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 Monsignor Mauro Cozzoli,
born at Bisceglie in the province of Bari, in 1946, teaches Moral
Theology in the Pontifical Lateran University. He is a consultant of the
Pontifical Council for the Pastoral of health and a member of the
Scientific Council of the Institute “Veritatis splendor” in
Bologna as well as of research groups in the Pontifical Academy for
Life. He is the author of several publications and co-author of several
works in collaboration and dictionaries.
We have addressed to him some questions on themes of ecclesial actuality
pivoting around the theme of hope.
A New Year has just begun with its burden of promises and hopes. The
past year has closed with the sign of hope, a leading thread of the
second Encyclical Letter of the Pope, “Spe Salvi”. What is Christian
hope based on in our world that keeps on being imbued with secularism
and atheism?
“Every hope to be hope is always a promise, the promise of something new
in front of us, namely the promise of a future. Christian hope is the
prophecy of God’s future. Christian hope discloses a future that is not
simply before us, as a beyond that is all and only to be reached. It is
a future-adventus: it is an advent, the advent of God and of his
kingdom into the kingdom of man. The advent of God moves the life of the
Christian, of the Church and of humanity like an exodus, like a
pilgrimage.
This is the great proclamation of Christian hope: God has come with
Jesus Christ, thus fulfilling the Messianic hope. God comes; his kingdom
comes constantly into today’s Church, the Christians and the world. It
comes “to make all things new”, involving the Christian and the Church
in this exodus of liberation, pre-figuring and anticipating the “new
heavens and the new earth, where uprightness will be at home” (2 Pt 3,
13). Christian hope is the surest source of moral sense and commitment.
It is the “great hope”, which the Pope speaks of in Spe salvi:
“the great hope that supports the whole life” (§ 27).
Speaking of St. Paul, we must remember that after a few months the
Apostle of the Nations will be at the centre of the Pauline Year, wanted
by Pope Benedict XVI who announced it last June: shall we face the theme
of hope from the viewpoint of St. Paul?
“St. Paul is a great theologian of hope and he offers us noteworthy
hints for reflection. I limit myself to indicate some of them. First of
all, according to St. Paul hope does not start from man, but from God.
There is a human hope understood as invocation of God: it is man who
waits for God. However, St. Paul puts this perspective upside down and
speaks about the “God of hope” (Rom 15, 13), to mean that it is God that
turns into hope for our sake. Another element of the Pauline hope is its
Christological centrality, bound to the expression, “Christ, our hope”
(1 Tm. m 1, 1). This is to be read both in an objective as well as in a
subjective sense. In the first sense, the Christian hopes Christ, the
destiny of resurrection and joy of Christ. The Risen Lord is our hope,
so that his Ascension and glorification is the future before us. In the
second sense, Christ hopes in me: I hope with the hope full of trust and
certainty as that of Christ. Christian hope shares the strength of
Christ, the spirit of Christ in our heart. A third element is given by
the power of conviction and moral motivation of Christian hope. In fact,
according to Paul, hope is the source of the most fatigued and suffered
commitment, «I mean that the point of all our toiling and battling is
that we have put our trust in the living God» (1 Tm 4, 10). The source
of parresia (courageous fearlessness), «With a hope like this, we
can speak with complete fearlessness, parresia» (2 Co. 3. 12)”.
The past year will be remembered also for the second Encyclical Letter
of Benedict XVI “Spe Salvi”. Is there any passage of this Papal
document that deserves an attentive analysis in the present
circumstances?
Yes, there is a statement about the secularisation of Christian hope in
modern times that deserves a particular attention. “Our modern time has
developed the hope in the instauration of a perfect world which, thanks
to the progress of science and of a scientifically founded politics,
seemed to be realisable (§ 30). This has led to the
secularisation of Christian hope, “the Biblical hope of God’s Kingdom
has been replaced by the hope in the kingdom of man, hoping in a better
world that would be the true “kingdom of God” (§ 30). A hope set off by
“faith in progress” (§ 17), dictated by an almost infinite power on the
praxis that science grants to man and out of which progress nourishes
itself (§ 16). “However, with the passing of time, it became clear that
this type of hope runs farther and farther” (§ 30). The hope of
redemption placed wholly and only in the hands of man, in the power of
reason reduced to science, is simply false. “With this expectation we
ask too much from science: this kind of hope is misleading” (§ 25). “It
is not science that redeems man. Man can be redeemed through love…If
this absolute love exists with its absolute certainty, then –only then-
man is redeemed, whatsoever may happen in particular cases. This is what
we mean when we say that Jesus has redeemed us”. Through Him we have
become sure of God (§ 26). “God alone is the truly great hope of man.
We believe that hope in God leads man to resist all kinds of
disappointments.” (27) We do not speak just of a God who is a far off
“first cause” of the world, but of a God who loves “because his only
begotten Son was made man and each of us can say “I am living in faith,
faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me” (Gal
2, 20)” (§ 26).
Is there any image of the just closed year –at ecclesial level- which
remains impressed in you?
“It is the image of the Pontiff who tirelessly shows us the rational and
loving face of God in Jesus Christ: God together and indivisibly
logos and agape. The God of intelligence that addresses the mind and
the God of love that touches the heart of man, valorising him in what he
is and in what he has specifically as man; coming to the rescue in his
primary and insuppressible aspirations to truth and love”.
Which face of hope can religious life, particularly the women religious,
offer at testimony level, to today’s confused and bewildered man?
“The consecrated life must offer the face of a hope shaped by a credible
life of poverty, obedience and chastity. With their vows the consecrated
persons are called to be transparent and attractive signs of the future
of freedom announced by Christian hope: freedom for the dominion of
possessions and for the right use of other human faculties. More than
anything else, the world today needs witnesses capable of conjugating
freedom with truth, the goodness and beauty of the Gospel and “to give
reason of the hope that lives in them” (See: 1 Pt 3,15).
Why has the theme of hope become so very actual today?
“Hope has become actual because the problem of the disincarnated and
restless man of our time is neither the past nor the present, but the
future –the destiny of life. For today’s man faith is credible as much
as it discloses the future: the ultimate future, the everlasting life.”
Is a hope without God ever possible? If it is possible, where does it
lead to?
“It is an illusion that ends with delusion. This is because the last
hope, the hope of salvation is possible only as revelation and grace.
Self-salvation is a real contradiction in terms. In fact, salvation is
possible only on the condition that one is saved. Only He who is life,
who has life in himself, the Living one, God can save me. This salvation
has come to us with Jesus Christ and the Christian lives it, announcing
it in hope”.
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