"I TELL YOU THAT IF THESE WILL SHUT UP THE STONES WILL SHOUT" RIDATE PASQUINO: PRESTO!

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The truth, who is the mother of all democracies, is in itself liberating, It is not imposed, It enlightens man's intelligence and freedom of each individual. Before the truth, man can not avoid taking sides, it must decide whether to embrace it or reject it. The moment that you embrace it becomes the seeker, not for personal gain, but because the truth is persuasive and seductive man toward the good - staff or Community - which knows no compromise or duplicity, it disregard the very truth which deteriorates so falsehood.

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Author
Ivano Liguori, Ofm. Capp.

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Rome, statue of Pasquino

Who is to pass for Parione in Rome, will not have trouble getting Pasquino square, where the visitor will notice, the corner of Palazzo Braschi, the famous talking statue of the satirical epigrammatic chatty most famous in the history of the Capital.

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Pasquino, statue of the Hellenistic period B.C., he was the one who gave voice to the people, using satire and irony to highlight political situations, social or even religious that it was no longer possible to tolerate. From the pungent pasquinate They were not spared even the Popes. Under the pontificates of Pope Adrian VI, Sisto V and Clement VIII, the statue risked being shattered and destroyed. Only the wisdom of some farsighted prelate within the Papal States dissuaded the Roman Pontiff Sisto V by this connection, after he had appeared the inscription: «Whether float der Pope Sixtus nun forgives not even Christ». Penalty for the destruction of the statue, They would be the repercussions and uncontrollable reactions of the Roman people.

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So we must agree, obtorto neck, that er puppet de Pasquino He held with its activities a useful service to many: to the powerful who saw rebuked and brought back to the reflection; the people who felt protected, uniting under a common symbol; to freedom of thought he could finally express themselves beyond the inevitable censorship that threatened to cloud the truth of things. Perhaps this is why some healthy satire and equitable self-criticism, in a correct manner, in times and contexts right, It can be much more useful than some official measures.

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Rome, statue of Pasquino

The character of Pasquino, omitting the instrumental use, political or ideological that this symbol has embodied over time, constituted in fact the voice of the people. As a people papal, loyal to the throne and the altar, but the need did not renounce to practice the well-known Roman bluntness much-vaunted by today mainstream Ecclesiastical with the term parresia. Already … parresia, but what we are talking? The parresia is an ancient reality, according to scholars already playwright Euripides [that. 480-406 a.C.] expressed by this term the virtues of strongly affirm the truth. Other philosophers of the classical world such as Socrates [that. 469-399 a.C], Plato [that. 428-348] and Aristotle [that. 384-322 a.C.] Professing themselves to be seekers of truth and in the practice and teaching of parresia helped to build the foundation for what would be the Athenian democratic system. A company can stand only if it remains firmly anchored in the truth, lies and duplicity are therefore the only real obstacle to any good democratic system of government.

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The French philosopher and essayist Paul-Michel Foucault for this reason expressed their thoughts in the famous aphorism: "Because there is democracy there must be parresia". But it is precisely at this point of the argument that it is necessary to clarify. Plato distinguished between two types of parresia: a truthful denoted as a virtue wise and constructive and a false denoted as misleading and deceptive. I want to focus on the first typology, ignoring for the moment the second to other subsequent insights. We understand how parresia push the man to the laborious search well-rounded truth, compared to the danger of absolutizing the personal views of promoting them in truth elite. About this, just think of the most famous story of dictatorships that have characterized their own following the personal truth of their leaders.

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The truth, who is the mother of all democracies, is in itself liberating, It is not imposed, It enlightens man's intelligence and freedom of each individual. Before the truth, man can not avoid taking sides, it must decide whether to embrace it or reject it. The moment that you embrace it becomes the seeker, not for personal gain, but because the truth is persuasive and seductive man toward the good - staff or Community - which knows no compromise or duplicity, it disregard the very truth which deteriorates so falsehood. And before the truth can not be silenced, because "If these were silent, even the stones will cry " [cf. LC 19, 40].

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Rome, statue of Pasquino

Faced with the danger, increasingly looming, a contemporary relativism that distorts and falsifies the truth, You need to emphasize strongly that the truth is unique and has a name: Jesus Christ. There are other truths - truths or parallel - to which man can approach to reach the desired good. It is explained to the Magisterium of the Church: "Called to salvation through faith in Jesus Christ, "The true light that enlightens every man" [GV 1,9], people become "light in the Lord" and "children of light" [Ef 5,8] and they are made holy by "obedience to the truth" [1 PT 1,22 – cf.. John Paul II, Encyclical Letter The Splendor of Truth n° 1], realizing every parresia and allows you to experience the grace of God that precedes and assists the man in front of the spirit liar par excellence - Satan - and his work. In fact, if God's work and action are declined through the mediation of the truth of the Word incarnate in the world, the work of the Evil One and his followers declines through the denial of God and Christ to the willful disobedience and informed the fruits of modernity and contemporary ranging from relativism and skepticism [cf. GV 18, 38], up in search of an illusory freedom apart from truth itself. [cf.. John Paul II, Encyclical Letter The Splendor of Truth n° 1].

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With the advent of Christianity It parresia assumes a role more and more profit from the truth of the Gospel and its moral that in the person of Christ - the Word made man - his source and summit. The strenuous workout that the Christian must practice in order to cross the narrow door that allows it to penetrate into the truth of Christ [LC 13,24] It is similar to the effort that the philosopher Socrates practiced to emerge from his listeners the truth, with the difference that Socrates was not acting the divine grace given to each man with the baptism. The truth was manifested to man and the grace that was given for making it all possible: "Because the grace and truth came through Jesus Christ" [GV 1,17].

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Rome, statue of Pasquino

I am more and more convinced that for the Christian the act or speak with parresia It implies not only an academic discussion or an exchange of views and opinions in order to synthesize, but it is above all the discovery and recognition of that eternal reality that insists in the person of God's Truth. The Christian therefore acts with parresia when, recognizing the truth of the Triune God, It gives each created thing its rightful place and value, coming to the order that is the opposite of chaos liar.

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We live in a historical period in which the Truth of Revelation is adapted and, in severe cases, denied to make room for personal opinions and judgments that swollen with personalism and individualism surging to the truth. Today everyone can express themselves with the fateful: "in my opinion…», the magic formula that opens the alternative and contrasts each Inconvenient Truth in order to clear any illegal. In front of the historical events and philosophical, before natural or biological evidence, in front of each divine teaching stands revealed merciless strainer "in my opinion…», new mantra of unique contemporary thought and a certain ecclesiology output.

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I challenge our readers never to have heard at home or at work, from her neighbors and distant, opposing the phrase "in my opinion…», unsheathed against the radicalism of the Gospel and the teaching of the Church. Like this, questioning everything and trying partisanship a sterile dialogue, son of a deceptive parresia, the followers of the "I think…"- which then turns into in our opinion when you conceal lobbies - impose de facto censorship and, creating hypothetical enemies, dictate the agenda of world leaders, thus displacing the democratic freedom which is no longer able to recognize and approach the truth.

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In some areas We have already made the prophecy of Gilbert Keith Chesterton says that:

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"Fires are stoked to witness that two plus two equals four. Spade will be unsheathed to show that the leaves are green in summer…» [cf. G.K. Chesterton, Heretics, Lindau, Torino, 2010, pp. 242-243].

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Rome, statue of Pasquino

Laying eyes on the Church, the situation is not entirely dissimilar to that present in the secular world. Losing God's Truth, They recycle mundane truth frantically hoping to appear more convincing, more engaging and often more updated of Christ himself. This attitude leads to an inability to utter a word, and strongly reminiscent of the case of the priest Zechariah, father of John the Baptist, that by not accepting the work of God's healing, became silent until he had proclaimed the truth that the name of his only begotten son from the merciful divine truth.

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The disruptive silence that arises today the sacristy, convents and monasteries, by curies and vicariates is the consequent result of a profound loss of identity that denies the redemptive work of Christ Way, Truth and Life to glorify the work of man and the Prince of this world [GV 12,31]. Like this, tll actually more terrible today: from attack to life in all its forms, the breakup of the institute of marriage and family, the dignity of man as God's image, They are passed off as humanitarian achievements and civilization from new coryphaei of truth. A false parresia, insincere and devious leads man in his Promethean liberation in disavows himself and to exchange the redemption for the social struggle and the good news of the Gospel to the revolutionary movement which includes hatred of the enemy and the elimination of opponents.

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The Church and churchmen They are no longer made, and shaped as meeting places and reference to find the Truth, but become newly hungry amphitheaters where roam the fairs of ideologies ready to tear the newly martyrs of the Truth of Christ, arena pushed by those who once were its guardians. Perhaps, there are too many priests that if the damage of holy on social network tweeting all against all ... aridatece Pasquino! Perhaps, There are too many Eminences and Excellencies who as spin doctors attend more assiduously talk show instead of the canonical of their priests to bring comfort and paternal closeness ... aridatece Pasquino! Perhaps, too many religious focus more in the dancing and singing among the boxes, in the grip of an undefined collective irenicism, instead of re-propose with courage and firmness the charism of consecrated life as it was lived by their holy founders ... aridatece Pasquino!

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also the reigning Pontiff, like many of his predecessors, It was made the subject of a lampoon

How much would be healthy listen to the lampoons that make us ashamed authentically, that put ridiculed our manias last-redeemers, they leave in our underpants pretensions baby dictators, to put us back into the heart's desire of the Truth that saves and takes place only doing what Christ has called us.

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Among the many talkers modern and sproloquiatori authorized, Give us back the ancient voice of the Roman people that often embodies the truth of the saying The voice of the people, vox Dei. So bring back him: Give us back Pasquino!

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Laconi, 23 September 2019

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