Books: Cataldo Naro, On the crest of the modern world. Short writings on Christianity and politics , edited by Massimo Naro, with Agostino Giovagnoli Preface and Afterword Nicola Antonetti, Salvatore Sciascia Editore, Caltanissetta - Rome 2011, pp. 688, € 34,00.
"The Lord gives me a great gift of inner peace, a serenity of the fund, which amazes me and gives me strength." Not long ago I wrote that for Fattitaliani Mgr. Cataldo Naro enough these few words, rightly regarded as the heart of his spiritual testament in order to produce an idea of \u200b\u200bhow he lived surprised by the beauty of our relationship with God, who never leaves the man himself and its complexity. In the same text continues by stating that: "Of course, Mgr. Naro was not relieved by the roughness of the human or from difficulties that gave him the exercise of his ministry, however loyal, had an unshakeable faith in the Lord and deepened knowledge with indescribable love. "
Now that I am about to present, giving excerpts from the Foreword by Massimo Naro, editor of the work, is a new publishing company which in addition to enrichment, with the order number 73, the series "Studies Centre A. Cammarata 'of San Cataldo (CL), performs the praiseworthy effort to collect historical essays, short studies, articles, interviews and published our own, between 1979 and 2002, lost a considerable amount of publications in different character and bears witness-integrating the features of attention-from the writings of evangelical Cataldo Naro for man , history, the city.
The volume gathers a little more than eighty writings, divided into four thematic sections: "in which they are respectively grouped the essays and studies that relate to the history of the Catholic movement in the nineteenth and twentieth century ( some recovered and treated uniformly by Naro, the second of three volumes of his work The Church of Caltanissetta between the two wars. II. Catholics in society: politics, economy and culture , 1991), those that illustrate the inextricable interweaving of Christian inspiration, education and socio-political commitment of the Church which materialized in some specimens of Catholic events along the Throughout the twentieth century, articles on political and Italian Sicilian Naro - especially at the turn of the eighties and nineties - watched with great interest and commented with intelligent lucidity, then operations on the metamorphosis Church after Vatican II took place between the ' pressure of the secularization and the demands of a new evangelization for the West of old - but now worn out and weakens - Christian tradition. Within each section, however, the order is basically chronological.
ongoing opportunities the editor: "Beyond the issues outlined in the individual sections, what unites all the texts collected here is the intent Cataldo Naro they play in understanding the socio-political tradition of Catholic inspiration that Sicily - as in the rest of the country - was, during the twentieth century, full of initiatives and prominent figures. The focus of Naro, often, is devoted to the events of Nyssa, not a provincial selection of comfortable (archives and libraries immediately available to him that he lived there), but why in Caltanissetta had taken place two events of capital importance for the socio-political history of Catholicism: the congress of provincial councilors and local Catholics in Sicily organized by Don Luigi Sturzo in November 1902, that historians regard as the starting point of the adventure that brought the priest to found calatino then, in 1919, the Popular Party, then the first meeting of the founders of the new Sicilian Christian Democrat, in the aftermath of the Allied landing in 1943, at the offices of Joseph Alessi, who - following - would become the first president of the region.
This ability to identify facts and figures local placing them within a frame, however, suffered more extensive and complex, allowed to exceed the Naro localism and go, without interruption, in scenarios in which the larger fragments local history were the most valued by him as an enlightened global significance while they themselves helped him to understand and explain the situation the largest in a network of reciprocal links between particular and general that allowed him to reach a proper historical assessment of what happened and what continues to happen, past and present. His point observation was specific and particular local language, but his eyes never ceased to wander at regional and national , while continually returning to focus on the fragments, nearly wiping them - so - under the magnifying glass. He, moreover, to apply this method polar commuting as well as a comparison of leading figures and actors and minor events between local and regional or national events, including the interaction between private and public historical sources, including church and state documents, including option believer impartiality and scientific research and analysis, between inspiration and Christian renunciation of claims in the political history of sectarian sturziana appearance (in which we can trace the beginnings of that "healthy secularism 'in Naro already talked about in his text of 1988 and another in 1994, promises to be a secularist secularity is not understood, that as a vision of life and political non-clerical nor anti-clerical), especially between spirituality and action, as he was convinced that his experience had been the spiritual motivation more radical social and political activism of many Catholic personalities, famous or little known, the Italian twentieth century. "
If every single incident is collected here as the piece of a beautiful mosaic of what was once the Bishop's chair Mgr. Naro, the Cathedral of Monreale, is essential - in my humble opinion - for a harmonious and not one-sided reading of the entire thought of the bishop, to grasp what was his vision and relationship with modernity, not something from which Don Massimo declines, in fact, clearly, note in his speech: "Naro believed Christianity Church - with its various expressions membership, training and education - far from being incompatible with modernity, and indeed historically effective in mediating in Sicily as in all 'Italy, although the issue of modernization of the social system dynamics. On the other hand, he considered not as a threat to modern Christianity, but as an event not to desert and as a test case with which to measure it with seriousness and dedication. "
In exergue sentence for mail volume, we have not only the justification of the title of this collection, but also the clear track of the relationship-modern Christianity in intellectual thought and Pastor Nar Cataldo or "It's about being on the ridge of the relationship with the modern world, to accept this modern world that allows Christianity to be more evangelical, but also to reject everything that can affect the root of the Gospel. "
volume, even if you have to do it, you can infer what Cataldo Naro was attentive to the social profile of Italian Catholicism, as well as policy "which he understood as an important factor in the history of Christian Church in Italy."
I am convinced, and Don Massimo reinforces my idea that the pages offered in this new and welcome publication, are testimony to the inclination of the Author "to critically question the results of his research and its reflection in comparison sought and supported with other scholars and intellectuals and other items of public social and ecclesial 'and this is not only exemplary, but not recently, at a time when solipsism and sterile grandstanding attempt to mislead and end up in their laces.
Alfonso Hunter
0 comments:
Post a Comment