Violence today

Violence is a problem that torments me, it distresses me. I think that the problem is extremely complex for those who want to investigate the nature and causes of this violence in depth. However, we must keep our eyes peeled for disguised, sometimes legalized violence, which then causes the savage violence we are witnesses and often victims of. But it is above all by practicing Paul's program, to overcome evil with good (cf. Rom 12:21), that violence can be fought. To the extent that love increases, not a love of words or pious feelings but a love that is truly love of the heart and that is given in deeds, violence loses its force. I hope that love will prevail over violence and hatred.
In those who have a sediment of resentment and hatred, I don't think speeches are of any use. What matters is the testimony of love, it is accepting them as they are, accepting them as men without approving these attitudes, feeling close to them.

It is important for groups that do not refer to violence to live authentically the life of the environment in which they find themselves for work, for study, and to overcome any temptation to take refuge in a ghetto, in any case in a homogeneous group where everyone gets along; because if they live the life of their world, where they are inserted independently of their will, and there they bear their testimony of faith in their entirety, I think they are immune from the danger of shutting themselves up and therefore making their testimony useless, because a testimony that no one sees, that no one hears is no longer a testimony. Nothing can replace conscience, there is no structure that can replace the person, but it would be completely unreal to imagine the person living their life independently of the structures; man is essentially social.
We must work for a continuous conversion of ourselves which must start anew every day, and at the same time work for a change of structures that makes this conversion possible, which at least removes certain obstacles that come from the structures to this conversion.

Michele Pellegrino
from “Progetto” (now “NP”), 1978, n. 4
NP April 2023