European editorial: Communicating some reason to believe

(Vatican Radio) – In the fifth of a series of Vatican Radio editorials focusing on the Church and Europe, journalist Pietro Cocco explores the challenges of explaining the faith to an increasingly secularized culture:

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“Lord won’t you tell us what does it mean? Still at the end of every hard earned day people find some reason to believe?”
These are the words of American musician and song-writer, Bruce Springsteen, from one of his saddest albums, describing the human and social state of his country.

They are words that go beyond geographical borders. Here in Europe, the same question is at the heart of contemporary culture, intensified by the economic crisis and by the confusion that many people experience between what they live and what they hope could give meaning to their lives.

For those who do believe, it’s obvious that there’s a crisis of faith, that God has been excluded from human existence. But there’s more to it than that. What about the possibility of communicating that meaning, of sharing that faith? Many people are experiencing a powerful feeling of emptiness and isolation, a loss of identity. It’s a feeling that’s accentuated by the break up of society, especially in big cities, causing people to lose trust in one another, and by the crisis in the family which makes it seem as though a stable relationship, between a man and a woman, between two very different people, is simply impossible and out of the question.

On what common basis of ideas, feelings, mutual trust and expectations, can we possibly communicate some reason to believe? We can start by acknowledging that while the future may appear bleak for many, it’s not a foregone conclusion – it’s still open and awaiting a convincing reply. A reply that, in the words of another Springsteen song, will reach us on the “dark highway where our sins lie unatoned” – and relieve us of their load.

It’s a difficult task that involves, first and foremost, those who believe, who have faith. It’s something that parents and teachers – anyone who has to communicate and share the meaning of life with young people – encounter every day. Sometimes it seems like we’re out of touch with the language of the world and we can’t find the words to express our common commitment to building the future. Two years ago, speaking in Westminster Hall, London, the Pope recalled “the inadequacy of pragmatic, short-term solutions to complex social and ethical problems that have been illustrated by the global financial crisis.” The people of Europe must avoid those peculiar strains of nationalism which, even in recent times, have produced division and conflict.

If we want to communicate anything at all, we must first open ourselves to a new enculturation of ideas and of faith, so that our words and the meaning we propose may speak to the flesh and blood of men and women of today, to everyone. We need to use our minds and hearts, as Benedict XVI often reminds us, if we are to pick up a common theme and give it a Divine dimension. We need not be afraid, because it’s what every generation is called to do. It’s what happens every day in every family – mistakes included. This work of enculturation requires people who are gifted with an intelligence that doesn’t forget. Benedict XVI is prophetic when he says that abstract reasoning, anti-historical thinking that believes it can dominate everything, freeing itself from traditions and cultural values – makes life unliveable, takes the ground away from under our feet, removes all warmth from the hearth of human coexistence.

A decisive confrontation is being played out between the different cultures and faiths that currently inhabit and share the same spaces. We are being called to build a common future for our societies together: a future in which we will be able to communicate the meaning and purpose of life. But a “reasoning” that claims to free itself from all cultures, that imposes anonymous life-styles for its own benefit and the enrichment of an elite, cannot possibly generate intercultural dialogue, an encounter between people with equal dignity that aims at achieving fundamental and fraternal unity, and that opens the way to the future.

This task of enculturation, the communication of values, of dialogue among cultures and faiths, involves engaging peoples’ hearts, their ability to live on a relational and communitarian level. Tensions with our neighbour are inevitable, and every culture has elaborated its own terms of welcome whenever that neighbour has been seen as someone who brings hope. A free and open heart allows us to recognise our neighbour as our brother or sister and to overcome our sense of fragility. It helps us to heal the injustice and the loneliness that afflicts so many of our brothers and sisters, especially in our cities. And at the end of every hard earned day, the same heart lets us listen to that which gives us some reason to believe.

Pietro Cocco, Vatican Radio journalist