“I am having a really beautiful experience of synodality, of walking together,” Cardinal Christoph Schönborn declares, and he feels that his words could be extended to all those who are taking part in the summit convoked in the Vatican on the subject of the protection of minors. “I see that we are all here together, united, and are trying not to think that the problems apply only to others but rather that we must all proceed on a path of conversion which is the first word of the Gospel and the condition for its proclamation. It is for this reason that I feel like saying that these four days could be an important moment of renewal of the Church through conversion.” During the three working days, a number of different parties, as well as the outside world, observed that charges are constantly being brought against the Church, representing the favourite target, as if it were the scapegoat for all the evils that afflict society today. Do you not think that this is often the sign of unjust aggression stemming from the fact that in a world fallen prey to a predominant relativism, the Church’s voice, with her sound ethical structure, is outside the mainstream, goes against current trends and thus is to be opposed, attacked and discredited? If this is true on the one hand, then on the other, the question deserves deeper examination. Personally I have a more complex vision of the problem which does not aim at an exhaustive treatment of the matter but may be a useful starting point, to enrich our reflection, to help us not to be ever on the defensive, like a besieged citadel, and to detach ourselves from the purely negative view of the world with the facile contrast between the bad world and the good Church, a poor victim. First of all, we should remember that Jesus Himself told us “blessed are you when everyone speaks evil against you.” Next, it should be recognized that at times we should not complain that people say evil things about us, because they are right to do so; they have good reason since the evil exists, and the abuse of minors is a very serious evil. In the past few days the Pope has convened all the Presidents of the Bishops’ Conferences across the world. It is an opportunity to truly live the Church’s Catholicity, her universality. That is right, here too a first reaction could lead to perceiving as unjust the attacks which the Church as a whole has to bear because of the sins of a few. One might think: “What have I got to do with the distant Churches of Chile or of the United States?” But that is not the case. The Church, in her entirety, must always respond as a whole. This is precisely in the light of the Gospel, of the Lord’s words: we are one reality, one body, this is the first attribute of the Church which is “one, holy, Catholic and apostolic.” We are the Body of Christ and, as the Pope wrote in his Letter to the People of God, if one member is persecuted we are all persecuted, and if one member has sinned the whole body sins and suffers. Let us therefore experience before the world that the Church is truly one, in goodness but also in evil. The English writer G.K. Chesterton said that the Catholic Church permits few things but forgives everything, whereas the world permits everything but forgives nothing. There is something implacable in the attacks aimed at the Church today; might mercy have disappeared from the modern world ? Chesterton’s phrase is very beautiful and quite right. Yes, at times it seems as though there is little mercy. Yet it is also true that a desire — so often disappointed — for goodness, charity and mercy to exist — might be concealed behind this harshness and apparent lack of mercy. My reflection arises from several words of Benedict XVI who said repeatedly that, precisely in its criticism levelled at the Church, the secular world reveals a hidden nostalgia, a great longing for something great and pure. In the human heart there is always this longing which becomes something of a challenge to believe that Christ’s Church truly represents something great and pure. Thus the criticism can also be seen as a yearning of those people who criticize us but do so because they want that greatness of the Gospel to be true, to be lived authentically. There is, as it were, anger, regret that the Gospel cannot be sullied but must inexorably exist. In this sense a text in the second chapter of the Book of Wisdom, on which Benedict XVI frequently reflected, has been of great help to me. It says: “Let us lie in wait for the righteous man, because he is inconvenient to us and opposes our actions; he reproaches us for sins against the law, and accuses us of sins against our training.” The Church is like a teacher who reproaches and thus gives rise to a harsh attack: “Let us see if his words are true, and let us test what will happen at the end of his life; for if the righteous man is God’s son, He will help him, and will deliver him from the hands of his adversaries. Let us test him with insult and torture, that we may find out how gentle He is, and make trial of his forbearance.” Thus I believe the Church today is living through a period of trial, a moment in which she is being “put to the test.” In meditating on this text, Benedict XVI also understood it in this way: the world criticizes us in order to test us, to see if we are truly meek, whether the Gospel really is just and possible. Rather than complain about the mass media’s harsh stance against the Church, let us therefore interpret it as a hidden longing, that the Church may truly be what Jesus wanted her to be. If we read these attacks in this light, a mixed feeling of admiration and disappointment may be detected. We must begin anew from here, endeavouring first of all to be merciful even toward those who criticize us.