Pontifical University of St. Bonaventure

Tre le tesi che si è cercato di argomentare sullo sfondo dell’assunto generale, secondo cui l’età moderna prende le distanze dall’età medievale in genere e francescana in particolare non perché autoritaria – il figlio che si ribella al padre secondo l’abituale cliché storiografico – ma perché vuole impiantare la lettura dell’essere non più sulla volontà di Dio e dell’uomo, ma su parametri ispirati al primato della ragione, autonoma e autosufficiente, tribunale inappellabile della verità. Sullo sfondo di quest’assunto, la prima tesi che si cerca di argomentare è che il “padre”, in quanto cifra di volontà creativa, sembra che sia la figura più rappresentativa del “pensare francescano”; la seconda è che il padre traduce tale volontà non prendendo, ma dando, non dominando ma servendo; la terza è che il padre incarna in maniera singolare la responsabilità, non circoscritta alla propria individualità, ma aperta all’altro – famiglia, gruppo, nazione, mondo. In breve, il francescano pare che guardi al padre come all’espressione più compiuta della sua prospettiva filosofico-teologica, in quanto rappresenta colui che dona tutto ciò che è e che ha, con responsabilità, in linea con quel volontarismo per il quale le creature sono non perché avessero un qualche diritto a essere, ma perché volute in radicale gratuità.

The three concepts of migration — ecumenism — integration are rich in meaning. What is important is their order, the hierarchy of their occurrence. Migration is more or less any movement of people, individuals or whole groups. Ecumenism is in turn an appeal and an action. Its mission/task is to recognize in a certain group of people a religious difference and to make an effort to place it in an integral whole with other people who believe a little differently, but in the same God. Integration has the task of restoring or building an integral whole from people living in a particular territory. Full integration is called individual or collective identity. Since migration violates — to a greater or lesser extent — the individual or collective identity of both the country that receives immigrants and the immigrants themselves, integration aims to rebuild it, but no longer within the same mental structures, but rather ones enriched with new impulses that are the contribution of immigrants. The foundation — in our context, it is about faith in the God of Jesus Christ — remains unchanged, yet the superstructure undergoes some changes.

On the basis of the Hebrew manuscripts and other ancient textual witnesses, this article singles out and discusses many text-critical and translational issues regarding Psalm 17, dwelling particularly upon vv.11 and 14. For v.11, the author accepts the conjectural reading אִשְּׁרוּנִי עתַָּה סְבָבוּנִ י , “they have advanced/moved against me, now, they have encircled me”. For v.14, the author gives preference to the qere וּצְפוּנְךָ with the collective meaning: “and your protected ones”.

The subject-matter of the article is the issue of sanctity which the author considers in the context of the lives of seven men and one woman. All of them belong to the Poznań Church. Their heroic lives provide an opportunity to scrutinize contemporary culture, which is characterized by a process of disenchantment of the world, i.e. humanization of what formerly used to be divine, what belonged to God or led to Him. Today we witness a tendency to sanctify things human, things which are the work of man and enhance human pleasure, enjoyment of life and cheerful disposition... At the same time things divine and those that lead to God are dismissed or even forgotten.Modern man has become increasingly autonomous. He no longer needs God seeing Him as unwanted or even redundant. Prayer, which animates saints, is now considered mere waste of time while obedience to God’s commandments is deemed ridiculous. This process also impacts our attitude to the saints. In Christian theology they are the teachers of the faith, witnesses of God and His truth. They are the good Samaritans that lift up those who fell, reminding them of their dignity received from God and encouraging them to go ahead to meet God. But many of our contemporaries, believ- ers included, no longer perceive saints in this way. They do not expect from the saints lessons on life, but miracles in order to have a rich, healthy and happy life themselves. They look for miracle workers not witnesses and teachers of God’s truth, the prophets of a different world. As God’s wit- nesses the blessed and saints can “hold back” the process of disenchantment of the world and give the world a new eschatological dimension, the lost sacrum without which life on earth can change into a drama.

Informed consent is fundamental in the process of care, except in case of urgent, lifesaving treatments. In Italy, the legal sources are the Italian Constitution, the numerous judgments of the courts and the current “Codice di Deontologia medica”. In clinical practice, as in the case of the elderly patient with hip fracture, the physician may encounter problems if the patient is incompetent and without legal representation.

Nuovo Mondo e Area Mediterranea a Confronto. By Massimo Ganci and Rosa Scaglione Guccione. (Palermo: Società Siciliana per la Storia Patria, 1993. Pp. 470. Illustrations. Bibliographies. No price.) - Volume 51 Issue 2