Expel Christ from the history of mankind?
Wlodzimierz Redzioch talks to Rosa Alberoni, author of the book 'The Expulsion of Christ'.
The Italian writer Rosa Alberoni is a sociology professor at one of the Milan's universities. She is also a journalist and author of radio and television programmes. She is fascinated with sociology since - as she claims - sociology lets you get to know the psychological mechanisms of man's activities in daily life and it allows us to get to know ourselves and those who live in the neighbourhood.
She has always treated teaching as sowing for the future whereas writing is something that revives and lets you enter into contact with readers. At the same time it gives them occasions to reflect.
WLODZIMIERZ REDZIOCH: - Who laid the philosophical foundations of the process that you call 'expulsion of Christ'?
PROF. ROSA ALBERSONI: - Cartesius was the first who treacherously attacked the foundations of Christian civilisation. These foundations are Christ and man in his all concreteness and holiness. Before Cartesius the concept of man was based on the principle 'I am, therefore I think'. I am because the Highest Being, the One who sustains everything, created me, therefore I am a child of God and my life is holy and untouchable. And since he created me in his likeness I can think. At birth I get my own identity. I know I come from God who gave me life and gave me the light of intelligence needed for thinking. Therefore, I am before the ability to think gets mature in me. The Cartesian expression 'cogito ergo sum' (I think, therefore I am) reverses this reality in a radical way. Thinking is in the centre, and God and man are expelled on the margin as product of thought, which is freely shaped and arbitrarily confirmed or negated.
Putting human thinking in the place of God, Cartesius made it the source of creation. It is enough to have some common sense to see through this Cartesian devise that is worthy of Lucifer himself. If thinking becomes the source of existence, man is, exists, if he becomes the contents of thought and it causes him to exist depending on its will, its whim. And man is not some product of our thinking!
If a human being is not a real creature but only a product of thinking he can exist only when the one that thinks or rules, concludes that he should exist. If he is an obstacle he can be annihilated as Robespierre, Stalin and Hitler did, or he can be thrown as rubbish as some people get rid of newborn babies: I have not planned you, therefore you do not exist, you are rubbish.
- It was John Paul II that made us realise about this anti-Christian role of Cartesius?
- Throughout ages we did not see how treacherous the Cartesian 'cogito ergo sum' was. It was John Paul II that saw the relativisation of human existence and source of anti-Christianism in Cartesius' thinking.
- What was the Pope's reasoning?
- When human existence is put in the centre of one's existence and if one's thinking is in the centre of the universe it is evident that God is not needed. If someone places thinking as the first cause he calls himself creator. This is Lucifer's act. However, no one before John Paul II thought that way. Besides the formula 'I think, therefore I am' satisfied our pride and desire to be great. Why were we to regard ourselves as weak and defenceless and submit to the will of Christ the Redeemer if we could decide about our lives and deaths as well as the lives of deaths of others? Why were we to do good because of the fear of God who sees all thinks, even our thoughts, if we could do whatever we wished and whatever suited us?
- Who was the next enemy of Christian civilisation?
- The man who continued the work Cartesius had begun and systematically improved its destructive action was Jean-Jacques Rousseau. His philosophy is apparently less complicated. He preferred a concept of the natural man, who was not created by God, but by nature. Nature created everything and thinking was the original sin. Rousseau expelled all gods from the history of mankind. But that was not all. He turned all Christian values upside down. The civilised man is far from being perfect whereas 'the wild man' is perfect, untouched by civilisation. He remains perfect until he begins to think, want, love and create. In other words, when he begins using his freedom he is corrupted. Rousseau was also the first who created a model of totalitarian country, For example, his model was imitated in the Soviet Union. The historical events, such as communism, show us that in those places where people expelled Christ they expelled man as well. If we presume that Christ doe not exist and man is not created for God's image we can deprive him of his freedom, we can torture him, take to the Soviet gulag, annihilate as Robespierre, Stalin and Hitler did.
- In your book you claim that science that makes itself god is a reason for fear, especially because it has vast possibilities...
- Science is a tool man has created to make his work easier, improve the quality of his life and let him examine the world. The fathers of science, for example Galileo, did not try to take the place of God, but rather discover what God created. Science was cognition. Today, together with the discovery of the human genome [all the genetic information] and technological progress, some scientists have the desire to take the place of God, which was typical for Lucifer. This is a disastrous wish since man is a fragile, unstable being, inclined to abuse and greedy for immortality. And first of all he wants to fulfil all his whims without having moral dilemmas.
- Are you pessimistic about the future?
- I am still optimistic. I believe in people's common sense. But one must be watchful. If people get deceived by those who promise paradise on the earth we will face a nightmare that we can overcome by shedding blood. One should reject the promises of life without God, which the proponents of scientism and technocrats make. It is time to stop treating technological progress as a panacea for all problems of our life. If we claim that progress is all-powerful we reduce ourselves to the level of helplessness and despair. However, in order to make technology return to its proper tasks we need to place values and sacred moral consciousness in the centre of human existence. One should return to Christ and put the greed for greatness, which many societies have yielded to, under control. We are all called to take on this task. We must not impose it on politicians, on other people. One should reject laziness and permissiveness. It is societies that make history and not only rulers. One needs moral energy to face this challenge. We cannot tolerate betrayal of sacred principles concerning human life at any price.
- Is this the reason you challenge Christians to hold their heads up?
- Yes, it is. The challenge that accompanies the book 'Christians, heads high up! Let us defend our identity!' is not only directed to Christians but also to all who have doubts and to atheists. It is our common interest to defend Christian civilisation - our identity based on freedom, sanctity of life, equality before God and law, dignity of human person, equality between man and woman, civilisation based on human rights, etc. That's why we must defend its acquisition; our history is part of ourselves. If we do not do that, and do it without any delay, we will be wiped off this earth by other civilisations, which have no doubts s far as their identities are concerned.
- Some countries, headed by France, are determined to oppose the proposal to include Christian roots of our continent in the EU constitution. What do you think about these types of behaviour?
- This is a shameful act of masochism! Shameful since its aim is to destroy Christian civilisation and we are anxious about the identity of the West. Masochistic since it destroys the past, the historical memory and without the past we cannot define our own identity and even speak about our future. Thus Europe would become a territory of conquest, which is what Muslims want.
- You know the environments of the European intelligentsia. Can we see any form of 'awakening' of religious awareness in the traditionally anti-religious, and especially anti-Catholic, environment?
- Yes, we can. Today we can speak about a battle between the atheists who want to 'expel' Christ and those who defend Christian identity. These embrace believers and non-believers, as well as those who doubt but understood that the price of the battle is very high: survival of our civilisation. The risk is real: the role of Marxism will be replaced by Islam.
- What does the publication of your book 'Wygnac Chrystusa' in Poland mean?
- The publication of my book in Poland is a great joy for me, the more that it was John Paul II that inspired me to write it, which was mentioned above. I think that there are some nations in Europe that are ready to oppose the destructive projects of the atheistic bureaucrats in Brussels, including the Polish nation to be sure. Our history and deeply rooted religious emotions make us do that.
"Niedziela" 17/2007