Adolphe, from the devil to God

Early twentieth century, Fontainebleau. The symbolist poet Adolphe Retté gives a speech against the Catholic religion announcing an upcoming era of happiness under the banner of freedom, brotherhood and equality, guaranteed by scientific progress. At the end, a spectator takes the floor: «You see citizen, we know well that God does not exist. This goes without saying, however, since the world no one created it, we would like to know how it all began. Of this science must be informed ». He replies: "Science cannot explain how the world began." What then? Here is the doubt. The life without moral restraints that he leads - Adolphe grew up abandoned to himself in a family of convinced atheists - is not such as to extinguish this and other questions: "And if God existed?". He seeks answers in philosophy but is disappointed. One day he reads a passage from Dante's Purgatory and hears a Voice inside: "You are no longer a man, you are a sewer!" Aided by the confrontation with some priests, he begins a painful journey of conversion which he will then summarize in the autobiography From the devil to God: "I saw the universe with new eyes. To my statement: “I am a finished man. What is left to me? ”, The Voice returned to answer me:“ Do not fear. God remains to you! ”». He has no more than one mission: "To bring Jesus to my contemporaries".

Annamaria Gobbato
NP august-september 2020