Teologia

The word “reconciliation” is a word with a diverse set of meanings that can encompass many different perspectives: religious, ethical, political and juridical. The author concentrates in this text on the religious perspective and on its Christian version., placing himself clearly in the point of view of victims. From that come all of the questions that recur in these pages: Is there a God who reconciles and who reconciles us with so many victims in this world? If that is answered in the affirmative, what does that reconciliation look like? In what does it consist?

In this booklet, we will be calling upon different people to tell us about their own experiences, in order to give us their personal testimony. These are real life testimonies which will invite us to discover faith from the perspective of justice.

The issue of women and the notion of the feminine has again come to the fore, both in the secular world as well as in the ecclesial sphere. Could this be why women are taking on leading roles in a turbulent, violent and changing world? Could this be why Pope Francis has brought up the issue time and time again? Whatever the reason, at this point in time, when the world as a whole finds itself immersed in violence, and facing so many economic, political and social problems, there is a widespread sense that women can play an important role in the process of change.

The political construction of places safe from profanation involves defending those “sacred places” we  have already established, demolishing dwellings that have become unlivable, and building new multicultural homes that are sustainable and non-discriminatory, recognizing and welcoming negated identities. The author invites us to abandon our passivity and become architects and masons so as to keep the world from ending up “a huge commercial center where every reality carries a sticker price and a bar code.”

In this essay the author proposes ten reasons for involving the world’s religions in the environmental debate. The ten reasons offer important keys for understanding the religious declarations of recent years as valid strategies for personal, institutional, and social transformation. The author seeks to open up the prophetic, ascetical, penitential, apocalyptic, sacramental, soteriological, mystical, wisdom, communitarian, and eschatological dimensions that pervade the spiritual experience of humankind.

Jorge Riechmann calls the 21^st century the “Century of the Great Test,” for he sees it as the century in which the future of the planet and the survival of the human race are at stake.

This booklet compares the texts contained the book The Teaching of Buddha with the social justice texts of the prophets (culminating in Jesus as one who is “more than prophet”). Despite the differences between the two sets of texts, the author defends the need to understand that they are complementary languages and that neither of them can be maintained or can reach fulfillment without the other. Every outcry of protest that does not flow forth from the interior richness of an authentic “silence” will be “political” but not prophetic.

In the face of the hells created by violence, oppression, and repression, the victims of injustice seem to have no other alternative than fight (action-reaction) or flight (silent submission). This booklet explores the “third way” of Jesus, which goes far beyond those two options. This “third way” is the path of active non-violence, a path that requires great lucidity, creativity, faith, and constancy.

Given that the worldwide movement of migrants and refugees is a “sign of the times,” the situations that give rise to this reality cannot remain on the margins of theological reflection. Responding to this need is the theology of migrations, a new discipline grounded in biblical tradition and the magisterium. The author of the present booklet examines this pressing concern in depth, highlighting the five most important issues for our day and age: identity, dignity, justice, hospitality, and integration.

We cannot understand modern-day Europe without understanding the role played by Luther in the Reformation of the 16th century. That event went far beyond the religious realm and revealed the existence of two cultures, two models of social relations, two manners of understanding political power, and even two economic systems. Many of the topics debated during the Reformation and the early Renaissance period are still being debated in our contemporary European society, which is as perplexed and perplexing today as it was in those days.