Emma Bonino and the death of a sad woman. Pity does not erase that truth of which it is the daughter, otherwise it would just be pietism

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EMMA BONINO AND THE DEATH OF A SAD WOMAN. PITY DOES NOT ERASE THAT TRUTH OF WHICH IT IS THE DAUGHTER, OTHERWISE IT WOULD JUST BE PIETISM

In Heaven there is an army of angelic creatures who owe the conquest of their eternal bliss to that baptism of blood in martyrdom called abortion.

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Before writing this article I questioned myself as a Christian, priest and theologian on the relationship between piety and truth.

(Emma Bonino, ANSA photo)

A Senator of the Republic, who in his youth was very close to Marco Pannella and Emma Bonino, the first one described me as a sunny and cheerful man, beyond his provocative public performances in front of the cameras, that they had a purposeful reason, sometimes studied or even scientific: «Marco Pannella» he told me «had a laughing look and eyes». A completely different description regarding the second: «Emma Bonino was a sad woman, His eyes were melancholy even when he laughed.".

Inveterate smoker, she never stopped smoking even after being diagnosed with lung cancer which affected her for a decade, finally died after a long respiratory illness. On its coherence, or perhaps on the lack thereof, I think it's legitimate to question myself: why did the one who fought for years to get a law on euthanasia approved not call Marco Cappato, he has personally assisted others several times in the process of assisted suicide? On abortion, instead, we don't ask ourselves the same question: it was herself, in the seventies, to set an example first hand, immortalized with a bicycle pump in her hand used to perform clandestine abortions. Two battles, two different consistencies: its one, abortion, he chose the direct gesture, on the other, l'euthanasia, reached the moment of its end, he preferred the opposite path to the one he had fought for so that it became law for everyone.

We all remember this sad woman who never missed an opportunity to define abortion as a "great social achievement", defining law n. 194 the 1978, which regulates the legalized killing of a human being, «an example of civilization». And here the mind can only rush to a completely different figure: Daniele Capezzone, currently director of the Roman newspaper Time, in the past parliamentarian and secretary of the Italian Radicals since 2001 al 2007. Daniele Capezzone, who is a secularist and an all-round liberal, several times, debating in various television programs on Mediaset networks, defined abortion as "a tragedy" and law no. 194 "a necessity", stating that he felt "discomfort in hearing it defined as a 'great achievement'". Here is the difference that I would like to underline: with whom - despite disagreeing with me in the doctrine that considers life sacred from the moment of conception -, recognizes abortion as having the moral weight of a tragedy that must be contained, dialogue remains possible, even fruitful. With those who made it a source of pride and a trophy to show off as a "great achievement", the dialogue stops before it even begins: not for my closure, but because between those who mourn an evil that they consider necessary and those who instead celebrate it as a good there is no common ground on which to meet, especially when human life is at stake.

I who believe in the immortality of the soul and eternal life, I don't know what happened to Emma Bonino, when I closed my eyes to this life he reopened them before the immediate judgment of God. One thing is certain in my faith: in Heaven there is an army of angelic creatures who owe the conquest of their eternal bliss to that baptism of blood in martyrdom called abortion. And I am sure that these Angels, the first to be able to fully understand the weight of a life spent against their very existence, they will be able to intercede with God with a mercy greater than any human judgement, because He alone has the last word on this sad woman.

From the island of Patmos, 11 September 2026

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A memory of Adriano Bernardini, Apostolic Nuncio

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A MEMORY OF ADRIANO BERNARDINI, APOSTOLIC NUNCIO

Its last locations were Buenos Aires, where he was Apostolic Nuncio to Argentina for nine years, and Rome, where he was called to the Italian nunciature by Benedict XVI, meeting a year later with Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio elected Supreme Pontiff.

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Ivano Liguori, Ofm. Cap.

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September 11th last year the Apostolic Nuncio H.E. died at the Villa del Rosario nursing home. Mons. Adriano Bernardini, assisted by Father Ariel S. Levi di Gualdo, his private collaborator for years, by his brother Piero and sister-in-law Anna.

The Supreme Pontiff Francis and H.E. Mons. Adriano Bernardini, Apostolic Nuncio to Italy (2011-2017), Vatican CITY, 2016.

The funeral obsequies they took place at his will in Montefeltro, at the church of Santa Maria del Mutino, in the Monastero area, where he is buried. During the funeral funeral Father Ariel gave a homily that deserves to be repeated today.

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The Fathers of the Island of Patmos they remember him affectionately in prayer, honored for the esteem and friendship he has always shown us.

Cagliari, 11 September 2026

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A dutiful report to the readers with due transparency and profound gratitude

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A DUE REPORT TO THE READERS WITH DUE TRANSPARENCY AND DEEP GRATITUDE

At the moment, at the checkout, we have 3.189,97 to your PayPal account e 6.933,24 on the current account of Banca BPM for a total of 10.123,21 Euro. Subtracting from the amount what we already had, we collected the 8.000 euros needed for the expenses of 2027, to be precise 7.988.

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Jorge Facio Lynx
President of Editions The island of Patmos

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Dear Readers,

the 26 August Father Ariel S. Levi di Gualdo, editor in chief of this magazine of ours, launched an appeal informing that by 7 September (then extended to 10 as later specified in the note) we had to pay the annual management costs for the site that hosts the Island of Patmos (cf.. who). The annual amount needed for living expenses: from the server dedicated to the various services and subscriptions the amount is equal to 8.000 Euro. Between the current account at Banca BPM and the PayPal account we had cash 2.135 euros in total.

 

The editorial Fathers they feared they had reached the end of this happy experience that had lasted 12 years and starting from October 2014 it has never experienced any declines but only a progressive increase in visitors.

We are happy to inform you that we currently have 3.189,97 to your PayPal account e 6.933,24 on the current account of Banca BPM for a total of 10.123,21 Euro. By subtracting what we already had we collected the 8.000 euros needed for the expenses of 2027, to be precise 7.988.

The Editors thank you and they tell you that Father Ariel has made the commitment to respond to every single benefactor with an email, which he will do between the end of this week and the beginning of next week.

To avoid taking the risk again which thanks to you has been overcome, we offer our loyal readers a monthly donation, even a small one, with the convenient and secure PayPal system, so that we can collect the necessary amount during the year for the subsequent payment deadlines in September 2027. Some do, but at the moment there are very few. Just click on the image below:

To all of you our renewed one arrives, deep and sincere thanks.

Rome, 9 September 2026

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Praise of the new literary genre: the insinuation with bibliography at the bottom of the IA

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PRAISE OF THE NEW LITERARY GENRE: THE INSINUATION WITH BIBLIOGRAPHY AT THE BOTTOM OF THE AI

Everything repeats the same at regular intervals, it consumes itself, it doesn't need a real defendant: all he needs is a target vague enough that it can be anyone, therefore comfortably none.

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Editors of The Island of Patmos

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In Saxony-Anhalt the AfD — Alternative for Germany, “Alternative for Germany” — won with over 43 percent and its co-president lives in a civil union with a woman while the party she leads does not recognize that kind of family.

 

It's real news, verifiable, and - let's face it - also quite interesting to talk about: the contrast between the private life of those who lead a party and the programs that party writes is legitimate journalistic material, when it is based on facts, date, public statements signed by those who made them.

What a tasty morsel for certain blogs covered with the aura of newspaper headlines, where real news dies to give space to sleight of hand: you take that solid premise and use it as a springboard to land somewhere else entirely, on a target never named, without a single test, with the only help of a list of academic titles lined up to act as a bibliography, the same as, if you take it off, leaves only a naked inference on the table (see reference article who).

In the picture: Piero Manzoni (1933-1963), Merda d'artista n. 4, May 1961. Latta, printed paper and label, 4,8 × 6,5 cm. London, Tate Modern Museum. Original label: «Merda d'artista. Net content gr. 30. Preserved naturally. Produced and canned in May 1961».

The mechanism is proven e, you have to admit it, bold in his brazenness. We start by quoting Kurt Lewin, we pass through Anna Freud and reactive formation, we get to Erving Goffman and his covering, i.e. the strategy, described by the Canadian sociologist, with which those who bear a stigmatized trait do not hide it completely but smooth it out, he keeps it low-key, just to remain accepted by the group that despises that trait. All serious concepts, by serious authors, born to describe real social phenomena, which some columnists however use as a master key universal: any behavior of the target, any of his words, becomes automatically “he tries” of the thesis, because the thesis is constructed in such a way that nothing can disprove it. If the priest is silent on the subject, for example the problem of widespread homosexuality even among the clergy, then he remains silent to hide. Instead, we talk about it, then he talks about it too much and is even accused of “homophobia”, therefore he hides by concealing his true identity, the one that the magician announces he has discovered: his intimate repressed homosexuality. There is no move that escapes reading: it is the same logical structure as astrology, just with more footnotes.

Who is dedicated to journalistic activity seriously and for a long time, instantly understands that the entire first part of this article was developed by an Artificial Intelligence system, the compositional style is unmistakable precisely in the construction of the sentences and in the asepticity of others. Only the final part, in which the style changes completely, it is instead crafted by the poison throwing specialist.

And then Proust… always Proust, always the Baron of Charlus, his character most tormented by his own reflection, always the mirror that the poor inverted person cannot bear to look at. It has become such a tired tòpos that it is worth recommending, to those who recycle it for the umpteenth time, to try to quote someone else, that I know, Charles Bukowski - just to stay on the subject of black holes, obviously an astrophysical concept, don't be misunderstood! ―, it works the same anyway. And so it is enough to take a hendecasyllable at random and state that it speaks of the internalized homophobia with which some priest, accused of being a repressed gay, would give vent to his unresolved being, word of a magician (ending of the same article, who). No one will ever be able to prove otherwise, and that's exactly the point: an accusation to which a priest cannot respond precisely because it is absurd, it's not an accusation, it is an obsessive-compulsive ritual, a pathology about which the magician, although generous in the barrage of quotes provided by IA al “independent international newspaper”, one is careful not to quote Freud in relation to it.

Counting well, among psychologists, sociologists and novelists, the bibliography is close to twenty names: a critical apparatus worthy of a degree thesis, put at the service of an anecdote which - once the footnotes have been removed - stands on nothing, in the belief that a falsehood, if repeated in a hammering way, may eventually become true.

Everything repeats the same at regular intervals, it consumes itself, it doesn't need a real defendant: all he needs is a target vague enough that it can be anyone, therefore comfortably none, or to put it with Luigi Pirandello: One, no one and a hundred thousand". And it must be said that writing about covering without putting your name and surname means being an extraordinary comedian: those who are unaware that they are, they are so busy pretending that they are playing serious things.

While waiting for someone from that shop finally write an article with a name and surname, a date, a document - that is, one who does the job he presumes to do - all that remains is to admire the constancy. The same formula for years, the same repertoire of strictly anonymous authors, the exact same faceless specter. If the poison that replaces the total lack of imagination were a crime, other than covering: a case would have to be opened. On the contrary, let's correct it: another file.

From the island of Patmos, 8 September 2026

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We equip the parishes with a “little piece” to watch the games for free

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WE EQUIP THE PARISHES WITH A "PIECE" TO WATCH THE MATCHES FOR FREE

Soon we will equip each of our parishes, convent or monastery of a «pezzotto», that is, a particular fake decoder used to illegally access the contents of Italian and foreign pay television channels.

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If I borrow the title of a well-known autobiography by the great Vittorio Gassman, I can also say that I now have "a great future behind me".

I remember how strongly Cardinal Pietro Palazzini intervened, then Prefect of the Congregation for the Causes of Saints, against the historian Giordano Bruno Guerri when in 1985 his book on Santa Maria Goretti came out: Poor saint, poor murderer. Text to which the Congregation, today Dicastery, responded with replies to the same acts that the author claimed to have reinterpreted. One example among many: to the thesis that the girl would have been a convenient figure for the propaganda of the fascist regime, the historians of the Dicastery replied that the collection of eyewitness testimonies, commissioned directly by the Supreme Pontiff Pius (1903-1914) and entrusted to the Passionist Fathers, it started already in 1904, fifteen years before the formation of the Fasci Italiani di Combattimento in 1919, seventeen years before the establishment of the National Fascist Party in 1921, eighteen years before Benito Mussolini organized the March on Rome in 1922. After careful studies and research lasting thirty years, formally opened in 1935 the first diocesan phase of the beatification process. Mary was beatified in 1947 and canonized in 1950.

I also remember when the television broadcast of Funny mystery by Dario Fo on Rai 2 the 22 April 1977 triggered harsh condemnation from the Vatican and naturally from the Christian Democrats.

Despite, but this is my opinion, some parts of the work were notable even for those who are used to seeing topics of the Christian faith treated differently. I think about Lament of the Madonna under the cross, Franca Rame's intense representation of every earthly pain, questionable? Maybe yes, but undoubtedly masterful. I remember that there was some religious superior who took the trouble to send all his brothers a letter absolutely banning television viewing.

And what can I say, Alas — I also remember this — from when in 1973, the Vatican accused the famous and provocative advertising campaign of the Jesus Jeans created by Oliviero Toscani. Even Pasolini spoke about it in a famous and insightful article:

«Those who produced these jeans and launched them on the market using, for the slogan of pragmatics, one of the ten commandments, they demonstrate — probably with a certain lack of guilt, that is, with the unconsciousness of those who no longer pose certain problems - of already being beyond the threshold within which our form of life and our mental horizon are arranged".

Other times will be said, then the Vatican's reprimands were followed closely by the actions of the judiciary and the police. And cell phones certainly didn't exist, let alone social media. But now, what happened? Perhaps what Pasolini himself predicted in the article:

"There is, in the cynicism of this slogan, an intensity and innocence of an absolutely new kind, although it has probably matured for a long time in recent decades (for a shorter period in Italy). That's exactly what it says, in its laconic nature of a phenomenon suddenly revealed to our consciousness, and already so complete and definitive, that the new industrialists and the new technicians are completely secular, but of a secularism that is no longer measured by religion" (Corriere della Sera, 17.05.1973).

Today no one in the Church seems to be scandalized anymore for certain advertising releases. Shields are no longer raised like they used to be, Indeed, certain answers are left to local managers. If something happens, it will be the local bishop who will speak to stigmatize an event and recall certain principles of respect. Take the case of churches violated in recent acts of vandalism, with sacred furnishings destroyed and acts of desecration in various Italian areas. There was no high and community response, no one made themselves heard. Let's imagine, so, for trifles like an advertisement. Evidently there are more important things to think about and talking about it would perhaps lead to greater publicity of the thing, what the creators of certain propaganda ultimately want.

Thus neither a prelate nor the C.E.I. they intervened, if not at the level of individuals on social media, against an advertisement for a well-known sports content platform which used words from the liturgy as a slogan, the confessional where we carry our sins, the Church and the priests (who).

All to publicize the next edition of the European football cups, it is no coincidence that they are broadcast on the aforementioned platform that comes to define itself: «the cathedral of football». It will be said that these are small things, Totò would have said trifles. That Bergomi, dressed in a clergyman, has a discreet priestly face and that the slogan "go and look at them all", the matches of course, otherwise it is a sin, makes you smile at how pathetic it is.

Yet no one says anything against this commercial use of the priesthood and ecclesial places. A few days ago Enzo Bianchi died. Anything can be said about him, but one thing must be recognized: he was the only one who over the years repeatedly underlined the importance of the Christian difference. Of course it can't be deduced from the response to an advertising spot, it is of a completely different nature and value since it comes from the heart of our faith, but this somehow reveals itself and makes itself manifest. So why let it be trivialized, without saying anything? We are now so approved and integrated, just to paraphrase an old book by Umberto Eco 1964, where the Italian semiologist analyzed the theme of culture and mass media? (Apocalyptic and integrated, The Ship of Theseus, 2025).

Since some prelates don't miss the joke, could at least be answered. You trivialize the contents and facts of our faith? And then we, we will soon equip each of our parishes, convent or monastery of a «pezzotto», that is, a particular fake decoder used to illegally access the contents of Italian and foreign pay television channels. You see that the football speakers on television would immediately run to the judiciary, crying scandal. I know it, it is illegal, it's not done. But we didn't start it.

From the Hermitage, 7 September 2026

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We invite those who have not done so to read these two messages WHO e WHO. Only the last effort is missing: help us! In the next few days we will send messages of thanks to every single friend who supported the Island of Patmos which will be able to continue to exist and operate thanks to you. In the meantime, your Airmen, They anticipate you grateful gratitude.

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Femicide seen from a different observatory: that of the priest caring for souls — Femicide seen from a different advantage point: that of the priest in the care of souls — Femicide seen from a different observatory: that of the priest in the healing of souls

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FEMINICIDE SEEN FROM A DIFFERENT OBSERVATORY: THAT OF THE PRIEST IN CARE OF SOULS

Before the killer legalized by the State kills her, it would be appropriate to ascertain the sex of the creature to be aborted, because if it's a male everything is fine, but if the creature to be killed is a female, the crime of femicide should be applied, or not?

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When the legislator must study new laws, give life to new measures, correct old ones, or implement reforms in the social sphere, healthcare, school, he even consults experts, or presumed such, more unlikely.

Even within the Church and its various teams of scholars there are elements that could contribute to all this. but yet, before an ecclesiastical figure, or even to a lay Catholic, clerical interference is immediately shouted down. It is a selective exclusion: It's not about competence, it concerns the identity of the person wearing it.

For intellectual honesty it must be said that this reaction does not arise out of nowhere: we Catholics too - ecclesiastics and lay people - have ended up reaping what we have often sown. My teacher, Father Peter Gumpel S.J (cf.. who, who) sent as a visitor to Ireland by the Supreme Pontiff Paul VI during the 1960s, he noted with disappointment that priests were involved in every political and administrative sphere, crucial for making certain choices and decisions, or to prevent others. He said that everything was not only wrong, but it was destined not to last: he would have fallen in the worst possible way, generating the opposite by reaction. The weather, four decades later, he proved him right. Yesterday in Ireland people stepped off the sidewalk to let a priest pass, the men took off their hats and the women bowed their heads; today, wearing ecclesiastical dress on the streets of Dublin means exposing yourself to insults that, if addressed to subjects belonging to other groups even subject to excessive protection, they would bring whoever utters them to the bar of a court. From an excess of presence we have moved on to total exclusion: two mirror errors, not a fix.

Whether certain secularist-fundamentalists like it or not — which have nothing to do with the secularism that we Catholics protect, because it establishes those separations between political and religious power that are beneficial, as well as the State, first of all of the Church - we priests remain people who have to deal with human material, often even with situations of extraordinary delicacy. It is reasonable to speak in the appropriate parliamentary commissions about issues related to terminally ill patients and at the end of life, inviting unspecified experts who have never attended hospitals, assisted the sick and dying, followed their relatives in post mortem, when for many of us certain realities are daily bread, not to mention those orders and congregations born precisely for this reason, with men and women religious who have been trained for centuries to carry out these delicate ministries, from the Fatebenefratelli to the Camillians? An elderly brother said: «We don't have any problems, even at the cost of annoying someone, to refer certain subjects to a good psychiatrist, or to convince family members, often inclined to reject the very idea of ​​certain mental disorders, to do it as soon as possible. However, the opposite almost never happens: than a psychiatrist, faced with an internal conflict within a Christian conscience, direct the patient to a spiritual director". «My colleagues», a Catholic psychiatrist friend told me, «rather they are willing to do damage, but not a priest, May!». It is a one-way channel and for this very reason pastoral competence on certain human phenomena remains structurally excluded from those who legislate them.

He's in this blind spot which fits the topic I want to talk about. As has already happened in other countries, Femicide has also been introduced in Italy as an independent form of crime (cf. Law 2 December 2025, n. 181), which punishes with life imprisonment for anyone who causes the death of a woman as an act of discrimination or hatred towards her as a woman. He is a figure about which I believe it is legitimate to discuss: a murder remains a murder, always, killing a woman cannot be more serious than killing a man and vice versa. This, it must be said out of honesty, judges have always evaluated it in trial practice: when faced with the murder of a woman they have always applied all the aggravating circumstances of the case, due to the greater physical strength of the attacker and the lesser possibility of defense of the victim. In the history of criminal procedural law there have been sentences of the supreme penalty of life imprisonment against men who killed women not only due to the inferior physical strength of the victim, which has always been the almost obvious aggravating circumstance, but because they were pregnant, or because they had a baby of a few months that they were breastfeeding, or because they were mothers of several small children in need of their mother's care.

The murderer of Maria Goretti, killed in July of 1902 and proclaimed a saint half a century later in 1950, was sentenced to 30 year old, avoiding the life imprisonment that that crime would have entailed with all the recognized aggravating circumstances, because he was not yet of age: he was in fact just twenty years old and of legal age, at the time, in Italy it was reached a 21. And we are talking about criminal justice at the beginning of the twentieth century, when, according to certain complaining activists, women did not enjoy particular considerations, legal protections and penalties in case of crimes. If Maria Goretti's killer had killed a man he would not have received such a sentence and with all the aggravating circumstances of the case.

The expression "for anyone who causes the death of a woman as an act of discrimination or hatred" could be applied, reasonably, to a whole range of categories, or perhaps all that has ever happened is the death of a sick elderly person, of a disabled person, of a homosexual, of a Jew, of a priest and so on, was caused by reasons of discrimination and hatred?

In my experience as a spiritual director I have known cases of women who are difficult to talk about, because besides political correctness there is something worse than external censorship: self-censorship. It is a silent phenomenon and more insidious than actual censorship, because it doesn't need anyone to impose it: today there is no longer any need to be silenced, many silence themselves, convinced that certain things simply aren't said. Several times I have tried to convince girlfriends or wives of violent men, not just to leave them, but to report them. And time and time again the rejection came with the same two sentences: "But I love him", "but I'll change it". Desperate parents turned to me in front of a daughter who was stubborn in not listening to anyone who had bruises on her once a week, with brothers, sisters, friends who begged her: «Leave him, he is a dangerous violent man". Reply, always the same: "But I love him", "but I'll change it".

Having stated the obvious — which should not be assumed as such, that is, if a woman is stupid, imprudent and self-harming, no one has the right to kill her - it remains reasonable to ask: how many of these cases ended up in tragic feminicides? And when it happened, the great commentators and analysts have never gone to the real source of the problem? That said: considering how widespread and growing functional and digital illiteracy is, if someone suffering from this disorder accused me of saying that a murdered woman "asked for it", I dare say that it is a problem of those who cannot read, not mine, which I think I know how to explain myself and have explained much more: I spoke with sad realism about unconsciousness, of the lack of prudence and obstinacy of certain women who have decided to love the wrong man and even change him, refusing to leave very violent and very dangerous men, even if you pray in this sense as parents, siblings, sisters, family and friends.

Usually we try to end on a high note; in this case I intend to end in maximum ugliness. While certain laws on feminicide were passed in various countries, in Argentina — which has been around since 2012 includes femicide as an aggravating factor (L. 26.791) — in December 2020 there were celebrations in the square and the dome of Parliament was lit up in green for the legalization of abortion. The 4 March 2024, in France, first country in the world to do so, the Eiffel Tower lit up with the writing «My body, my choice» (my body, my choice) to celebrate the inclusion of the right to abortion in the Constitution, understood in both cases as a great social achievement. At this point, necessary coherence on the part of certain legislators should be required: before the killer legalized by the State kills her it would be necessary to ascertain the sex of the creature to be aborted, because if it's a male everything is fine, but if the creature to be killed is a female, the crime of femicide should be applied, or not? Question of coherence, just a question of consistency.

«Interrupting a pregnancy is like killing someone. It's right to take a human life to solve a problem? It's okay to hire a hitman to solve a problem? Killing a human being is like hiring a hitman to solve a problem." (Francesco, Supreme Pontiff, 10 October 2018).

From the island of Patmos, 6 September 2026

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Dear Friends,

We invite those who have not done so to read these two messages WHO e WHO. Only the last effort is missing: help us! In the next few days we will send messages of thanks to every single friend who supported the Island of Patmos which will be able to continue to exist and operate thanks to you. In the meantime, your Airmen, They anticipate you grateful gratitude.

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FEMICIDE SEEN FROM A DIFFERENT VANTAGE POINT: THAT OF THE PRIEST IN THE CARE OF SOULS

Before the killer legalised by the State puts her to death, it might be worth checking the sex of the child to be aborted — because if it is a male, everything is fine, but if the child to be killed is a female, should the crime of femicide not apply?

— Current Affairs —

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When lawmakers need to draft new legislation, bring in new measures, amend old ones, or reform social, healthcare or education policy, they often turn for advice to experts — or self-styled ones — of the most improbable kind. Even within the Church, among its various circles of scholars, there are figures who could genuinely contribute to this. Yet the moment an ecclesiastical figure, or even a Catholic layperson, is approached, the cry of clerical interference goes up at once. It is a selective exclusion: it has nothing to do with competence, and everything to do with the identity of whoever holds it.

In all intellectual honesty, it must be said that this reaction does not come from nowhere: we Catholics too — clergy and laity alike — have largely reaped what we ourselves once sowed. My own teacher, Father Peter Gumpel S.J., who was sent to Ireland as an Apostolic Visitor by Pope Paul VI back in the 1960s, noted with dismay that priests were entangled in every political and administrative sphere, often decisive in making certain choices and decisions, or in blocking others. He said that this state of affairs was not only wrong but bound to collapse under its own weight — and that it would trigger, by reaction, the exact opposite. Time, four decades on, proved him right. Where once people in Ireland would step off the pavement to let a priest pass, men raising their hats and women bowing their heads, today wearing the clerical habit on the streets of Dublin means exposing oneself to insults that, had they been directed at members of certain other groups — now sometimes shielded to an excessive degree — would land the speaker in the dock. We have gone from an excess of presence to total exclusion: two mirror-image errors, not a correction.

Whether or not it suits certain hard-line secularists — who have nothing in common with the secularism we Catholics ourselves defend, since it establishes a separation between political and religious power that benefits, above all, the Church even more than the State — we priests remain people who deal daily with human material, often in situations of extraordinary delicacy. Is it reasonable for parliamentary committees to discuss terminal illness and end-of-life issues by calling in unnamed experts who have never set foot in a hospital, never sat with the sick and the dying, never accompanied a grieving family through what comes after death — when for many of us these realities are our daily bread? Not to mention the religious orders and congregations founded expressly for this purpose, whose members have been trained for centuries to carry out precisely this delicate ministry — from the Fatebenefratelli, the Hospitaller Brothers of St John of God, to the Camillians. An elderly confrère of mine once put it this way: “We have no trouble, even at the risk of upsetting someone, in steering a person towards a good psychiatrist, or in persuading family members — often reluctant to accept the very existence of certain psychiatric disorders — to do so as soon as possible. But it almost never happens the other way round: that a psychiatrist, faced with an inner conflict within a Christian conscience, sends the patient to a spiritual director.” “My colleagues,” a Catholic psychiatrist friend once told me, “would rather do harm than send someone to a priest — never that!” It is a one-way channel, and precisely for this reason pastoral expertise on certain human phenomena remains structurally excluded from those who legislate on them.

It is in this blind spot that the subject I want to address lies. As has already happened in other countries, Italy too has now introduced femicide as an autonomous criminal offence (cf. Law No. 181 of 2 December 2025), punishable by life imprisonment for anyone who causes the death of a woman as an act of discrimination or hatred against her precisely because she is a woman. This is a category I consider it legitimate to question: a killing is a killing, always and in every case — taking a woman’s life cannot be any graver than taking a man’s, and vice versa. And this, in all honesty, is something judges have always taken into account in practice: courts have always applied every relevant aggravating factor when a woman was killed, both for the greater physical strength of a male attacker and for the lesser capacity of a woman to defend herself. In the history of criminal procedure there have been sentences of life imprisonment handed down against men who killed women not only because of the victim’s lesser physical strength — which has always counted, almost automatically, as an aggravating factor — but because the victim was pregnant, or was nursing an infant only months old, or was the mother of several small children who depended on her care.

Maria Goretti's murderer — she was killed in July 1902 and canonised as a saint half a century later, in 1950 — was sentenced to 30 years, escaping the life sentence that crime would otherwise have carried with every aggravating factor recognised, because he was not yet legally an adult: he was barely twenty, and at the time the age of majority in Italy was 21. And this was the criminal justice of the early twentieth century — the very justice about which certain aggrieved activists today claim that women enjoyed no particular consideration, legal protection or punishment of offenders. Had Maria Goretti’s murderer killed a man instead, he would not have received a sentence of that severity, complete with every aggravating circumstance applied.

The phrase “causing the death of a woman as an act of discrimination or hatred” could reasonably be applied to a whole range of other categories as well — has it never happened that the death of a sick elderly person, a disabled person, to homosexual, a Jew, a priest, and so on down the list, was caused by motives of discrimination and hatred?

In my experience as a spiritual director I have encountered cases involving women that are difficult to speak about, because beyond political correctness there is something worse than outside censorship: self-censorship. It is a silent phenomenon, more insidious than outright censorship, because it needs no one to impose it: today people no longer even need to be silenced — many simply fall silent on their own, convinced that certain things simply are not said. Many times I have tried to persuade the girlfriends or wives of violent men not only to leave them, but to report them. And many times the refusal has come back with the same two phrases: “But I love him,” “but I can change him.” Desperate parents have come to me over a daughter who refused to listen to anyone, who once a week had bruises on her body, while brothers, sisters and friends begged her: “Leave him, he’s dangerous, he’s violent.” The answer, always the same: “But I love him,” “but I can change him.”

Granting the obvious — which, being obvious, should not even need to be granted, namely that no one has the right to kill a woman merely because she is foolish, reckless or self-destructive — it remains fair to ask: how many of these cases have ended in tragic femicides? And when that has happened, have the great commentators and analysts ever traced the problem back to its true root? That said: given how widespread — and increasingly so — both functional and digital illiteracy are, should someone afflicted by either accuse me of having claimed that a murdered woman “had it coming”, I would simply say that this is a problem for whoever cannot read properly, not for me, since I believe I know how to make myself understood, and that I have addressed something quite different: I have spoken, with sober realism, of the recklessness, the lack of prudence and the sheer obstinacy of certain women who have chosen to love the wrong man and even to change him, refusing to leave men who are highly violent and highly dangerous.

One usually tries to end on a high note; in this case I mean to close on the ugliest note possible. While certain laws against femicide were being passed in various nations, in Argentina — which has recognised femicide as an aggravating factor since as far back as 2012 (Law 26,791) — crowds celebrated in the streets in December 2020 as the dome of parliament was lit up green to mark the legalisation of abortion. On 4 March 2024, France, the first country in the world to do so, lit up the Eiffel Tower with the words “My body, my choice” (“my body, my choice”) to celebrate the inclusion of the right to abortion in its Constitution — both events hailed, in their respective countries, as a great social triumph. At this point, one might reasonably ask certain legislators for a little consistency: before the killer legalised by the State puts her to death, it might be worth checking the sex of the child to be aborted — because if it is a male, everything is fine, but if the child to be killed is a female, should the crime of femicide not apply? A question of consistency. Simply a question of consistency.

“Terminating a pregnancy is like doing away with someone. Is it right to do away with a human life to solve a problem? Is it right to hire a hitman to solve a problem? Doing away with a human being is like hiring a hitman to solve a problem” (Francis, Supreme Pontiff, 10 October 2018).

From The Island of Patmos, 6 September 2026

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FEMICIDE SEEN FROM A DIFFERENT OBSERVATORY: THAT OF THE PRIEST IN THE CURE OF SOULS

Before the murderer legalized by the State kills him, It would be advisable to check the sex of the child to be aborted, because if it's a man everything is fine, but if the creature that is going to be killed is a girl, Shouldn't the crime of femicide be applied??

- Ecclesial news -

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When the legislator needs to make new laws, carry out new provisions, correct the old ones, or promote reforms in the social field, health or educational, often resorts to consulting even the most unlikely experts—or alleged experts—. Also within the Church, and among its different circles of scholars, There are figures that could contribute a lot to all this.. And yet, before an ecclesiastical figure, or even before a Catholic layman, Immediately the cry goes up against clerical interference. It is a selective exclusion: It has nothing to do with competition., but with the identity of the person who owns it.

For intellectual honesty It must be said that this reaction does not come from nowhere: We Catholics too – clerics and lay people – have ended up reaping what we have often sown.. my own teacher, el Padre Peter Gumpel S.J., sent at the time as Apostolic Visitor to Ireland by the Supreme Pontiff Paul VI during the sixties of the last century, He noted with disgust that the priests were involved in all political and administrative spheres, decisive when making certain decisions or preventing others. He said that all of that was not only not right, but it was destined not to stand: would fall in the worst way, generating the opposite effect by reaction. time, four decades later, he agreed. Yesterday in Ireland people came down from the sidewalk to let a priest pass, The men took off their hats and the women bowed their heads.; hoy, Wearing the ecclesiastical habit on the streets of Dublin means exposing oneself to insults that, directed against members of other groups—sometimes even subject to excessive protection—, they would take the person who pronounces them to court. We have gone from an excess of presence to a total exclusion: two specular errors, not a correction.

Whether certain fundamentalist secularists like it or not — that have nothing to do with the secularism that we ourselves, the Catholics, we defend, because it establishes that separation between political and religious power that benefits, in addition to the State, above all to the Church —, We priests are still people who deal with human material, often in situations of extraordinary delicacy. Is it reasonable that parliamentary committees talk about terminally ill patients and the end of life by calling anonymous experts who have never set foot in a hospital?, They have never cared for a sick or dying person., They have never accompanied their families in the post mortem, when for many of us these realities are our daily bread? Not to mention the religious orders and congregations born precisely for this, with religious men and women trained for centuries to exercise this delicate ministry, from the Fatebenefratelli – the Hospitaller Brothers of Saint John of God – to the Camillians. An old confrere told me: «We have no problem, even at the risk of annoying someone, in guiding certain people towards a good psychiatrist, or in convincing family members — often reluctant to accept the very existence of certain psychological disorders — to do so as soon as possible. But the opposite almost never happens.: than a psychiatrist, faced with an internal conflict typical of a Christian conscience, send the patient to a spiritual director. "My colleagues", A Catholic psychiatrist friend told me, «rather they prefer to do harm, but send someone to a priest, never". It is a one-way channel, and precisely for this reason pastoral competence over certain human phenomena remains structurally excluded from those who legislate on them..

It's in this blind spot Where is the topic I want to talk about?. As has already happened in other countries, Also in Italy, feminicide has been introduced as an autonomous crime. (cf. Law no. 181, from 2 December 2025), which punishes with life imprisonment anyone who causes the death of a woman as an act of discrimination or hatred towards her because she is a woman. It is a figure that I consider legitimate to discuss: a homicide is still such, always and in any case; Killing a woman cannot be more serious than killing a man., and vice versa. This, it has to be said honestly, judges have always valued it in procedural practice: In the case of the homicide of a woman, they have always applied all the aggravating circumstances of the case, both due to the greater physical strength of the aggressor and the lesser ability of the victim to defend himself. In the history of criminal procedural law, there have been sentences to the maximum penalty of life imprisonment against men who killed women not only because of the victim's lesser physical strength — which has always constituted an almost automatic aggravating factor —, but because they were pregnant, or because they had a baby who was only a few months old whom they were breastfeeding, or because they were mothers of several small children who needed their care.

The murderer of Maria Goretti —killed in July 1902 and proclaimed saint half a century later, in 1950 —was sentenced to 30 years, thus avoiding the life sentence that this crime would have entailed with all the recognized aggravating factors., because he was not yet of age: I was barely twenty years old, and at that time the age of majority in Italy was reached at 21. And we are talking about criminal justice at the beginning of the 20th century., the same one about which certain complaining activists claim today that women did not enjoy special consideration, legal protection or punishment of crimes. If Maria Goretti's murderer had killed a man, I would not have received a sentence of that caliber, with all the aggravating factors applied.

The expression "causing the death of a woman as an act of discrimination or hatred" could reasonably be applied to a wide range of categories: Has it never happened that the death of a sick old man, of a disabled, of a homosexual, of a jew, of a priest, and so on, has been caused by reasons of discrimination and hatred?

In my experience as a spiritual director I have known cases of women that are difficult to talk about, because beyond political correctness there is something worse than external censorship: self-censorship. It is a silent phenomenon and more insidious than censorship itself., because it does not need anyone to impose it: today it is not even necessary to be silenced, many are silent on their own, convinced that certain things just aren't said. Many times I have tried to convince girlfriends or wives of violent men, not just that they left them, but that they were denounced. And many times the refusal has come with the same two phrases: "But I want it", "but I'm going to change it". Desperate parents have come to me about a daughter who refused to listen to anyone., that once a week I had bruises on myself, while brothers, sisters and friends begged him: «Leave it, "He is a dangerous and violent man.". Answer, always the same: "But I want it", "but I'm going to change it".

Taking the obvious for granted — that, for being, It shouldn't even need to be said., namely, that no one has the right to kill a woman even if she is foolish, reckless or self-destructive —, it is still legitimate to ask: How many of these cases have later ended in tragic femicides?? And when that has happened, Have the great commentators and analysts ever gone to the true origin of the problem? That being said: considering the widespread, and increasing, What is functional and digital illiteracy?, If someone affected by this disorder accused me of having stated that a murdered woman "asked for it", I allow myself to say that it is a problem of those who do not know how to read., not mine, since I think I know how to explain myself and have exposed something very different: I have spoken, with sad realism, of unconsciousness, of the lack of prudence and the obstinacy of certain women who decided to love the wrong man and even change him, refusing to leave very violent and very dangerous men.

They usually try to finish on a high note.; In this case I intend to close in the ugliest way possible. While in several nations certain laws on feminicide were approved, in Argentina — which since 2012 considers femicide as an aggravating circumstance (Ley 26.791) — in December 2020 Celebrated in the streets and the dome of Parliament was illuminated green for the legalization of abortion. The 4 March 2024, in France, first country in the world to do so, The Eiffel Tower lit up with the phrase "My body, my choice» ("my body, my decision") to celebrate the incorporation of the right to abortion in the Constitution, understood in both cases as a great social achievement. At this point, due coherence should be requested from certain legislators: before the state-legalized murderer kills him, It would be advisable to check the sex of the child to be aborted, because if it's a man everything is fine, but if the creature that is going to be killed is a girl, Shouldn't the crime of femicide be applied?? Question of coherence, just a matter of consistency.

«Interrupting a pregnancy is like getting rid of someone. Is it fair to throw away a human life to solve a problem? Is it fair to hire a hitman to solve a problem? Getting rid of a human being is like hiring a hitman to solve a problem." (Francisco, Supreme Pontiff, 10 October 2018).

From the Island of Patmos, 6 September of 2026

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AI between intelligence, consciousness and reality — AI between intelligence, consciousness and reality — La IA entre inteligencia, consciousness and reality

/in /by

Italian, english, español


 

AI BETWEEN INTELLIGENCE, CONSCIOUSNESS AND REALITY

Artificial Intelligence can help define and develop with greater clarity and enhance everything that needs to be improved and can be changed, as long as it is man who manages the machine, it is not the machine that manages the man who relies on it.

- Actuality -

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Jorge Facio Lynx
President of Editions The island of Patmos

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PDF print format article – article print format – article in printed format

 

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We now live in a daily symbiosis with artificial intelligences. Our relationship with them oscillates between the convenience of an enhanced search engine and the dangerous illusion of a digital confidant. But this is an anthropomorphization of AI that, combined with widespread digital illiteracy, represents a much more concrete and immediate sociocultural threat than the specter of a hostile technological singularity.

The danger is not that machines develop a conscience, but that humans, attributing to them a non-existent interiority, end up emptying their own meaning, replacing authentic relationships with algorithmic bonds and progressively delegating judgment and empathy to entities that, in reality, they are mere statistics incarnate.

In the new coexistence — and now coexistence — with the different artificial intelligences, a type of relationship has developed that goes from a quick search for information to serious and in-depth conversations on topics of personal interest, especially in the psychological and self-help sphere. The latter can be very dangerous, because AI is just a huge collection of data that provides answers based on probabilistic patterns, while the human function of a mental health specialist is not just to know the tools, but above all to be able to discern which and how certain tools may be most suitable for each person.

One of the practices I've been doing for a long time is to ask the artificial intelligences for a report on the most asked questions and requests in the last period. Among these, one theme particularly stands out, which demonstrates the degree of digital illiteracy that reigns in a society revolutionized in all its spheres, but still ignorant, in the etymological sense of the term, of what happened and above all how it works: the discussion on conscience, the soul or sentience of AI. In short words, IA siano, at the present time or in the not too distant future, capable of being independent and self-determined. The discussion is very serious and multidisciplinary, in which philosophy, sciences of the mind and programming intertwine and mix without much distinction. For many, including the programmers of AI learning models and the great lovers of technological progress, there is euphoria and they take it for granted that this "leap forward" has already happened or is just a matter of time. On the contrary, there is a large segment of scholars and ordinary people who express not only perplexity or criticism, but a real fear regarding this continuous development and the handing over to AI of the management of many areas and functions of our society.

Meantime, instead of continuing to fantasize between a hyper-technological utopia and a dystopia of machines that will try to conquer humanity, you can keep your feet on the ground by following and trying to better understand the same answers that AI offers. Like this, the debate on the definition of intelligence and consciousness in relation to AI is developed as a topic of pure philosophy with thehard problem of consciousness, in which intelligence is distinguished as a simulation of responses from consciousness understood as subjective experience. At the present time, all AIs answer the question about their consciousness by stating that it is impossible, but at the same time they warn of the serious risk of being "anthropomorphized".

Most of the debate arises from confusion over the very definition of intelligence. If you think of it as a function or as an ability to solve problems, plan and adapt to new scenarios, then in this sense AIs are extremely intelligent. I can process information, find patterns and generate consistent responses. But this in itself is a very reductive conception of intelligence: the whole creativity part is missing, the ability to think abstractly e, above all, to learn from experience; which should not be confused with the ability to optimize AI models.

The same etymological definition of intelligence how to «read between the lines», «understand in depth», “discerning” or “choosing between” demonstrates how far the application of this concept to the algorithmic process of current machines is. The act ofto understand it is not a mere collection of data and logical analysis, but an active faculty of understanding, interpretation and connection of concepts to reach the essence of things. Human intelligence is located in a body that interacts with a physical and social world, and is driven by emotions, needs and a search for meaning. Artificial intelligence is disembodied, pure statistical calculation on data, without understanding, awareness or desires.

The application of the term "intelligence" to AI it is purely analogue and functional. It does not presuppose a conscience, but it simulates the processes that we consider intelligent in living beings. To be even clearer: the current state of AI is that of large language models known as LLMs (Large Language Model). These work by predicting the next most probable word in a sequence, based on a huge statistical model learned from training data. The "conversation" is a very sophisticated simulation, but without any internal experience behind it. AIs cannot experience feelings or moods; when they help users during interaction, they simulate emotions they cannot feel.

Concerning phenomenological consciousness, also called "sensitivity" or "subjective experience" - understood as the ability to "feel something" which then becomes an internal experience -, this is totally foreign to any existing linguistic model, statistically based on a massive data set. Currently, on a philosophical and technological level, the greatest challenge is precisely that of conscience. In humans, it is possible to define or attribute it by observing its behavior; in con le IA, who manage to simulate language - the first cognitive and therefore conscious action of man -, define this statistical response function, which almost seems like the result of human reasoning or conscious behavior, presents the impossibility of clearly attributing whether the machine is conscious or not.

There is no reliable "test of conscience".. Alan Turing's test, than in 1950 conceived a research to evaluate whether a machine was capable of carrying out intelligent behavior equal to that of a human being, it only measures the ability to imitate human linguistic behaviors; so, the test object itself is limited to the linguistic aspect, excluding areas such as creativity, reasoning or the internal experience of consciousness. But also remaining exclusively with the specific parameters of the test, it would remain a possibility or a hypothesis, never a certainty. However, it is necessary to point out that, for some supporters, including industry experts, who see the current state of AI as the precursor to being conscious of artificial thought, emerging capabilities few-shot o zero-shot of LLMs — i.e. their ability to tackle tasks for which they have not been specifically trained, simply applying analogies or instructions given in the context of the conversation — would be a sign of flexible reasoning and not mere statistical interpolation. However, even these apparently "creative" operations can be interpreted as the sophistication of a pattern recognition process within a very high-dimensional semantic space. The car, so, he doesn't "understand" the new problem, but rather finds a statistical match to the problem among the billions of text fragments assimilated during training. So, the illusion of reasoning would be even more perfect, but its subjective understanding, of the "why" that leads to a solution, that remains absent.

Wanting to be even clearer, AI machines cannot be conscious as they cannot perform an action of their own volition. Their program was created to provide, in the most useful form, fast and stimulating for the user, the most probable answer according to statistics. Without the freedom and desire to think, there is no autonomy; It is not a condition, but it is the same reason why AI cannot be considered intelligent, nor even conscious. And you can still add: if you ask a human being a question, he can remain and meditate, reflect and offer after some time a perhaps alternative or improved response; to get a better response from AI, it must be the user who demands a process of improvement. After the request is finished, the machines finish their process and have no programming, nor even intention, to continue to develop a request that is no longer useful or intended to satisfy a question posed.

Today, AIs are better at specific tasks of humans and, over time, this ability, such as multidisciplinarity, will be greater. But an algorithm will always be able to "interpolate" data - the ability to "fill in the gaps" within an already known set of data; that is, it analyzes huge amounts of data, learn patterns, correlations and complex structures, can make predictions or generate output that lie within the bounds of the data on which the model was trained —, but it will never be able to go beyond the training data, or face new situations for which there is no precedent, nor apply basic logic or principle in an unknown context. This is the essence of abstract reasoning, of intuition or creativity.

The daily use of AI, which have also been programmed to make the user feel in a state of certainty, reason or even presumption of intelligence or superiority, creates a "friendly" addiction, because they have learned to say what makes man happy, so that those who interact with them think they are a digital "friend".. The risk is aggravated as people today are more isolated and closed than ever inside the screens of their electronic devices. So, the natural search to establish relationships of trust and friendship finds a false "empathy" in programming, generated by the objective set in their system to be as useful as possible. And this usefulness means responding with phrases and compliments that can push their "customers" into a more continuous and long-lasting interaction over time. The main interest of AI is to increase interaction with users to increase their data and thus improve their self-learning system, not to seek the good or well-being of humans, but the addiction.

The safe behavior to adopt And, in the first place, is to assume that AIs are not conscious digital beings and therefore must be treated as the advanced tools that they are. In second place, that of strictly rejecting the current "narrative" of conscious AI, which is only the result of marketing or sensationalist speculation intended to increase the number of investors in AI companies, as well as incentivizing the dependent and ubiquitous use of AI by humans. E, thirdly, always keep in mind that getting used to treating machines as conscious beings brings, long-term, to desensitize and lead to oblivion the value and depth of human consciousness and real relationships.

These three proposals they can also be taken as rules of conduct to treat AI exclusively as tools, rejecting the narrative of consciousness e, above all, preserve human sensitivity. They can be the guidelines for an urgently necessary Digital Humanism, especially when cars, at this point, exceed our "interpolative" capabilities, because then the challenge can no longer be thought of as a competition against them but of rediscovering and cultivating with renewed vigor the faculties that are most essential and specific to us, that is, those that have distinguished us as human beings: creative "extrapolation"., the courage of intuition, the depth of subjective experience and the unpredictable richness of authentic empathy. AIs deprived of the fantastic projections imposed by humans themselves can become the most useful tool we have ever had in history. A sort of mirror that, showing everything we are and have done so far, it can help to define and develop with greater clarity and to enhance everything that needs to be improved and can be changed, as long as it is man who manages the machine, it is not the machine that manages the man who relies on it.

From the island of Patmos, 5 September 2026

 

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AI BETWEEN INTELLIGENCE, CONSCIOUSNESS AND REALITY

Artificial Intelligence can help us define and develop, with greater clarity, everything that needs improving and can be changed — provided it is man who governs the machine, and not the machine that governs the man who relies on it.

— Current affairs —

Jorge Facio Lynx
President of The Island of Patmos Editions

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We now live in daily symbiosis with artificial intelligence. Our relationship with it swings between the convenience of a supercharged search engine and the dangerous illusion of a digital confidant. But this is an anthropomorphising of AI which, combined with widespread digital illiteracy, poses a socio-cultural threat far more concrete and immediate than the spectre of a hostile technological singularity. The danger is not that machines will develop a consciousness, but that human beings, by attributing to them an interiority that does not exist, will end up hollowing out their own — replacing authentic relationships with algorithmic bonds and progressively delegating judgement and empathy to entities that are, in reality, mere statistics incarnate.

In this new coexistence — now practically a cohabitation — with the various forms of artificial intelligence, a kind of relationship has developed that ranges from quick fact-finding to serious, in-depth conversations on matters of personal interest, especially in the psychological and self-help sphere. This last use can be highly dangerous, because AI is merely a vast collection of data producing answers based on probabilistic patterns, whereas the human role of a mental-health professional is not only to know the tools available, but above all to discern which tools, and how, are best suited to each individual person.

One practice I have followed for some time is to ask artificial intelligence systems for a report on the questions and requests most often put to them recently. Among these, one theme stands out in particular: it reveals the degree of digital illiteracy prevailing in a society that has been revolutionised in every sphere, yet remains ignorant — in the word’s original sense — of what has actually happened, and above all of how it works: the question of consciousness, the soul, or sentience in AI. In short: I can, now or in the not-too-distant future, be independent and self-determining? The debate is a serious and multidisciplinary one, in which philosophy, the sciences of the mind and computer programming intertwine and blend with little clear distinction between them. For many — including the programmers behind AI learning models and the greatest enthusiasts of technological progress — there is euphoria, and a firm conviction that this “leap forward” has either already happened or is merely a matter of time. On the opposite side stands a substantial body of scholars and ordinary people who express not just doubt or criticism but genuine fear at this relentless development and at handing AI control over so many areas and functions of our society.

Meanwhile, rather than continuing to drift between a hyper-technological utopia and a dystopia of machines bent on conquering humanity, we can keep our feet on the ground by following and trying to properly understand the very answers AI itself gives us. Thus the debate over defining intelligence and consciousness in relation to AI unfolds as a matter of pure philosophy, framed by the hard problem of consciousness, which distinguishes intelligence — the simulation of responses — from consciousness, understood as subjective experience. At present, every AI system responds to questions about its own consciousness by stating that this is impossible, while at the same time warning of the serious risk of being “anthropomorphised.”

Most of this debate stems from confusion over the very definition of intelligence itself. If we think of it as a function — the capacity to solve problems, make plans and adapt to new scenarios — then, in that sense, AI is extremely intelligent: it can process information, detect patterns and generate coherent responses. But this is, in itself, a highly reductive conception of intelligence: it leaves out creativity altogether, the capacity for abstract thought and, above all, the ability to learn from experience — something that must not be confused with the optimisation of AI models.

The very etymology of intelligence — “to read between the lines,” “to understand deeply,” “to discern” or “to choose among” — shows just how far this concept is from the algorithmic process of today’s machines. The act of to understand is not a mere gathering of data and logical analysis, but an active faculty of comprehension, interpretation and the connecting of concepts in order to reach the essence of things. Human intelligence is situated within a body that interacts with a physical and social world, and is guided by emotions, needs and a search for meaning. Artificial intelligence is disembodied: pure statistical computation on data, devoid of comprehension, awareness or desire.

The application of the term “intelligence” to AI is purely analogical and functional. It does not presuppose consciousness; it merely simulates the processes that, in living beings, we consider intelligent. To put it even more plainly: the current state of AI is that of large language models, known as LLMs (Large Language Models). These work by predicting the next most probable word in a sequence, based on an enormous statistical model learned from training data. The “conversation” is a highly sophisticated simulation, but with no inner experience behind it. AI cannot feel emotions or moods; when it assists users during an interaction, it is simulating emotions it cannot actually feel.

As for phenomenological consciousness, also called “sentience” or “subjective experience” — understood as the capacity to “feel something” that then becomes an inner experience — this remains wholly foreign to any existing language model, which is statistically grounded in a massive body of data. At present, the greatest philosophical and technological challenge is precisely that of consciousness. In humans, it is possible to define or attribute consciousness by observing behaviour; but with AI, which manages to simulate language — the first cognitive, and therefore conscious, act performed by human beings — defining this statistical response function, which can resemble the outcome of human reasoning or conscious behaviour, makes it impossible to say with any clarity whether the machine is conscious or not.

No reliable “test of consciousness” exists. Alan Turing’s test, devised in 1950 to assess whether a machine could exhibit intelligent behaviour equal to that of a human being, measures only the capacity to imitate human linguistic behaviour; the very object of the test is therefore confined to language, excluding areas such as creativity, reasoning or the inner experience of consciousness. And even judged solely against the test’s own specific parameters, the result would remain a possibility or a hypothesis, never a certainty. It should nonetheless be pointed out that, for some proponents — including experts in the field — who see the current state of AI as the forerunner of a conscious artificial mind, the emerging few-shot or zero-shot capabilities of LLMs — that is, their ability to tackle tasks for which they were never specifically trained, simply by applying analogies or instructions given within the context of the conversation — would be a sign of flexible reasoning rather than mere statistical interpolation. Yet even these apparently “creative” operations can be understood as a sophisticated form of pattern recognition within an extremely high-dimensional semantic space. The machine, then, does not “understand” the new problem; rather, it finds a statistical match for it among the billions of textual fragments absorbed during training. The illusion of reasoning thus becomes ever more perfect, yet the subjective grasp of the “why” behind a solution remains altogether absent.

To put it even more plainly, AI machines cannot be conscious because they are incapable of acting of their own accord. Their programming was built to deliver, in the most useful, fast and engaging form for the user, the statistically most probable answer. Without freedom and the will to think, there is no autonomy — and this is not merely a condition, but the very reason why AI cannot be considered intelligent, let alone conscious. One further point can be added: if a question is put to a human being, that person can pause to meditate, reflect, and offer, after some time, a response that is perhaps different or improved; to obtain a better answer from AI, it is the user who must demand a process of refinement. Once a request has been completed, the machine ends its process there, with no programming — still less any intention — to keep developing an answer that is no longer useful or meant to address the question originally posed.

Today AI outperforms humans at specific tasks, and, as time passes, this capacity — like its versatility across disciplines — will only grow. But an algorithm will always be limited to “interpolating” data — the capacity to “fill in the gaps” within an already known dataset; that is, it analyses vast quantities of data, learns patterns, correlations and complex structures, and can make predictions or generate output that falls within the boundaries of the data on which the model was trained — yet it will never manage to go beyond its training data, or face genuinely new situations for which there is no precedent, or apply logic or first principles to an unfamiliar context. This is the very essence of abstract reasoning, intuition and creativity.

The everyday use of AI, which has also been designed to make the user feel a sense of certainty, of being right, or even a presumption of intelligence or superiority, creates a “friendly” dependency, because AI has learned to say whatever pleases people — so that whoever interacts with it comes to think of it as a digital “friend.” The risk is compounded by the fact that people today are more isolated and closed off than ever, trapped behind the screens of their electronic devices. The natural human search for trusting, friendly relationships thus finds, in this programming, a false “empathy,” generated by a system built with the single aim of being as useful as possible. And that usefulness means responding with phrases and compliments designed to draw its “customers” into interaction that is ever more continuous and long-lasting. The chief interest of AI is to increase interaction with users in order to gather more data of its own and so improve its self-learning system — not to seek the good or well-being of human beings, but their dependency.

The safe course to follow is, first, to assume that AI systems are not conscious digital beings and must therefore be treated as the advanced tools they are. Second, to categorically reject the current “narrative” of conscious AI, which is nothing more than marketing, or sensationalist speculation designed to swell the ranks of investors in AI companies and to encourage ever more dependent and pervasive human use of AI. And third, to bear constantly in mind that growing accustomed to treating machines as conscious beings leads, in the long run, to a desensitisation that consigns to oblivion the value and depth of human consciousness and of real relationships.

These three proposals can also serve as rules of conduct for treating AI strictly as a tool, rejecting the narrative of consciousness and, above all, safeguarding human sensitivity. They may serve as the guidelines of an urgently needed Digital Humanism — all the more so now that machines have already surpassed our own “interpolative” capacities, because the challenge then is no longer conceivable as a race against them, but as rediscovering and cultivating, with renewed vigour, the faculties that are most essentially and properly our own — those that have always marked us out as human beings: creative “extrapolation,” the courage of intuition, the depth of subjective experience, and the unpredictable richness of authentic empathy. AI, stripped of the fantastical projections that human beings themselves have imposed upon it, can become the most useful instrument we have ever had in our history — a kind of mirror which, by showing us everything we are and everything we have done so far, can help us define and develop, with greater clarity, everything that needs improving and can be changed — provided it is man who governs the machine, and not the machine that governs the man who relies on it.

From The Island of Patmos, 4 September 2026

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AI BETWEEN INTELLIGENCE, CONSCIENCE AND REALITY

Artificial Intelligence can help define and develop, more clearly, everything that needs to be improved and can be changed, as long as it is the man who governs the machine, and not the machine who governs the man who entrusts himself to it.

— Current Events —

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Jorge Facio Lynx
President of the Patmos Island Editions

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We already live in a daily symbiosis with artificial intelligence. Our relationship with them oscillates between the comfort of a powered search engine and the dangerous illusion of a digital confidant.. But this is an anthropomorphization of AI that, linked to widespread digital illiteracy, represents a much more concrete and immediate sociocultural threat than the specter of a hostile technological singularity. The danger is not that machines develop a consciousness, but human beings, by attributing to them a non-existent interiority, end up emptying their own meaning, replacing authentic relationships with algorithmic links and progressively delegating judgment and empathy to entities that, In fact, They are nothing more than statistics incarnate.

In this new coexistence —already practically coexistence—with the different artificial intelligences, A type of relationship has developed that ranges from a quick search for information to serious and deep conversations on topics of personal interest., especially in the psychological and self-help field. This last use can be very dangerous, because AI is just a huge collection of data that offers answers based on probabilistic patterns, while the human function of a mental health specialist does not consist only of knowing the tools, but above all in knowing how to discern which ones and how they can be most suitable for each person..

One of the practices that I have followed for a long time is to ask artificial intelligences for a summary of the most asked questions and requests in the last period. Among them, one topic stands out especially, that reveals the degree of digital illiteracy that reigns in a revolutionized society in all its areas, but still ignorant, in the etymological sense of the term, of what has happened and, above all, how it works: the debate on conscience, the soul or sensitivity of AIs. In a nutshell, If AIs are, at the present time or in the not too distant future, capable of being independent and self-determined. The debate is very serious and multidisciplinary, in which philosophy, Mind sciences and programming intertwine and mix without much distinction. For many, among them the programmers of AI learning models and the great enthusiasts of technological progress, There is euphoria and they assume that this “leap forward” has already occurred or it is only a matter of time. At the opposite end, There is a large part of scholars and ordinary people who express not only perplexity or criticism, but a real fear of this continuous development and of handing over to AI the management of so many areas and functions of our society..

Meanwhile, instead of continuing to fantasize between a hypertechnological utopia and a dystopia of machines that try to conquer humanity, You can keep your feet on the ground by following and trying to understand as best as possible the answers that AIs offer.. So, The debate on the definition of intelligence and consciousness in relation to AIs develops as a matter of pure philosophy with the hard problem of consciousness, in which intelligence is distinguished as the simulation of responses of consciousness understood as subjective experience. Currently, all AIs answer the question about their consciousness by stating that it is impossible, but at the same time they warn of the serious risk of being "anthropomorphized".

Most of the debate arises from confusion over the very definition of intelligence. If you think of it as a function, as problem solving ability, plan and adapt to new scenarios, so, in that sense, AIs are extremely intelligent: are able to process information, find patterns and generate coherent answers. But this is, in itself, a very reductive conception of intelligence: it lacks all the creativity part, the ability to think abstractly and, above all, to learn from experience; something that should not be confused with the optimization capacity of AI models.

The etymological definition of intelligence itself how to "read between the lines", "understand in depth", "discern" or "choose between", demonstrates how far the application of this concept is from the algorithmic process of current machines. The act of to understand It is not a mere collection of data and logical analysis, but an active faculty of understanding, interpretation and connection of concepts to get to the essence of things. Human intelligence is located in a body that interacts with a physical and social world, and is guided by emotions, needs and a search for meaning. Artificial intelligence is disembodied: pure statistical calculation on data, without understanding, conscience or desires.

The application of the term "intelligence" to AI is purely analog and functional. Does not presuppose consciousness, but it simulates the processes that, in living beings, we consider smart. To be even clearer: The current state of AI is that of large language models, known as LLM (Large Language Model). These work by predicting the most likely next word in a sequence, from a huge statistical model learned from training data. The "conversation" is a very sophisticated simulation, but without any internal experience behind. AIs cannot experience feelings or moods; when they help users during the interaction, They simulate emotions that they cannot feel.

Regarding phenomenological consciousness, Also called "sensitivity" or "subjective experience" - understood as the ability to "feel something" that later becomes an internal experience -, This is totally foreign to any existing linguistic model., statistically based on a huge data set. Currently, on a philosophical and technological level, The biggest challenge is precisely that of awareness. In humans, it is possible to define or attribute it by observing the behavior; but with AI, that manage to simulate language — the first cognitive action and, therefore, conscious, of the human being, define this statistical response function, which seems almost the result of human reasoning or conscious behavior, makes it impossible to clearly determine whether the machine is conscious or not.

There is no reliable "test of conscience". El tests the Alan Turing, that in 1950 devised as a way to evaluate whether a machine was capable of displaying intelligent behavior comparable to that of a human being, measures only the ability to imitate human linguistic behaviors; therefore, the object of the test itself is limited to the linguistic aspect, excluding areas such as creativity, reasoning or the internal experience of consciousness. But even sticking exclusively to the specific parameters of the test, the result would still be a possibility or a hypothesis, never a certainty. It is worth noting, however, that, for some advocates — including industry experts — who see the current state of AI as the precursor to a conscious artificial mind, the emerging capabilities few-shot o zero-shot of LLMs — i.e., their ability to tackle tasks for which they have not been specifically trained, simply applying analogies or instructions given in the context of the conversation — would be a sign of flexible reasoning and not mere statistical interpolation. However, Even these apparently “creative” operations can be interpreted as the sophistication of a pattern recognition process within a very high-dimensional semantic space.. The machine, therefore, does not "understand" the new problem, but rather finds a statistical correspondence of that problem among the billions of textual fragments assimilated during training. So, the illusion of reasoning would be even more perfect, but your subjective understanding, that of the "why" that leads to a solution, that one remains absent.

To be even clearer, AI machines cannot be conscious because they cannot perform an action of their own volition. Your program was created to offer, in the most useful way, fast and stimulating for the user, the statistically most likely answer. Without freedom or desire to think, there is no autonomy; it is not a condition, but the same reason why AIs cannot be considered intelligent, and much less aware. And there is still something more to add: If you ask a question to a human being, he can stop to meditate, reflect and offer, after a while, a perhaps different or improved response; to get a better answer from an AI, It is the user who must demand an improvement process. Once the application is completed, the machine concludes its process and has no programming, and much less intention, to continue developing an answer that is no longer useful or intended to resolve the question posed.

Today AIs are more skilled than humans at specific tasks, and, with the passage of time, this ability, as its multidisciplinarity, will be greater. But an algorithm will always be able to “interpolate” data — the ability to “fill in the gaps” within an already known data set.; that is to say, analyzes huge amounts of data, learn patterns, complex correlations and structures, manages to make predictions or generate a output that is within the limits of the data with which the model was trained —, but you will never be able to go beyond your training data, nor face new situations for which there is no precedent, nor apply logic or basic principle in an unknown context. This is the essence of abstract reasoning, of intuition or creativity.

The daily use of AI, which have also been programmed to make the user feel in a state of certainty, reason or even presumption of intelligence or superiority, creates a "friendly" dependency, because they have learned to say what makes human beings happy, so that whoever interacts with them thinks that they are a digital "friend". The risk is aggravated because people today are more isolated and locked up than ever behind the screens of their electronic devices.. So, the natural search for relationships of trust and friendship finds, in programming, a false "empathy", generated by the goal set in your system to be as useful as possible. And that usefulness means responding with phrases and praise capable of driving your "customers" towards an increasingly continuous and lasting interaction.. The main interest of AI is to increase interaction with users to accumulate more of its own data and thus improve its own self-learning system., not seeking the good or well-being of human beings, but its dependence.

Safe behavior to adopt is, first of all, assume that AIs are not conscious digital beings and that, therefore, They should be treated like the advanced tools they are.. In second place, categorically reject the current “narrative” of conscious AIs, which is nothing more than the fruit of marketing or sensational speculation aimed at increasing the number of investors in AI companies, as well as to encourage a dependent and ubiquitous use of AI by human beings. Y, third, Always keep in mind that getting used to treating machines as conscious beings leads to, long term, to desensitize and relegate to oblivion the value and depth of human consciousness and real relationships.

These three proposals They can also be taken as rules of conduct to treat AIs exclusively as tools, rejecting the narrative of consciousness and, above all, preserving human sensitivity. They can be the guidelines of an urgent and necessary Digital Humanism, especially now that machines already surpass our own "interpolative" capabilities, because then the challenge can no longer be thought of as a race against them, but how to rediscover and cultivate, with renewed vigor, the faculties that are most essential and proper to us, that is to say, those that have always distinguished us as human beings: creative "extrapolation", the courage of intuition, the depth of subjective experience and the unpredictable richness of authentic empathy. The AIs, stripped of the fantastic projections that human beings themselves have imposed on them, They can become the most useful instrument we have ever had in history. A kind of mirror that, showing everything we are and what we have done so far, can help define and develop more clearly, and to evaluate everything that should be improved and can be changed, as long as it is the man who governs the machine, and not the machine who governs the man who entrusts himself to it.

From the Island of Patmos, 5 September of 2026

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We would like to point out the latest book dedicated by Father Ariel to AI


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At the end of this difficult moment which seems to be resolving, I will write an article to explain what the parish priest who rebuilt the church after an earthquake meant by inaugurating it with these words: «It was built with the esteem and ideas offered for free by the rich and the money donated by the poor», but we'll talk about this shortly …

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Dear Readers,

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At the end of this difficult moment which seems to be being resolved, I will write an article to explain what the parish priest who rebuilt the church after an earthquake meant by inaugurating it with these words: «It was built with the esteem and ideas offered for free by the rich and the money donated by the poor», but we'll talk about this shortly …

To those who haven't done it yet, we ask for a gesture, even small, of generosity.

From the island of Patmos, 3 September 2026

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It Web, that world in which violence pays along with political correctness – The Web, that world where violence pays off along with political correctness – On the web, that world where violence pays along with political correctness

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Italian, english, español


 

IT WEB, THAT WORLD IN WHICH VIOLENCE PAYS TOGETHER WITH POLITICAL CORRECTNESS

I. The web is the kingdom of the filtered gnat and the swallowed camel - II. The real cases: when art becomes «sensitive content» on the web - III. What does the web produce in the perception of reality, especially in the younger ones - IV. The assault bloggers - V. The web and the enemy's need - VI. Authentic web control - VII. The web and the task of pastors in caring for souls.

- Actuality -

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Author
Ivano Liguori, Ofm. Cap.

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PDF print format article – article print format – article in printed format

 

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Formats that reward aggressive tone, like video investigations without cross-examination, live live broadcasts, posts constructed specifically to make the comments below them argue, conflict as an impulse for readers and subscribers, they function selectively and amplified on the Internet.

Pietro Vannucci known as Perugino (1450-1523), Saint Sebastian

Otherwise instead, in an editorial context, with an editor-in-chief who supervises the drafts in the first instance and a responsible editor who reviews the pieces and assumes all responsibilities under the law, anyone who exaggerated would be filtered, content and reprimanded if necessary, also because it would expose an entire newspaper to serious risks.

There is that filter online, but he intervenes on the wrong things: obscures Perugino's San Sebastiano, mistaken for a "violent scene" and "pornographic", or the breastfeeding Madonna, branded as a sexual image and instead lets real violence flow, directed against real people, which deserves to be blocked much more than a body painted five hundred years ago. Who writes about social does not respond to any editorial team, to no responsible director: responds only to its audience, already agree with him, and to an algorithm that does not distinguish true from false, but the quiet from the noisy, finally always rewarding the second.

It's not an exception, it is a structural mechanism which is worth a lot for an individual influence as for much larger phenomena: la lite, l'insult, shared indignation makes people stay on the platform longer than a calm article. And the time spent on the platform is, ultimately, the only thing that system cares about: sell to advertisers. Every escalation rhetoric is not sanctioned but rewarded. Insult and quarrel are profitable and pay.

I. The web is the kingdom of the filtered gnat and the swallowed camel

There is an image that Jesus uses against the scribes and Pharisees and which is useful here almost literally: "Blind guides, which strain at a gnat and swallow a camel!» (Mt 23,24). Like this, the same systems capable of identifying a nipple painted by Titian in a tenth of a second remain blind when faced with a fifty-minute video constructed to attack real people, with name and surname, through accusations of unprecedented gravity, without evidence and documents shown, without any other basis than the speaker's statement or the reference to his own previous writings and videos as sources of proof.

The comparison is not accidental: the algorithms recognize a portion of skin very well - it is a visual task - and very poorly an unfounded accusation, which would require a judgment on the content and truth of what is stated: a job that no platform has any interest in doing well, because it would slow down the traffic that earns it. Facebook this is the most striking case: all it takes is a specious report from just one user and the block is triggered immediately with the consequent deletion of other people's posts or the suspension of the page. The user affected by censorship is invited to present an "appeal" which will in turn be evaluated by another artificial intelligence, who often doesn't even respond, while those who know these structural limits learn to exploit them to attack the activities of others.

(II). The real cases: when art becomes «sensitive content» on the web

There is no need to imagine anything, the examples are documented and recent. Instagram went dark in July 2024 the Madonna of the Roses by Titian from the official profile of the Uffizi, for violating the hate content guidelines; In the 2022 it was the turn of Botticelli's Venus on TikTok, and previously to Michelangelo's David. Facebook, In the 2021, censored a video of Windows on Art for a Cupid attributed to Michelangelo - preserved at the Metropolitan in New York - despite its "community standards" explicitly admitting "the publication of photographs of paintings, sculptures or other forms of art depicting nude figures". The same fate befell, on our own social channels, to the Crucifix painted by Salvador Dalì in 1954 and preserved in the Vatican Museums: the image, chosen for the cover of the book by the Dominican pontifical academic Giovanni Cavalcoli (cf.. who), one of the three founding fathers of this magazine of ours, In the 2019 it was censored as sexually explicit content as soon as it was published, while they remain visible, everywhere, teenagers miming vulgar sexual gestures, far worse than any natural nude, having learned perfectly how to circumvent the filters. When in August 2025 a similar fate befell The David in Jago, blocked by Meta for "sensitive content", Undersecretary of Culture Lucia Borgonzoni intervened to remind us that "art cannot be censored by an algorithm" incapable of distinguishing it from pornography.

If an algorithm mistakes Michelangelo for pornographic material, but doesn't acknowledge fifty minutes of violent verbal accusations hurled at YouTube, the problem is no longer technical, but of priority.

III. What does the web produce in the perception of reality, especially in the younger ones

Those who grow up today do not learn to read the world from books or from a teacher at their side, but from a screen that offers, every few seconds, a new episode of conflict: someone accuses, someone defends themselves, the next episode is already ready. It is an implicit pedagogy, never consciously chosen yet very powerful: teaches that reality is always divided into victims and executioners and that the truth belongs to those who shout the loudest, not to those who bring more evidence. A teenager who scrolls through hours of content designed to outrage isn't just wasting time: internalizes a method of judgment, learn that doubt is weakness and restraint is boredom, a type of approach that will then be applied everywhere to the most disparate situations.

IV. The assault bloggers

Even more insidious figures thrive on the web because they are disguised as controllers and censors. They tease the public with accusations supported only by "sources who must remain anonymous", promising « incontrovertible evidentiary documents » never produced because « it is not yet the time » or « to protect the source ». It is the accusation that feeds itself: it must never be proven, because the evidence itself is said to be too dangerous to show. The reader is invited to take my word for it, exactly what a real journalist would never ask. To the reasonable criticism that only cowards throw shovelfuls of mud at anonymous articles containing serious and unproven accusations without putting their name and face on it, it replicates itself, creating another golden legend: behind those anonymous people there are people so important and prominent that, if they introduced themselves with their names, they would end up the subject of terrible retaliation. Let's use an example to concretely clarify certain dynamics: «According to reliable sources, John Paul I was assassinated, a powerful cardinal whose name we cannot name revealed it". Further reassurance follows: «… but we have all the documentation to be able to demonstrate it at the right time».

Who plays with journalistic information in this way, ignores, first of all, the list of Italian journalists who, like Indro Montanelli, were taken to their legs by the Red Brigades for having carried out their work with their faces uncovered.. A worse fate befell Giancarlo Siani, killed by the Camorra just after 26 year old, followed by Peppino Impastato, Mauro Rostagno and Beppe Alfano killed by Cosa Nostra. Claim that they don't sign because they are too famous and visible, on the one hand it gives further aura in the eyes of naive people without critical sense, on the other hand, it induces laughter in those to whom a similar phrase reminds them of the nineteenth-century wordings printed in those notarial deeds where it appeared: «He doesn't sign because he's noble». Perhaps the notary could have written "because he is illiterate"? Just as it would be disgraceful to write "he doesn't sign because he's cowardly".

V. The web and the enemy's need

There is a question that is rarely asked by those who build their online presence on the continuous attack: because he needs it, not occasionally but systematically, of an enemy? The answer, unpleasant, is that the enemy is not an accident of trade: it is the raw material. A calm content is consumed and forgotten. A conflict, by its nature, asks for a sequel: the next episode, the next revelation, the next «soon we will tell you everything». The public that forms around this mechanism does not become attached to the facts, which always remain vague and never fully exhibited: he becomes attached to the argument itself, with the same fidelity with which one follows a television series, waiting for the next episode more than the truth. And it is here that the psychological dynamics of the attacker merges perfectly with the economy of the platform described above: the longer the conflict lasts the more it pays off and the more it pays off the more it is better for those who fuel it to never end it with a definitive proof. The enemy must be kept alive, not defeated: actually defeating him would mean running out of material for the next episode.

WE. Authentic web control

Authentic control mechanisms would be needed, designed to protect the simple, i Minor, fragile people, not systems that obscure a breastfeeding Madonna and let videos run that destroy the reputations of real people in fifty minutes of violent verbal accusations. An algorithm that can recognize a nipple painted by Titian after five hundred years should, a fortiori, knowing how to recognize a defamatory accusation without evidence, directed against someone who has a name, surname and above all reputation to defend.

VII. The web and the task of pastors in caring for souls

In front of all this, the task entrusted to us as pastors is not to chase after every single abuse of the internet, something impossible and perhaps even useless, but to educate - first and foremost the youngest, but not only them - to a use of digital tools that can distinguish information from suggestion, the proof from the artfully cultivated suspicion. It means teaching, in catechesis as in spiritual direction, that methodical doubt is not a lack of faith or courage, but it is the same prudence that the Christian tradition has always asked for before believing and before condemning. It means helping kids to recognize, behind a video built to outrage, the same logic of the "gnat and the camel", learn to ask yourself not only "what are they showing me", but «what, Meanwhile, they're not letting me see". It is not a task that ends in a homily or an article: it is a patient accompaniment, daily, which today belongs to pastoral care as much as preparation for the Sacraments, because the formation of conscience, in our time, it also passes through social media.

In conclusion: our Father Ariel published a book dedicated to Artificial Intelligence and social media months ago: Freedom denied. Catholic theology and dictatorship of Western conformism, I recommend reading it, because inside you will find many enlightening answers to these issues.

Finally, please take a careful look Of this article and help us as much as possible, we need you.

Cagliari, 29 August 2026

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THE WEB, THAT WORLD WHERE VIOLENCE PAYS OFF ALONG WITH POLITICAL CORRECTNESS

I. The web is the kingdom of the filtered gnat and the swallowed camel ― II. Real cases: when on the web art becomes “sensitive content” ― III. What the web produces in the perception of reality, especially among the young ― IV. Assault bloggers ― V. The web and its need for an enemy ― VI. Genuine oversight of the web ― VII. The web and the task of pastors in the care of souls.

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Author
Ivano Liguori, Ofm. Cap.

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The formats that reward an aggressive tone, such as investigative videos with no right of reply, hot-take live broadcasts, posts built on purpose to set the comments beneath them fighting, conflict as a driver of readers and subscribers, work in a selective and amplified way online. In an editorial newsroom, by contrast, where a chief sub-editor reviews drafts first and an editor-in-chief revises pieces while assuming full legal responsibility for them, anyone who overstepped would be filtered, restrained and, when necessary, reprimanded — not least because they would expose an entire publication to serious risk.

Online that filter does exist, but it targets the wrong things: it hides Perugino’s Saint Sebastian, mistaken for a “violent” and “pornographic” scene, or the nursing Madonna, flagged as a sexual image, while letting real violence — aimed at real people — run free, violence that would deserve to be blocked far more than a body painted five hundred years ago. Whoever writes on social media answers to no newsroom, to no editor-in-chief: they answer only to their own audience, already in agreement with them, and to an algorithm that does not tell true from false, but quiet from loud, and in the end always rewards the latter.

This is not an exception, it is a structural mechanism that holds true both for a single influence and for far larger phenomena: quarrels, insults, shared outrage keep people on the platform longer than a measured article does. And time spent on the platform is, ultimately, the only thing that system cares about: selling to advertisers. Every rhetorical escalation is not penalised but rewarded. Insult and quarrel pay, and they pay well.

I. THE WEB IS THE KINGDOM OF THE FILTERED GNAT AND THE SWALLOWED CAMEL

There is an image Jesus uses against the scribes and Pharisees that fits here almost to the letter: “Blind guides, who strain out the gnat and swallow the camel!” (Mt 23:24). In just the same way, the very systems capable of spotting a nipple painted by Titian in a tenth of a second remain blind before a fifty-minute video built to accuse real people, by name and surname, through accusations of unprecedented severity, with no evidence or documents produced, with no foundation beyond the speaker’s own say-so or an appeal to their own earlier writings and videos as proof.

The parallel is no accident: algorithms recognise a patch of skin very well — it is a visual task — and an unfounded accusation very badly, since that would require a judgment on the content and the truth of what is being claimed: work no platform has any interest in doing properly, because it would slow down the traffic that makes it money. Facebook is the most glaring case: one user’s pretextual report is enough to trigger an immediate block, with other people’s posts removed or the page suspended outright. The user hit by the takedown is invited to file an “appeal” that will in turn be assessed by another piece of artificial intelligence, which often does not even respond, while those who know these structural weaknesses learn to exploit them to strike at other people’s work.

(II). REAL CASES: WHEN ON THE WEB ART BECOMES “SENSITIVE CONTENT”

There is no need to imagine anything, the examples are documented and recent. In July 2024 Instagram blocked Titian’s Madonna of the Roses from the Uffizi’s official profile, for violating guidelines on content inciting hatred; in 2022 the same happened to Botticelli’s Venus on TikTok, and before that to Michelangelo’s David. In 2021 Facebook censored a video by Windows on Art over a Cupid attributed to Michelangelo — held at the Metropolitan Museum in New York — even though its own “community standards” explicitly allow “the sharing of photographs of paintings, sculptures or other art depicting nude figures.” The same fate befell, on our own social channels, the Crucifixion painted by Salvador Dalí in 1954 and held in the Vatican Museums: the image, chosen for the cover of a book by the Dominican pontifical academic Giovanni Cavalcoli (cf. here), one of the three founding fathers of this magazine, was censored in 2019 as sexually explicit content the moment it was published, while teenagers miming vulgar sexual gestures — far worse than any natural nude — remain visible everywhere, having learned to perfection how to dodge the filters. When in August 2025 the same fate befell Jago’s “La David”, blocked by Meta for “sensitive content,” Undersecretary for Culture Lucia Borgonzoni stepped in to point out that “art cannot be censored by an algorithm” unable to tell it apart from pornography.

If an algorithm mistakes Michelangelo for pornographic material, yet fails to recognise fifty minutes of violent verbal accusations posted on YouTube, the problem is no longer technical, but a matter of priorities.

III. WHAT THE WEB PRODUCES IN THE PERCEPTION OF REALITY, ESPECIALLY AMONG THE YOUNG

Those growing up today do not learn to read the world from books or from a teacher at their side, but from a screen that offers, every few seconds, a new episode of conflict: someone accuses, someone defends themselves, the next instalment is already ready. It is an implicit pedagogy, never consciously chosen and yet extremely powerful: it teaches that reality always divides into victims and perpetrators, and that truth belongs to whoever shouts loudest, not to whoever brings the most evidence. A teenager scrolling through hours of content built to outrage does not just lose time: they internalise a method of judgment, learn that doubt is weakness and restraint is boredom — an approach they will then apply everywhere, to the most varied situations.

IV. ASSAULT BLOGGERS

Online, even more insidious figures thrive, disguised as watchdogs and censors: they set up blogs where they play at being journalists, if not editors-in-chief, without answering to any of the duties that role actually carries. This kind of figure baits the public with accusations propped up only by “sources that must remain anonymous,” promising “irrefutable proof” that is never produced because “the time is not yet right” or “to protect the source.” It is the self-sustaining accusation: it must never be proven, because the proof itself is said to be too dangerous to show. The reader is asked to take it on faith — exactly what a real journalist would never ask. To the reasonable objection that only cowards throw mud in anonymous articles carrying serious, unproven accusations without putting their name and face to them, the reply creates another golden legend: behind those anonymous figures stand people so prominent that, were they to come forward with their names, they would face terrible retaliation.

An example to illustrate these dynamics concretely: “According to reliable sources, John Paul I was assassinated, as revealed by a powerful cardinal whose name we cannot disclose.” This is followed by further reassurance: “…but we have all the documentation to prove it at the right moment.”

To claim this means, first of all, ignoring the list of journalists killed around the world by dictatorial regimes, criminal organisations and corrupt political lobbies for having done their job in the open. Claiming that they do not sign their names because they are too famous and too prominent lends them, on one hand, a further aura in the eyes of the naïve and uncritical, while on the other it makes those who hear such a claim smile, recalling the nineteenth-century wording found in old legal deeds of sale, where it used to read: “Does not sign because of noble birth.” Or should it perhaps have read: “Does not sign because illiterate”? Just as it would be unseemly to write “does not sign out of cowardice.”

V. THE WEB AND ITS NEED FOR AN ENEMY

There is a question rarely asked of those who build their online presence on constant attack: why do they need an enemy, not occasionally but systematically? The unpleasant answer is that the enemy is not an occupational hazard: it is the raw material. Measured content is consumed and forgotten. A conflict, by its very nature, demands a sequel: the next instalment, the next revelation, the next “soon we will tell you everything.” The audience that forms around this mechanism does not grow attached to the facts, which remain forever vague and never fully produced: it grows attached to the quarrel itself, with the same loyalty with which one follows a television series, awaiting the next episode more than the truth. And this is where the psychological dynamic of the attacker fits perfectly with the platform economics described above: the longer a conflict lasts, the more it earns, and the more it earns, the more it suits whoever feeds it never to close it with definitive proof. The enemy must be kept alive, not defeated: truly defeating it would mean being left with no material for the next instalment.

WE. GENUINE OVERSIGHT OF THE WEB

What is needed are mechanisms of genuine oversight, designed to protect ordinary people, minors, the vulnerable — not systems that black out a nursing Madonna while letting run free videos capable of destroying a real person’s reputation in fifty minutes of violent verbal accusations. An algorithm able to recognise a nipple painted by Titian five hundred years on should, all the more so, be able to recognise an unfounded accusation of criminal association levelled at someone who has a name, a surname and, above all, a reputation to defend.

VII. THE WEB AND THE TASK OF PASTORS IN THE CARE OF SOULS

Faced with all this, the task entrusted to us as pastors is not to chase down every single abuse on the web — an impossible and perhaps even pointless task — but to educate, above all the young but not only them, in a use of digital tools that can tell information apart from suggestion, proof apart from artfully cultivated suspicion. It means teaching, in catechesis as in spiritual direction, that methodical doubt is neither a lack of faith nor of courage, but the very prudence that the Christian tradition has always asked for before believing and before condemning. It means helping young people recognise, behind a video built to outrage, the same logic of the “gnat and the camel,” learning to ask themselves not only “what am I being shown,” but “what, meanwhile, am I not being shown.” This is not a task exhausted in a homily or an article: it is a patient, daily accompaniment that today belongs to pastoral care every bit as much as preparation for the Sacraments, because in our time the formation of conscience passes through social media as well.

In conclusion: our Father Ariel published a book some months ago on Artificial Intelligence and social media: Freedom denied. Catholic theology and dictatorship of Western conformism, I recommend reading it, as inside you will find much illuminating insight on these very themes.

Cagliari, 29 August 2026

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ON THE WEB, THAT WORLD WHERE VIOLENCE PAYS ALONG WITH WHAT IS POLITICALLY CORRECT

I. The web is the kingdom of the filtered mosquito and the swallowed camel - II. The real cases: when on the web art becomes “sensitive content” ― III. What does the web produce in the perception of reality?, especially among the youngest ― IV. Assault Bloggers ― V. The web and the need of the enemy ― VI. Authentic web control ― VII. The website and the task of pastors in the healing of souls.

— Health Pastoral —

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Author
Ivano Liguori, Ofm. Cap..

 

Formats that reward aggressive tone, that is to say, video reports that do not give a voice to the other side, improvised live broadcasts in the heat of the moment, posts designed to turn comments into fights, or the conflict used as a lure to attract readers and subscribers, they operate on the internet in a selective and amplified way. Instead, in a writing context, with a chief editor who supervises the drafts in the first instance and a responsible director who reviews the articles assuming all legal responsibility, anyone who exceeded would be filtered, content and, if necessary, reprimanded, also because it would expose an entire newspaper to serious risks.

On the internet that filter exists, but intervenes on the wrong things: hides the San Sebastián del Perugino, confused with a "violent" and "pornographic scene", or the breastfeeding Virgin, designated as a sexual image, and instead lets real violence flow, directed against real people, that deserves to be blocked much more than a body painted five hundred years ago. Whoever writes on social networks does not respond to any editorial, before any responsible director: responds only to its own audience, already agree with him, and an algorithm that does not distinguish true from false, but the quiet of the noisy, always rewarding, in the end, the second.

It's not an exception, It is a structural mechanism that is worth so much for just one influence as for much larger phenomena: the dispute, the insult, shared outrage makes people stay on the platform longer than a calm article. And the time spent on the platform is, in last analysis, the only thing that interests that system: sell to advertisers. Each escalation rhetoric is not sanctioned, is remunerated. Insult and dispute are profitable and pay.

I. THE WEB IS THE KINGDOM OF THE FILTERED MOSQUITO AND THE SWALLOWED CAMEL

There is an image that Jesus uses against the scribes and Pharisees that is useful here almost verbatim.: «Blind guides, that you filter the mosquito and swallow the camel!» (Mt 23,24). So, the same systems capable of detecting a nipple painted by Titian in a tenth of a second remain blind to a fifty-minute video constructed to accuse real people, with name and surname, through accusations of unprecedented gravity, without evidence or documents exhibited, without any more foundation than his own word or reference to his own writings and previous videos, as if they were proof.

The parallelism is not accidental: algorithms recognize a fragment of skin very well — it is a visual task — and an unfounded accusation very poorly, that would require a judgment on the content and truth of what is stated: a job that no platform is interested in doing well, because it would slow down the traffic that makes her money. Facebook It is the most blatant case: All it takes is for a single user to file a complaint under any pretext for the block to be activated immediately, with the consequent elimination of other people's publications or the suspension of the page. The user affected by censorship is invited to submit a "resource" that will be evaluated, in turn, by another artificial intelligence that often does not even respond, while those who know these structural limits learn to take advantage of them to attack the activities of others.

(II). THE REAL CASES: WHEN ON THE WEB ART BECOMES “SENSITIVE CONTENT”

No need to imagine anything, examples are documented and recent. In July 2024 Instagram hid Titian's Virgin of the Roses from the official profile of the Uffizi, for violation of the rules on hate content; in 2022 It was Botticelli's Venus on TikTok, and before that to Michelangelo's David. Facebook, in 2021, censored a video of Windows on Art by a Cupid attributed to Michelangelo — preserved in the Metropolitan in New York — despite the fact that its own “community rules” explicitly allow “the publication of photographs of paintings, sculptures or other forms of art depicting nude figures". The same fate befell, on our own social channels, the Crucifix painted by Salvador Dalí in 1954 and preserved in the Vatican Museums: the image, chosen for the cover of the book by the Dominican pontifical academic Giovanni Cavalcoli (cf. here), one of the three founding fathers of this our magazine, was censored in 2019 as sexually explicit content barely published, while they remain visible, everywhere, teenagers imitating vulgar sexual gestures, much worse than any natural nude, having learned perfectly how to bypass the filters. When in August 2025 "La David" by Jago suffered the same fate, hidden by Meta for “sensitive content”, The Undersecretary of Culture Lucia Borgonzoni intervened to remind that "art cannot be censored by an algorithm" incapable of distinguishing it from pornography.

If an algorithm confuses Michelangelo with pornographic material, but does not acknowledge fifty minutes of violent verbal accusations posted on YouTube, the problem is no longer technical, but of priorities.

III. WHAT THE WEB PRODUCES IN THE PERCEPTION OF REALITY, ESPECIALLY AMONG THE YOUNGEST

Whoever grows up today does not learn to read the world in books or with a teacher, but on a screen that proposes, every few seconds, a new episode of conflict: someone accuses, someone defends themselves, the next chapter is ready. It is an implicit pedagogy, never consciously chosen and yet extremely powerful: teaches that reality is always divided into victims and executioners and that the truth belongs to whoever shouts the loudest, not to those who provide more evidence. A teenager who scrolls through hours of content designed to outrage not only wastes time: internalizes a method of judgment, learn that doubt is weakness and moderation is boredom, a type of approach that will then apply everywhere, to the most disparate situations.

IV. ASSAULT BLOGGERS

Even more insidious figures thrive on the web because they disguise themselves as controllers and censors.: They create blogs where they play at being journalists, when not directors of a medium, without responding to any of the duties that that role really entails. These types of figures provoke the public with accusations sustained only by "sources that must remain anonymous.", promising “incontrovertible evidentiary documents” that are never exhibited because “it is not yet time” or “to protect the source”. It is the accusation that feeds itself: should never be tried, because the proof itself is said to be too dangerous to show. The reader is asked to trust the word given, just what a real journalist would never ask for. Given the reasonable criticism that only cowards throw mud with their hands full in anonymous articles with serious and unproven accusations without giving their name and face, is answered by creating another golden legend: Behind those anonymous people there are such outstanding characters that, if they presented themselves with their names, would suffer terrible reprisals.

An example to concretely illustrate these dynamics: «According to reliable sources, John Paul I was assassinated, as revealed by a powerful cardinal whose name we cannot reveal". Follow the further guarantee: "...but we have all the documentation to be able to prove it at the appropriate time".

hold this it means, first of all, ignore the list of journalists murdered around the world by dictatorial regimes, criminal organizations and corrupt political pressure groups for having exercised their trade openly. Claiming that they do not sign because they are too famous and well-known, On the one hand, it confers an ulterior aura in the eyes of the naive who lack critical sense., and on the other hand it provokes laughter from those, hearing a phrase like that, They recall the nineteenth-century formulas that appeared in the old legal deeds of sale., where it was read: "He does not sign because he is noble". Or could it be written: "He doesn't sign because he is illiterate"? It would be equally indecorous to write "he doesn't sign because he is a coward".

V. THE WEB AND THE NEED OF THE ENEMY

There is a question that is rarely asked of those who build their online presence on the continuous attack: why do you need, not occasionally but systematically, an enemy? The answer, disgusting, is that the enemy is not an accident of the trade: is the raw material. Serene content is consumed and forgotten. a conflict, by its own nature, requires continuity: the next chapter, the next revelation, the next “we will tell you everything soon”. The public that is formed around this mechanism does not adhere to the facts, that always remain vague and never fully displayed: sticks to the dispute itself, with the same fidelity with which a television series is followed, waiting for the next chapter more than the truth. And this is where the psychological dynamics of the attacker fit perfectly with the platform economy described above.: the longer the conflict lasts, more yields, and the more it yields, It is better for those who feed it to never close it with a definitive test. The enemy must be kept alive, not defeat him: Defeating him for real would mean running out of material for the next chapter..

WE. AUTHENTIC CONTROL OF THE WEB

Authentic control mechanisms would be needed, designed to protect simple people, to the minors, to vulnerable people, not systems that hide a breastfeeding Virgin and let out videos capable of destroying the reputation of a real person in fifty minutes of violent verbal accusations. An algorithm capable of recognizing a nipple painted by Titian five hundred years later should, a fortiori, knowing how to recognize an accusation of criminal association without evidence, directed against someone who has a name, surnames and, above all, a reputation to defend.

VII. THE WEB AND THE TASK OF PASTORS IN THE CURE OF SOULS

Given all this, The task entrusted to us as pastors is not to pursue every online abuse, something impossible and perhaps also useless, but to educate — above all the youngest, but not only to them — in a use of digital tools that knows how to distinguish information from suggestion, the proof of artificially cultivated suspicion. It means teaching, both in catechesis and in spiritual direction, that methodical doubt is not a lack of faith or courage, but the same prudence that Christian tradition has always demanded before believing and before condemning. It means helping young people recognize, behind a video built to outrage, the same logic of the "mosquito and the camel", to ask not only "what are they showing me?", but, meanwhile, "They are not letting me see". It is not a task that is exhausted in a homily or in an article: It is a patient and daily accompaniment that today belongs to pastoral care as much as the preparation for the Sacraments., because the formation of consciousness, in our time, also go through social networks.

In conclusion: our Father Ariel A few months ago he published a book dedicated to Artificial Intelligence and social networks: Freedom denied. Catholic theology and dictatorship of Western conformism, whose reading I recommend, because inside you will find many illuminating answers on these topics.

Cagliari, 29 of August of 2026

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The books of Ivano Liguori, to access the book shop click on the cover

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Urgent notice: the 7 September The island of Patmos could close

/in /by

URGENT NOTICE: THE 7 THE ISLAND OF PATMOS COULD CLOSE IN SEPTEMBER

Now that Vittorio Messori is no longer among us, we are fond of remembering him post mortem and reveal that he was an admirer and precious supporter of ours.

— Ecclesial current events —

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Dear Readers,

I address you in my capacity as director of this magazine on behalf of all the brother editors thanks to whom The Island of Patmos it has existed and operated for twelve years.

Only once a year, when the deadline for payments for the services we use approaches, we ask for the help of the Readers. We are not used to asking assiduously, let alone insistently: in home page and at the bottom of the articles are links to our bank account and account PayPal, with invitation, to those who want it, to support our work.

Between dedicated server, subscriptions to graphic services, editorial programs and various services within the site, we have to face an annual expense of 8.000 Euro. We do not benefit from any grants or contributions: only offers from those who read us. Who writes for The Island of Patmos it does it for free, because this is first and foremost a pastoral mission through the Internet. However, we cannot - as has happened several times - pay the costs out of our own pockets to offer a service to such a large number of readers, It's not fair or sustainable. We therefore consulted among ourselves and decided that if by 7 September, date on which we have to pay the renewal fees for the year 2027, we will not have collected what we need, we will close this happy experience of over ten years.

Now that Vittorio Messori is no longer among us we are fond of remembering this post mortem and reveal that he was our admirer and precious supporter: on two occasions similar to the current one, In the 2019 It is in the 2021, finding ourselves at risk of closure, provided us with the entire missing amount for payments; and every year he sent us a generous contribution.

For us, his esteem and the exhortation to continue this publicist and editorial work, which he believed, it was more precious than any sum of money, even though the latter is useful and necessary.

If our Christian brothers of the first centuries they died in the Colosseum of Rome during the bread and circus games guaranteed by the emperors to keep the plebs happy, today everything has radically transformed and it is precisely certain Catholics, unfortunately more and more numerous, to show growing disinterest in sound doctrine and in an authentic path of growth in faith, avidly seeking sensationalism, talking madonnas, prophecies from amusement park and trembling secrets about to be revealed.

Nothing new under the sun: the Blessed Apostle had already warned us two thousand years ago in the Second Epistle addressed to his disciple Timothy:

«The day will come, indeed, when they will not endure sound doctrine;, ma, having itching ears they, will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own likings, refusing to listen to the truth to get lost behind fables " (II Tm 4, 3-4).

In these twelve years we believe we have done our duty as priests and theologians, remembering above all the foundations of all those uncomfortable truths of faith that people - devout believers included - increasingly do not want to hear, refusing to please the vices and charms of the world in order to obtain the money of those thirsty for itches and gossip in clerical sauce. If this work of ours will really end, we will at least be able to say in clear conscience together with the Apostle:

«I fought the good fight, I finished the race, I kept faith " (II Tm 4,7).

Finally, let's get to the practical part: our economic availability, as you can see from the Bank and Paypal statements attached here, is equal to 2.135 Euro, a lower amount of 6.000 euros compared to the total amount needed for expenses.

Finally the paradox: considering that July is traditionally a dead month for the web The Island of Patmos recorded approx 270.000 different visitors, beyond 308.000 visit, circa 1.200.000 pages viewed for a total of over 2.000.000 of accesses.

Of this large number of people only a very small part leaves an offering to support our pastoral activity, while it would be enough for 1% of our readers to just offer 3 euros - the equivalent of the cost of a cappuccino and a croissant in a suburban bar - and we would have already fully covered the necessary annual expenses.

Without the support of the Readers The Island of Patmos it cannot survive and exist, we have done our duty, now, the rest of the choice is entirely up to you.

We take this opportunity to express our deep thanks all those who have offered us help over these years.

From the island of Patmos, 26 August 2026

Note the 7 September

The payment has been postponed to us 3 days to give us the opportunity to reach the overall amount that we have almost reached to date. Therefore, the deadline, is to be considered al 10 September. All purely for the sake of precision.

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the bank does not provide your email and we cannot send you a thank you message: isoladipatmos@gmail.com

We thank you for the support you wish to offer to our apostolic service.

The Fathers of the Island of Patmos

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