According to a study by Russian mathematician Nikolay Yemelyanov, Professor at St. Tichon’s Orthodox University, during the seven years of Leninist rule – from Russian Revolution in 1917 to Lenin’s death in 1924 –, almost 25,000 Orthodox priests were imprisoned and 16,000 were killed, for their Christian faith.

The same happened to Catholic priests. The secular English writer Martin Louis Amis has collected some significant sentences by dictator Vladimir Lenin: «any religious idea, any idea of God is an indescribable abjection of the most dangerous kind, a plague of the most abominable. There are a million sins, disgusting facts, acts of violence, and physical contagions which are much less dangerous than the subtle and spiritual idea of God» (quoted in M. Amis, Koba il terribile, Einaudi 2003).

After the Russian Revolution, Bolsheviks seized the power in the Sovietic Union (23-27 February 1917; Lenin took the power on October of the same year). The extermination of believers also continued after Lenin’s death: Todd M. Johnson, Professor of Global Christianity and Director of the Center for the Study of Global Christianity at the Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary, explained that the number of the Christian victims of atheist and Marxist regimes were 20 millions (15 millions from 1921 to 1950; 5 millions from 1950 to 1980). These numbers are confirmed by other studies, too. To them we should add the numbers of those who were tortured and imprisoned only for professing their faith in God and therefore being automatically considered enemies of the State.

Historian Fulvio De Giorgi, Professor at Modena and Reggio Emilia’s University, declared: «Communism was a secular religion, without God: a tragic atheist religion. It had a political and intra-human (reversed) “religion faith”, with a lay eschatology: a historical millenarianism. Unfortunately this faith in a possible earthly perfection was in fact inhumane, because it lacked the true, eschatological and transcendent hope: for this reason, it had to see as enemies and hate all those who did not conform with its para-theological patterns. So, what had to be the heaven on earth was, in reality, a horrible hell: a dictatorship made of gulags, deportations, mass slaughter, and regimentation». Giorgio La Pira, said De Giorgi, «used to tell the Soviets: cut the deadwood of Marxist atheism from the big tree of socialism. He was not listened to and seemed to naïve utopian. But then Soviet Communism collapsed, infamously. Instead, La Pira still is talked about with respect and positive interest».

Unfortunately, even Antonio Gramsci keeps being looked on with absolute respect; yet we know that «he was for a long time a fan of the Bolsheviks, of revolutionary violence, of labour camps and social cleansing. For him, Lenin was a Great Man, the Father of Nations and the Great Helmsman, who had forced the historical events with a lightning attack».

For this reason, we are suprised that Belgian writer Pieter Aspe compared Islamic terrorism to «what went on in the Middle ages, when it was the Christians who, with the Inquisition, killed women and infidels to impose their faith. Today Muslim extremists do it». Apart from the historical ignorance, as, firstly, the Inquisition was purely a phenomenon of the Renaissance and was promoted especially by the Protestant confession and not by the Catholic one – as explained by historian Marina Montesano and by historian Franco Cardini – Professor Anne J. Schutte, from the University of Virginia, explained that the inquisitorial system «offered the best possibile criminal justice in Europe in the Modern Age» (A.J. Schutte, Aspiring Saints, Johns Hopkins University Press 2001). This was confirmed by the study by Christopher Black, from Glasgow University, author of Storia dell’Inquisizione in Italia. Tribunali, eretici, censura [The Italian Inquisition] (Carocci 2013). With respect to the numbers of those condemned by the Inquisition, all scholars talk about few thousands of cases, including rapists, paedophiles, and killers.

Therefore the comparison between modern (and ancient) Islamic terrorism and the Inquisition is historically unsustainable and fool, although this does not mean that in the history of the Church there have not been tragic mistakes, which, albeit contextualised and resized for the sake of historical correctness, remain big human faults. But, as Benedict XVI explains, «it is utterly clear that this was an abuse of the Christian faith, one that evidently contradicts its true nature».

Michael R. Licona, theologian of the Houston Baptist University, wrote: «There is a major difference between showcasing Stalin as an example of an atheist and a Christian criminal. The latter acted contrary to the teachings of Jesus. On the other hand, one cannot say that Stalin acted contrary to the teachings of atheism, since atheism has no moral teachings intrinsic to its worldview. But neither can one claim that Stalin acted in a manner inconsistent with atheism», while a Christian criminal always acts contrary to the teachings of Jesus.

The atheist and anticlerical community always embarrassingly forgets the atheist Soviet inquisition, which caused many more deaths and much more suffering compared to those ascribed to the Inquisition. This seems to suggest that Prof. Licona has a point.

The Editorial Staff

Every time that an interview with a abortion gynecologyst appears, it is a shocking testimony. «I procure 400 abortions a year, I’m the last gynecologist not to be a conscientious objector in the region of Molise. But I have chosen this job to give birth to children, not to kill them».

This is the sad reflection by Dr. Michele Mariano, gynecologist at the “Antonio Cardarelli” hospital in Campobasso (Molise, Italy). He is an atheist, but – he said: «I’m a doctor and I know science». What does science say? «Let us not be afraid of the truth. That fetus could become a child, how can we deny it?». In truth, that fetus is already a child. «I don’t want backstreet abortion to return and women to die at the hands of who knows what butcher, but that doesn’t mean that I’m happy when I suppress a life». The backstreet abortion is an old and fake boogeyman, but we don’t want to make a fuss about it. His honesty in being conscious of suppressing a life suffices to us.

It is the same dramatic awareness of abortionist gynecologist Massimo Segato, vice chief of Gynecology at the Valdagno Hospital (Vicenza, Italy), about whom we have talked recently. The same words are also used by abortion gynecologist Alessandra Kustermann, chief of Obstetrics at the Mangiagalli Hospital in Milan (Italy): «I know very well that I’m suppressing a life. Not a fetus, but a future baby. Every time I feel an unspeakable regret and discomfort». Today, Dr. Mariano has joined: «Do you know what my greatest satisfaction is? When a woman chooses to keep the baby, when she gives birth to him. I always try to understand whether there is a way to avoid abortion. If she changes her mind, for me it’s a joy».

The italian journalist Enrico Mentana consider the law on abortion as a “contribution to civilisation“. As we wrote to him on his Facebook profile, if he were right, no legal permission to practice conscientious objection would exist, 70% of gynecologists in Italy would never dare oppose an alleged progress in civilisation, and the abortion gynecologists would not be happy when women choose not to have an abortion. For exemple, nobody (even less in those percentages) would ever oppose a contribution to civilisation such as the freedom of information, and no state permission could exist allowing the conscientious objection for a contribution to civilisation such as women’s suffrage. However, all this is allowed for abortion (and for war) and the conscientious objection is massively practised by the professional category that is forced to offer abortion, because gynecologists know that there is not any “civilisation” when a doctor ends, not just a pregnancy, but a human life. It is a self-evident thing also to the few abortionist gynecologists.

The Editorial staff

The recent reflection of famous italian physicist Antonino Zichichi is very interesting. For a long time, the exponents of the anticlerical world have questioned his scientific authority because he often affirmed to believe in God thanks to science.

However, still today Zichichi appears to have a H-index (index of impact on the scientific world) equal to 62, like Stephen Hawking (62), and much superior, for example, to Carlo Rovelli (52) and to Nobel Prize Sheldon Lee Glashow (52).

«The scientific discoveries are the proof that we are not the result of chaos, but of a strict logic. If there is a Logic, there must be an Author», wrote Zichichi, Professor Emeritus of Physics at the University of Bologna, ex President of the National Institute for Nuclear Physics (1977-1982) and of the European Physical Society (1978), and Enrico Fermi Prize winner for his discovery of the first example of nuclear antimatter.

The scientist also denied that science can explain or reproduce the miracles, which would be equivalent to «deluding oneself into thinking of being able to discover the scientific existence of God». This is impossible because, «if it were science to find him out, God could be made only of science and nothing more. If it were the mathematics to elaborate the “God theorem”, the Creator of the World could be made only of mathematics and nothing more. This would not be much. We, believers, want God to be everything, not only part of the whole». In other words, if God could be investigated by science (the famous “scientific proof” requested by anti-theists), He wouldn’t be the Creator, but just a creature.

Zichichi has always described two realities of existence: the trascendent and the immanent. The latter, he said, is studied by the scientific discoveries, while the former lies within the competence of theology. «Demanding that the trascendent area be studied in our laboratories is a mistake. If the two logics were the same miracles could not exist, but only scientific discoveries. Were it so, the Immanent and the Trascendent would be the same thing. This is what those who deny the existence of the Trascendent claim, as does the atheist culture. It is not an irrelevant detail. Miracles are the proof that our existence is not limited to the Immanent, but there is more».

But the Author of what the science finds out, continued the eminent Italian physicist, «is an intelligence far beyond ours. That is why the great discoveries came not out of the improvement of calculations and measures, but from the “totally unexpected”. The greatest miracle, Eugene Wigner (a science giant) liked saying, is that science exists».

Science & Faith: Albert Einstein feels the same way

Zichichi’s words clearly recall the reflections of Albert Einstein, who wrote: «You find it strange that I consider the comprehensibility of the world as a miracle or as an eternal mystery. Well, a priori one should expect a chaotic world which cannot be grasped by the mind in any way. One could (yes one should) expect the world to be subjected to law only to the extent that we order it through our intelligence. Ordering of this kind would be like the alphabetical ordering of the words of a language. By contrast, the kind of order created by Newton’s theory of gravitation, for instance, is wholly different. Even if the axioms of the theory are proposed by man, the success of such a project presupposes a high degree of ordering of the objective world, and this could not be expected a priori. That is the “miracle” which is being constantly reinforced as our knowledge expands. There lies the weakness of positivists and professional atheists who are elated because they feel that they have not only successfully rid the world of gods but “bared the miracles”» (A. Einstein, On the Rational Order of the World: a Letter to Maurice Solovine, March 30, 1952).

Also the only Italian living Nobel Prize winner, physicist Carlo Rubbia, wondered about “why” science is so effective: «If we count the galaxies of the world or we show existence of elementary particles, in an analogous way we probably cannot have evidence for God. But, as a research scientist, I am deeply impressed by the order and the beauty that I find in the cosmos, as well as inside the material things. And as an observer of nature, I cannot help thinking that a greater order exists. The idea that all this is the result of randomness or purely statistical diversity is for me completely unacceptable. There is an Intelligence at a higher level, beyond the existence of the universe itself» (C. Rubbia, Neue Zürcher Zeitung, märz 1993).

The Editorial Staff

Francesco Agnoli*
*essayist and writer

La Verità, 28/03/17

One of the big lie against Catholic Church concerts to Crusades. We look at what preceded: after birth of Islam (VII century A.D.), the area inhabitated by christian like Coast to Afric, Spain, Sicily and many town of Roman Empire in the Est, were attacked, looted and devastated by muslim, which wherever killed and enslaved. Any historic book describe speed of Mohammed and his heirs on estabilish themselves in Christians lands.

The Mediterranean was fully to Saracens pirates and it became impraticable, to the point where the historian Henri Pirenne assest that just with islamic expansion begins the Middle Age, because it was most traumatic compared to Barbarians invasions. «Christian can’t sail even with a raft», writed arab historian ibn Khaldun. Between 16th-century and 17th-century, Sicily was constantly ransaked. In 846 A.D. there was the first sacks of Rome: 3000 warriors raided the city and St. Peter and St. Paul church. Also many cities of the sea were regularly raided.

Famous rebirth of first Millenium there would never be if Maritime republics had not, firstly, regained the Mediterranean, cleaning to pirate and available it to trade and navigation. The historic study of Rinaldo Pennetta, called “Pirati e corsari turchi e barbareschi nel mare nostrum”, describe the hundred of islamic incursions on italian and european land.

In the Middle East, Jerusalem -town populated by christians and jews- was attacked to muslim in 638 A.D. Since then inhabitants were victims to abuse. «In 938 A.C. during the procession of Palm Sunday were killed many people and Holy Sepulchre was damaged with fire; during Pentecost in 966 A.D., the governor pushed muslim people against the patriarch (that was killed) and Sepulchre was raided; during the Caliph al-Hakim (966-1021) rule, occured a long persecution of Christians and Jews, ended with destruction of Sepulchre in 28 september 1009» (M. Meschini, “Il jihad & la crociata”, Ares).

Pope Urban II to hold the first crusade.

In 1071 A.D., when Byzantine were by Turks in Manzikert, the West panicked and this pushed Pope Urban II to hold the first crusade. In fact, Orthodox risked to be destroyed and Islam, which already took the Spain, began to move towards Balkans and there was a risk that the christianity could be sorrounded. The academic René Grousset remember that Manzikert’s defeat convinced the europeans to «the West nacion were to take action». In fact, Turks took Nicaea and would soon Constantinople. Crusaded needed to postpone the fall of the town into Turks hands, saving Europe from inevitable assault.

«Towars to 1090», write historian Grousset, «turkey’s islam, after was driven Asia Minor’s byzantine, got ready to conquer Europe» (R. Grousset, La storia delle crociate, Piemme). After the fall of Constantinople in 1453, nothing stopped Turks, which invaded Balkans and arrived two times near Vienna. Intervention of Urban II was -according the historian- an act that was a defence war: defence of Byzantium, of Holy Sepulchre and christians land. Affirm Samir K. Samir in his book Cento domande sull’Islam (Marietti): «Christians or crusaders who fought the war didn’t think to act in the name of Gospel, but in the name of defence of christianity» and like «reaction to caliph al-akim bi-Amri Allah’s persecution against Syria and Egipt’s Christians». Jean Richard in his study called La grande storia delle crociate (Newton), note that crusades did not purpose to convert the islamists: «All the historians and theologians reject the idea that the “holy war” was a operation to obtain a forced conversion».

All this don’t affirmed by makeshift historian who appears in the television -like to italian know-it-all Corrado Augias-, but by leading scholar of crusades, like Arrigo Petacco with his L’ultima crociata. Quando gli ottomanni arrivarono alle porte dell’Europa (Mondadori). He affirmed that it’s impossibile analyse this part of our history besides to four century of muslim assault to Europe ad besides to islamic siege from West -begun with conquest to Spain and stopped by Francs in Poitiers in 732 A.D.- was about to begin also in the Est, precisley in the year to the first crusade, and would continue until 1683, when christians to the last crusade liberated Vienna of Turks.

Certainly it was a war and in many times -because of natural fragility of men- the will to defend christianity was blended with greed to new conquers. But it wasn’t nothing compared to events of 19th and 20th century: it wasn’t colonialism or export to democracy (like US wars in islamic land), because christians was restricted to «liberation of Holy Land. Nobody thought to remove Afric, Saudi or Persia from muslim» (G. Bordoove, Le crociate e il regno di Gerusalemme, Rusconi).

In conclusion, scholar Rodeny Stark, in his God’s Battalions: The Case for the Crusades (HarperOne 2009), dimostred other two interesting things. The first: crusades don’t birth for avidity of european noble, many of which underwent a «terrible economic crisis for go to Holy Land», even was the first try to european colonize. The second: crusades cannot be accused like «one of directly causes to actually middle eastern war», since until the end of XIX century were not interested in these events. In fact, «for many arab the crusades were only attacks against the hated Turks and therefore events of little interest»

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The editorial staff

“We’ll protect our values”. That’s Obama’s, Hollande’s and Cameron’s way. The Italian Prime Minister Renzi stated that we’ll certainly win, since these are the correct and good values. But, dear Presidents, what values?

Since I was five and started to go to school I’ve been told that absolute values do not exist, that values are perspectives, and the worst you could do is to consider writing the word Truth with the capital T, and that you must cultivate doubts rather than having certainties, because these are always ideologies. How come that now, all of a sudden, we discover ourselves having absolute values that we’re warring with and for? If “not having” any values is the one big truth (which is absolute but can’t be written with the capital letter, who knows), shouldn’t we all be convinced? Shouldn’t we have already convinced those between the terrorists who were born and raised in our republics, following the “doubting education”?

What values? I ask myself, while I can’t help feeling angry for the infinite list of words, counterposed to the absolute thirst of life of the Bataclan guys, hanging from the windows to avoid death… Words that sound so empty.

Liberté, égalité, fraternité said Obama. And Valls, the French Prime Minister, specified “liberté and human rights”, to make it even clearer. Yep. Unluckily, a weird contradiction pops up when the equality and the right to support whatever and whoever are out of question as soon as someone says that he wants to kill me. Has it got the same worth as affirming peace and kindness?

In a more serious way, the American journalist Gareth Whittaker finally told us what these values are: “the enjoyment of life here on earth, a multitude of ways: a cup of coffee that smells, accompanied by a growing one morning; beautiful women in short dresses smiling freely in the streets” and then parfumes, wine, “the right not to believe in God” and of “flirting and smoking, and to the love outside marriage, taking a vacation, read any book, to go to school for free”. He’s not that wrong after all, but if this is what politicians have been talking about, they should have made it clear by the very beginning that what we’re talking about here is defending the hedonism of a low-middle-high bourgeoisie and we’re saying that these pleasures are universal values worth living and dying for. It’s no big thing, is it? Haven’t we had a Marx in Europe a while ago, teaching how every social class gets blind of universalities about itself? Moreover, and once again, shouldn’t we then try to convince the Lords of the absolute (sigh) convenience of these values of ours? Let’s try to fill the Parisians banlieues, and the suburbs of the entire world! Wait: didn’t we try to do that already, without any success? Isn’t this very empty hedonism that they’ve been reproaching?

The third option, dear Presidents, would be to go back reconsidering what values we really have, where human rights come from as well as where this passion for aesthetics and life was born, with all those pleasures included. It could also has come the time to truly reconsider the European Constitution roots: Latin and Greek origins, mixed with the obstructed Christian ones, plus the scientific and the French revolution. We should change a bit our sceptical point of view, though. I’d like to suggest the American philosopher Peirce, who actually thought the truth does exist, even if our limited knowledge makes it partial.

Warning, because partial does not mean arbitrary – we must not interpret everything according to no matter what and who – and most of all, does not mean doubtful.

“Let us not pretend to doubt in philosophy (and in pedagogy, in art, in politics) what we do not doubt in our hearts”, it’s a recapitulatory quotation by Peirce, inviting people to respect the common sense of those who helped who was escaping, hurrying through the choice of what was the human and right thing to do, and what wasn’t. And, contrary to the nice and unfortunate Imagine by John Lennon that someone played on the public crime scenes, we’ll find a valid reason to live and to die if we’ll need to.

No one’s able to “defend” or “win” anything if what you’re fighting for isn’t actually worth it, if there’s nothing good in the content, in the ideas, if we don’t like it. Especially if what we’re fighting for doesn’t have the power to fill up with life those empty words that we have to give as an answer to those guys hanging from the Bataclan windows.

Translated by Valentina Barbieri

A couple of days ago The Washington Post reproposed the thesis already expounded in the book The Final Days of Jesus of 2010 by Prof. Shimon Gibson, archaeologist at the University of Carolina in Charlotte: it looks like Herod’s palace has been found in the Old City of Jerusalem, where Pontius Pilate judged Jesus.

It is probable the praetorium has been found, where Pontius washed his hands of Jesus’s fate, right before surrendering him to the Jewish authorities. The Gospel of John describes the place as a building located at the gate of the city, on a bumpy stone pavement, artistically called Lithostrotus. The palace found by Gibson is actually located next to the Jaffa gate and does have a bumpy pavement.

However, reading the Gospels, it seems more accurate to see a connection between this discovery and the Antonia Fortress, Pilate’s house, situated on the north side of the Temple, now the starting point of the pilgrimages for the Via Dolorosa. Gibson  does not agree: «Everything — archaeological, historical and gospel accounts — all falls into place and makes sense». Even Anglican pastor David Pileggi is convinced that the discovery inside the prison confirmed «what everyone expected all along, that the trial took place near the Tower of David». The two theses coexist still today, both supported by a good reasons.

Concerning King David, the Metropolitan Museum of Art exposed a 3000-year-old rock (from 830 BC), which would add to the evidence of the historical existence of the Old Testament’s big protegonist (although 150 years after the historical period in which he is believed to have lived). The inscription on the rock displays evidently the reference to the nation of Judah as “House of David”, thereby showing that David was well known in that area corresponding to today’s State of Israel. According to the experts, it is  the most important discovery ever made in relation to the Bible. In a previous article, we spoke about the historical proofs about King David and answered the criticisms from Prof. Zeev Herzog.

The Editorial Staff

A recent series of studies, pubblished on the “Journal of Personality and Social Psychology”, has find out that the main the cause of atheism (or the religion faith’s desertion) strong>is not based on rational justifications, as some people like to suggest, but mainly on an “anger against God”. It’s an emotional atheism the one lived by millions of people, more on the mouth than in the heart.

At first sight it may seem paradoxical: how can people gets angry against God, if they don’t believe in God? Indeed their belief, in the majority of cases, it’s dictated by a negative feeling, by a loss of faith instead of a mature and rational awareness . The anger against God grows like consequence of unpleasant situations that happen in life or, in extreme cases, of natural cataclysm or diseases. Or from delusions perceived for missed hopes, a bit like Judah feeled towards Jesus, disappointed because the Reign of God was still to come. In other words, the anger against God can not only bring people far away from God, but also gives them a reason to clutch at their incredulity.

«When instead people understand that God take care of them and has positive intentions, also if they can’t understand which are those intentions, people tend to dissipate this anger», asserted Julie Exline, a psychologist of the Case Western Reserve University. In fact the life of many nonbelievers and agnostics is often characterized by numerous judgment changes, depending on the feelings that they are experiencing in that moment of life.

So, how can we help our nonbelievers friends? We have talked many times about the connection between the existence of God and the existence of evil. It’s not only possible to don’t feel scandalized in front of the evil and don’t loose the faith, but, instead, that the existence of evil is a starting point to understand how only Christianity can give an adequate answer to what man experience and demand. But our main task is to heal men’s wounds, like often pope Francis said, because it’s this what he is talking about when he speak relating to the “injured humanity”. Through our presence, «the main thing is the announcement: “Jesus Christ saved you”», he has said in the famous interview to “La Civiltà Cattolica”. «Ministers of the Gospel have to be men able to warm people’s heart, to walk with them in the night, in the dark without getting lost». Only in this way we will be witnesses of our encounter with God.

The editorial staff 
(translate by Alessandro Borella)