It is prophesied that the Antichrist will present himself to the whole of humanity like a pacifist, animalist, ecologist, vegetarian, ecumenist, bibl… - Giacomo Biffi

Christmas is not only the telling of what has been; it is perception of what is. It is not only perception of a circumscribed and datable episode; it is savoring of a perennial and universally effective actuality; it is exultation over a richness that is given to us. The annotation that Christmas is after all a birthday would be enough to convince us of this. Now birthdays are for living men. For the dead-even if they are great and very famous-at most, centenarians are remembered. So to celebrate Christmas every year is to express the certainty that Jesus of Nazareth-that child born two thousand years ago in a stable-is a living person: he is really, truly, physically alive; he is still the principle of salvation for us; he is still the center of our every existence and of the whole of history.

Christianity has an admirable example of the natural union between faith and freedom in Dante Alighieri. Precisely his undoubted adherence to Catholic truth allows and illuminates his perfect autonomy of judgement, free from any fear or human conditioning. Dante is not afraid to criticize the work of the popes and their operational choices, to the point of placing several of them in the depths of hell. But in him "the reverence of the supreme keys" never diminishes and never diminishes in the slightest (Inf. XIX, 101). When it comes to expressing reservations or criticisms that he considers due, there are no discounts neither for lay people, nor for ecclesiastics, nor for monarchs, nor for ordinary citizens... all of whom are required, without exception, to abide by the law evangelical.

The concept seemed ambiguous to me, and the emphasis with which "pastorality" was attributed to the current Council was somewhat suspect: was it not meant to implicitly say that the previous Councils did not intend to be "pastoral" or had not been pastoral enough? Had it not had pastoral relevance to make it clear that Jesus of Nazareth was God and consubstantial with the Father, as defined at Nicaea? Had it not had pastoral relevance to clarify the realism of the Eucharistic presence and the sacrificial nature of the Mass, as had been done at Trent?. There was a danger of no longer remembering that the first and irreplaceable mercy for lost humanity is, according to the clear teaching of Revelation, the mercy of truth, a mercy that cannot be exercised without the explicit, firm, constant condemnation of every misrepresentation and every alteration of the deposit of faith, which must be preserved. St Thomas Aquinas noted this in the 'Summa contra Gentiles' (I, 2): the task of theology is to "manifest the truth professed by the Catholic faith, eliminating errors contrary to it".