A bet for Cardinal Baldisseri

In the presentation of the post-synodal exhortation Christus vivit, Cardinal Lorenzo Baldisseri presented it as a "magna carta" for the pastoral care of young people in the near future. And here we have serious reasons to doubt it.

Does anyone know if Cardinal Baldisseri is a player? Because I would like to respectfully raise a bet. In the presentation of the post-synodal motu proprio Christus vivit, Cardinal Lorenzo Baldisseri defined the text of more than 32,000 words as a "milestone" on the way to the synod – the one that was presented as "youth" and which ended up being, by last-minute surprise, "synodal". Baldisseri also added that the "exhortation" will constitute in the near future the great charter of youth and vocations in the different ecclesial communities, all marked, although in different ways according to the latitudes, by a profound transformation of the condition. of youth" .

I bet your Eminence wants me not to do it. I bet you that this silent document will not be a "magna carta" at all, not even for those who are able to read from end to end an interminable text where the commonplaces and slogans of this pontificate are repeated. I am convinced that it will be ignored today and tomorrow, as this "pact for peace" signed with the great imam of Al Azhar according to which the pope wants to be studied in universities as s & # 39; 39, it was the decree of Constantine.

More than a magna carta, Christus vivit seems to be a tortuous roadmap, and more than addressing the current practicing Catholic youth, it seems written for that "frozen youth" which is the clerical generation of contemporaries of his Holiness, the young people decided that their youth was final and unshakable, that of young priests or seminarians when this ghost called "the spirit of the council" was extended.

This is one of the essential keys of this pontificate, presented as a renewal, an adaptation to the times we live, when in fact it is the last train of a generation that lives with the frustration of this "revolution in outstanding ". This is why, when Francis speaks of these too strict cures in the confessional or insists too much on "waist-to-feet" questions, he refers to a Church that does not exist, perhaps even in his memories. No person practicing minimal Catholic religious practice can claim that today it is a problem of strict moralism or Pelagian adherence to norms or even doctrine.

And it is also the internal contradiction of the current curia. Francis speaks in exhortation of the need to introduce "concrete changes" in the Church and asks Christ's wife to set aside narrow and "prejudiced" beliefs. listen carefully to the young people ". "A church on the defensive, which loses its humility, which stops listening, which does not allow it to be questioned, loses its youth and becomes a museum". And yet, those who have spoken intimately with the pope often insist on their obsession to make the changes they want to introduce irreversible. What is the meaning of an "irreversible change" or in what way can the irreversible translate an "openness to change"?

And, just like these static definitions of "youth" and "modernity" that have so little to do with their own changing essence, the announced "change" does not want to change either.

We have talked a few times about the conversion of a church that was the "immutable rock" of a given institution to the "liquid thinking" and constantly changing, but this conclusion is also misleading. Nobody wants "change"; no one claims that it is good to "change" in oneself, not even to "update"; Everyone has an idea of ​​what's right and wrong, what's good and what's not, and talks about opening up to change to introduce the ideas that he wants to see imposed . This is called "change", for example, to a liturgical relaxation that has existed for half a century, but you can bet that if the novelty that real young people want, not the papal "selfie", it would be a liturgy more respectful or even traditional doctrine, a clearer and more demanding doctrine, or that perpetual desire of every younger generation, the certainties upon which to build and upon which to build one's spiritual life, we doubt very much that they were applauded with the same enthusiasm .