I am amazed that the article by Michela Murgia which appeared on these pages for Christmas created so much confusion: a few days earlier I read an article on The world which is much more radical and explosive than that of Murgia and for which no one has heard of shouting scandal. Nor have theologians made an effort to reassure that stray splinters do not undermine the system which fearlessly remains always the same.
After theologians well known for some time also to the general public, I decided to intervene in the debate because it seems to me that the attention has been captured more by the stone than by the tin. I do it as a biblical scholar and theologian and not because Murgia needs it and not even out of solidarity between women, despite the fact that she deserves so much, given that she is made the object of a social hatred that has few equals: if Murgia were a male, she would be gratified by the appellation polemicist, a noble profession also within the great Christian literary tradition. But, she’s not.
It is the compactness of perspective on the part of theologians of the caliber of Mancuso, Forte and Bianchi that made me think seriously. First of all because they expressed themselves with authority, but it seems they did not understand that Murgia’s intent was to defend us from a Christmas homiletic which, devoutly ennobling infantilism, helps to homogenize the Christian Christmas with pagan junk or, in the best of cases, to keep believers away from the Christmas mass. Perhaps it is easier for us women to perceive it, given that we are forced to always be “on this side”, that is, there where the authoritative word of the preaching must only be listened to and can never be pronounced. Where, that is, one is taken hostage by a homiletic in which the rhetoric of the God-child, when not irritating, discourages.
Pope Francis too has recourse to the logic of the God-child, but at least he does so with the strength of a spiritual tradition that respects the ethical requirement of the messianic announcement: perhaps he really wants to say something that the liturgical wisdom of the Church invites us to celebrate , on December 26, Stephen, the first Christian martyr, and on the 28th the innocent saints as absolutely indispensable prospects for understanding the event of the birth of the Messiah. Too faithful to the Gospel of Matthew and in opposition to the irenism of that of Luke? If so, it would be good for preachers to explain it, right? Is it too much to ask that those who exercise the high ministry of preaching study a little before speaking? Are the increasingly empty churches not enough?
However, what is closest to my heart is something else. We cannot pretend not to know that, from the four Gospels which the Church has considered canonical since ancient times, as also from Paul, no theological relevance is recognized to the events of the birth of Jesus and this means that they belong to the baggage of tradition as added value, important, of course, but always added. One cannot in any way do without the preaching of Jesus and the story of his passion, that is, the events of Easter, while everything concerning what may have happened before the public ministry of Jesus must be understood as the fruit of the enormous effort by his followers to account for their belief in his resurrection. In every cultural moment the transmission of the Christian faith has tested the credibility of his announcement. And the two so-called “infancy Gospels” of Matthew and Luke do not want to tell facts, but try to translate the power of the Johannine declaration “and the word became flesh” into narrative terms.
Historians know very well that the reference to the census of Augustus has much more value for the evangelist Luke than that of a news item. As for Matthew, what makes Jesus the son of David, that is the Messiah, is Joseph’s belonging to the house of David and not the fact that he was born in Bethlehem. On December 25th, the cold and frost, the ox and the donkey and all the rest are not even added value, they are simply added.
The concept of incarnation must be handled with care, and does not require historicising the individual stories contained in the infancy Gospels, but requires accounting for the relationship that always exists between history and narration. Otherwise we can’t be surprised that teenagers turn away from what they received during catechism as they did with Santa Claus. Without then thinking that the very delicate and indispensable effort of Jewish-Christian dialogue requires a courageous revision of our convictions, as would be required by the acquisitions in the biblical sphere which can no longer allow too easy expropriations from the Old Testament. Resorting to the needs of popular religiosity, then, is sometimes even offensive. The infancy Gospels of Matthew and Luke are, in fact, the result of a very refined weaving that takes place on the fine line between theology and literature that the people have always understood earlier and better than the many abstract formulas they have had to accept to send by heart.
The current dramatic situation inside and outside the churches is a warning: today faith requires critical intelligence. And I can assure you that the reception of Michela Murgia’s words by many Christian communities has also been extremely positive. Because thinking can mean leaving the system, but never making an attempt on faith.
*Pontifical Athenaeum of S. Anselmo of Rome