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Bishop Javier Echevarría: I think it is obvious that it is a complex time ... It would
be easy to enumerate examples of progress, regress, victories
and defeats in human affairs. Photos courtesy of Opus Dei
Opus Dei bishop: Christianity clashes with world
This week, The Catholic New World presents an interview with Bishop Javier Echevarría, the prelate of Opus Dei. Opus Dei personal prelature includes
84,000 people, including a strong presence in Chicago.
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The Interview, a regular feature of The Catholic New World, is an in-depth conversation
with a person whose words, actions or ideas affect todays Catholic.
It may be affirming of faith or confrontational. But it will always
be stimulating.
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Bishop Javier Echevarría recently published a Spanish-language
book called Itineraries of Christian Life (Planeta+Testimonio),
in which he addresses issues such as the crisis of the family
and the concept of responsible parenthood.
Bishop Echevarría presents the Christian ideal as it stands in
a world where what is important is a good image, success, power.
He was interviewed by Zenit, an international news agency with
close Vatican connections.
Zenit: How do you analyze the present?
Bishop Javier Echevarría: I think it is obvious that it is a complex time and, to a large
extent, paradoxical: Together with undeniable shadows, there is
no lack of lights. It would be easy to enumerate examples of progress,
regress, victories and defeats in human affairs.
However, above all, we cannot forget that we are living in the
fullness of time; it is the time, which has lasted for 2,000 years,
of the real and definitive news, the time in which God became
man in Jesus Christ, giving us the possibility to be children
of God. We will never be sufficiently grateful for this treasure,
which enables us to face the different circumstances [of our lives]
with human and supernatural optimism. Any other way of understanding
the present time would necessarily be incomplete and would expose
us to appreciate only the surface of what is happening in our
personal and general history.
Zenit: Dont you think the conduct of those who make an effort
to live a Christian life clashes with elements of present-day
society?
BJE: Of course. And this happened a long time ago. No sooner Jesus
was presented in the Temple than Joseph and Mary received the
news from the elderly Simeon that the child would be a sign of
contradiction.
When the apostles received the Holy Spirit, they overcame their
fear to proclaim Christ, but immediately, those who were objective
said they were drunkards; they were imprisoned and we know how
they ended up, although they were always happy men.
And so it has been throughout the centuries. The Christian message
will always clash, but this clash can and must be a revulsion
that generates love, humanizes man, opens new perspectives, liberates
him.
Zenit: What do you think of the modern idea of love?
BJE: I think that our society has given way to a concept of love
detached from commitment, that is, from that essential component
of love, which is the mutual fidelity of those who love one another.
This [attitude] robs it of virtue and tends to transform it into
egoism, in eagerness for simple self-satisfaction. Can one think
of a mother who stops loving her son because her neighbors is
better looking? This is also why the legal protection given to
marital ruptures is a great tragedy; instead, Christs exigency,
which reminds us what God has joined together, let no man put
asunder is the source and guarantee of freedom and real love.
Zenit: In your opinion, what is the ultimate origin of the criticisms
of the father figure, which you refer to in your book?
BJE: In the end, it seems that many confuse the identity of the son
with the slave. Then every father is regarded as an ogre. Jesus
Christ has revealed the tenderness of Gods fatherhood to us,
and the liberty we gain in the filial adoption that God the Father
has made of us in Jesus Christ.
Zenit: Many married couples say that todays social structures
do not allow them to have all the children they would like to
have.
BJE: One cannot ignore the effective weight of certain social, economic
and political structurespoverty, unemployment, cost of housing,
etc. which may justify the use of natural methods of continence,
according to morality. However, at the same time, unfortunately,
there is also an attitude that cannot be justified by the reasons
mentioned: It doubts the value of fatherhood or motherhood in
themselves and, because of this, to generate a child is no longer
considered something indisputably good and desirable, but an option
among many other possibilities.
There is agreement that to give life to another is something incomparable,
but it is judged that to generate and educate yet another child
implies a complex and risky task, and an evaluation is made of
the satisfaction it gives and the sacrifices it entails, concluding
very often that it is not worthwhile. Deep down, the value of
life has been lost sight of, [as well as] the meaning of love,
and the greatness of maternity and paternity.
Zenit: Your book ends with a chapter on The Essence of Joy.
Some wonder how it is possible to be joyful in a world like ours,
where suffering and injustice are so present.
BJE: In its liturgy, the church dares to sing with joy the mystery
of Christs cross. Sorrow does not cancel joy, if one lives united
to Christs sacrifice for our salvation. Joy is sapped by the
egoism of sin, by forgetting to love God and ones neighbor, along
with lack of repentance. Whoever is dominated by an environment
where what matters is the cult of a good image, success, power,
gets depressed in face of failure, financial setbacks, and even
wrinkles on the face.
Needless to say, a Christians joy is not linked to a presumed
sinlessness, which doesnt exist, but to the willingness to ask
for forgiveness, to be repentant. It is the joy of the prodigal
son. Increasingly, I understand why Blessed Josemaría Escrivá
(the founder of Opus Dei) referred to the sacrament of penance
as the sacrament of joy.
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