“Italian Catholicism and future of the country”: that’s the theme of a recent debate in Rome conducted by exponents of culture and experts and scholars of society and the Church. The occasion of the debate was the 7th Forum of the Cultural Project, a seminar preparatory to the ecclesial Conference of Verona (16-20 October 2006). “Italy’s relation with the Christian faith not only dates back to the apostolic generation, to the preaching and martyrdom of Peter and Paul, but continues to be profound and alive to this day”, and “the Church [in Italy] maintains a grassroots presence, in the midst of people of every age and condition”, said Benedict XVI in his address to the participants of the 54th general assembly of the Italian Bishops’ Conference (IBC) on 30 May. And it is from the Pope’s words that the Forum took its cue. It opened with a keynote address by the president of the IBC, Cardinal Camillo Ruini, who made the proposal of “entrusting ourselves to the free debate of ideas, respecting their democratic results even if we cannot support them” in order to overcome “the stalemate generated by the opposition between the supporters and opponents of the relativistic approach in the field of public ethics, without obliging either side to desist from acting according to their own convictions”. “Scientific and functional rationality – remarked Ruini no doubt has its legitimacy” and “represents a fundamental factor of development”, but “if it forgets its own character of methodological choice and pretends to be the only form of knowledge of reality, it contradicts the canon and limit that it itself has justly imposed”. Apart from a “wider rationality”, urged Cardinal Ruini, “we have a need for a more authentically human ethos” inspired “by genuine love for our neighbour”. “This he concluded is, today too, in substance, the great task that stands before us: a task in which lay Christians have an essential and decisive role to play” to make, in the words of Benedict XVI, “God credible in this world through an enlightened and living faith”.
