Christening Cards Godmother

Editorial by Don Ettore Cannavera, Number 1, January / March 2011

CHRISTMAS 2010 AND YEAR 2011: BORN NEW HOPE?

Don Ettore Cannavera

Christmas, an event that has become a landmark in the history of mankind: and after first the birth of Jesus of Nazareth. But is that really the point of reference to the underlying message about the birth of more than 2000 years ago? Why still remember him and celebrate? Why is that message of peace based on justice lagging behind? From year to year things do not seem to change and go at the pace uncertain and confused. We must resign ourselves in the name of the failures, it was impossible and utopian the Gospel message? How much hypocrisy! Call, even the war "peace mission", making heroes (unbeknownst to them) the soldiers killed on the job like many others, every day, in our yards and in our factories. A war that continues in the silence and indifference is not allows us to celebrate Christmas and New Year's Day as a "day of peace." How can we, in the face of economic crisis that surrounds us (as the experts tell us), pass a silent accomplice in the expenditure of € 5.7 billion for the ship trembles and almost 1.7 billion for the aircraft carrier Cavour that a waste of € 150,000 per day to keep it in operation? And what about the 24 billion allocated in the 2010 budget for defense? To defend against whom? Christmas is out of hypocrisy, which is also in the ecclesiastical world when, during the homily for the Mass celebrated for the funeral of the four Alpine recently died in Afghanistan, the military ordinary (!) Calls them " prophets of the common good, I decided to personally pay for what they believed and for which they have lived in the service of the weak and marginalized .

Christmas is to accept that child who was placed " in a manger because there was no place for them in " (Luke 2, 7). Make room for Christmas is "weak" today, to others ... especially to those who are looking for a 'place' ... We Italians, a people, historically, immigrants, unable to rise up, we closed the doors to immigrants looking for a decent place to live, in the name of "security" hypocritically vaunted by politicians for electoral reasons. Even today, consciously, we have rejected, without asking what they needed, many asylum seekers, condemning them to certain death in the deserts of Libya. How dare Christians celebrate Christmas and sing the hallelujah? Only through unbridled individualism to a 'culture of' the new year, while difficult to proceed, will be "new." Barbara Spinelli writes in Remember that you were foreign " is thanks to the stranger that we are led to ask who we are, what we want, where we came from. It is a result of this demand that we taken to transform ', being open to new hopes for justice regardless of opinions, from ethnic, religious and political.

" It's time to wake from sleep ... " (Rom 13, 11). In the face of rampant corruption within the institutions themselves (see "parentopoli" newly discovered Roman) and organized crime, but hope for the new year exchange greetings? What hope? A new culture, a different life together, despite the daily toil that we do out of indifference, a sense of helplessness, resignation, and allow us to offer Our contribution will become operational for love and hope, anger and commitment to a different world.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to politics. Why all collaborate to build shared answers to the needs-rights of individuals, personalities and overcoming vested interests, including elections. Again for the planet, a peace based on justice between peoples, the most humble people you meet by setting a dignified life for everyone in social work, health, reports welcoming the cultural growth, now in deep crisis.

New year, new director for the magazine. As rightly says in his new editorial director, Alice Gurrieri, university of just 22 years, and as James Mameli wrote in the previous issue of the magazine, we must "give space to young people." Congratulations to Alice, who is entitled to express its full potential and skills as a journalist and sensitivity for a more humane world, as the dream of every young person. And James Mameli thanks for joining us in the first three years as director, exhort and help in this adventure, and his willingness to stay with us as a partner, providing us a good "master" not only the art of the craft, but especially wisdom and strong political passion.

Don Ettore Cannavera

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