The program of the Italian Church with Matteo Zuppi President in fact issued it himself yesterday, in the first hot declaration after the election: “Communion and mission – he said – are the words I feel in my heart”. And again: “I will try to do my best, let us remain united in synodality”.
United in synodality
Unity and communion above all within the Church was the leitmotif of Zuppi’s presence in Bologna. Here he was able to unite the different sensibilities, from the closest to the pontificate in progress to the most conservative souls. Zuppi was able to listen and meet everyone. Unity remains his basic program. Synodality together. Which means a community management of the Chesa, listening to everyone, including the laity and those on the margins. The synodality, moreover, had been an explicit request put in black and white by Francis in the ecclesial conference in Florence in 2015, however partially disregarded. “The mission is the same as always – Zuppi said yesterday -: the Church that speaks to everyone and speaks to everyone. The Church that stands on the road and walks, the Church that speaks a single language, that of love, in the Babel of this world ”.
The pandemic
The Church will continue her mission in daily emergencies. Yesterday Zuppi recalled two of them: “We are living – he said -, a time marked by pandemics”. That of Covid, first of all, “with the awareness and insanity that he revealed and provoked”, and now the “war pandemic” in Ukraine, without forgetting “all the other pieces of other wars”. The Church with Zuppi will not forget that it is also concretely close to those who suffer most from the negative consequences of this pandemic. Among these are the many who have economic problems.
pedophilia
The Italian Church has not yet fully addressed the sins of that part of the clergy that has committed the crime of sexual abuse of minors. Other Churches in the world have acted with greater timing. In the Italian Church, one part does not want an external investigation on the model of what has recently been done by the Church of France. On paper, even Zuppi does not seem to be entirely in favor. The impression is that this will be one of the first test beds of his presidency, trying to put himself on the side of the victims by holding up the pressure of the media and at the same time listening to everyone’s voice.
The LGBT world
Zuppi like Francis has always had a real listening to LGBT people and, among them, to believing LGBT people who for years felt excluded from the Church. The Church of Zuppi is the Church of the Gospel, that is, open to all. There will be no discounts on listening and welcoming. They will be two real exercises, which will put at the center the idea of a Church which is the mother of all her children, without exception.
Ethical issues
There are challenges facing society and on which the Church has her ideas. Among these, for example, the end of life. Zuppi never shied away from listening and dialogue. Recently he spoke with Paolo Flores D’Arcais about euthanasia. Here he said that a discussion on the matter is useful because it serves to help each other “to live together” even among “different visions”. In his opinion it is “politics that should find solutions for everyone”. But when politics fails, we rely on a referendum and let others decide. For Zuppi, the law on the living will already leaves a freedom, while, he explained, the right to euthanasia “is something else”.