the recent recognition as a Doctor of the Church, granted to a holy pastor of such great importance for the entire community of the faithful,” adds the Decree, signed by the Prefect, Cardinal Arthur Roche.

Tireless in mission, intellectual research ministry

During his long life, it is noted, “Cardinal Newman was tireless in the mission to which he had been called, carrying out the ministry of intellectual inquiry, preaching and teaching, as well as service to the poor and the least.”.

Moreover, “his lively mind has left us enduring monuments of great theological and ecclesiological importance, as well as poetic and devotional compositions. His constant quest to go beyond shadows and images to the fullness of truth has become an example for every disciple of the Risen One.”. 

Formerly an Anglican pastor

As will be recalled, Pope Leo XIV approved on July 31 of last year the conferral of the title of Doctor of the Church St. John Henry Newman (London, 1801 - Edgbaston, 1890), eminent British theologian, philosopher and cardinal, who had initially been an Anglican pastor before his conversion to Catholicism in 1845.

Shortly thereafter, on November 1, the Solemnity of All Saints, Newman was officially proclaimed Doctor of the Church in St. Peter's Square during the Jubilee of Education. Shortly before, the Pope had named him co-patron of Education, together with St. Thomas Aquinas.

Numerous articles on Newman's thought have been published in Omnes, including:

John Henry Newman, a saint for our time. Sergio Sánchez Migallón.

The influence of John Henry Newman. Juan Luis Lorda.

Newman's spiritual crises. Pedro Estaún.

Holy priests: Saint John Henry Newman. Manuel Belda.

Luther, Kant and St. John Henry Newman. Santiago Leyra.

Interview with Jack Valero, spokesman for Newman's canonization.

Constant conversion life

As can be seen, the Spanish theologian Juan Luis Lorda published two years ago a text in Omnes on the figure of Newman and his influence. According to Lorda, “the most important thing about Newman is that he is a convert”, not only because of his passage from Anglicanism to Catholicism in 1845, but because his whole life was a “life of constant conversion, in search of the truth that is God”.

On November 1, Pope Leo XIV chose to quote the British saint's poem, ‘Guide, Gracious Light,’ now a popular hymn, in his homily.

“In that beautiful prayer” of St. John Henry Newman, the Pope said, “we realize that we are far from home, our feet are unsteady, we cannot clearly interpret the road ahead. Yet none of this prevents us from moving forward, since we have found our guide” in Jesus. “Guide me, gracious Light, in the midst of the darkness that surrounds me, guide me you,» the Pope quoted in English as he read his homily in Italian, reported Cindy Wooden, CNS News.

La entrada San John Henry Newman, Doctor de la Iglesia, se celebrará el 9 de octubre se publicó primero en Omnes.

Many parishes in the Catholic Diocese of Stockholm report a great deal of interest in the Catholic Church. The number of participants in adult faith formation has increased significantly and the number of baptisms of young people over the age of sixteen and adults is growing rapidly. How are the parishes coping with this great interest?

When, after many years of reflection, in 2008 I realized that the time had come, I knew where to turn, thanks to two priests whom I had met and whom I deeply admired. Franciscan Friar Henrik Roelvink welcomed me with great warmth and gave me a lot of good advice. «But you should talk to someone closer to where you live,» he finally told me.

So I sought out Father Erwin Bishofberger at St. Eugenia parish in Stockholm and said, «Here I am, how can I help?» «Look around a bit first,» he suggested with a smile, and then I patiently began his legendary course. The doctrine and life of the Church.

A partly new group

Today there are many more people interested in the Catholic faith than there were then; some parishes even speak of a tripling of the number in just a few years. According to Deacon Sten Cedergren, ten to twenty people used to attend adult formation in the cathedral parish each year, while now the group numbers sixty-five participants.

Several parishes also point out that this is partly a new type of person approaching the Catholic Church. Father Jan Byström, responsible for adult education at St. Lars parish in Uppsala, explains that they are younger and more often lack a church background. Some have simply «tried out» different churches and today perceive the Catholic Church as a natural part of the Swedish religious landscape. They come to us because they want to be Christians, not primarily because they want to become Catholics.

This breadth, between those who have grown up in secular homes and those who are already well acquainted with the differences between the various Christian denominations, should present a special challenge to those organizing the groups. However, Sten Cedergren explains, these differences become more balanced when it is more a matter of «getting into the Church» than going through a series of doctrinal formulations.

Of course, all of the course leaders contacted by the envoy of KM stress that both doctrine and life are necessary. But in an age when theoretical knowledge is readily available in many formats, the need for the parish to work actively to welcome people into the internal and daily life of the community increases. Let the faith move, so to speak, from the head to the heart to the hands.

Creative variations

If one could bring together the best of the existing good examples in the various parishes, what would it look like? Accessibility would increase if the course, as in Our Savior's parish in Malmö, could also be followed online.

«It started during the pandemic and then we have continued,» says Father Fermin Landa, who is responsible for the formation of converts in the parish.

Lay participation in teaching also helps participants establish contacts more quickly in the parish. At St. Lars, at each meeting someone gives an initial presentation, followed by lay-led group discussions.

«And then we priests withdrew,» explains Father Jan Byström.

At St. Thomas in Lund, three lay people have taken over the teaching from Father Anders Piltz, who was previously in charge of the courses. They are, by the way, a professor of systematic theology (Gösta Hallonsten), a professor of exegesis (Sten Hidal) and a secondary school religion teacher, reports the latter, Malin Loman.

In the past, two years of formation were offered at St. Eugenia with meetings every two weeks: one year with the pastor in charge and the other with a deacon. Now, on the other hand, they meet every week, alternating the pastor and the deacon. The idea is, on the one hand, to move forward a little faster with those who are prepared and, on the other, to alternate doctrine and life, explains Deacon Ronny Elia.

At Christ the King in Gothenburg, the topics for the various introductory course sessions are posted on the website and outside speakers are often invited. At the same time, the rest of the parish is invited to participate in these evenings, according to Paddy McGuire, who is responsible for the training. In this way, course participants also have the opportunity to meet other members of the parish community.

Difficulty integrating into the community

Even after reception into the Church, it is not always easy to integrate into parish life, where many have known each other for years. In the cathedral parish, under the leadership of Deacon Sten Cedergren, the creation of an association named after the convert of converts, Paul, is now being tested. The aim is to support those who are new to the Church and those who wish to spread information about the conversion process. The first meeting took place on January 25, the feast of the conversion of the Apostle Paul.

Even if it is not possible to personalize the accompaniment when there are between fifty and one hundred interested parties, the method of Deacon Conny Strömberg at St. Ansgar's parish in Södertälje is inspiring: starting from the point where each person is in his or her faith journey and offering formation from there.

Perhaps even large groups could be divided according to starting point. Thus, those who wish to discuss more «specialized» issues could do so among themselves, while those who are completely new to the church setting could begin with a study circle, for example, with the book and video series Sycamore of KPN.

Between St. Benedict and the missionary mandate

Chapter 58 of the Rule of St. Benedict deals with the admission of new monks: «If someone comes and perseveres in calling, and after four or five days shows patience in enduring the difficulties and roughness of access, and perseveres in his request, he will be granted entrance and will remain a few days in the hospice» (Rule of St. Benedict, Editorial Veritas).

I think of this prudent monastic tradition, seeking deep discernment, when I visit the websites of larger parishes looking for something along the lines of, «Welcome, you who are curious about Catholic life; what a joy; here's how you can get started.».

For extroverted people, finding the right path is rarely a problem: they ask and they get there. And those who approach the Church because they have a Catholic family member or friend - half of those interested, according to one study - also have someone to ask. But what about shy, introverted people?

It is easy for any group to end up communicating primarily with those who already belong to it. In light of Jesus« command to »go into all the world and make disciples of all," the invitation to newcomers should have an obvious place on every parish website, on the same level as invitations to parish flea markets, and be a regular item on pastoral councils, on the same level as real estate issues. Considering the treasures the Church has to offer and all the qualified people involved in adult formation, the mission deserves greater visibility.

This article was originally published in Revista Katolsk Magazin from Sweden. Reproduced here with permission of the publisher.

La entrada Cada vez más personas se interesan por la Iglesia en Suecia se publicó primero en Omnes.

In these first weeks of the new year, Rialp Editions has launched the centenary edition of “The Way,” the famous text of St. Josemaría Escrivá (1902-1975), which has spread throughout the world.

It is truly impressive to consider that when St. Josemaría sent to press in Valencia in 1939, at the end of the Spanish Civil War, the 999 Points of The Way, he never thought that it would spread so widely in space and time and that it would become a classic treatise on spirituality.

“Notary” of the lights of the Spirit

In all honesty, we must make it clear from the outset that The Way was written by the Holy Spirit and that all St. Josemaría did was to become the notary of those inspirations, to write them down, group them together and draw up an index, which was the true work of the Founder of Opus Dei.

What we have just narrated succinctly is the true story of The Way. From a very young age, St. Josemaría was accustomed to noting down the lights he received from the Holy Spirit: the new Mediterraneans that opened up before his eyes, when he read a book, celebrated Mass or recited the Liturgy of the Hours, and also when he spoke with others.

The lights of the Holy Spirit would burst forth at any moment, because even sleep can be prayer. St. Josemaría had learned from his mother, like everyone else, to love God and others, and therefore he habitually practiced what he called “prayer of complicity.

The prayer of complicity in ordinary life

That is what led him to holiness in the midst of the world through the ordinary chores of life: to keep alive the thread of prayer, but the prayer of complicity. It is very important, therefore, to involve God in our life and to involve ourselves in dialogue with God.

When he preached or when he spoke personally with those university students or professionals who came to his confessional, he always brought out in his conversation sparkling memories, anecdotes, lights that he had received in his prayer or in any moment of prayer during the day.

One day, those kids started asking him to write down those anecdotes so that they could relive the moments when they had heard them in the media or in personal conversations he had with them.

The Way: a lay spirituality

Cardinal Luciani, Patriarch of Venice, Blessed John Paul I, described very graphically in the summer of 1978, a few months before he was elected Pope, the difference between St. Francis de Sales and St. Josemaría Escrivá in the following way: the former, St. Francis, provided formation for the laity and St. Josemaría imparted a lay formation. Indeed, the meditative reading of the points of The Way will eventually convert us, with God's grace, into discerning souls to be good children of God in the midst of the world in our ordinary activities.

In fact, at any time of the day, we can recollect ourselves interiorly and spend some time in prayer: in the tabernacle of our parish, in a chapel or cathedral or in the subway, in a corner of our own home and raise our hearts in complicity of friendship with God and read a point of The Way to relive those divine lights and make them our own or to converse confidently with Jesus about our things.

I remember one morning in the bar of the Faculty of Geological Sciences of the Complutense University of Madrid, when the thirty students of the class met there for a mid-morning drink with some of our professors and one of us took a spoon with coffee and deposited a lump of white sugar on that spoon and the coffee began to impregnate the sugar cube with black color and, at that moment, we all exclaimed happily: “magmatic undermining”. It was the jubilant cry of those of us who were happy to study minerals, rocks and crystals and could exult with our classmates without fear of being considered mad scientist crackpots as had happened to us before we enrolled.

At that moment the Holy Spirit enlightened me and made me realize that with my times of prayer meditating on the points of the Way, by raising my heart in love to God while working, by getting together with my friends and helping each other in their needs, my soul was being transformed into a magmatic undermining and God was making me a saint: in love with the Love of loves.

Bridging heaven and earth: a path for the world

The key to The Way is that it is a lay and secular instrument for converting everyday life into personal, daily encounters with Jesus Christ and with others. Some professors at the University of Navarra have published a book with the one hundred points of the Way that speak directly of the “love of God”. In other words, a 10% of the Way speaks directly of God's Love, like yeast in the dough. And, we will soon discover that the remaining 90% are also expressions of God's love, which is the main issue.

This uniting of heaven and earth, or this illumination of the world from within with the love of God, is the background to all the points of The Way. As St. Josemaría affirmed in another well-known text: “On the horizon, my children, heaven and earth seem to be united, but no, it is in your hearts that you live your ordinary life in a holy way” (Conversations, no. 116). (Conversations, no. 116).

I would like to end by commenting on a memory of one of the first priests of Opus Dei, Father Joseph L. Muzquiz, who was sent by St. Josemaría to begin the work of Opus Dei in the United States, Japan and other parts of the world.

He noted in his memories that when they arrived in a new country with St. Josemaría's blessing, an image of our Lady and little else, they always did so trusting in God's grace and full of joy. Immediately, he added, the first thing they did was to look for a job, a house and begin to make friends and be very close to each other and to the hierarchy of the country and to all the Christians in their new country, whom they had to love and become one of them.

Finally he added: “We were preparing an edition of The Way to teach how to pray and we were looking for a big house to put up a student residence and we were living in good spirits what we had learned from St. Josemaría.

The Way

AuthorSt. Josemaría Escrivá of Balaguer

EditorialRialp : Rialp

Date of publication: 2021

Pages: 304

La entrada Camino: la oración de los hijos de Dios se publicó primero en Omnes.

The German Synodal Path, launched in December 2019 in response to the sexual abuse crisis and the loss of confidence of the faithful, is taking a further step towards its consolidation: the German Bishops“ Conference (DBK) plans to transform this temporary process into a stable structure called the ”Synodal Conference." However, the Vatican has already warned on several occasions that a body with the power to control bishops has no place in canon law.

The Synodal Way was conceived as a space for open dialogue between bishops, clergy and laity to discuss power in the Church, sexual morality, ministries and lay participation, with the aim of proposing organizational and pastoral reforms. However, already in its development, signs of rupture with the government of the Church began to become evident, for example, when asking for equal decision making between laity and bishops, changes in moral matters, etc. Several bishops and participants, in fact, have expressed their opposition to this development and some have left the sessions.

The final intention of this new structure is to consolidate a mechanism in which the laity not only deliberate, but can make decisions together with the bishops, including sensitive aspects such as diocesan budgets. In other words, it is not a consultative body but an executive one.

The new proposal

After several warnings from Rome about the invalidity of a “Synodal Council” as a permanent body, a "Synodal Council" was established. Synodical Committee The new Synod was charged with drawing up a road map for the new structure. Between January 29 and 31, in Stuttgart, the last 27 members of the Synodal Conference, which now replaces the initial name of “Council”, were elected. Although the change of name is intended to reduce tensions, the suspicion persists that it is a permanent monitoring structure of the episcopate.

The future Synodal Conference will be composed of 81 members, divided into three blocks: 27 diocesan bishops, 27 delegates of the Central Committee of German Catholics (ZdK) and 27 other members selected according to different criteria, including youth, religious and women. The statutes have already received unanimous approval from the ZdK, and will be voted on at the end of the month by the Bishops' Conference, scheduled for February 23-26. However, it will then require final approval from Rome.

Criticism

Leo XIV has expressed his concern that “many Catholics in Germany” do not see themselves reflected in some aspects of the process, as was demonstrated by the fact that four women participants will be separated from it.

The Pope also recalled that the Synodal Way is not “the only” way possible in the country. According to Vatican News, the pontiff perceives similarities with the synodality of the universal Church, but also “significant differences”.

Social support for the process shows limited: a September 2025 survey indicates that only 21% of German Catholics are in favor, compared to 17% against, while 58% did not respond.

Among the bishops, The perception is also diverse. Even Cardinal Reinhard Marx, Archbishop of Munich and one of the driving forces behind the Synodal Way, declared that he wanted “a higher authority that constantly controls me as a bishop. That is not possible. That is precisely what Rome did not want”.

For his part, Cardinal Rainer Maria Woelki of Cologne, one of the most critical, declared a few weeks ago that for him the Synodal Path “has ended” and he will not participate in the final assembly or in the steps to establish the permanent body.

The president of the German Bishops“ Conference, Bishop Georg Bätzing, insisted that the Synodal Conference will not begin to function without the approval of Rome, calling any attempt to move forward without Rome's approval an ”unnecessary provocation". consent of the Holy See. Bätzing stressed that the Church in Germany does not intend to act on the margins of the universal Church, keeping the door to dialogue with the Vatican open.

La entrada Tras el “Camino sinodal” y el “Comité sinodal”, ahora llega la “Conferencia sinodal” alemana se publicó primero en Omnes.

The 2026 Grammy gala will not be remembered just for record sales or technological displays, but for a moment of raw spiritual honesty. Jelly Roll, the chart-conquering country-rock giant, shocked the Crypto.com Arena by turning his thank-you speech into a heartfelt apology for his faith.

With a Bible in his hand, the artist launched a message that has resonated beyond the music industry: «I believed that music had the power to change my life and that God had the power to change my life,» he said visibly moved. At a time of maximum social polarization, Jelly Roll wanted to distance himself from the ideological use of religion, stating that «Jesus is for everyone. Jesus is not the property of a political party».

The singer's message of redemption was especially powerful when he referred to his criminal past and his years in prison: «There was a time in my life when all I had was a Bible and a radio in a 2 by 2 meter cell. And I believed that those two things could change my life,» he recalled to a standing ovation from the audience. His closing was a resounding statement of gratitude: «Jesus is Jesus and anyone can have a relationship with him. I love you, Lord!.

Who is Jelly Roll?

Behind the tattooed face and rugged appearance of the Jason Bradley DeFord (Nashville, 1984), known as Jelly Roll, hides one of the most powerful stories of overcoming adversity in American music. Raised in an environment of poverty and addiction, he spent much of his youth in and out of jail for serious crimes.

After years in the underground hip-hop circuit, his leap into country allowed him to channel his past through lyrics that speak of guilt, addiction and, above all, hope. Today he is an icon of the American working class, representing those who feel that society has turned its back on them but who have found in spirituality a plank of salvation.

A spiritual resurgence in the charts

Jelly Roll's words are not an isolated event, but the spearhead of a phenomenon that music analysts have dubbed the «new Christian revival» in pop and country.

In recent months, we have witnessed a breaking down of the walls separating contemporary music from faith. Artists like Brandon Lake, who last night shared the stage with Jelly Roll, or the phenomenon of Shaboozey and Lainey Wilson, are integrating explicit references to God into traditionally secular genres. Unlike the Christian music of decades past, this new movement is not seeking isolation on religious stations, but competing head-to-head on the global charts, demonstrating that there is a mass audience hungry for messages of transcendence in uncertain times.

La entrada Jelly Roll sacude los Grammy con unas palabras sobre su encuentro con Jesucristo y la Biblia se publicó primero en Omnes.

During the months of January and February 2026, the General Chapter of the Legionaries of Christ, the General Assembly of Consecrated Women and the General Assembly of the Consecrated Laity of Regnum Christi will be held in Rome. These meetings mark a decisive stage of discernment, evaluation and projection of the common journey of the whole spiritual family.

In this context, on January 29, Pope Leo XIV received in private audience the participants of the Assemblies of Consecrated Women and Consecrated Laity. The Pontiff encouraged them to live faithfully the charism they have received, to exercise an evangelical government at the service of the people and to deepen communion within the Church and Regnum Christi. The audience was experienced as a gesture of pastoral closeness and spiritual impulse for the present context.

Communion

For Jorge Lopez, delegate to the General Assembly of Consecrated Laity and Director General of Regnum Christi between 2014 and 2020, “the audience was a gesture of Pope Leo XIV's solicitude towards the consecrated women and men and indirectly towards the entire Regnum Christi family”. In continuity with the path begun in previous years, he recalled that “as Pope Francis did in 2020, we are invited to continue and deepen a process of renewal,” stressing that the Pope's message emphasizes “living the vocation in fidelity to the charism and the common mission.”.

Lopez especially highlighted the call to communion: the Pope, he said, “invites us to live our vocation in fidelity to the charism received and to the common mission. It also includes an explicit invitation to live communion within the family of Regnum Christi,” something he considers essential, since “the meeting with the Pope itself we have lived in this way: a moment of communion among us, as Church.”.

Subjects covered

The work of the General Chapter and the General Assemblies have as objectives to evaluate the management of the previous period, to elect the new governments for the next six years and to discern, in the light of the Holy Spirit, the current challenges of the evangelizing mission. All of this seeks to contribute specific accents that enrich the common mission and strengthen the path of Regnum Christi in continuity with the General Convention of 2024.

In the General Chapter of the Legionaries of Christ, they address, among other topics, formation in identity, religious and priestly life, vocation promotion and their mission within Regnum Christi. The Consecrated Women of Regnum Christi reflect on their vision towards 2032, financial sustainability, living poverty, ongoing formation and possible modifications to their own law. For their part, the Consecrated Laity deepen their spiritual and community life, the living of evangelical poverty, the apostolic projection, the organizational structure and Regnum Christi understood as a spiritual family and apostolic body.

These meetings in Rome take place in an atmosphere of shared discernment and ecclesial responsibility, with a view to strengthening the identity, mission and communion of the entire Regnum Christi family at the service of the Church and the world.

La entrada Continúan las asambleas generales del Regnum Christi y los Legionarios de Cristo en Roma se publicó primero en Omnes.

When a friend gave me «The Count of Monte Cristo» as a gift, the first thing I did was check the number of pages: 1215, a brick! But, despite my doubts about whether I would be able to finish it, I ended up immersed in its complex but perfectly articulated plot, impregnated with very intense emotions that overwhelm you page after page.

Writing changes

As a storyteller, I was envious of Alexandre Dumas. He lived in the golden age of the serialized novel, when chapters were published months apart and narrators could afford endless digressions to entertain aristocratic female readers between installments.

Today we are obliged to comply with strict limits and to write in a fast and scenographic way. Since the advent of cinema, in fact, the narrator must disappear: the reader wants to be at the center of the scene without filters. Eugenio Corti called it «writing by images».

The birth of a masterpiece

Alexandre Dumas (1802-1870), son of a Napoleonic general of Haitian origin, is one of the giants of 19th century French literature. A prolific author (more than 300 works, including The Three Musketeers), he often worked with collaborators and was not very meticulous: there are many historical and geographical inaccuracies in his novels. But his narrative genius is unquestionable. The Count of Monte Cristo was published in installments between 1844 and 1846, inspired by the true story of François Picaud, a shoemaker unjustly imprisoned who later took revenge on his accusers.

The plot

Edmond Dantès, a young sailor from Marseille, is about to marry Mercedès when three men destroy his life: Danglars (who wants his job), Fernand (who wants Mercedès) and the magistrate Villefort (who sacrifices him to protect his Bonapartist father). Falsely accused of conspiracy, he is imprisoned for fourteen years in the castle of If.

There he meets Abbot Faria, also imprisoned, who passes on his immense knowledge and, before he dies, reveals to him the location of a treasure on the island of Montecristo. Dantès escapes, finds the treasure and returns to the world as a mysterious magnate to plot tremendous revenge.

It is not only the adventurous plot that makes this novel a masterpiece: it is the narrative architecture, similar to an octopus with a thousand tentacles, each of which extends freely into the sea, but which then wraps itself, along with the others, to captivate the reader little by little, squeezing him ever tighter and giving him the feeling, like one of Dantès' victims, of no longer understanding from where and how the righteous hand of God that the protagonist believes he represents has come.

Revenge as an exact science

Dantès does not simply want to kill his enemies: he wants to annihilate what is «life» for them (wealth for one, social position for another, family and reputation for yet another). And to do so, he moves like a spider in the center of a web he has woven for years, multiplying identities, wearing masks. He is, according to need, a Maltese count, an English lord, a priest, an adventurous sailor: each mask is perfect, studied, impenetrable.

However, at one point, something in him cracks. An innocent woman runs the risk of falling victim to his tremendous revenge mechanism and the Count realizes that he has gone too far. Doubt takes hold of him: is it justice or just blind revenge? Yes, because revenge, like «luck», has no eyes. And if luck smiles on those who do not deserve it, revenge does not forgive those who are not at fault.

Therefore, Dantès, who previously did not seem to doubt that the faults of the fathers must also fall on the children, wonders if he was really an instrument of Providence, as he had convinced himself, or simply a man devoured by obsession.

Waiting and waiting

The bitter reflection of the protagonist, embodied in a letter written to a friend, leads to the awareness of having lost his innocence, not because of what he has suffered, precisely innocently, but because of what he has made suffer voluntarily. However, it concludes with a desire that is also a recovered identity: «to wait and wait», «attendre et espérer».

It is the confession of a man who has spent years plotting revenge, who has always acted instead of waiting, who has sought justice with his own hands instead of waiting, but who realizes that perhaps he has been wrong. If, as he himself admits, only those who have known extreme unhappiness can taste true happiness, it is also true that, as is evident from the story, that happiness can only be given and received, not conquered with a thousand and one subterfuges.

This also made me think of a beautiful metaphor by Friedrich Nietzsche: the three metamorphoses of the spirit, described in Thus Spake Zarathustra.

Nietzsche distinguishes three transformations performed by man:

The camel that travels through the desert identifies the spirit burdened with the weight of the values received or the burdens imposed by others or by the tradition and morality to which it is subjected: «I must».

The lion is the rebellion, the spirit that says «I want» and no longer «I must». In this phase there is negative freedom, rejection: the lion destroys, fights, conquers its freedom through the negation of what it was before and of those who made it so.

The child represents innocence recovered, the ability to create new values spontaneously: «I am». It is to say «yes» to life without resentment, without submission or regret, believing freely, playing, living in the present.

Edmond Dantès and Joseph

While reading «The Count of Monte Cristo», I was struck by a strange similarity between Edmond Dantès and Joseph, the biblical patriarch thrown into a well and sold by his brothers.

Both were victims of great injustice; both were imprisoned for years (Dantès in the castle of If, Joseph in the Egyptian prisons); both were betrayed by those who should have loved or respected them; both, once out of prison, find themselves in a position to do good to themselves and others, endowed with unthinkable power and resources. However, they choose opposite paths.

Dantès lives for revenge. He multiplies identities, disguises himself, puts on masks. His «home» is not a home (in fact, he constantly changes it!), he lives in exile from a curse that grips him, from the rancor that haunts him and inhabits every palace he conquers. He lives only to destroy those who have harmed him. And above all, he is no longer himself, Edmond, but always someone else.

Giuseppe, on the other hand, finds himself for a moment in the skin of another (which is not his denial, but an evolution of himself). And when his brothers, having arrived in Egypt, do not recognize him, he is faced with a choice: to take revenge or to help them? In the end, he decides to remain himself, realizing that living to curse is just a waste of time, a waste of «vital energy», as we would say today.

When he finally reveals himself to his brothers, Joseph weeps. Not out of anger, but out of recognition. And he utters a phrase that changes everything: «You thought evil against me, but God turned it to good» (Gen 50:20). It is not naivety or weakness, but the awareness that everything contributes to good, and not in a «magical» way, but when one chooses to guard one's own good, one's own mental health, the desire to bless oneself and others, to be a blessing and not a curse.

Where we really live

«Home,» then, is not Monte Cristo or Paris, not Israel or Egypt, but that place - interior or physical - where we need no disguises or trappings, where all the things we love, are, believe and desire stop fighting each other. The place where we can say: «I belong. I am home». And «home» is also where we stop living to curse and go back to living to bless, first and foremost ourselves.

La entrada ¿Vengarse o bendecir? Lo que enseña el conde de Montecristo se publicó primero en Omnes.

María Álvarez de las Asturias and Mercedes Honrubia have been accompanying couples and engaged couples on their relationship journey for more than 25 years.

As a result of this experience, these experts have published «Crisis, not rupture», a book published by Palabra, in which the basic foundations for a healthy marital relationship and key lines to prevent and face possible crises during marriage are collected.

A useful and realistic book, aimed at engaged couples and married couples at any point in their relationship and in which the authors have wanted to emphasize the need for communication in the couple, honesty, the need to ask for help or advice before «going through a bump» and the awareness that crises are not always a synonym of a breakup, but an opportunity for growth.

Against this backdrop, Omnes spoke with the authors about marriage, dating, key issues and how to detect early that «snowball» that may be forming in a relationship.

At a time when terminology is badly flawed, what differentiates marriage from any other love relationship? 

M.A.A. -What differentiates marriage from other types of unions is that it is a commitment to live love forever. That commitment, which is often frightening because we think it takes away our freedom or that we won't be able to keep it, is actually a help.

Commitment gathers the elements of love: “how comfortable we are together” and, as we are comfortable together, we spend time together to see what we think about life, about love, about marriage, about family, about work..., about everything. When the two things fit together, -I am comfortable together and I am discovering more things that make me more comfortable with you- then we decide if this is what we always want to live: commitment.

Commitment is a compass. I have decided this, I will go in this direction, and the difficulties that may come we will overcome them together. That is commitment and that is marriage. 

So..., what is courtship? 

M.A.A. -Dating is a relationship that has to end somehow. A good courtship is the one that ends either in marriage or in the thoughtful and meditated decision of “this has no future”. That is a courtship. 

Choosing the person if the other person does not want to be chosen. uh 

Well, if the other person does not want to be chosen, you can only respect the other person's freedom, you cannot impose yourself. Therefore, you have to move away from that person. And be careful, falling out of love is not automatic. It takes time, you have to go through a mourning process to get that person out of your heart and that place can be occupied by another person. This always, obviously, when we talk about courtship. The case of marriage is completely different. 

Crisis, not rupture

Author: María Álvarez de las Asturias and Mercedes Honrubia

Pages: 240

Editorial: Word

Year: 2025

Is it possible to promise love “forever” - are we not being idealistic?

M.H. - What a good question! I think the longing we all have is to love and be loved. That to love and be loved is something one longs for forever. Circumstances change, just as people change. 

It is not about staying in the butterflies of the beginnings, but it is a free choice where I update that yes, every day. Updating that yes every day, -in the present-, implies building a future. If I get to know the other person and I get to know myself, I accept my circumstances and I accept the circumstances of the other person, it is from there that I can update that yes. That is why it is a yes forever. 

When we hear “marriage counseling”, it seems that we always think of “marriage problems”, is that so? 

M.A.A. -The personal accompaniments, The professional family and marriage counseling programs have arisen because there are people who have asked for them. Until a relatively short time ago, in families, more or less, there was a unity of thought on important issues.

Now we find that there are many people who have a way of seeing family and marriage that they do not share with the rest of their environment. And, when they have a small doubt or a difficulty that is not very serious, they do not find someone with their values and principles to turn to within this close environment. We have been approached by people who have asked us for this accompaniment because they know that we share their way of understanding life, love and marriage. 

Many times, couples do not come because they have a difficulty, but also to reaffirm themselves in the path they have chosen, to lay a good foundation before marriage or because they have already laid that foundation and want to expand their knowledge and the way to put it into practice. 

Saying things in front of a neutral third party is much easier. First of all, because you can say things objectively and see if it was really important or not. In addition, the pact of the coaching session is to listen to the other.

Many times, when these things that were kept quiet are manifested, in front of a third party, the other person is surprised because “he/she had no idea about this”. That is why the accompaniment is not necessarily for the moments when you are thinking about a breakup, but much earlier, to avoid these ruptures.

When there is something that is getting stuck, something that is getting stuck in a couple, an accompaniment session is requested and these little knots are untied.

How to distinguish an insurmountable situation from a “growth” crisis in the relationship?  

M.H. -This is a subject we dealt with in “Crisis, not rupture”. It is important to know that there are evolutionary crises: just as the person is changing, the marriage is also evolving, growing and maturing.

Knowing those moments, those stages of life, places you in a perspective from which, when you see the crisis appear, it does not scare you, because you know that it is part of your own growth. Knowing gives you the security to be able to overcome. 

Another thing is the circumstances that do not depend on one, but come and we do not know how to deal with them. That is where two positions can be adopted.

The first is to consider that it is a crisis, but not in a negative sense, but it can allow me to know myself better in order to overcome this difficulty.

The second, on the contrary, is that in a couple, when faced with this situation, one of the partners does not want to work on the relationship and this implies a breakup. 

Sometimes, we encounter situations like this, in which one of the parties does not want to and, no matter how much the other is committed, it cannot be overcome. In the book we also talk about those situations in which you can no longer have control, for example in the face of a pathology, or an illness or alcohol dependence, and in which you may have to opt for a separation. 

There are stages in which marriages have many fronts open at the same time: raising children, professional deployment, parents are getting older... So it is very good to keep in mind that marriage is a long-distance race.

There are stages that are like a succession of hurdles in the race, but we have to be aware that this is temporary, but that our union is definitive. That it is a long-distance race and that we have a lot of time to continue working on what is ours. 

What key issues do we need to be clear about already in the courtship?

M.A.A. -When, in courtship, we think of “a life together”, it is about choosing the person and what kind of love relationship I want to live with him/her. To choose the person, I have to get to know him or her. That's why we talk a lot about time dating relationship. We can't go too fast, because you don't meet people overnight. 

We need to spend time in courtship to know how the other is, what he thinks, what illusions he has, what fears, what hurts, what things he likes, what things he worries about in all this. Once it is clear to you that this is the person, whom you know with his or her positive and negative aspects, then you have to talk about what type of relationship we want. 

If we choose the marriage, This is the foundation on which we build. We cannot later “remove” elements of the relationship we have chosen. That is, if we go to a de facto union, we can later add the commitment forever. But if we choose a union forever, it is not fair play to remove the element of commitment. And this is immutable. 

Everything else, -which comes around this union of the two of us and which we have called “family project” to distinguish it-, does not depend on us. We cannot foresee everything because, maybe we wanted children and they don't come, or one of us is out of work, or the parents are suddenly not there.

It is in all this, which is changing, that crises will occur, because they are alterations of the reality we are living that we cannot control. As we cannot control them, it is a matter of knowing them together, facing them together, solving them together. 

In courtship, we can talk about “what we would like”, but these are not decisions we can make. a priori. Talking about “what we would like”, we know a lot about each other.

That is why, in courtship, we have to know the person, the type of relationship we want and the elements of the family project that each of us likes. Because, if they are radically incompatible, surely that will make me decide that this is not the person I can commit to. 

In your latest book you touch on two painful and complicated topics, what you call the “sudden death” of marriage and infidelity. How do you deal with such complex realities?

M.H. -In the book we have a separate chapter where we deal with both infidelity and the sudden death of marriage. These are two different issues. 

Perhaps in the sudden death there may even be infidelity, which is what leads to that decision and the other person is faced with it without seeing it coming. 

Many times, the sudden death What it implies is having been silent for a long time, not having said what one needed to say. Then, the other person believes that everything is going well, it continues to work because he/she believes that everything is going well. 

Sometimes, people do not speak to avoid a conflict, because of wounds or circumstances that have accumulated from the past and that prevent them from having that assertive communication. That is why in the book we talk a lot about the importance of communication. When someone says “it's over”, they have already gone through a grieving process to make that decision, and many times it is irreversible. 

Infidelity is a different matter. There are different types of infidelity and I believe that none is justifiable. Infidelity is a betrayal. A betrayal of the person, whether male or female, and a betrayal of the relationship. There you are really hitting the waterline of commitment. 

It is true that it is possible to overcome an infidelity, but the wound of betrayal is very difficult to heal. It requires a lot of time and to recover a trust that is absolutely devastated. For that it is necessary, not only that the person who has been betrayed wants to work on that relationship and wants to work on forgiveness towards the other, but also that the person who has committed that infidelity also needs to work on recovering trust and, above all, to work on being a team, because there we are both committed.

Many questions will arise, many doubts, many issues of which, perhaps at a given moment the person who has been unfaithful already wants to turn the page because he has asked for forgiveness and it seems that everything is already restructured and, however, the person who has been unfaithful needs to constantly ensure that the other person is really here.

Sometimes, infidelity is not the cause but can be “the consequence”. It is usually the consequence of poor communication within the relationship: not trusting the other, not being able to say how I am at a given moment, what I need from you..., can cause us to put our heart in a person who is not the one we have chosen.

It is never justifiable and can be worked through, it can be forgiven, but it is a wound that is difficult to heal. 

The wound of infidelity strikes at the waterline of self-esteem. It is necessary to work a lot on that self-esteem and that way of communicating. Everything that sometimes needs to be said, even if it hurts, so that the other person also puts all the meat on the grill. 

That hackneyed phrase from the world of celebritiesIs it true: “Our love has worn out from using it so much”..., is it real? 

M.A.A. -The love really grows when it is used. What happens is that you have to take care of it. We talk a lot about gestures of affection. Love, not “butterflies”.

On the one hand, we receive queries from people who say, “I don't feel those butterflies”. It seems to me that we have greatly exaggerated the effervescence of falling in love. 

Falling in love, more than an effervescence, is a warmth of the heart that you have with one person and you do not have with another. And this warmth of the heart must be maintained throughout the life of love.

And how is this done? With gestures of affection, with a little note, with a WhatsApp, with a handshake..., with all the gestures of courtship. If the courtship has been well used, it has gone slowly and all the steps that can be taken have been taken, we will have learned to value these small gestures.  

Then, we have to know that, if there are moments in which we are both very tired, -because many times more than wear and tear in the relationship, what we have is a lot of tiredness-, then we have to accept it and talk about what we can do -realistically- to continue reviving this. 

We also say that, from the union of the heart we go to the union of the body, and from the union of the body the union of the heart resurfaces, that is why we ask couples who come “worn out”: How long has it been since you have been together? That you don't talk? That you don't have half an hour for yourselves? When they recover those moments to reconnect, love is used again and not worn out. 

La entrada María Álvarez de las Asturias y Mercedes Honrubia: «El amor de verdad crece cuando ‘se usa'» se publicó primero en Omnes.

Among his teachings in recent weeks, in the wake of the Jubilee of Hope, we focus on his message for the 59th World Day of Peace, which marks the beginning of the year 2026, and his apostolic letter Loyalty that generates future, on the occasion of the 60th anniversary of the conciliar decrees Optatam totius y Presbyterorum ordinis.

The revolution of a disarming peace

Leo XIV's message for the World Day of Peace (1-I-2026) is entitled: Peace be with you all: Towards a ‘disarmed and disarming’ peace’. It is a direct and extended echo of the first words he pronounced when he stepped out onto the balcony of St. Peter's Basilica in the Vatican (May 8, 2025). 

The peace brought by the risen Christ,“ he observes in the introduction, "is not a mere wish, but "... the peace of the Risen Christ.“The result is a definitive change in the person who receives it and, thus, in the whole of reality.”(cf. Eph 2:14). The Christian mission, which involves peace with its luminous aspect in the face of the darkness and obscurity of conflicts, continues to move forward. With the proclamation of the successors of the Apostles and the impetus of so many of Christ's disciples, it is “a mission of peace" (Eph 2:14).“the quietest revolution".

An unarmed “struggle

Christ brings “an unarmed peace” because, in the face of conflict and violence, He brings a different path. "Sheathe your sword.", he says to Peter (Jn 18:11; cf. Mt 26:52). 

"The peace of the resurrected Jesus is disarmed -The Pope affirms, because their struggle was unarmed, within specific historical, political and social circumstances. Christians, together, must prophetically bear witness to this newness, remembering the tragedies in which they have so often been complicit.". 

Jesus proposes, instead, the way - the protocol, Pope Francis called it - of mercy (cf. Mt 25:31-46). 

Paradoxically, today, “in the relationship between citizens and rulers, the fact that we are not sufficiently prepared for war, to react to attacks, to respond to aggressions, is considered to be a fault.". 

But this is just the tip of the iceberg of a deeper and more widespread global problem: the widespread lThe logic justifying fear and domination. “Indeed, the deterrent force of power, and in particular nuclear deterrence, embodies the irrationality of a relationship between peoples based not on law, justice and trust, but on fear and the dominance of force.". 

Let ethics prevail over economic interests

It is not a question, says Leo XIV, of denying the dangers that loom over us because of the domination of others. It is a question, first, of the cost of rearmament, with the economic and financial interests it entails. Secondly, and more fundamentally, there is a major cultural problem affecting educational policies. The path of listening, encounter and dialogue, as advised by the Second Vatican Council (cf. Gaudium et spes, 80).

Hence, it becomes necessary, on the one hand, to “denouncing the enormous concentrations of private economic and financial interests that are pushing states in this direction”. And, at the same time, encourage “the awakening of consciences and critical thinking" (cfr. Fratelli tutti, 4).  

Pope calls for united efforts “to contribute reciprocally to a disarming peace, a peace that is born of openness and evangelical humility.”. And all this, attention, not only as an ethical response, but also with attention to the Christian faith, which promotes unity. 

Promoting mutual trust

First of all, in the Christian perspective goodness is disarming. "Perhaps that is why God became a child”. God wanted to assume our fragility; while we, as Pope Francis pointed out, “we often tend to deny boundaries and avoid the fragile and wounded people who have the power to question the direction we have taken, as individuals and as a community.” (Francisco, Letter to the editor of “Corriere della Sera”, 14-III-2025). 

In his magna carta of Christian thought on peace (the encyclical Pacem in terris, 1963), St. John XXIII introduced the proposal of an “integral disarmament”, based on “a renewal of the heart and intelligence”.”. To this end, Leo XIV now confirms, the logic of fear and war must be replaced by mutual trust between peoples and nations; without giving in to the tendency to “transform even thoughts and words into weapons.”. 

Religions, says Pope Leo XIV, must help to take this step and not the other way around: to substitute faith for political combat until - he clairvoyantly denounces - “...".“blessing nationalism and religiously justifying violence and armed struggle".

For this reason, and it is addressed first and foremost to believers, he proposes: “together with action, it is increasingly necessary to cultivate prayer, spirituality, ecumenical and interreligious dialogue as ways of peace and languages of encounter between traditions and cultures”.”. 

And this has an educational translation: that every Christian community becomes a house of peace and a school of peace, “where we learn to defuse hostility through dialogue, where justice is practiced and forgiveness is preserved.”; "today, more than ever, it is necessary to show that peace is not a utopia, through attentive and generative pastoral creativity.".

Clearly, adds the successor of Peter, this corresponds in a special way to politicians: “It is the disarming path of diplomacy, mediation and international law, sadly belied by the increasingly frequent violations of international law. agreements reached with great effort, in a context that would require not the delegitimization, but rather the strengthening of supranational institutions.".

Disarming the heart, mind and life

In continuity with his predecessors, Leo XIV denounces the desire to dominate and to advance without limits, by sowing despair and arousing distrust, even disguised behind the defense of certain values.

"To this strategy -proposes as a fruit of the Jubilee of Hope. the development of conscious civil societies, of responsible forms of associationism, of experiences of non-violent participation, of small and large-scale restorative justice practices must be opposed.”. All this, based on both anthropological and theological reasons, in the horizon of human fraternity (cfr. Leo XIII, Rerum novarum, 35).

This, the Pope concludes, requires, first and foremost for believers, “to rediscover themselves as pilgrims and to begin within themselves that disarmament of heart, mind and life to which God will soon respond.r -with the gift of peace- delivering on their promises” (cf. Is 2:4-5). 

Fruitful priestly fidelity

The apostolic letter Loyalty that generates future, The new Constitution, signed by Leo XIV on December 8, 2025, was published at the end of December.

The title already contains the proposal addressed to priests and specified at the beginning: “...".“Persevering in the apostolic mission offers us the possibility to question ourselves about the future of the ministry and to help others to perceive the joy of the priestly vocation.” (n. 1). Fruitful fidelity“ is a gift to be understood and received in the context of the Church and her mission. At the same time, the priestly ministry has an important role to play in the longed-for renewal of the Church (cf. Optatam totius, Proem). 

Hence Leo XIV's invitation to reread the conciliar decrees Optatam totius y Presbyterorum ordinis, where it was desired to reaffirm the priestly identity and, at the same time, to open the ministry to new perspectives of doctrinal deepening. A rereading that should be enlightened by the fact that, after the Council, “the Church has been led by the Holy Spirit to develop the Council's teaching on its communional nature according to the synodal and missionary form." (n. 4). 

Keeping God's gift alive and caring for the fraternity

In the face of painful phenomena, such as abuse or the abandonment of the ministry by some priests, the Pope stresses the need for a generous response to the gift received (cf. 2 Tim 1:6). The basis must be the “following of Christ", with the support of integral and ongoing formation. In this formation, from the seminary stage, the “affective” aspect (learning to love like Jesus), human maturity and spiritual soundness stand out. “Communion, synodality and mission cannot be realized, in fact, if in the hearts of priests the temptation of self-referentiality does not give way to the logic of listening and service.” (n. 13). In this way they will be effective in their “service” to God and to the people entrusted to them.

Within the fundamental “fraternity” that arises in Christians as a result of Baptism, there is in priests, through the sacrament of Orders, a particular fraternal bond, which is a gift and a task. This is how the Council expresses it: “Each one is united with the other members of this presbytery by special bonds of apostolic charity, ministry and fraternity.” (Presbyterorum ordinis 8). 

The Pope says that this means, in the first place, on the part of each one, “overcoming the temptation of individualism”(n. 15) and a call to fraternity, whose roots are in unity around the bishop. Institutionally, it is necessary to promote economic equality, provision for sickness and old age, reciprocal care, and also “... to promote the development of a fraternity of brothers and sisters" (n. 15).“possible ways of living together”The "spiritual and intellectual life, avoiding the possible dangers of loneliness (cfr. Presbyterorum ordinis 8). 

Priesthood and synodality for mission

Encourages priests to participate in the synodal processes underway, referring to the Final document of the synod on synodality: “The Synod on Synodality: "It seems essential that, in all the particular Churches, appropriate initiatives be undertaken so that priests can familiarize themselves with the guidelines of this Document and experience the fruitfulness of a synodal style of Church.” (n. 21 of the letter).

As for priests, this must be manifested in their spirit of service and closeness, welcoming and listening. They must reject a “unique leadership”Instead, choosing the path of collegiality and cooperation with the other ordained ministers and the entire People of God. It is necessary, he points out, to avoid identifying sacramental authority with power, which would lead to placing the priest above all others (cf. Evangelii gaudium, 104). 

Regarding the mission: “The identity of priests is constituted around their ‘being for’ and is inseparable from their mission.” (n. 23 of the letter). 

Pope warns priests about the danger of two temptations: activism (giving priority to what one does over what one is) and quietism (linked to laziness and defeatism). He points to pastoral charity as the unifying principle of priestly life (cf. Pastores dabo vobis, 23). Thus “each priest can find a balance in daily life and know how to discern what is beneficial and what is proprium of the ministry, according to the indications of the Church." (n. 24). 

In this way, too, he will be able to find harmony between contemplation and action, and the wisdom to disappear when and how it suits him, in the midst of a culture that exalts media exposure. It will be able to promote unity with God and fraternity and the commitment of people in the service of cultural, social and political activities, as proposed in the Final Document of the Synod (cf. nn. 20, 50, 59 and 117).

With reference to the “future” and in the face of the scarcity of vocations, Leo XIV proposes prayer and the revision of pastoral praxis, so as to renew both the care for existing vocations and the call in the youth and family contexts.

La entrada La paz “desarmante” y la fidelidad se publicó primero en Omnes.

For Romano Guardini, hope was linked to patience, to the ability to live in the tension between what one is and what one desires, finding a calm and profound strength to grow and face the future of life, without fleeing from suffering, but embracing it as a way to experience being in shipwreck. An active hope that does not stop at perfection, but is embodied in everyday life.

If there is one place where it is easy to lose hope, it is behind bars; it is the so-called “prisoner syndrome”. The prisoner feels alone and out of place, and the idea of rebuilding his life distresses him.

In prison, the inmate experiences that he is alone in the real world, probably with no one waiting for him when he comes out, resulting in a loss of self-esteem and, perhaps, of the meaning of life.

It is difficult for a free person to realize what it means to be deprived of freedom, and only the intuition of it makes us shudder.

When, in a hospital, I found an establishment selling bread made by prisoners, I entered without hesitation. “Today's bread has been kneaded last night by someone who is in prison,” I said to my family during dinner, and I perceived an invisible embrace made of sacred silence.

I was moved to learn that, in a prison, some women have created a workshop that produces hosts for Mass, which offers them an opportunity for personal and professional growth.

Women who every day strive to carry out this work, carrying out a project that unites an educational dimension, civil responsibility and a path of rescue.

The degree of civilization of a society is measured by the treatment of prisoners. When the same hands that committed crimes are capable of creating something sacred, like the hosts that embody the path of rebirth, that is pure poetry.

La entrada Esperanza en lo cotidiano se publicó primero en Omnes.

- Paulina Guzik, OSV News.

At the Angelus on this first Sunday of February, and the Fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time, Pope Leo expressed his “great concern over the news of increased tension between Cuba and the United States of America, two countries that are close to each other”, and invited all those responsible “to promote a sincere and effective dialogue to avoid violence and any action that could increase the suffering of the beloved Cuban people”. 

Following these words, pronounced after the recitation of the Angelus, He prayed that “the Virgin of Charity of El Cobre assist and protect all the children of this beloved land”. 

Beatitudes: “lights that the Lord kindles in history”.”

In his meditation before the Marian prayer of the Angelus, before the thousands of Romans and pilgrims in St. Peter's Square, the Holy Father reflected on the Gospel of the Beatitudes, which the liturgy proposes this Sunday.

The Pope said that “they are lights that the Lord kindles in the darkness of history, revealing the plan of salvation that the Father carries out through the Son, with the power of the Holy Spirit”.

“He is the poor one who shares his life with everyone, the meek one who perseveres in pain, the one who works for peace and is persecuted to the point of death on a cross,” said the Successor of Peter. “In this way, Jesus illuminates the meaning of history; not the one written by the victors, but the one that God accomplishes by saving the oppressed.”.

D.R. Congo, Portugal, Mozambique, O.G. in Italy

The Pontiff also assured of his prayers for the many victims of the collapse of a mine in the Democratic Republic of Congo. “May the Lord sustain these people who are suffering so much,” he said. He then encouraged prayers for the deceased and for those who are suffering because of the storms that in recent days have hit Portugal, southern Italy, and also Mozambique, severely affected by floods.

The Winter Olympic Games in Italy, which will begin next Friday, and the Paralympic Games have also been the object of the Pope's attention. Leo XIV wishes “that these great events may constitute a strong message of fraternity and revive the hope of a peaceful world”.

Mosaic of the Virgin Mary, and statue of St. Rose of Lima

The Vatican Gardens yesterday welcomed a new Marian mosaic and a statue of St. Rose of Lima, both created by young artists from Peru. The ceremony thrilled Pope Leo XIV, an American-born pope who holds Peru in “a special place” in his heart, reports Paulina Guzik, international publisher of OSV News.

Calling the ceremony a “joyous occasion” as it rained on the Vatican, the Pope said the donation from the Peruvian bishops, unveiled on the occasion of his ad limina visit, “renews the deep bonds of faith and friendship that unite Peru, a country so dear to me, with the Holy See.”.

Deep ties with Peru

The Ambassador of Peru to the Holy See invited Pope Leo to come to Peru during the ceremony. During the ceremony on January 31, Jorge Fernando Ponce San Roman, shared the “infinite gratitude of all the people of Peru to our Pope Leo XIV for this new expression of affection” by placing the mosaic and statue of Peru's beloved saint in the Vatican Gardens.

Carlos Enrique García Camader, bishop of Lurin and president of the Peruvian Episcopal Conference, affirmed that the Blessed Virgin Mary in the Vatican Gardens “will forever represent our people, our Peruvian people, profoundly Marian”. She, the bishop added, “in her various invocations, will represent what Peru is: an unshakable faith, a firm hope and a people marked by charity”.

Don Bosco Artisans

“Gathered in this beautiful place, where everything speaks to us of the Creator and of the beauty of creation, I wish to express my gratitude, first of all, to the artists who created these works and to all those who made it possible for us to enjoy this happy occasion today. And to the entire Salesian Family, precisely on this feast day of St. John Bosco,” said Pope Leo XIII in the Vatican Gardens.

The creation of the two works was entrusted to the Artisan Family. Don Bosco, Ugo De Censi, a community of young artists from the Peruvian Andes, trained in art and religious research by Father Ugo De Censi, a Salesian priest who spent 70 years in the Andes, creating, among other ecclesial works, handicraft schools for disadvantaged youth.

The young Peruvian artist, Edwin Morales, created the sculpture, in white travertine marble from Huancayo, Peru. Lenin Alvarez Medina, responsible for the Virgin Mary mosaic, remembered Father Ugo as someone who changed his life. “He had a profound impact on my life and on the lives of thousands of young people in Italy and South America,” he said of the priest who died in 2018 after founding several seminaries and art schools in the region.

The central image of the Immaculate Virgin of the rich mosaic is surrounded by “seven of the most representative Marian invocations of Peru”, the artist pointed out, “intertwined with the national colors as a symbol of national unity”.

Universal call to holiness

“The two figures evoked, our heavenly Mother and the first Latin American saint, St. Rose of Lima, refer us to the theme of holiness.”, said the Pope at the end of the ceremony of unveiling the two works, which he blessed and sprinkled with holy water.

“These beautiful images that we contemplate today remind us of the greatness of the vocation to which God calls us, that is, the universal vocation to holiness. I encourage you to be, with God's grace, witnesses and examples of that holiness in today's world,” the Pope said. 

“For that is the will of God: our own sanctification (cf. 1 Ts 4,3; Ef 1,4), he added, after citing the Constitution Lumen Gentium, n. 40, of the Second Vatican Council.

“May the Virgin Mary and all the saints intercede on our journey to our heavenly homeland. With gratitude, I bless you from my heart,” the Pope concluded.

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- Paulina Guzik is international editor of OSV News. Follow her on X @Guzik_Paulina

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La entrada El Papa llama al diálogo de Cuba y EEUU, y recuerda la vocación a la santidad se publicó primero en Omnes.

“The history of Catholic education is the history of the Spirit at work”. This is how Pope Leo XIV expresses himself in the apostolic letter Designing new maps of hope, written on the occasion of the 60th anniversary of the Conciliar Declaration Gravissimum Educationis, In it, the Second Vatican Council recalled, among other things, that education is not an ancillary activity, but constitutes the very fabric of evangelization.

In the midst of the 21st century, the question of the relevance of Catholic identity in the field of education remains controversial. What makes an education truly Catholic? Can we offer something to the world that cannot be remedied by technology, digitalization or artificial intelligence?

The answer is affirmative, evidently, but not for its obviousness does it cease to be complicated and challenging to carry out: the meaning of education enlightened by faith is this very thing: to offer meaning. When a Catholic educational institution forgets its DNA and adopts other identities, however humanly laudable they may be, it betrays the very key to its existence. To put the person at the center is to give that sense of transcendence: to know that every human being “is a face, a history, a vocation”, not a “profile of competencies” (cf. Apostolic Letter Designing new maps of hope, 4).

In a world obsessed with productivity, access scores and digital skills, Catholic education is challenged to propose a humanistic vision of its work, in which it reaches not only professional preparation, but an understanding of life in an integral way and to do so from a full experience of communion, in Christ and with others. “To put the person at the center means to educate in the long view of Abraham: to make them discover the meaning of life, the inalienable dignity, the responsibility towards others”, the Pope underlines in number 5 of Designing new maps of hope.

Educating is the first task of every human being: whether as a teacher or as a student. This accompaniment in the encounter with the meaning of life begins in the family and extends, more and more, into the different social circles of every human being. And once again, witness emerges as the key to this task: moving from indoctrination to witness, from theory to experience, is the challenge that today and always marks the existence, not only of every Catholic educational institution, but of each one of us..

La entrada El sentido de la existencia  se publicó primero en Omnes.

If we want to expose the true notes of education in religious matters it is indispensable that we include the unmasking of the current errors that fill the environment; we must refute the «slogans» that confuse many faithful and pious people, because they fail to understand the heretical character of these «slogans» and their incompatibility with the true Christian faith.

There are five basic errors that are making their way into the supposed «reform» of the teaching of religion. Let us briefly examine each of them.

1. The myth of the «modern man».» 

The first error is the myth of «modern man» which proclaims the total change in the nature of man in our time. It is argued that man has changed so radically that we cannot expect him to have the same way of approaching the faith and the Church that he had in the past two thousand years. Because man now lives in an industrialized world, it is believed that he has undergone a total change; he can increasingly dominate the world through technological progress. And this, supposedly, makes him a different creature. 

The myth of «modern man» has been invented by a few sociologists, but has been, unfortunately, accepted by many as a simple and unquestionable truth.

Certainly, external life has changed a lot, but man himself has not changed. The principles of his happiness are the same as they have always been: love, marriage, family, friendship, beauty, truth and, above all, peace of soul, a good conscience. Its moral dangers are the same as they were before: pride, concupiscence and its fruits, evil passions, exorbitant ambition, envy, blind desire for power, greed, covetousness, etc. The same can be said of the moral virtues, whose practice is required of him: justice, integrity, purity, generosity, humility and charity.

Man has the same condition today as he had before, the same capacities of intelligence, knowledge and free will; the same heart that can rejoice and suffer, the same destiny. He has as much need of redemption as before. The words of St. Augustine apply to him as much as before: «Thou hast created us, O Lord, for Thyself, and our hearts are restless until they find their rest in Thee.».

In reality, what is the source sociologists use to know that today's man has totally changed? On what do they base the existence of this «modern man»? Have they perhaps made a survey and asked each man if he is a “modern man”, with completely different needs, to whom the same moral norms no longer apply? Undoubtedly, no.

And how can those who proclaim at the same time that all knowledge is limited by time, assume that their theses on «modern man» will not be laughed at fifty years from now?

 a) Man's nature does not change 

In reality, the nature of man has not changed throughout history. It is enough to read the dialogues of Plato or Herodotus to see that man remains always the same in his basic structure. There is only one radical change in history: the coming of Christ, the Redemption of man through his death on the cross, the gift of the life of grace through baptism. Thus, by his vocation to holiness every man is called to bring about this change within himself. 

In spite of the identity of man's nature throughout all ages of history, there are, naturally, great differences between men and men, in their mentality, in their moral and intellectual criteria... But these differences are found among men in every age.

The claim, therefore, of complete change in man is a myth, not only because man's nature has not basically changed, but also because «modern man» himself is a myth: as if at one time all men had the same mentality and structure! This is a completely arbitrary claim without any scientific foundation. In fact, the difference in mentality between men of the same epoch is even greater than the contrast between the different epochs. 

b) A fatal influence 

This myth of «modern man» has a fatal influence on education, especially religious education.

There are too many pedagogues of religion who believe that the child of today should be given a completely different religious diet. They take it for granted that the religious education of former times cannot be profitable today, and this not because it was flawed, but because it was addressed to a young person who no longer exists today. They assume that teaching methods and even the content of teaching must be adapted to this mythical being, to «modern man». They forget to recognize the basic equality of man's nature in all times, including the identity of youth.

Man has always had the same spiritual needs, the same dangers (such as self-deception), the same lack of maturity during puberty, the same temptations of the flesh, the same essential thirst of the soul for God. naturaliter christiana, of the «naturally Christian» soul.

Man's nature is always prone to the same rebellion against authority, on the one hand; and he is, on the other hand, the same being fascinated by false «teachers». Man always has in the depths of his soul the same need and the same thirst for direction exercised by a true authority.

Instead of seeing all this, these pedagogues fall victim to the illusory concept of the «modern youth» which, it seems, can only be achieved through a completely new kind of religious education. But the worst effect of this myth is that these pedagogues believe that not only the methods must be changed, but also the very content of religious education... That is, religious truth itself must be adapted to this modern mind. Such an attitude clearly leads to the emptiness of wanting to modify the divine revelation entrusted to the Magisterium of the Holy Church and of wanting to adapt it to the supposed spirit of an epoch, which is a contradiction. 

2. Experimentation 

The second basic error is the belief that in order to find the most effective way to guide the souls of young people to a religious life that is not formalistic, but vital, experimentation must be resorted to. The basis of this notion of experimentation is the fetishization of natural science, the naive belief that the only method of achieving any certainty in knowledge is that of the laboratory; hence the «experimental angle of vision.» It is forgotten that this can lead to results only in certain fields, and that its use in others is the ultimate expression of the anti-scientific method.

It makes no sense - and it is completely impossible - to use the experimental angle in spiritual fields such as morality, religion, marriage, love; and in intellectual matters such as logic, epistemology, metaphysics, aesthetics or ethics. In all these objects, the only way to obtain results is through a completely different method. These are all matters in which intuitive knowledge, true evidence, can and must be obtained. For all these things, experiments are meaningless. No one would say: we must do experiments to know that 2 and 2 are 4, or to discover the principle of contradiction. 

But experimentation in some of these fields cannot be discarded only because it has no raison d'être, because it is inapplicable and sterile, that is, for epistemological reasons; in some cases it must also be discarded because it is immoral, incompatible with the reverence that certain things demand or with the very nature of a being.

Experimentation implies the possibility of control and repetition of an event under the same circumstances. However, there are many fields in which the same circumstances cannot be produced in successive attempts and in which testing something also contradicts the very nature of that something.

Suppose a man says: «Let us make experiments on contrition»; you must first commit robbery, then adultery, and then we will observe whether your contrition has the same characteristics in both cases. The absurdity and immorality of such a proposition must seem obvious to anyone in his right mind.

It is not only that the gravity of any sin forbids such experimental research, but it is also impossible to make sin an object of experimentation. Neither observation by another person, nor one's own observation can lead to any result worthy of consideration, because true contrition is directed toward God and based on the fact that we have offended Him. As soon as I make of it an «experiment» on the basis of seeing it with a neutral laboratory attitude, it ceases to be contrition. 

This kind of experimentation, terrible and empty, is nothing but a deceptive action of the kind found in the unfortunate book by Masters and Johnson, where sexual intercourse is made the subject of laboratory study. 

We are all aware of the enthusiasm with which many advocate experimentation in the fields of liturgy and religious education. Experimentation is believed to be the remedy for overcoming conventionalism in education, which has undoubtedly become widespread in recent times.

Experimentation is acclaimed as a realistic method; it brings us into living contact with reality, it substitutes theories for facts, it enables us to hear reality in its fullness and variety. But this very belief that experimentation is the only way to come into living contact with reality is pure theory, abstract and, moreover, erroneous. It turns life and the fullness of being, with all its flavor, richness and beauty into a mere laboratory. 

In order to know what is the best method of religious education, we must certainly attend to reality. But this attention is opposed not only to abstract theories, but also, to the same extent, to experimentation.

To attend to reality, in this context, means, on the one hand, a profound analysis of the nature of religion, and, on the other hand, an analysis of the proper way to transmit religious truth to souls. This second task requires an analysis of the human soul in general, and of the nature of each young person in particular. What is essential here is a reverent attitude, an admiration which is the basis of true philosophy.

Assuming this attitude and also the desire to understand the intelligible elements of being in their true nature, we can hope to reach a deeper understanding of the true notes of religious education and discover the causes of past failures. Such truths can only be grasped by this reverent, cooperative attitude, and never by that neutral laboratory access. 

It is simply immoral to make the souls of children an object of experimentation with regard to the one thing necessary, to the fundamental question of faith, of union with Christ. This approach undermines ab ovo any true religious education; it is a kind of spiritual vivisection, an abomination in the sight of God. 

3. Accommodation

The third basic error is the misleading concept of «vitalization». The new pedagogues say that religion should not be something abstract for the young person, something separate from his daily life, something he thinks about in Church, but quickly forgets when he goes out; something that is so foreign, that is so up in the clouds that he never feels comfortable in it, something he never quite gets used to. That is why, these pseudo-reformers continue, we must present religion in a way that fits into the daily life of the young person, that becomes part of the world in which he normally moves and lives.

We must adapt the content of religion to the present time; we must adapt it to the mentality of our time in such a way that the young person can accept it easily. Religious lessons must be combined with things that amuse and attract him. 

So too - they continue - worship must be adapted. Mass should be interspersed with jazz and rock and roll so that the young person feels at home. He will then see religious worship, not as a mere boring obligation, but as something joyful and lively.

As I have pointed out in my book The Trojan horse in the city of God, This idea of a «living religion» reveals a complete ignorance of the nature of religion and of Christian revelation. It brings with it, not the vivification, but the burial of religion. The true vivification of religion consists precisely in the opposite. 

Undoubtedly, the evil of a merely «conventional» religion was widespread in the last fifty years before Vatican Council Il. By conventional religion I understand that in which man considers his relationship with Christ and with his Church as a simple legality, similar to that which he has towards the State of which he is a citizen. He is a Catholic because he was born a Catholic and belongs to the Church, just as he belongs to his family and his country. He fulfills the obligations deriving from this fact as something expected of him: thus he goes to Mass on Sundays, and at least once a year he goes to Confession and Communion. He marries in the Church, and does not remarry if he has the misfortune to separate, etc. 

Thus religion is regarded as a normal part of man's conventional life, something that fits into his way of living. This man does not have the slightest desire to inquire about the religion into which he was born. But he never makes a real confrontation with Christ. He never realizes man's need for redemption; he never comes to realize that Christ has redeemed us. He never feels God's world, an absolute, new and sacred world. It has no spiritual eyes for the supernatural reality that has been revealed to us in the Holy Humanity of Christ.

This conventional religious man has never been amazed at the miracle that is the very existence of the Church, at the fact that she has begotten countless saints, each one of them being unequivocal proof of the redemption of the world by Christ. She has never seen in the saint a luminous example of the very reason for our life, the very raison d'être of our existence: to glorify God through our transformation in Christ, to become a new creature in Christ. 

As soon as we have understood the true nature of living, existential religion, which is the genuine antithesis of a merely conventional religion, we easily see that the attempt to blur the difference between the natural and the supernatural is precisely the way to conventionalize religion, and to undermine the possibility of a true, lived Christianity.

The failures of the past were rooted in the fact that religious truths were presented in an abstract, conceptual way. The startling reality of the supernatural, and its radical difference from the natural, was never elaborated in a correct form and style; that is, in a way that gave the student a living, intuitive awareness of the great things before him. 

Faith, then, became conventional, because no one sufficiently prepared the souls of children for a knowledge of the infinite beauty and glory of Christ's Revelation; no one sufficiently developed their sense of the sacred, the intrinsic beauty of holiness, to perceive the gulf that separates holiness from mere efficiency; no one sufficiently discovered to them the difference between any human happiness and the ultimate happiness that only Jesus can pour into the soul of everyone who believes in Him and loves Him, a happiness that can be present and savored already in this earthly life. 

A bitter irony 

And how bitter is the irony with which we are now confronted! What used to be omitted as a kind of bureaucratic dullness is what some today are systematically, explicitly and consciously aiming at: the obscuring of the difference between the sacred and the profane, the suppression of the sense of the supernatural. And this is done by way of deconventionalizing the faith and making it alive. It is a singular cure that tries to fight the disease by producing a greater abundance of the same disease. And it should be noted that this is not a case of immunization by inoculation.

The «cure» of secularism is prescribed by those pedagogues who have lost the true faith. They no longer understand the radically different planes in the soul of man: that to which God calls and where man is drawn to Him, and that to which they call worldly pleasures, the spirit of the world. They are satisfied that young people are attracted to religious teaching. They never ask why young people are attracted: are they attracted to the authentic world of Christ, or is it that what is offered to them has been adapted to the environment and the spirit that surrounds them, in a desacralized and dehumanized world that naturally has an attraction of its own to such an extent that the content of religion is completely falsified? 

4. A secularized creed

And this brings me to the consideration of a fourth error. In their eagerness to make the teaching of religion successful, the «new pedagogues» forget the nature of true success, which is the only thing that matters. They are satisfied if a means succeeds, even if this success is completely antithetical to its genuine end. They undermine the authentic meaning and raison d'être of religious education, which is exclusively to transmit to people the teaching of the Church, to plant in their souls a deep, living, unshakable faith and to foster in them a love for Christ, a full desire to follow him and to live according to God's commandments. 

These pedagogues congratulate themselves on the brilliant success of their «new approach» to religious teaching; they do not seem to realize that the appeal of their method was bought by repudiating, for their part, the very supernatural truths and realities they were supposedly trying to impart.

Their «success», then, is comparable to that of the surgeon who boasts: «The operation was a brilliant success, but the patient died». Thus, the end to which they tend and which gives the operation its meaning is sacrificed for the brilliance of the operation.

The faith of any young person who has suffered this unfortunate treatment is no longer the true Christian faith. A secularized, humanitarian creed that lacks the basic characteristics of Christ's Revelation has been instilled in his mind. It no longer believes in original sin, in the need for redemption, in the fact that we have been redeemed by the death of Christ on the Cross. He no longer believes in the one thing necessary: our transformation in Christ, our loving personal relationship with Christ.

They completely ignore the true charity that can be born exclusively in the heart of the one who loves God above all things; God as He has revealed Himself in Christ. Their knowledge of the faith does not include the role of contrition, the horror of sin, the glorious supernatural union of all the members in the Mystical Body of Christ. 

What sense, what significance does a religious teaching have, what right does it have to exist if it leads to a creed that has more affinity with the New York Times than with the Gospel and the deposit of faith? What does it matter that many young people are attracted to this pseudo-religious teaching?

Why are people attracted to this pseudo-religious teaching? What is so special about this pseudo-Catholicism that it is easily and happily accepted by the youth; that they «cooperate» with the teacher without difficulty? This success is, in reality, a false success. It may, perhaps, satisfy the vanity of the teacher, but it is the burial of the true faith and the betrayal of the true vocation of the teacher. This teaching operation has really been a «success»: the faith of the students is dead! 

Authentic faith must be presented 

The true antithesis of conventional Christianity is the vitality rooted in the authentic Catholic faith, the unshakable faith in the Creed that our Holy Father Pope Paul VI solemnly proclaimed at the end of the Year of Faith. It is the deep love of Christ, the decision to follow him, the longing for him, the love of his Church, the reaching out and possessing her beauty and splendor, the deep gratitude to God for all his gifts. 

If we understand the above, we can more clearly elaborate the notes of a true religious education and the requirements for it to be truly fruitful.

First of all, the content of our faith cannot be presented as just another subject of knowledge, in the manner of history or mathematics. It must be presented in its absolute uniqueness, in the spirit of the Easter Saturday Mass: Anuntio vobis gaudium magnum, I announce a great message of joy.

The fundamental truths must be presented to the young listeners in such a way that the ineffably holy atmosphere of revelation is transmitted to them. A supernatural aura must surround these truths: the creation of the world and of man, the fall of Adam, original sin, the Revelation of the Old Testament, God speaking to Abraham and Moses, the formidable Revelation of the Decalogue and the solemn, overwhelming voice of all the prophets, especially Jeremiah and Isaiah, and then the ineffable mystery of the Incarnation, the Epiphany of God in Christ, the revelation of God Himself in the Holy Humanity of Christ, the miracles of Christ. His eternal words, His death on the cross, His glorious Resurrection and Ascension, and Pentecost, the birth of the Holy Church. 

5. The teacher

All this requires a deep faith on the part of the teacher. We can never overestimate the importance of the master's radiating personality, his own reverent approach to these mysteries and his delicacy in avoiding any impression of laziness, self-indulgence and vulgarity in his style.

Not only must he be deeply rooted in the Christian faith-in his love and fidelity to the Church-but he must also emanate it in his way of teaching, in his dialogue with students. His deep sense of the supernatural and his love for Christ must permeate his teaching. And at that moment the student must not be for him a little boy going to school, an ordinary pupil as in the other subjects, but rather a soul infinitely loved by Christ. 

The teacher of religion who wants to be truly successful must avoid a fault that has often been committed in the past: the abuse of authority. Harsh, pedantic, bureaucratic authority imposed on children and young people is, in itself, an unfortunate thing, and it is so within the context of religious education. However, we must strongly insist that a complete absence of authority is even worse: a weak yielding to the whims of the young or an affected familiarity, a tone of camaraderie, the use of a tone, as a French expression, of frère et cochon. 

In approaching the boy in a recalcitrant manner, in which a noble reserve is interwoven with a great love, the teacher should act with genuine authority. He should also try to show young people the beauty and dignity of true authority and its difference from the pseudo authority that so easily takes hold of youth. I am referring to the pseudo authority of those who have the ability to impress young people with their slogans, with their supposed independence and by presenting themselves as the pioneers of the future, as the modern, fashionable oracles.

A great and important task, especially today, is to stimulate in young people a skeptical attitude towards these modern but false prophets. These prophets must be unmasked and recognized for what they are: superficial men. Their theories, for the most part contradictory, are to be exposed. And they themselves are to be stigmatized, given their transient condition, as ephemeral flies. 

Freedom or slavery 

It will never be enough all that the teacher does to show that to be fascinated by the pseudo authority of false prophets is the greatest intellectual slavery and an abdication of one's freedom. On the contrary, submitting ourselves to the sacred authority of God and His Holy Church makes us free. It gives us the possibility to see everything in its true light, to discover the true hierarchy of goods, to be freed from gregarious instincts and, above all, from slavery to our own pride. 

In this context a great failure of past religious education must be mentioned: the omission to show the beauty and depth of noble natural goods such as human love, friendship, marriage and beauty in nature and in art. This was a great mistake.

When the teacher awakens in the boy his sense for the noble natural goods and shows the difference between these and the merely passing goods or worldly goods, he is preparing the soul of his pupil for the ascent to incomparably higher goods, to supernatural goods. These noble natural goods are a reflection of God's infinite glory, a great gift of his goodness. They have the capacity to evoke nostalgia for the Absolute, whom they reflect in a natural way. St. Augustine underlines this admirably in his Confessions. 

Certainly created goods can separate us from God if we become too attached to them, if we turn them into idols. But, on the other hand, they also have this great positive mission: to drag our minds upward and prepare our souls for the supernatural message of God.

And when we have encountered Christ, when our heart has been touched by the supernatural good, when we come to apprehend the incomparable superiority of the supernatural over the natural, then the true natural goods are not discarded. Rather, they are transfigured by Christ and we are even able to understand their value more deeply. «In the light we see the light,» says the psalmist.

One of the most urgent tasks of religious education today is to develop the moral sense of students, to awaken in their souls a sense of the fascinating beauty and splendor of moral values and a deep horror of the most catastrophic symptoms of spiritual decay and a singular threat to a true relationship with Christ.

And here again we must say that the world of morality has often been presented too abstractly, too negatively. Assertions about the goodness and badness of an act have been based on weak arguments. This has to be corrected. The ultimate importance of the categories of moral good and evil must be exposed. We must insist on the primacy of moral values over all other values. Only moral values have eternal projection. Already Socrates saw this primacy in a grandiose way when he said, «It is better for man to suffer injustice than to commit it.» 

A serious responsibility 

The responsibility of the religious educator at the present time is great. Amidst the waves of apostasy among Catholics, amidst the deplorable disintegration that is occurring in the Church, it is a difficult but beautiful task to row against the tide and help establish a firm and unshakable Catholic faith in the souls of the young.

It is a beautiful task to awaken in young people a true love for Christ, a strong desire for greater union with Him, a firm decision to follow God's commandments and a resolution to approach all noble natural goods with the light of Christ and with deep gratitude to God.

To fulfill this task conscientiously, the religious educator will have to face many persecutions coming not only from the world, but also, and especially, from false brethren. But such persecutions will never seduce him to the point of leading him to compromise. The words of Our Lord should always be in the mind of the teacher: «Whoever scandalizes one of these little ones who believe in me, it would be better for him if a millstone were hung around his neck and he were drowned in the depths of the sea. 

As in all difficult tasks, however, we can draw great consolation from the words of St. Paul: «Nothing can separate us from the love of Christ». May the faithful teachers of religion undertake their great and noble task, filled with hope and fervent ardor. May they remember that Our Lord said, «Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away.»

La entrada 5 errores de la educación religiosa, según Dietrich Von Hildebrand se publicó primero en Omnes.

The dramatic images of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents gunning down citizens in the middle of the street or detaining a five-year-old child are a new sign of the West's drift away from its Christian roots.

The controversial immigration control operation carried out by the federal government is the result of irrational fear of immigrants, a fear that works very well as an electoral tool in contexts of uncertainty and economic crisis. But fear has never been the driving force of our civilization, the one Trump claims to defend.

Fear did not build cathedrals or universities; fear did not promote human rights or the creation of hospitals, schools and social institutions; fear did not drive anyone to set out to sea in search of new trade routes and to widen the world. On the contrary, it is fear that leads us to fear human life and to promote abortion and euthanasia; it is fear that leads us to fear precariousness and to promote a selfish and exclusionary economy; it is fear that leads us to fear human relationships and to reject the family and to prefer cities of «singles» instead of authentic villages; it is fear that leads us to wars and to design weapons of mass destruction.

Some, however, try to stir up fear of migrants by accusing them of being the ones to blame for destroying our culture, when the truth is that it is they, on many occasions, who maintain the values that we have lost here. Values such as family, care for the elderly, solidarity or religious practice are firmly defended by those who come from abroad, serving as a brake on the secularist drift of Europe and North America.

We have so much to learn from migrants! They have so much to teach us about not being afraid! «In a world darkened by wars and injustices, even where all seems lost - Leo XIV reminded us this summer - migrants and refugees stand as messengers of hope. Their courage and tenacity are a heroic witness to a faith that sees beyond what our eyes can see and that gives them the strength to defy death on the various contemporary migratory routes.».

Of course we must regulate the flows, of course we must defend the right not to migrate and fight the mafias that traffic in people, of course we must protect societies from those who take advantage of the welcome of a community to do evil and of course we must demand that immigrants respect the culture and laws of the country that welcomes them; hence the four verbs that Pope Francis repeated: welcome, protect, promote and integrate; but we will continue to sink into misery if we do not incorporate people with a will to live, with hope and illusion to open new paths, new routes, new horizons. With the sky closing, the West has stopped dreaming of the promised land, of God's providence in the middle of the desert, and has preferred to stay in Egypt eating onions. The welfare society is terrified of those who do not have full barns but believe in the future, those who do take risks for a better world, those who are capable of leaving behind their security by crossing the desert and throwing themselves into the void, only trusting in God. Let us take advantage of the wealth they bring us!

In Spain, the Government has announced the extraordinary regularization of half a million immigrants. It has not been the parties who have promoted this measure, it must be remembered, but the people and social organizations, among them the Spanish Episcopal Conference, Caritas or CONFER. The Popular Legislative Initiative (ILP) that has ended up achieving this extraordinary measure has been signed by no less than 600,000 citizens and 900 entities, which makes it the ILP with the most support in history. 

It is very good news for Europe, because the 500,000 immigrants who lived in no man's land, despite avoiding the collapse of our birth rate, paying taxes for us and maintaining our productive and service fabric, will recover their human dignity and will transmit us their hope, that which we have lost along the way. And it is also very good news because in our polarized world, where if you are of one side you cannot be of the other, this ILP promoted by the bishops and finally approved, although in that way, by the most radical left, is also a ray of hope that dialogue and the search for the common good is still possible. 

And if anyone is still moved by the discourse of fear, they should be even more afraid to read that foundation of our civilization which is Matthew 25 with that Lord who rebuked his own saying: «I was hungry and you gave me no food, I was thirsty and you gave me no drink, I was a stranger and you did not welcome me, naked and you did not clothe me, sick and in prison and you did not visit me”. Then these also will answer, “Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty, or a stranger or naked, or sick or in prison, and did not minister to you?” He will reply to them: “Truly I tell you, whatever you did not do to one of these, the least of these, you did not do to me.” And these shall go away into eternal punishment, and the righteous into eternal life», so much for the quotation.

And now, let us ask ourselves this question: What about me? What did I do when the Lord was a stranger? What did I do in front of ICE?

La entrada ¿Qué hice frente al ICE? se publicó primero en Omnes.

The young Italian priest Luigi Maria Epicoco - known for his work as a writer and columnist for the Italian newspaper L'Osservatore Romano- It is a collection of simple and profound reflections on the Christian prayer par excellence. With an accessible style, the author offers an updated reading of each invocation of the Lord's Prayer, underlining its communitarian dimension and the logic of God's love for his children. 

Although there are nine of Epicoco's works published in Spanish, the author became especially known for his work “Salt, not honey: for a Faith that stings”, where he offered a provocative reflection criticizing the tendency to soften the Christian message in order to make it more digestible.

On this occasion, Epicoco also achieves an illuminating meditation on the foundational prayer of Christianity, demonstrating how each word pronounced by Jesus contains great spiritual jewels: from divine filiation to the demand for forgiveness as a bridge between heaven and earth. A book that transforms the most repeated prayer into a path of human authenticity and fraternal commitment.

To understand the tone of the book, this text may serve as a sample: “Immediately after the word ”Father', Jesus uses the possessive adjective 'our'. He does not use the adjective 'mine' for a very simple reason: the condition for addressing God as Father is to recognize ourselves as brothers among ourselves. The paternity of God and the fraternity among us cannot be separated. Our relationship with God cannot be in contradiction with our relationship with our brothers and sisters: 'If anyone says, "I love God," and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he sees, cannot love God whom he does not see. And we have received this commandment from Him, that whoever loves God, let him love his brother also`". 

Epicoco's work clarifies misunderstandings about prayer and explains its foundations. It stresses that prayer is an intimate dialogue with God, “the alphabet of lovers”, and a transforming personal encounter where we talk about “with Jesus face to face”. Each phrase of the Lord's Prayer is seen as part of a step-by-step spiritual journey: they are not single phrases, but a journey that goes from discovering God as Father (“Abba!”) to confronting evil (“Don't let us fall...”).

Our Father in heaven

AuthorLuigi Maria Epicoco

EditorialSt. Paul's

Number of pages: 106

La entrada Padre nuestro que estás en el cielo se publicó primero en Omnes.

A recent video published by Network of Networks has put on the table, with serenity and good doctrine, a delicate and very current issue: spiritual abuses in the context of spiritual direction. Three priests of recognized good doctrine and great evangelizers in the social networks - Pachi Bronchalo, Jesús Silva and Antonio María Doménech - participate in the conversation, offering valuable and necessary criteria. It is worth listening to them carefully. 

They are three priests whom I hold in high esteem, I follow their publications and I have been able to greet them on some occasions, that is to say, I have no desire to open polarizing polemics so typical of our times, also in the ecclesial sphere. However, I do want to raise some questions that come to my mind after watching the video.

Among his many interesting contributions, one fundamental idea stands out: true spiritual direction does not annul the freedom of the person being guided. The one who accompanies does not “command”, does not decide for the other, nor does he supplant his conscience. He offers his opinion, helps to discern, illuminates the path, but always leaves the person before God. For this reason -they emphasize- it would perhaps be more appropriate to speak of accompaniment that of address in the strong sense. In times of confusion and real wounds, insisting on this is not only timely, but essential.

An interesting debate

However, the interest of the video is not limited to these accurate warnings. On the contrary, it opens up a fundamental debate that deserves to be considered calmly. The three speakers maintain that spiritual direction properly speaking, in the strict sense of the word, corresponds to priests, since they are especially qualified to “direct souls”. And here the question arises - awkward, but inevitable -: is it really so?

Because the living experience of the Church seems to say something more nuanced. Today there are numerous institutions, movements and ecclesial realities where the laity spiritually accompany other laity, and they do it with fruit, seriousness and fidelity to the faith. Should we affirm that this is not spiritual direction? And if it is not, what do we call it? Accompaniment? Spiritual direction? Believing listening? The problem is not only terminological but requires a theological, ecclesiological and pastoral explanation.

The paradigmatic example of the nuns

The difficulty increases if we look at history. For centuries, countless nuns have exercised authentic spiritual direction over other sisters, and not infrequently also over priests and bishops. It is enough to think of figures such as Teresa of Jesus or Catherine of Siena. Shall we say that this was not spiritual direction, that it lacked an essential dimension because it did not come from an ordained minister?

The history of the Church supports this vision of a spiritual accompaniment not strictly linked to the priestly order, finding in consecrated women its greatest exponents. Already in the fourth and fifth centuries, the so-called «Ammas» or Mothers of the Desert, such as the Amma Synclética, were sought after for their acute discernment to give a «word of life» to those who entered the desert. 

Another key figure was St. Theodora of Alexandria, consulted by many monks for her ability to explain the difference between temptation and sin.

The essential role of priests

It is worth recalling here a basic theological point: the sacrament of Holy Orders confers a specific grace to perform certain acts - celebrating the Eucharist, absolving sins, administering the sacraments - but it does not automatically grant an exclusive grace for the spiritual discernment of others. The ability to accompany souls is also born of the experience of God, of prudence, of knowledge of the interior life and of the gift of counsel, which the Holy Spirit grants to whomever he wills.

None of this detracts from the irreplaceable role of the priest in the spiritual life, especially when direction is intertwined with sacramental confession. But perhaps it does invite us to refine our language and categories. For if we reserve the name “spiritual direction” only for what priests do, we run the risk of delegitimizing - even if this is not the intention - an immense, silent and fruitful work that has been going on in the Church for centuries.

The testimony of John Paul II

In contrast to the views that restrict the accompaniment of the soul to the clerical establishment, John Paul II himself offered in his book Gift and Mystery an exceptional testimony about the layman Jan Tyranowski, a humble tailor from Krakow. The Pontiff not only defined him as “a man of a particularly profound spirituality”, but also acknowledged that from him “I learned the elementary methods of self-formation” that would mark his life. 

Far from being a mere organizer of groups, Tyranowski exercised a true spiritual direction that proved decisive, for the future Pope admitted that his priestly vocation took strength “thanks also to the aforementioned influence” of this manual worker, who introduced him to the mysticism of St. John of the Cross».

What is accompanying souls

Perhaps the debate does not consist in deciding who can or cannot direct souls, but in clarifying what we understand by spiritual direction, what limits it has, and how to prevent it from becoming control, dependence or abuse. And, above all, in recognizing that the true director of souls is none other than the Holy Spirit. All the rest of us, ordained or not, are - when we do it well - simple servants and mediators.

Because, in the end, the question is still there, demanding an answer: if we do not call spiritual direction what priests do not do, what name do we give to it? And what is not well named is hardly well cared for.

La entrada Un debate interesante, ¿pueden los laicos ser directores espirituales? se publicó primero en Omnes.

In recent years, the sacramental seal of confession has been increasingly questioned in some Western legal systems. In countries such as the United Kingdom, Australia and the United States, legislative initiatives have been promoted that seek to impose an obligation of denunciation on ordained ministers, even when the information has been obtained in the context of the sacrament of penance. These proposals are usually justified by the need to prevent and prosecute serious crimes, but they introduce an unprecedented tension between civil power and a religious practice that is considered essential in the Church.

In this context of normative pressure and public debate, a recent news item that refers to an extreme testimony of fidelity to the sacramental seal is particularly significant. On January 22, 2026, Pope Leo XIV approved the decree recognizing the martyrdom of Friar Augusto Ramirez Monasterio, a Guatemalan Franciscan priest assassinated in 1983 during the internal armed conflict that tragically marked the history of the country.

A story of courage

The facts date back to June 1983, when, following a government offer of amnesty to guerrilla fighters, a man known as Fidel Coroy decided to avail himself of this possibility. Before beginning the civil procedures, he went to confession to Friar Augusto in the church of San Francisco El Grande, in Antigua Guatemala, a parish for which the friar had been responsible since 1978. After the confession, and moved by an elementary pastoral criterion, Fray Augusto tried to help him regularize his situation before the authorities, accompanying him in this process.

Both were detained in a military detachment. Coroy was separated from the priest and subjected to beatings and mistreatment by government militias. Fray Augusto, for his part, was held for several hours under custody, intimidation and psychological mistreatment before being released.

From that moment on, Fray Augusto's situation became increasingly precarious: he continued to exercise his ministry under constant pressure from the military, even receiving death threats. The turning point of the persecution: that Fray Augusto reveal the contents of the confession of former guerrilla Fidel Coroy. His steadfast refusal culminated in his kidnapping, torture and murder in November 1983.

The cause of his martyrdom clearly recognizes this central element: Friar Augusto was killed in odium fidei, for refusing to betray the sacramental seal, even at the cost of one's own life. The recognition of the martyrdom of Fray Augusto Ramirez Monasterio reminds us once again of the sacredness of confession beyond civil obligations.

La entrada Fray Augusto Ramírez: un mártir moderno del sigilo sacramental se publicó primero en Omnes.

A few days ago we received the pleasant news that the Holy Father Leo XIV had convoked a Jubilee Year dedicated to St. Francis for the year 2026, which will last from January 10, 2026, to January 10, 2027. Let us hope that at the end of this time he will grant us the gift of an encyclical or apostolic document on the teachings of the saint of Assisi, so dear to all Christian people. 

Franciscan poverty

With this year dedicated to St. Francis, the Holy Father simply wishes to commemorate the eighth centenary of the death of the “...".“Poverello”The name "Carlo Acutis", as they call in Italy to one of their most venerated and beloved saints and visited in Assisi where his remains are kept and now also those of Carlo Acutis.

Precisely, the decree published on January 16 by the Apostolic Penitentiary recalls the hopes of the Holy Father, expressed in very concise but precise words, that “every Christian faithful, following the example of the Saint of Assisi, may become a model of holiness of life and a constant witness of peace”.

Finally, the decree recalls that to gain the plenary indulgence it is sufficient to visit any place related to St. Francis or the Franciscan family. Finally, the decree recalls the general conditions to be observed to gain the indulgence “with the usual conditions (sacramental confession, Eucharistic communion and prayer according to the intentions of the Holy Father), applicable also in the form of suffrage for the souls in Purgatory”.

Precisely in the work of Giogio Agamben, to which we will refer next, the relationship between the primitive Franciscan rule and law will be dealt with exhaustively, and in these pages we will discover the high concept of poverty for St. Francis and for the great authors of Christian spirituality. Precisely in the 21st century, with the great inequalities between North and South and within Western countries themselves, it is very important that we apply the teachings of poverty to the life of Christians of every class and condition in this Jubilee year dedicated to St. Francis of Assisi.

Identification with Christ

Our author, Giogio Agamben, will deal with the concept of “Highest Poverty” in many different ways, since total detachment from earthly goods is one of the most essential characteristics of St. Francis. This “Highest Poverty” has much to do with the life of Jesus narrated in all naturalness in the Gospels and in the New Testament.

The detachment and, at the same time, the freedom in the use of the material goods so necessary to be able to live and develop the intense activity of the hidden and public life of Jesus, will mark the poverty of the first Christians.

Lady Poverty, “Lady of the heart”, St. Francis called her, and with these words, taken in all their dignity and category, he is dealing with such a delicate question, because, as Giorgio Agamben will explain, many learned theologians and canonists became bitterly involved after the death of St. Francis to argue about the rule and the law, about the use and ownership of material goods (119).

Those great diatribes, seen now with the perspective of time, can seem to us Byzantine discussions or school debates without the greatest interest. But the reading of those impassioned quoadlibetales speaks to us of the radical holiness of the Christian life (162). 

Certainly, this is a question that affects the heart: “Ubi thesaurus cor” (Mt 6:21) “Where your treasure is, there will your heart be”. In this sense, the solution was given by St. Francis himself when he affirmed that to love and imitate Jesus Christ was the basic rule of the Christian, the rule of life of anyone who wishes to love and imitate Jesus Christ is to identify himself fully with Him (152).

Joy and peace as the essence of the Franciscan charism

Immediately, we must remember that, as the venerable Cardinal Carlos Amigo Vallejo, Archbishop of Seville, a Franciscan since his time at the University of Valladolid, often affirmed, the essence of the Franciscans was not poverty but joy. Indeed, the most important thing we will learn from this Jubilee Year of St. Francis was his profound joy, his good humor and his optimism, fruits of an immense love for God and souls.

I will always remember the anecdote that Friar Carlos Amigo Vallejo told me in one of our long conversations. He referred how in one of the first meetings of the Franciscans on the outskirts of Peruggia, on the lawn, there were about three hundred people coming from all the places where they were established. They were in silence and prayer when St. Francis stood up and exclaimed: “We have made great promises to God”. After a while he stood up again: “Even greater are the promises that God has made to us”. Finally he spoke again for the third and last time, before blessing them and bidding them all farewell: “Let us be faithful to our promises and He will be faithful to His promises!.

It is always said that joy is the result, the consequence of having peace in the heart, the fruit of living the prayer, the Our Father, that Jesus taught us: “Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven”. If we try to think about what Jesus and others may need from us and we are ready to give it to them, we will discover that the first thing others need is a smile (173).

Precisely, the first thing the Holy Father Leo XIV did when he was elected from the balcony of St. Peter's Square was to remind us: ”Peace be with you” and to ask us to be builders of unity and peace.

It is significant that this is the goal of this new Jubilee Year, which follows the Jubilee Year of Hope. Let us recall the words of Leo XIV when he proclaimed the Year of St. Francis: “May every Christian faithful, following the example of the Saint of Assisi, become a model of holiness of life and a constant witness of peace”.

Joy is the consequence of knowing that we are beloved children of God, as St. Josemaría so often emphasized, ever since he discovered trust in God the Father in one of the moments of his greatest mystical life, on a streetcar near Atocha Street in Madrid.

Highest poverty. Monastic rules and way of life.

AuthorGiorgio Agamben

EditorialAdriana Hidalgo editor

Pages: 219

Year: Buenos Aires, 2018

La entrada Pobre como Cristo, rico en alegría: san Francisco de Asís se publicó primero en Omnes.

The Family Commission of the Chamber of Deputies approved in general, unanimously (nine votes in favor across the political spectrum), the bill that prohibits and punishes surrogate motherhood in Chile.

The proposal states as grounds for prohibiting surrogacy in Chile that it is contrary to the dignity of women and children, in addition to seeing it as a form of commercialization of gestation.

Along these lines, the proposal proposes to establish the full nullity of surrogacy contracts and to provide that maternal filiation is determined by childbirth.

Legal measures

The bill also criminalizes the intermediation, promotion, organization and commercialization of surrogacy, including the participation of health professionals and conduct that takes advantage of the vulnerability of women. These infractions could be punished with prison sentences and fines.

On the other hand, the initiative also proposes to incorporate preventive measures in the areas of health and adoption. For example, prohibiting the transfer of eggs for reproductive purposes or adoption by individuals or couples who have participated in surrogacy agreements.

The Chamber of Deputies must vote on the bill in the following months and, if approved, it will pass to the Senate for its study and vote.

International context

The «Casablanca Group of Experts for the Universal Abolition of Surrogate Motherhood” welcomes the unanimous and transversal vote by which the Family Commission of the Chilean Chamber of Deputies approved, in general, this bill. They emphasize that this vote brought together deputies from the left, center and right, and marks a decisive step in the legislative process and clearly recognizes the need to prohibit this practice.

It is worth recalling the words of Pope Leo XIV to the Diplomatic Corps on January 9, 2026: “The practice of surrogacy exists. By turning gestation into a negotiable service, it violates the dignity of both the child, who is reduced to a “product”, and the mother, by exploiting her body and the generative process and altering the original relational vocation of the family”.

In Latin America, surrogacy is not legally regulated in the vast majority of countries. Only two Mexican states, Tabasco and Sinaloa, regulate it in their civil codes. Two other countries, Brazil and Uruguay, allow it in a very restricted way. In contrast, two Mexican states, San Luis Potosí and Querétaro, are the only Latin American territories where it is explicitly prohibited. 

La entrada Chile, en camino de prohibir la maternidad subrogada se publicó primero en Omnes.

The Pope received in audience the workers of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith, to whom he addressed words of appreciation for the work they perform at the service of the universal Church. During the meeting, the Pontiff underscored “the valuable service they perform in order - as the Constitution states Praedicate Evangelium- to ‘assist the Roman Pontiff and the bishops in the proclamation of the Gospel throughout the world, promoting and safeguarding the integrity of Catholic doctrine on faith and morals, based on the deposit of faith and seeking an ever deeper understanding of new questions’ (n. 69)”.

Latest documents of the dicastery

In his address, the Pope reviewed the main documents published by the dicastery in 2024 and 2025. However, he did not mention the document Fiducia Supplicans, published on December 18, 2023, which sparked a wide debate in the Church.

Among the texts cited are the Note Gestis verbisque, on the Validity of the Sacraments (February 2, 2024); the Declaration on the Validity of the Sacraments (February 2, 2024); the Declaration on the Validity of the Dignitas infinita, on Human Dignity (April 2, 2024); the Guidelines for the discernment of suspected supernatural phenomena (May 17, 2024); the Note The Queen of Peace (September 19, 2024); the Note Antiqua et nova (January 28, 2025), dedicated to the relationship between artificial intelligence and human intelligence; the Doctrinal note Mater Populi fidelis, on Marian Titles (November 4, 2025); and, finally, the Doctrinal Note An expensive one. In praise of monogamy, on the value of Marriage as an exclusive union between a man and a woman (November 25, 2025).

The transmission of faith

In the current context of changing times, the Holy Father appreciated the fact that the plenary meeting of the members of the Dicastery reflected on the theme of the transmission of the faith, which he described as a “matter of great urgency in our time”.

According to Leo XIV, it cannot be “ignored that there has been a generational rupture in the transmission of the Christian faith, especially among the new generations who no longer perceive the Gospel as a fundamental resource for their existence”.

Following the magisterium of Pope Francis, the Pontiff recalled that “we want to be a Church that does not look only at herself, that is missionary, that looks beyond, to others; a Church that proclaims the Gospel through the power of attraction. It is not the Church that attracts, but Christ”.

The exclusive protagonism of Christ

Pope Leo XIV reminded us that the Church must not proclaim herself, but Christ, the source of all true missionary attraction.

In his speech, he warned against personal protagonism and stressed that each baptized person must maintain the identity of a «simple and humble worker in the vineyard of the Lord,» leaving it to the charity of Christ to act through ecclesial mediation.

Abuse case management

Before concluding the meeting, the Pope referred to another of the main responsibilities of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith: the management of abuse cases from all over the world. In this context, he emphasized its role in supporting bishops and superiors general, stressing that “it is a very delicate area where it is fundamental that the demands of justice, truth and charity are always honored.”.

La entrada El Papa señala la urgencia de transmitir la fe con Cristo en el centro se publicó primero en Omnes.

Cardinal Rainer Maria Cardinal Woelki of Cologne bid farewell to the German Synodal Way and said he will not participate in the upcoming sixth assembly, which will begin on January 29.

«For me, the Synodal Way is over,» he said in an interview with German Church radio station Domradio. Originally, five sessions had been agreed upon, «and I participated in them,» he said.

Cardinal Woelki argued that theological clarification of the project, begun in 2019, is urgently needed, adding, «I am truly convinced that all those involved, including those on the Synodal Way, ultimately want what is best for the Church.».

However, he noted that opinions on the path to achieve this are different.

Origin of the German Synodal Way

The German Synodal Path was launched as a reform process in response to a 2018 report known as the Mannheim, Heidelberg and Gießen study, or MHG, which documented widespread sexual abuse by clergy in Germany between 1946 and 2014. The findings sparked public outrage and pressured German bishops to address systemic failures within the Church. Originally planned as a two-year initiative, the Synodal Path was extended due to the COVID-19 pandemic and finally concluded in 2023.

Its stated aim was to examine issues such as the exercise of power in the Church, sexual morality, priestly life and the role of women, in the context of the abuse crisis.

However, the process quickly became the subject of controversy, mainly due to calls to revise the Church's traditional teachings on homosexuality, the ordination of women and priestly celibacy.

Bishops around the world warned that the Synodal Way risked separating German Catholics from the universal Church, arguing that it relied too much on sociological and political ideologies rather than on Scripture and tradition.

In 2022, the Vatican formally declared that the Synodal Way had no authority to change doctrine or governance, a move that German Church leaders publicly criticized. Pope Francis himself expressed deep concern and warned that the process was driven by elites and ideology, rather than the Holy Spirit, comments that further aggravated tensions between Rome and the German bishops.

Woelki's opinion

Cardinal Woelki told Domradio that he had the impression that «from a certain point on, the Synodal Way in Germany became mainly the implementation of certain political-ecclesiastical positions» and that not everything can be discussed without preconceived ideas. «To give a deliberately exaggerated example: we cannot vote on whether Jesus rose from the dead,» the Cologne prelate said.

The late Pope Francis, as well as his successor, Pope Leo XIV, «repeatedly stressed that synodality is a spiritual process, a tool for evangelization.» According to this interpretation, synodality without evangelization is «simply inconceivable,» Cardinal Woelki told Domradio.

Therefore, the synodal assembly «does not have the task of evaluating what a local bishop or a particular diocese has implemented from the decisions of the Synodal Way».

For the Cardinal, synodality means «listening attentively to one another; everyone can contribute his or her perspective. And above all: listening together to what the Holy Spirit is telling us, deliberating and discerning together».

Common values

However, the final decision rests with «the one who has been invested with the office,» the Archbishop of Cologne stressed. In the Catholic Church, the bishop has «the power of final decision over his diocese, a power conferred on him by Christ himself.».

«I promised to protect the faith of the Church and to walk the path in my diocese in unity with the Pope. I intend to continue to keep this promise,» the cardinal said, adding that, at the same time, he finds it «difficult to accept the idea of being part of a body in which 27 diocesan bishops, 27 members of the Central Committee of German Catholics (ZdK) and 27 other members yet to be elected deliberate and decide together.» And that, ultimately, is what the Synodal Way is all about, «even if one tries to express it in another way,» he said.

Cardinal Woelki described the current polarization within the German Bishops« Conference as a burden, stating, »The tensions worry me because I do not want to suggest that anyone does not want the best." He also emphasized the importance of maintaining dialogue.

Speaking about the world political situation, the cardinal said, «Where power is synonymous with reason, society and morality become brutalized. Human dignity is violated and personal rights are ignored. This leads to a dehumanized society.».

Cardinal Woelki concluded the interview by stressing the need to re-establish a set of common values: «Dialogue instead of violence, reliability, protection of the vulnerable, solidarity and justice».

La entrada El cardenal Woelki abandona el Camino Sinodal Alemán se publicó primero en Omnes.

Last Sunday I experienced terrible turbulence on a plane returning to Madrid. Many passengers were screaming and many others, like me, were praying in silence. When we landed without any mishap, there was nervous laughter and comments of relief. One of the passengers said to her companion: “I have even prayed an Our Father, and I haven't done it in ages”.”. It was then that I remembered Leiva's famous song in which he recites the phrase: “everybody believes in God when the airplane moves”.”. Never before has a verse made me feel so identified.

The scene is revealing. In a matter of minutes, people who perhaps had spent years without saying a prayer, without thinking about God or even openly denying Him, turned to Him with an almost instinctive naturalness. As if, deep down, there were a hidden certainty that only comes to the surface when the illusion of control disappears. As long as everything is going well, as long as we believe we have life under control, God seems dispensable. But when the ground -or the air- moves, something within the human being seeks shelter in the eternal.

One can spend the whole day enjoying what God gives us - life, health, love, beauty, even routine - and live completely oblivious to the One who created and sustains it all. We consume the gifts as if they were acquired rights, without stopping to think about their origin. And yet, it is when turbulence comes that we decide to turn to something greater than ourselves. Not to money, not to success, not to self-sufficiency, but to God.

Israel also remembered God

This behavior is not new. It was already seen in the people of Israel. When they arrived in the Promised Land, after being freed from slavery, they became comfortable, forgot about God and began to worship gods that were not God. But when famine, war or exile came, then they cried out to the true God. In need they recognized what in abundance they had ignored. History repeats itself, century after century, person after person.

It is curious - and at the same time very human - how in the worst moments we turn to the only one who, deep down, we know can help us. Perhaps because the proximity of death makes us honest. It reminds us that we are not invincible, that we do not control everything and that our life hangs by a much more fragile thread than we like to admit. In those moments, the masks fall and the essential question appears: what is beyond me?

Learning to die, learning to live

Death, or its threat, has that power. It compels us to look to Heaven, even those who spend their lives oblivious to it. As St. Augustine said, “You have made us, O Lord, for Yourself, and our heart is restless until it rests in You.”. Maybe that's why, when the plane shakes us, the heart remembers what the mind had wanted to forget.

Perhaps the turbulence is not there just to scare us, but to remind us that we are not alone, that there is Someone greater than us, even when we only remember Him in the midst of fear.

Perhaps that is why Montaigne's phrase makes so much sense: “learning to die is learning to live”.”. Turbulence brings us face to face with the essential. At that moment, false certainties disappear and only the naked truth remains: we do not control everything. To learn to die is not to wish for the end, but to accept our fragility and, from there, to live with greater awareness. 

Those who have faced the possibility of dying learn to be more grateful, to live with less pride and not to forget God so easily when everything goes well again. Because if we only remember Him when the plane is moving, perhaps we have not yet learned how to live.

La entrada Todo el mundo cree en Dios cuando se menea el avión se publicó primero en Omnes.

The cooperative movement that arose in Mondragon, since 1951, has given rise to three corporate groups (Mondragon Corporation, Ulma Group and Orona Group) that bring together nearly 300 companies and employ some 80,000 people in 40 countries. A success story that has gone down in the history books. management. In origin and in essence, it is a cooperativism based on common ownership and management: workers are capital partners and each has one vote in the assembly. (Although expansion has subsequently required some modifications).

How did it come to this point? One explanation is the admiration and amazement of those who first followed Arizmendiarrieta, whose testimonies are collected in videos and writings. They all felt enthusiastic about his ideas, his drive and his example. The protagonists of the first Mondragon cooperatives made these ideas their own and threw themselves into the adventure. According to their testimonies, being owner and worker at the same time, uniting capital and work in the same person, sharing this situation in solidarity, was tremendously attractive for those young people who saw the possibility of realizing the social concerns they themselves had. 

Those of the first hour with Don José María, and those who arrived later, point out that Arizmendiarrieta, or the cooperative doctrine, changed their lives. It filled them with satisfaction to be creators, to do something unknown, capable of giving new life; it was the attraction of solidarity and innovative work. They saw these ideas as revolutionary and glimpsed their potential to transform business and society. These ideas opened up more possibilities than conventional work. They perceived another world, a different, non-existent field that could become a reality. They were excited about a peaceful revolution, without political ideology, which could do a lot of good. Don José María knew how to see the future and transmitted illusion and hope.

I point out three aspects of the feeling of this cooperative model: effort, knowledge and social influence. It was necessary to make an effort, to take risks. To move the cooperatives forward required hard work and sacrifices. There were countless hours of work to form companies that were not easy at the beginning, facing, at the same time, family problems, the dedication of the women who, at the beginning, had to give up working outside the home to encourage and help their husbands to create the cooperatives. It was necessary to live in the hope that it would succeed, to act with personal virtues (industriousness, generosity, sobriety, patience, magnanimity). This attitude is the way of being a cooperativist. For there to be cooperatives, there must first be cooperators. In return, equality among all facilitated companionship and a common involvement in moving forward their enterprises, doing overtime or work that was not their responsibility; solidarity also reached everyday life.

It was also necessary to know, to acquire knowledge. Cooperatives would succeed by being competitive, by manufacturing innovative products, which required training. Arizmendiarrieta had already given importance to the human and technical training of apprentices, but it would be necessary to continue studying and achieve specialization. Not only to be good technicians, but also better people. They needed to know more and be aware that they were imperfect, but perfectible, capable of transforming themselves and their environment. 

Hence the social benefits of their work. Behind the immediate (making the cooperative), the cooperative ideal contains attractive elements that come from the principles of the Social Doctrine of the Church (universal destination of goods, the person at the center, not profit; work that allows the development of people's capacities, an economy at the service of the human being...). Faced with the dilemma of the individual community, the community prevails. This requires practicing austerity in the company itself, making good use of financial assets, not squandering or making superfluous expenditures. All this benefits the workers themselves and the common good, since their activity can be extended to solidarity activities, such as housing or consumer cooperatives, in addition to spreading a responsible mentality. The profitability of cooperatives reaches more people because the value generated is shared.

Does this humanistic vision, rooted in Christianity, lower expectations of growth? The answer is the success of existing cooperative enterprises and groups. If done well, solidarity is as profitable as any well-managed enterprise. Today it is possible to understand the primacy of the person, the common good and solidarity, historical values of the West, even if it is difficult to find someone who embodies them. But there are signs of hope because cooperatives still exist and can contribute to renew the general economic mentality.

La entrada Claves cristianas en el cooperativismo de Mondragón se publicó primero en Omnes.

Joan of Arc (1412-1431), attractive and complex historical figure. The girl who heard voices; the young woman who led the French army in the name of God to change the course of the Hundred Years' War; the girl who preferred to dress in boys' clothes; the woman who died at the stake accused of witchcraft and heresy; the one who, centuries later, would be proclaimed a model of sainthood by the same Church that had condemned her. A determined, spiritual and mystical woman; charismatic military leader, emblem and standard; multifaceted, controversial and largely unknown. Object of multiple stereotypes - the madwoman, the heroine, the witch, the feminist, the saint. Archetype of the free woman and freedom of conscience.

Defiant and timeless icon. True to herself, to her voices, to her conscience, to God. Consistent and courageous, strong and in love, with a sharp and ironic sense of humor. She did what she understood God was asking of her, and at the same time, what she felt like doing. Existentially obedient and free.

To understand the complexity of Joan of Arc in all its depth requires to situate her historically and to get rid of the prejudices of today's perspective. The first thing to do is to recall some essential facts. Joan of Arc lived between 1412 and 1431. She died at the stake at the age of nineteen, after having led - at only seventeen - the French army of the Armagnac side. 

In 1429 she played a decisive role in the liberation of Orleans and the coronation in Reims of the legitimate heir to the throne, the future Charles VII of France, which was a key strategic turning point in the Hundred Years' War. But... why did Joan go to war? Why did she end up dying at the stake? And what about the voices she supposedly listened to? To answer these questions it is essential to attend to the political, war and ecclesiastical context of the time.

The Hundred Years' War

The Hundred Years' War, which took place between 1337 and 1453, was a confrontation mainly between England and France, although it was marked by a profound internal war. It had numerous antecedents: territorial motives, dynastic tensions and conflicts over succession rights. In short, England seized French territories, while a civil war raged in France.

We are especially interested in the decades before Joan of Arc. Charles VI of France was incapacitated by madness: he suffered from a severe uncharacterized psychosis, which highlighted a belief - delirium - that his body was made of glass. The rivalry between the Dukes of Burgundy and Orleans led to open civil war. In this context, Henry V of England won a crushing victory at the Battle of Azincourt (1415). 

The situation was complicated by the Anglo-Burgundian alliance after the assassination, in 1419, of Duke John of Burgundy. Part of France, under Burgundian influence, signed with Henry V the Treaty of Troyes in 1420, disinheriting the dauphin Charles - son of Charles VI - who had the support of the Armagnac faction (Orleans).

Joan of Arc came into play in this scenario. In 1429 she led the liberation of Orleans and accompanied the dauphin Charles to his coronation in Reims, delegitimizing the Treaty of Troyes and giving a decisive turn to the war. Joan would be imprisoned in 1430 and executed at the stake in 1431. Years later, in 1435, the Treaty of Arras dissolved the Anglo-Burgundian alliance and allowed the reunification of France. Eventually, the war swung in favor of the French kingdom, which expelled the English from the continent and ended the conflict in 1453.

Joan of Arc was key in this turn of the war, and she did so not simply «in the name of God» but «by God's command».

The Church, the Popes and the Western Schism

To understand Joan we must also understand the situation of the Church and, in particular, of the papacy. In the 15th century, all European Christianity was Catholic; neither the Lutheran separation (1517) nor the Anglican schism (Henry VIII, 1538) had yet taken place. Therefore, the war between France and England was a conflict between Catholic Christian kingdoms, not a religious war like those that would follow in Europe during the 16th and 17th centuries.

Despite the fact that they were fighting among the faithful of the same creed, God did take sides; no one doubted that. The English interpreted that God had pronounced himself in favor of England with the resounding victory of Henry V at Azincourt, while Joan of Arc understood that God was taking the side of France, when she felt that he was calling her to war to liberate Orleans, unify France and defend it against England. 

This was, in fact, the reason why Joan was executed at the stake: the Church in the English zone considered that Joan's voices could not be from heaven and, consequently, could only be from the evil one. Once the war was over, the Church reviewed the trial, recognized the outrage and restored her from the accusation of heresy. Centuries later, at the beginning of the 20th century, she was beatified and canonized.

It is also interesting in relation to the papacy. The Church was immersed in the so-called Western Schism - we are still within Catholicism - also known as the Schism of Avignon. It took place between 1378 and 1417, that is, superimposed on the Hundred Years' War and prior to the entry into action of Joan of Arc. During these decades there were two popes, one in Rome and the other in Avignon. There were even three popes from shortly before Joan's birth: in 1409 the Council of Pisa was convened to resolve the conflict between Rome and Avignon, but neither of the two popes showed up. As a result, both were deposed and a third was elected.

Some details of the complexity of the situation: there was a pope in Rome -the first one was Urban- and another one in Avignon -the first one was Clement-. The pope of Avignon moved at a certain moment to Peniscola, known as Pope Luna. The third in discord, as a result of the Council of Pisa, was Alexander V, who settled in Bologna; his pontificate lasted less than a year and he was succeeded by John XXIII. For his part, Gregory XII (of Rome) convened the Council of Constance in 1414 and resigned the papacy; the third popes were annulled, Martin V was elected in Rome, while Pope Luna (Benedict XIII) continued in Peñíscola until his death in 1423, at the age of 94.

This crisis of the papacy had direct repercussions on the war between England and France: England supported mainly the pope of Rome, while France supported the pope of Avignon.

A note: the Western schism - with popes in Rome and Avignon - should not be confused with the previous period of the papacy in Avignon, when there was only one pope displaced for security reasons, and which ended with the return to Rome, thanks in part to St. Catherine of Siena.

When Joan of Arc was born in 1412, the schism was in its final years, with three popes; and when she took action in 1429, only the pontiff of Rome remained, although the memory of more than a century of popes and antipopes in Avignon was still very present. Thus, in France there was little talk of Rome as they faced the English, who had supported the Roman pope throughout the war.

Voices, psychopathology and mysticism.

Let us return to another of the initial questions: what about the voices Joan of Arc heard? Mad, witch or saint? It might seem that the only pertinent question is whether Joan was psychologically ill or balanced and, from a faith perspective, whether those voices were the fruit of a disorder or truly came from God. However, the problem is more complex. 

Firstly, because a person can be mentally healthy and still “hear voices” that are not of divine origin. And, secondly, because within a believing worldview the voices are not reduced to a simple alternative between God or pathology: the Christian tradition has always contemplated the possibility of interior experiences that do not come from God, but have an evil origin. These were precisely the dominant interpretative categories in the 15th century, and they are the coordinates from which to understand Joan of Arc.

Voices. Perception is a complex phenomenon, intimately linked to imagination and thought. We do not perceive reality directly: hearing, like seeing, is a process mediated by nervous pathways and by filtering and selection mechanisms influenced by emotional state, desires, memory and experience. In addition to perceiving, we imagine. Imagination also generates images and voices, both in dreams and in wakefulness, and is equally conditioned by our inner history.

On the other hand, there are different types of thinking, or thinking can take different forms. Some think abstractly, others by means of images; some think “speaking”, and in some people thought can take the form of voices. Desires and fears can also take the form of inner images and words. All this belongs to the ordinary workings of the human mind.

Consciousness - the interiority, the “heart”, the reflective experience of one's desires, impulses and intuitions - is an amazing space. We feel that we are masters of our thoughts and desires, and yet they exceed us. 

We tend to understand agency-the authorship of our acts-as something strictly internal, but perhaps it can also have an external origin. And if God wanted to make himself present... would it not be logical that he would do so through our own psychological and cognitive processes? Is it not reasonable to think that he would do so through a thought, an impulse of the conscience or an inner voice? And the same experience could be lived as a voice coming from outside or as something so intimate that it is confused with one's own will.

The experience of hearing voices must be read in individual, historical and cultural terms. In certain contexts - and the Middle Ages is one of them - these experiences were more normalized and integrated into the frameworks of shared beliefs. Moreover, in the fifteenth century, the main question was to discern whether the voices came from heaven or from hell; there was therefore only the alternative between understanding Joan as a mystic or as a demoniac woman.

All this challenges our usual references of normality and madness. On the one hand, we cannot judge medieval experiences with modern categories; on the other hand, we cannot give up critically reviewing whether the categories in force today really help us to understand reality in depth or whether, on the contrary, they impoverish and simplify it. Suggestibility -which today we know to be greater in certain populations and times- had a particular force at that time. But suggestibility neither invalidates experience nor explains it by itself.

The boundary between psychology and spirituality, far from being clear-cut, is complex and requires careful discernment. It is not a matter of distinguishing between black and white, but of recognizing grays and overlapping planes. Understanding the voices of Joan of Arc requires, therefore, avoiding reductionism and assuming that the interaction between psychic experience, personal conscience and religious experience is necessarily articulated.

Joan and the war

Joan of Arc's genuine simplicity contrasts with the horror of the war in which she is involved and which she leads. She impels the army to combat and to terrible deaths; nevertheless, it does not seem that she fought hand to hand nor that she killed anyone. He claims mercy for the English survivors, provides them with the sacraments and demands virtue for his own army. Without this apparent contradiction, Joan of Arc cannot be understood either.

Joan goes to war hand in hand with her voices, angels and saints. She wields a weapon for its symbolic value, a sword with the inscription “Ieshus Maria”. But she almost always carried a white and golden banner, with an image of Christ with two angels, and a field of lilies or fleur-de-lis, emblematic symbol of France. Although he did not use force, he did not lack courage: he inspired hope and instilled ardor. 

It cannot be said that she was a great strategist: she attacked, she attacked, she advanced a lot in a short period of time, and she was mistaken militarily or she let herself be badly advised. But, in a short time, she did what had not been done and surely would not have been done. Confidence and faith, determination and courage.

It is somewhat ironic that, centuries later, the British Winston Churchill -military and statesman, bold and daring- praised Joan of Arc and confessed his admiration for her, probably because of her courage. 

At certain moments of wars - or for certain types of war - certain personality profiles are decisive, with drive and leadership capacity, as could have been Churchill or Patton. Or Joan of Arc, with her impulse to launch herself again and again, even knowing -because the voices told her so- that she would be wounded.

Joan of Arc lived and died in a context of war. In other times, war was the norm; today, unfortunately, it is no exception. In any case, life always contains a combat dimension: energy is needed to maintain or restore order and avoid chaos. 

This happens in biological systems as well as in psychological dynamism and social relationships. The search for good implies struggle in the face of darkness. This is another reason why the warrior Joan will always be an immortal figure, in the same way as the Iliad, archetypal tale of war.

The courage that Juana showed in the war is undoubtedly related to her fidelity to the voices and to her conscience, which would sustain her even in the face of trial and death.

Trial, martyrdom and spiritual legacy

Joan of Arc can undoubtedly be considered a martyr. She dies for her conscience and for the truth, faithful to herself to the end, faithful to God. She was subjected to an unjust trial, to an absurd and manipulated interrogation, as happened to Jesus Christ and, a century later, to Thomas More, also in England. Benedict XVI underlines the parallelism of Joan with Jesus Christ: «After the years of hidden life and interior maturation follows the brief but intense two-year period of her public life: a year of action and a year of passion.

Joan was a woman of deep prayer, who dialogued with God with trust and confidence. God spoke to her, and she communicated with Him: intimately, and also through voices - of saints and the archangel St. Michael, as she herself explained - perceiving them as God's help and presence. She was nourished by divine grace through the sacraments, especially confession and the Eucharist. And she longed for them.

At the trial, they tried to manipulate her, to take advantage of her devotion and sacramental piety. She dressed as a man because she wanted to, out of practical sense - military - and to protect herself from possible sexual aggression, although she also explained that the voices had suggested it to her. In short, she did it because she felt like it. Of course, she was willing to dress as a woman if she was allowed to hear mass and receive communion: first things first. But it was all part of the deception.

Through days of pressure and deception, in a state of exhaustion and confusion, they try to get Joan to sign a retraction of the heresy of which they accuse her, and they succeed -in that way-. Mark Twain says in his portrait: «The crime was concluded. She had signed... what? She did not know, but the others did. She had signed a confession of witchcraft, of dealing with demons, of perjury, of blasphemy against God and against angels; of being cruel and bloodthirsty, of promoting sedition, of being perverse, a servant of Satan, and the acceptance of dressing as a woman...».

As soon as he regains his lucidity, he recants his recantation, even knowing what it means: death at the stake. And, paradoxes of history -resquicios of mercy and incoherence-, he is granted to receive the sacraments before dying: confession and communion. He dies saying before a crucifix: «Jesus, Jesus, Jesus».

Juana's voice today

Joan of Arc was a transgressor in her time, she broke the mold and today she also breaks with “the expected”, challenging our explanatory models. Joan of Arc heard voices, Joan of Arc is a voice, Joan of Arc is many voices. Her voice resonates in diversity and freedom, in fidelity to her conscience, in deep faith and love. Her voice is courage and leadership; her voice is spiritual depth and relationship with God; her voice is martyrdom and coherence to the end; her voice is timeless: it is still relevant today.

La entrada Las voces de Juana de Arco: del estereotipo al arquetipo se publicó primero en Omnes.

The sacrament of confession not only has a profound spiritual dimension, but is also intertwined with psychological aspects that influence how one lives and experiences God's forgiveness and forgiveness of oneself or others. 

Understanding these dynamics can broaden the confessor's perspective, and the other person's, notes the ‘Practical guide for confessors’an international project of the John Templeton Foundation. One of the research teams integrates several psychologists, philosophers and theologians from the universities of Navarra, Pontificia Comillas, San Dámaso and CEU-Abat Oliba. Some of their conclusions in the psychological field are summarized here.

These two aspects are reflected in the study, which included interviews with twenty-five priests from different countries with extensive pastoral experience, are the impact of confession and spiritual accompaniment on psychological health, and the human bond as a source of transformation.

A bridge also for forgiveness

Forgiveness received in confession can become a bridge for the person to forgive himself or herself as well, the guide's experts point out. Feeling welcome and forgiven by Christ in the person of the priest helps to interiorize divine mercy, generating an openness that facilitates personal forgiveness and, in turn, forgiveness towards others.

Reciprocally, learning to forgive oneself can make it easier for a person to approach the sacrament with greater openness and confidence.

Psychological health

On the other hand, “prolonged spiritual accompaniment can have a profound effect on the psychological health of the person accompanied, even beyond the punctual experience of confession,” the guide points out.

The sustained relationship and the continuity in the accompaniment generate “a stable feeling of being accepted and loved in depth, which can favor emotional security and personal openness”.

The attentive listening and total openness of the companion allow the person to explore their attachments, wounds and behavioral patterns, the study adds, “promoting self-knowledge, inner reconciliation and a more balanced development of emotional and spiritual life”.

Avoidance of risks: paternalism, excessive emotional dependence

However, it is essential to take care of the relationship to avoid risks such as paternalism, where the companion imposes his or her criteria or is frustrated when the person makes decisions different from those suggested.

“In spiritual accompaniment there is a stronger relationship of trust, of leadership. Then, sometimes there can be paternalism on the part of the one who accompanies, who is not able to let the other person choose, and gets angry and frustrated when the other person makes a mistake. That is to say, the whole aspect of the relationship that is forged is very delicate, of trust, of accompaniment, that I leave you free and I am not paternalistic”.

This is what the experts express in the guide. In this line, the confessors stress the importance of “preventing any excessive emotional dependence, both on the part of the penitent or accompanied person and the priest, always ensuring that the freedom of the former is respected and that the accompaniment favors his autonomy and maturity”.

Transforming relationships based on trust

The psychologists highlight in the report the power of the “human bond as a source of transformation”. Human beings heal in relationship, they assert. “Our deepest wounds-abandonment, rejection, humiliation, dishonor-are not healed in solitude, but in the encounter with another who welcomes us.”. 

“In confession, it is God himself who heals with his grace, because he is love and mercy. But in this space the priest is also present, whose attitude can accompany or abandon, welcome or reject, open paths or close them, bring us closer or drive us away, give us confidence or generate fear,” they recognize.

In the context of the sacrament 

The priest's “presence and manner of listening,” they continue, “influence how the penitent experiences forgiveness. The sacramental action does not depend on these human factors; however, they can favor or hinder the subjective experience of forgiveness.

According to the study, “research in psychology shows how trusting relationships are one of the most powerful sources of inner transformation. In the context of confession, the relationship with the priest can have a similar effect.”.

Strong relationships, psychological “shock absorber”.

The report cites at this point the Harvard University study on Adult Development, the longest existing research on happiness and health, which concluded that the quality of our relationships is more predictive of our well-being than success or material goods. 

Strong relationships act as a psychological “shock absorber”: they reduce stress, strengthen emotional health and promote resilience, experts stress.

Similarly, “in psychotherapy, it has been shown that the therapeutic alliance (the relationship of trust and continuity between patient and therapist; Baier et al., 2020q) explains much of the improvement, even more than the specific techniques employed. When the person feels listened to, validated and accompanied, he or she is more likely to be open to change and to the integration of painful experiences.”.

Continuity, a human space 

When the penitent feels welcomed with patience and respect, he or she is more likely to experience relief, confidence and openness to grow. “Continuity with the same confessor offers a stable framework of security,” experts explain.

In addition to the gift of God's forgiveness, the person finds the presence of a brother priest who does not reject him, listens to him calmly, without judgment, and even knowing the evil committed, does not call him “wicked, thief or useless”. On the contrary, he calls him friend. 

In this way, -confession becomes not only a sacramental encounter with God's grace, but also a human space where old wounds begin to heal”.

Management of emotional dependence in spiritual accompaniment

As before when referring to human bonds, psychologists warn about an issue in spiritual accompaniment. It is the excessive emotional dependence of the person being accompanied on the companion.

This happens, they explain, when the person, rather than growing in inner freedom and in his or her direct relationship with God, becomes trapped in the need for approval, security or constant direction. Accompaniment then ceases to be experienced as a process of discernment and spiritual maturation, and becomes a search for immediate calm in the face of anxiety.

Warning signs

Some signs that may alert the companion are:

- constant search for approval (“Am I doing it right? What will God think?”),

- difficulty in making decisions without prior consultation, even in everyday matters,

- anxiety if the companion is not available,

- idealization of the companion as the only authorized voice,

- exaggerated fear of being wrong without their guidance.

Keys to reduce dependence

Finally, some keys. Pastoral experience and psychology show that it is more likely reduce dependence sf the accompanying person acts within these parameters:

- promotes the autonomy of the person accompanied, encouraging him/her to make personal decisions in the light of prayer and discernment,

- asks more questions and advises less, stimulating reflection rather than offering immediate answers,

- sets healthy limits on the frequency of meetings and their availability,

- avoid paternalistic or controlling attitudes, always remembering that he is a mediator and not a substitute for God's action,

- reinforces the self-esteem and identity of the person accompanied as a child of God, helping him/her to trust in the action of the Spirit in his/her own conscience.

La entrada ¿Conoces la dimensión psicológica del sacramento de la Reconciliación? se publicó primero en Omnes.

Today's Gospel presents what can be considered a kind of compendium of the Gospel, or what Pope Francis called the “identity card” of the Christian. We find in the Beatitudes the first great discourse that the Lord addresses to the people.

The opening sentence of the Gospel is striking: “When Jesus saw the multitude, he went up on the mountain and sat down, and his disciples came to him.”. Jesus sees the people-probably very many of them-and goes up the mountain, both to see them better and to take a deliberate and authoritative stance. As Pope Benedict XVI writes, He “sits in the ‘chair’ of the mount”. The people gather around him, he opens his mouth and begins to teach. These gestures are deeply reminiscent of Moses. Jesus Christ is the new Moses who gives the law; but, unlike Moses, he does not receive the law: he speaks from his own divine authority. From that place, Christ gives the new Law: the law of happiness. 

Today, the Church invites us to focus particularly on the theme of humility. The readings all converge on this virtue. The brief title in red at the head of today's readings reflects the disposition with which the Church proposes them to us. The first reading, from the prophet Zephaniah, speaks of how God is going to leave, “a humble and poor people”. St. Paul, writing to the Corinthians, reminds us that God has chosen to “the weakness of the world”. And in the Gospel, the first Beatitude is the key that opens up the whole sermon: “Blessed are the poor in spirit”. Even the responsorial psalm echoes the first Beatitude. On the Solemnity of All Saints this same Gospel is proclaimed, but the title given to it is different from today. It is the final phrase: “Rejoice and be glad, for your reward will be great in Heaven.”. 

"Blessed are the poor in spirit”is not simply the first Beatitude. It is the essential condition for true happiness. Only when we recognize our total dependence on God can we be truly happy. The humble live in confident expectation of God's gifts; the proud, filled with self and worldly concerns, close themselves off from grace. Pride ultimately leads to unhappiness, because it isolates and deceives. Humility - poverty of spirit - means recognizing that we are not self-sufficient, that our security rests solely on God.

The full meaning of the Beatitudes is only discovered when we consider both parts: the statement and the reason/promise. If we listen only to the first part - “Blessed are the poor in spirit”, “Blessed are those who mourn”- "Blessed are the poor in spirit", "Blessed are those who mourn"- "Blessed are those who mourn". the words may seem incomplete or even absurd. Jesus adds the reason for the beatitude: “....for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”. We must never forget the reason/promise. The kingdom belongs to the humble. God is inclined towards the simple. He acts through them, sustains them and grants them an enduring legacy on earth and eternal joy in heaven. Today's readings reveal the beauty and strength of humility. It attracts God's gaze.

As St. Paul says: “God has chosen the foolish of the world [...], and God has chosen the weak of the world [...]. Moreover, he has chosen the lowly people of the world, the contemptible, the unworthy, the unimportant [...].".

St. Josemaría writes: “How great is the value of humility! -Quia respexit humilitatem...‘. Above faith, above charity, above immaculate purity, prays the joyful hymn of our Mother in the house of Zacharias: ’Because she saw my humility, behold, because of this, all generations will call me blessed...‘.‘”.

La entrada Humildad y bienaventuranzas. Domingo IV del Tiempo Ordinario (A) se publicó primero en Omnes.

Pope Leo XIV has continued to reflect on the Audience This Wednesday on the Dogmatic Constitution Dei Verbum of the Second Vatican Council. He stated that “Sacred Tradition and Sacred Scripture are intimately united and interpenetrated. For both springing from the same divine source, they merge in a certain way and tend to the same end” (DV, 9). 

The catechesis took place in Paul VI Hall, and the Pope referred to “the dear people of Mozambique, affected by devastating floods. As I pray for the victims, I express my closeness to the displaced and to all those who offer their support. May the Lord help you and bless you”.

Understanding the Scriptures

On the liturgical feast of St. Thomas Aquinas, Pope Leo XIV referred to Aquinas at various points in his catechesis, for example when addressing French-speaking pilgrims, students from various schools and students at the Catholic University of Vendée.

“May St. Thomas Aquinas, Doctor of the Church, whose memory we celebrate today, guide us in understanding the Scriptures, which he commented on with such wisdom, so that we can understand how much God loves us and desires our salvation,” he encouraged.

Then, to the German-speaking people he spoke of Revelation and faith. “That St. Thomas Aquinas, whose liturgical memorial we celebrate today, may his works help us to understand divine Revelation ever better. May the example of this Doctor of the Church impel us also to seek the face of God, experiencing the beauty of faith”.

Example of St. Thomas Aquinas

Before giving the blessing, and after addressing Chinese, Arabic and Polish-speaking pilgrims, the Pontiff again referred to St. Thomas Aquinas in Italian, evoking the young, the sick and the newlyweds. 

“Today we celebrate the liturgical memory of St. Thomas Aquinas. May his example impel you, dear young people, especially you, students of the Flavoni School of Civitavecchia and the Tirinnanzi Institute of Legnano-Cislago, to follow Jesus as an authentic teacher of life and holiness.”.  

“May the intercession of this holy Doctor of the Church obtain for you, dear sick people, the serenity and peace obtained from the mystery of the cross, and for you, dear newlyweds, the wisdom of heart so that you may generously fulfill your mission in society,” he said.

The Word of God, “pole star” for our journey

In his catechesis on the Constitution Dei Verbum, the Successor of Peter stated that “the Word of God, thanks to the action of the Holy Spirit, branches out in history through the Church, which safeguards, interprets and incarnates this Word”. 

The Apostle Paul repeatedly exhorts his disciple and collaborator Timothy: “Timothy, guard the deposit entrusted to you”. The Dogmatic Constitution Dei Verbum echoes this Pauline text when it says: ‘Sacred Tradition and Sacred Scripture constitute a single deposit of the Word of God entrusted to the Church’, interpreted by ‘the Church's living magisterium, whose authority is exercised in the name of Jesus Christ’ (n. 10). 

“Deposit of faith”.”

“‘Deposit» is a term which, in its original matrix, is of a juridical nature and imposes on the depositary the duty to preserve the content, which in this case is faith, and to transmit it intact’, Leo XIV pointed out.

This “deposit” is still in the hands of the Church today and “all of us must continue to protect it in its integrity, like a pole star for our journey in the complexity of history and existence”.

The Pope quoted St. Gregory the Great, St. Augustine and St. John Henry Newman, before affirming that “the Word of God is not fossilized, but is a living and organic reality that develops and grows in Tradition. The latter, thanks to the Holy Spirit ( ), understands it in the richness of its truth and incarnates it in the changing coordinates of history”.

Leo XIV: against all forms of anti-Semitism

On the occasion of Holocaust Remembrance Day, the Pope has once again reaffirmed, as he has done on his X network account @Pontifex.es, his fidelity to the firm position of the declaration ‘Nostra Aetate’ against all forms of anti-Semitism, and the rejection of any discrimination or harassment on the grounds of language, nationality or religion. 

A voice that adds to that of the Popes of the past, starting with Pius XII, who in his Christmas radio message of 1942 denounced that hundreds of thousands of people, “just because of nationality or lineage, are destined to death”, reported Vatican News.

La entrada El Papa rechaza el antisemitismo y recuerda a santo Tomás de Aquino se publicó primero en Omnes.