VATICAN CITY. “Even if there is no doubt that religion often lends itself and is used to” stop time “, that is modernity, in bioethical or rights issues, the Church and faiths must be able to play an active role in contexts such as the G20 and Cop26 “. Word of Massimo Faggioli, professor in the department of Theology and Religious Sciences at Villanova University (Philadelphia) and author of the essay “Joe Biden and Catholicism in the United States” (Morcelliana).
What is the significance of the Pope’s go-ahead for communion in Biden?
“Many American bishops would like to deny communion to Catholic politicians (of the Democratic Party) who are in favor of legal abortion – while Catholic politicians (of the Republican Party) in favor of the death penalty or torture have never been subjected to such a criticism. The words of the Pope that Biden has now reported provide him with cover and protection from hostile prelates ”.
What can happen?
“Many bishops in the US will be very annoyed (to put it mildly) and the distance between the conservative majority of the bishops’ conference and Pope Francis will increase. We will see him at the assembly of the prelates in two weeks ».
Biden is a Catholic but he is also the president of the United States: so more generally, how should this “openness” of the Pope be framed in the relationship between state and religion? Between faith, religious freedom and secularism?
“Catholicism in the US lives in contact with the type of Protestantism that colonized the country four centuries ago, and has difficulty with the concept of secularism (which is not easily translated into English). But Biden and Francesco are two Catholics trained in the twentieth century who therefore learned how risky it is to forget the distinction between State and Church, between politics and religion ».
With what consequences?
“Both conservative Catholicism and Protestant evangelicalism do not understand and do not forgive Francis from the theological point of view the emphasis he transmits with his gestures in favor of secularism that alternate with his extreme defense of religious freedom”.
How much can the Church “trespass” in the various discussions and decisions on rights?
«There have been trespasses: on LGBT issues, but also, on the left, on immigration and environmental issues. The real tension emerging on a global level is that of religious freedom. The American “culture wars” on ethical issues have globalized and spread throughout the planet, but paradoxically the presence of the Vatican, in Italy and beyond, today keeps those “culture wars” fairly under control. I am aware that this is an unpopular explanation among those who see the enemies of rights in the Vatican and in the Church ».
These are the days of the G20 and COP26. Should religions play an active role in summits like these?
“The Church and religions must have an active role, and they already do. What happened in the twentieth century for human rights is happening for the debate on the environment: the secularization of a theological concept: we all have the same dignity because we are all the image of God ”.
Climate change, immigration, multilateralism, vaccines, jobs, the economy: are these issues that should be on the agendas of religious leaders? Is there no risk of interference?
«The interference of religion has always been there, but I would say that today the interference of other much less visible and more influential actors (the oil sector, for example) are more worrying. There is no doubt that religion often lends itself and is used as an argument to try to “stop time”, that is modernity, in bioethical or rights issues; on the other hand, the fact that the Church is a conservative institution does not mean that it is always wrong ”.
How would you define the relationship between religions and the world today?
«We are living in a change of age, as Francis said, also in the sense that faiths have globalized and are freeing themselves from their geographical and cultural cradles of origin, to become“ inculturated ”communities all over the world. And this can provoke conflicts, of course, but also generate fruitful inter-religious dialogues and between believers and non-believers ”.
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