30Days in brief

The relics of Saint Timothy at Termoli
Islamic fundamentalists children of Western civilization
The grandfather killed by the fascists and forgiveness
Kasper and the realism of hope

CONVENTIONS

The relics of Saint Timothy at Termoli

Paul and Timothy in the Barberini Latin Code 587, Vatican Apostolic Library

On 14-15 December 2003 the Italo-Croatian convention organized by the municipal administration was held at Termoli, in Molise, on the occasion of the 8th centenary of the commercial treaty, of friendship and reciprocal citizenship between the republic of Ragusa (Dubrovnik) and the town of Termoli. The relations had to do with various aspects of the relations between East and West, in particular with regard to the Fourth Crusade and the consequent sack of Constaninople in 1204, during which the relics of Timothy, disciple of Paul, were also stolen, to appear a short time afterwards in Termoli, perhaps arriving there via Ragusa, and still kept in the cathedral of the Adriatic township. Scholarly investigations of the relics and the history of their removal is now being conducted by the CNR (the Science Research Council, Rome).

TERRORISM

Islamic fundamentalists children of Western civilization

11 March 2004. The attack on the Madrid railway stations

In La Repubblica of 31 March Pietro Citati suggests an interesting analysis of Islamic terrorism, aimed, he writes, at destroying Western civilization as much as Islam. In a passage of the article mentioned he notes that the terrorists “do not recall in any way the powerful leaders of the great Arab tradition: the Caliphs of Baghdad and of Cordoba, Saladin, the sovereigns of Delhi, the Savafit sovereigns of Persia, the Mogul emperors of India, the Ottoman sultans, with that panoply of generosity and resourceful opulence. And not even of the last mediocre heads of state in the last post-war period, Nasser and Boumedienne. They are children of the West: children of the nihilists and of Hitler, of Lenin and Stalin, and of the ideological rubbish that Europe dumped on the world in the last century. I do not know where they live: whether in Afghanistan or in Pakistan, or in Iraq or in Corso Venezia in Milan or in Place de la Concorde, or in the Hotel Plaza, in Manhattan, in the smartest residences and the most luxurious European hotels where they are at home. But I know what they do. They laugh at us”.

ZAPATERO

The grandfather killed by the fascists and forgiveness

A republican combatant killed, a symbolic photo of the Spanish civil war

“For José Luis Rodriguez Zapatero the path to power can be traced to the last testament of his grandfather, a Spanish army captain executed by General Francisco Franco’s fascist forces nearly seventy years ago during Spain’s civil war. As the captain prepared to face a firing squad, he wrote a letter urging his family not to hate his killers. “He dies innocent and pardons”, the doomed Republican government supporter wrote of himself .“He asks his wife and sons to also pardon”. Zapatero, now 43 , was 11 or 12 when he first saw that letter and it had a profound effect on him…. Zapatero’s watchwords are “listen” and “dialogue”, and they come accompanied by his professed belief in seeking consensus…. He has cast himself as a calm leader, capable of building consensus, touched by humility”. Thus the Los Angeles Times on 17 March last on the new Spanish leader Zapatero.

ECUMENISM

Kasper and the realism of hope

Cardinal Walter Kasper

Unity between Catholics and Orthodox: that was the subject of a long interview which Cardinal Walter Kasper, President of the Pontifical Council for Christian Unity, granted to Il Tempo on 12 March. To the question about whether he was optimistic or not about the possibility of reconciliation between the two Churches, the German cardinal replied: “I am not optimistic in the superficial sense of the term. I cultivate the realism of hope. The unity of the Church can not be organized around a table, it is the work of the Holy spirit. It is He who acts and who opens new horizons in the future for us. We are not the masters of time and of history. There is Another”.