Why the name UCCR?

The title (not very exciting, we know) that we gave to this website — “Unione Cristiani Cattolici Razionali” — was born as an ironic challenge to the various associations of rationalist atheists that were popular a few years ago.

The correct English translation would be Union of Rational Catholic Christians, but we opted for Union of Catholic Christians Rationalists so as to keep the acronym UCCR. In Italian, the word “razionalismo” means an ideological version of “rational,” implying that reason is the ultimate and sole measure of reality. In English, this nuance is less pronounced and we accepted the compromise in the name.

The website idea was well received, and we decided to keep the somewhat provocative name, so as to immediately challenge the false dichotomy between faith and reason.

How many times have we heard: “But how can a believer be rational?” Exactly.

We claim the right, the will, and the possibility to “give a reason for the hope that is in us” (1 Pt 3:15), aware that the reasonableness of a position (whether believing or not) defines someone who submits their reason to the test of experience, while relying purely on emotion or psychological conditioning (such as fear of death or the need for spiritual consolation in the face of life’s hardships) marks an unreasonable stance.

What does it mean to submit reason to experience?

The decision to believe in God rarely arises from abstract reasoning; rather, it originates from the experience of an encounter, an impact with a human reality that “warms the heart,” or even with “limit situations” (death, suffering, joy, illness, loss of social role, injustice, human frailty) and/or with the meaning and value of existence itself. Only if one decides to personally engage, with all one’s rational capacity, can one verify whether what was encountered keeps the promise of happiness and eternity, answering the need for meaning that permeates life.

Similarly, for example, there is a difference between encountering an exceptional person and feeling the emotional impact of love (or affection, in the case of friendship) and seriously engaging with that experience before deciding to marry or place one’s faith and trust in it. This is the path (including the path of faith in God) that leads a human being from the initial experience to a form of moral certainty, thanks to the proper use of reason.

More succinctly, within the Catholic faith, reasonableness rests on three pillars:
– the historical reliability of the Christian event;
– the recognition of Peter and the Catholic Church, founded on apostolic succession (Mt. 16:18), as the witness to Christ’s presence among men;
– the personal experience in relation to reality: it is only in this way that the daily verification of Christianity’s “claim” takes place: a man said he was God and continues to meet people in history through the faces of those who believe in Him (witnesses).

Relying on this threefold basis (which we reserve the right to explore further in sections within the website) we therefore believe that our faith in God is an act supported by reasonable motivations and thus rational.

The objectives of UCCR

We live in a fascinating era because, thanks to widespread secularization, the Christian faith is subjected more than ever to criticism and outright attacks based on the assumption that it is entirely opposed to reason and incompatible with scientific achievements.

This helps believers no longer take faith for granted or see it as a mere product of tradition, and forces us to give reason for our hope, first to ourselves, and then to those we meet along the way.

The objectives of UCCR are therefore

1) To provide believers with a tool to deepen the reasons for faith in the existence of God and the foundations of the Christian creed, helping them respond to their own doubts and those raised by contemporary culture, allowing them to confidently and openly bear witness to what they have encountered and continue to encounter. In short, to foster a broader awareness of the value of the daily choice to be Christian.

2) To create an informative channel on certain topics that appear secondary for believers and are therefore not always adequately addressed in the many excellent Catholic and religious outreach blogs on the web. We refer to issues tirelessly promoted by secularist culture, particularly the credibility of the tradition on which Christianity is founded, the compatibility of the Christian creed with modern science, the coexistence of Christian ethics with a secularized society, the defence of the history and current relevance of Christianity and the Catholic Church from the well-known “black legends” and anti-clerical prejudices. We will adopt an approach that is neither pessimistic nor moralistic: the former would be irrational given the novelty of the Christian message, while the latter would invite lamenting the present situation in the name of a past that must surely have been better. Which is yet to be demonstrated.

3) To create a virtual space where — anyone far from fundamentalism (religious or otherwise) — can dialogue, debate, express doubts, and rediscover reasons, regardless of existential position. We will gladly collaborate with believers, atheists, and agnostics, experimenting with the possibility of peaceful coexistence in real society.