SPAIN
“Seville is a history, a way of being, a way of thought, a philosophy of life, a style, also, of contemplating God and celebrating the Christian faith”, said the Archbishop of Seville, Carlos Amigo Vallejo, on receiving the honorary citizenship of Seville in recent days. The honour conferred on him, declared the archbishop, “belongs more to the institution I represent, the Spanish Church, than to me myself. I think that relations between the Church and the public administration should be based on the principle according to which the political community and the Church are independent and autonomous, each in its own field, but both, albeit in different ways, are at the service of the personal and social vocation of man”. Therefore, “a healthy secularism is legitimate”: it should “guarantee to each citizen the right to live his/her own religious faith in genuine freedom, even in the public arena”. According to Archbishop Amigo Vallejo, “no one can doubt that cultural and religious pluralism is an enrichment of social life”. Receiving honorary citizenship on the day of the feast of St. Fernando, continued the Archbishop of Seville, involves an “obligation” and “a responsibility to live up to the example of others”. Fernando III, in fact, “according to both the Christian and Moslem sources, was a magnanimous, just and noble knight”. In Mons. Amigo Vallejo’s view, it’s important to learn from history so as not to repeat the errors of the past and not to “squander” the positive witness given by those who preceded us, such as Fernando III. “Knowing how to live together, despite our differences, and knowing how to work in partnership in seeking the common good and a better life for everyone – concluded the archbishop – never ceases to be a difficult art, but it is indispensable for those who wish to achieve true levels of genuine citizenship”.
