The Spanish Episcopal Conference opened its Plenary Assembly this morning with a speech in which Bishop Luis Arg\u00fcello made a diagnosis of the social and political situation of the country. Starting from the recent Doctrinal Note \u00abCor ad cor loquitur\u00bb -the heart speaks to the heart-, Bishop Arg\u00fcello warned about how the excessive management of feelings is leading to a phenomenon of fragmentation that erodes the foundations of coexistence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In his words he did not refer to the controversies that arose around this document and the new forms of evangelization. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The speech began by appreciating the positive role of the new evangelization initiatives that have emerged within the Church, describing them as a \u00abbreath of fresh air\u00bb that seeks to \u00abrescue people from the desert and lead them to the place of life.\u00bb These tools are necessary to accompany those who approach the faith seeking, like the Samaritan woman, \u00aba fountain of water springing up to eternal life\u00bb. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
However, this positive assessment coexists with a clear warning: the danger of the spiritual experience becoming trapped in a superficial sentimentalism that does not become a true conversion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Church has identified that the so-called \u00abemotivist reductionism\u00bb is not only an intramural risk that affects new forms of consecrated life built around \u00abemotional leadership and experiences of affective impact\u00bb, but it is a pathology that has spread to the public sphere. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
This morning's speech underlined that polarization in Spain is not merely a clash of ideas, but, fundamentally, an \u00abaffective phenomenon\u00bb. In this sense, it has been denounced that the current \u00abaffective polarization\u00bb causes that the rejection towards the other is stronger than the own adhesion to the ideas, transforming the opinions in closed identities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Under this prism, the text warns that the citizen no longer simply gives an opinion, but \u00abis\u00bb a certain way to belong to a group that offers \u00abemotional security to feel that you are on the right side of history\u00bb. In this social-psychological analysis, it has been identified that \u00abfear is the strongest glue of polarization\u00bb, a feeling that leads to perceive the opponent not as someone with whom one disagrees, but as an \u00abexistential threat\u00bb. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
This dynamic cultivates the feeling that the triumph of the opposing side would mean the disappearance of one's lifestyle or core values.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Finally, the discourse has linked this crisis of coexistence to a theological and anthropological root. Polarization arises, according to the text, because the \u00abdialectic of opposites\u00bb of late Modernity denies the essential polarities that constitute the human being, such as the relationship between self and society or history and eternal life. For this reason, Bishop Arg\u00fcello concludes that, when these fundamental links are broken, society is left without bridges of dialogue, giving way only to a \u00abstruggle for power between the opposing poles\u00bb and to a moral superiority that seeks only the emotional relief of the \u00abecho chambers\u00bb.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
La Conferencia Episcopal Espa\u00f1ola ha inaugurado esta ma\u00f1ana su Asamblea Plenaria con un discurso en el que Mons. Luis Arg\u00fcello ha realizado un diagn\u00f3stico de la situaci\u00f3n social y pol\u00edtica del pa\u00eds. Partiendo de la reciente Nota doctrinal \u00abCor ad cor loquitur\u00bb \u2014el coraz\u00f3n habla al coraz\u00f3n\u2014, Mons. Arg\u00fcello ha alertado sobre c\u00f3mo la gesti\u00f3n […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1166,"featured_media":60503,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_members_access_role":[],"_members_access_error":""},"categories":[36,41,46],"tags":[686],"class_list":["post-60499","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-actualidad","category-espana","category-mundo","tag-conferencia-episcopal-espanola"],"yoast_head":"\n